The proposal, which came from the European commission, sought to postpone the auctioning of 900 million allowances in order to allow the market to adequately recover. In this way, carbon prices, which have become almost worthless, could regain some sort of value. However, with a difference of just 3% of the vote (47% to 44%), MEPs ensured that no back-loading life jacket was to be thrown to the ailing scheme.

Most environmentalists, along with the majority of even not-so-keen observers would agree that the scheme is flawed. So, what is to be done? Save it or scrap it? The environmental community itself is not wholly in agreement.

Following the vote in the Parliament, Green Party MEP Bas Eickhout blamed his centre-right colleagues for failing to address the problem that they helped create.  “It is precisely because of centre-right politicians in Europe that the emissions trading scheme was established as a flawed market, with various loopholes, which have led to the situation we are in today. By opposing necessary steps to fix these problems they have caused, they are effectively signalling their desire to destroy the EU’s flagship climate change policy.”

He urged for fundamental changes to the system. “The time for tinkering is now clearly over. … The Commission must urgently come forward with more fundamental structural solutions, notably on permanently retiring emissions allowances to address the oversupply, and not simply postponing the auctioning of permits. In addition to retiring at least 1.4 billion allowances, there is also a need to introduce a linear emissions reduction factor of 2.5% per year. Ultimately, stepping up the EU’s outdated emissions reduction target to at least 30% by 2020 is necessary to properly rescue the ETS.”

However, it was not only right-leaning politicians who didn’t step forward to help rescue the ailing scheme. Irish Socialist MEP Paul Murphy abstained from voting on the issue. In the view of his party, the ETS has always been beyond saving. He names it as a “neoliberal, market-driven concept, incapable of transforming the European economy into a low emission economy” which, in his view, actually achieves the opposite of its purported aim. “By providing big polluters with a green cover while not providing any incentives for them to break with fossil fuels and transform our energy sector.” MEP Murphy is not alone. One hundred NGOs, including Friends of the Earth, have signed a petition called ‘Time to Scrap the ETS’ which would support the sentiment of his argument.  scrap-the-euets.makenoise.org/english/.  

Other commentators still, such as David Roberts writing for grist.org, would support neither the reformism of Eickhout nor the resignation of Murphy. Though a supporter of the ETS, he is not necessarily in favour of back-loading, noting that our obsession with carbon prices is misguided.  “It can be reformed but our goal shouldn’t be to tweak short-term carbon prices, rather our concentration should be on targets.” grist.org/climate-energy/everybody-chill-out-carbon-trading-is-doing-fine/

Irish environment minister Phil Hogan, who is steering talks among Member States while Ireland holds the presidency of the EU, would not agree. “The immediate need to address the carbon price issue in the ETS remains a clear priority,” he states.

As the debate rolls on, for now, the issue goes back to the environment committee in the European Parliament for reconsideration.

Aoife O’Grady is an Irish, Brussels-based journalist focusing on environmental issues.

Popular opinion directs the blame for Ireland’s current crisis at the door of our bankers, our regulators and our developers, but the role of the planning system is less touched upon in pub chatter the country over. As a 2010 report, A Haunted Landscape (Maynooth), puts it: “The banks could have lent all the money they desired, but if zonings and planning permissions were not forthcoming then development could not have occurred in the way that it did”. We have yet to see an independent review of the operation of the planning system during the Celtic Tiger years.  Such a review might lay bare the uncomfortable truth: the current planning system does not guard against abuse, and it simply should not be tolerated as is.

The Planning and Development Act of 2010 aimed to move away from the developer-led and poor planning mistakes of the past towards a more sustainable, evidence-based and plan-led approach. However, many would argue that the changes were not fundamental enough and that planning legislation remains unconsolidated. In fact, planning legislation has been amended so many times that even experts struggle to gain a clear overview. As Yvonne Scannell, Associate Professor of Law in Trinity, stated in an interview with irish environment, “You find amendments to a planning act in totally unexpected places. They have not consolidated the legislation and they themselves don’t know what it is”. The consolidated version online is only up until 2010 and Ms. Scannell says that it is “not 100% accurate and cannot be relied on” and cites an example in 2012 when the Department of Environment itself was not sure of the legislation.

Apart from the patchwork nature of the legislation, according to Ms Scannell, part of problem lies in the fact that the responsibility for planning has been laid at the door of our local elected representatives, who are often all too eager to abdicate the responsibility for fear of making unpopular decisions. When drawing up local area plans, elected representatives in some dysfunctional councils simply omit thorny issues, such as landfills or windfarms, leaving the ‘nasty bits’ to the city or county manager. “They say we’re not going to zone for a landfill here because this will be electorally disastrous so we won’t do it, in which case the manager has the power to do it…They are trying to fool the electorate so when their constituents say to them ‘why did you vote for this landfill or that social housing?’ they can say, that wasn’t me, that was the county manager. This is literally true but it is misleading.” When making planning decisions, many county/city managers are wary of riling representatives, who themselves are wary of making themselves unpopular with the electorate. Popularity contests make a shaky basis for decision-making. As the Maynooth report notes, “Planning should provide checks and balances to the excesses of development and act for the common good, even if that means taking unpopular decisions.”

Ms. Scannell has mooted the idea of making planning decisions at regional rather than local level to reduce community pressure that can lead to favouritism and abuse. In Northern Ireland, the power is shifting in the opposite direction with central government devolving planning power, except with regard to projects of significant economic impact, to 11 newly established district councils. The argument is that the new system will be speedier, simpler and more streamlined – good news for developers but is it good news for good planning? The North’s Minister for the Environment, Alex Attwood, MLA believes it can be if the right balance is struck. “How are we going to ensure that people don’t have a licence to do what they want…is currently being decided and will be put into law, guidance or regulations. Whilst there have clearly been excesses, wrongs and corruptions in the planning system in the South, 80% of the land mass in the Republic is currently covered by plans and plan-led development is better development than what we have in the North.” See his interview in irish environment.

The Green Party would argue that in the Republic we are stuck in a vicious cycle. It cites the recent decision by An Bord Pleanala to grant planning permission for a petrol station to be built on a floodplain in Carrick on Shannon (on the land of a local councillor), noting unpleasant echoes of Celtic Tiger planning lunacy. “[The decision] to grant permission for a petrol station to be built on a floodplain is shocking. This is clearly another case of development at all costs; we have learned nothing from past planning errors. This land is not suitable for a petrol station and could present a major risk to the surrounding environment and the River Shannon.”

Wherever the changes in the North lead, the consensus among experts in the South is that real reflection is needed. Ms. Scannell suggests, for example, that applications for one-off housing or extensions could be dealt with by code instead of wasting resources on lengthy assessments. She is in agreement with the writers of the Maynooth report that only a fundamental review will lead to real change and ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Aoife O’Grady is an Irish, Brussels-based journalist focusing on environmental issues.

Sources

Rob Kitchin, Justin Gleeson, Karen Keaveney, Cian O’Callaghan, A Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis at the  National University Ireland Maynooth (July 2010). www.nuim.ie/nirsa/research/documents/WP59-A-Haunted-Landscape.pdf  

See, also, “Booms, Busts, Ghosts and NAMA: Irish Planning at its Worst” in the Reports section of irish environment (December 2010). www.irishenvironment.com/reports/booms-busts-ghosts-and-nama/

Interview with Yvonne Scannell in the Podcast section of irish environment (May 2012). www.irishenvironment.com/podcasts/interview-with-yvonne-scannell-law-school-trinity-college-dublin/

Interview with Alex Attwood in the Podcast section of irish environment (November 2012). www.irishenvironment.com/podcasts/interview-with-alex-attwood-mla-environment-minister-for-northern-ireland-department-of-the-environemnt/

“Proposed Petrol Station in Floodplain puts River Shannon at Risk,”  www.greenparty.ie/news.html?n=181
 

The island of Ireland enjoys relatively clear, fresh air because of the prevailing Atlantic winds and few dirty industries.  Yet cars and smoky coal fires, as well as emissions from some businesses and industries, continue to load our air with nitrogen oxide, polycyclic aromatic hyrdocarbons (PAHs), particulate matter (PM) and other substances.  There is no secret that breathing air filled with these pollutants is not healthy, especially for vulnerable populations such as the young and the aged.

earth habitat

While PM₁₀ has been decreasing in large urban areas, partly because of improved engine emissions, this reduction is not being achieved in smaller towns in Ireland that do not benefit from the ban on smoky coal.  Levels of PM_2.5 in Ireland are generally low and Ireland is compliant with the limit values established under the Clean Air for Europe (CAFÉ) Directive.  However, all Member States of the European Union (EU) are required to calculate the current exposure of their population to PM_2.5 and to take steps to reduce this exposure by 2020.   Ireland is required to reduce PM_2.5 levels by 10% by 2020, a serious challenge in light of the prevalent sources for PM.

 lupus UVA1 phototherapy

As transport emissions continue to contribute over 20% of Ireland’s greenhouse gases (GHGs), they also continue to expose vulnerable populations to adverse health impacts.  Pregnant women constitute one class of vulnerable people and a recent comprehensive, international study has examined the risks to pregnant women from exposure to air pollution.

The Air Pollution Study and Low Birth Weights

The study involved 14 International Collaboration on Air Pollution and Pregnancy Outcomes (ICAPPO) centers in 9 countries and included over 3 million births generally occurring between late 1990s and mid 2000s. It is the largest multi-center study reporting on the association between air pollution and fetal growth using a common analytical protocol.

The researchers found that maternal exposure to particulate pollution — PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ — was associated with low birth weight (LBW) at term across study populations.  They concluded that each increase in PM₁₀ by 10 micrograms per cubic meter (μg m^–3) was associated with a 3% higher chance of an infant being underweight and with an overall average weight reduced by 3 grams.  Low birth weight is defined as a newborn baby weighing less than 2.5 kilograms (5.5 lbs). Not all the ICAPPO centers had measured for PM_2.5, but of the seven that did the researchers found a slightly stronger relationship for maternal exposure to PM_2.5 and effects on gestational growth than they did for PM₁₀.

A major contribution is that the study eliminated, as far as possible, compounding factors that can influence LBW, such as smoking by parents and socio-economic status, and standardized the results across the 14 centers. It should be noted that, like many health studies, the results demonstrate an “association” between polluted air and LBW rather than “proving” that the polluted air causes the LBW.

In effect, there was an increased risk, however small, of low birth weight for increasing levels of particulate matter air pollution.  On an individual basis, the 3% increased risk is not very large, but for large communities, the public health effects can be widespread and deep.  Just think of Beijing, China.

The results confirm the adverse effects from air pollution, particularly in large urban environments, such as was found in the environmental disaster in London in 1952, and are consistent with studies of exposure of pregnant women to risks from toxic waste sites.

Other Air Pollution Incidents and Studies

London Fog 1952

In December 1952, thick, soot-laden air from the city’s household fires, and some industries, was trapped over London by a temperature inversion.  For five days, the air over the city was black and yellow, day became night, and everyone and everything was covered with soot.  Few realized just how deadly it was. After all, London had been notorious for its fog for a very long time. Romantic notions were attached to the fog, with events in many a thriller, period novel, and film set amidst fog-bound London. For the residents of London, the fog was a frequent, if unwelcome, guest who was becoming a bit of a nuisance.

But the combination of filthy air from coal fires and a temperature inversion was insidious. Those who suffered were the most vulnerable —the very young whose physical strength and defenses were as yet not fully formed, and the old whose biological systems were already breaking down.  The particulate matter and other contaminants that they inhaled simply overpowered their respiratory systems.

The London Fog of 1952 killed between 4,000 and 12,000 people.

Toxic Waste Sites

Studies of pregnant women living near toxic waste sites have found a strong association between proximity to the toxic wastes, with exposure through air or direct contact with soil, and LBW babies.  For example, at an infamous toxic waste site in New York, called Love Canal, over 20,000 tons of toxic chemical wastes were dumped in an unused canal by a chemical company in the 1940s and 1950s.   Early studies of the impacts from these toxic chemicals found that there was a positive association between women living along the canal during pregnancy and adverse reproductive outcomes, including low birth weight and congenital malformation.  New York State began a long-term study of the former residents of Love Canal to assess the health effects. An interim report in 2006 found that, consistent with the initial assessments, there was an association of low birth weight and prematurity to living close to the site.  In addition, the study found a higher ratio of female to male births among these women, noting a similar finding to those exposed to dioxins at Seveso, Italy.

These results were confirmed by a study of residents living near another infamous toxic waste site, the Lipari Landfill in New Jersey. This study found a significantly lower average birth weight among residents closest to the landfill, compared to the general population. These infants were also twice as likely to be born prematurely.

Another analysis of a number of studies of health effects from exposures to contaminants from landfills confirms the finding of a relationship between residential proximity to landfill sites and an increase in infants with low birth weights.

Health Effects

Even small associations between air pollution and LBW can be of major public health importance because of the ubiquitous nature of particulate air pollution exposure and the resulting potential for considerable population risks.  Again, think of Beijing where in January the 24-hour average reading for PM_2.5 reached more than 460 μg m³ according to the US Embassy.  China reported a lower figure of around 350 μg m³.  For one comparison, using annual standards, the World Health Organization recommends that countries establish rigorous air-pollution standards of an annual mean of 10 μg m³ for PM_2.5 and 20 μg m³ for PM₁₀. 

There is long-standing evidence of both perinatal and lifelong effects of LBW on health, including increased risk of infection, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, feeding difficulties, behavioral problems. Later in childhood, and through adulthood, LBW infants can develop neurodevelopmental problems as well as increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other types of metabolic disorders.

Chinese mothers need to worry, as do any pregnant women exposed to PM and other pollutants from traffic or other sources.  The spouses and partners of all these women also need to worry.  Not to mention the children born with low birth weight from exposure to polluted air.

Sources:

Payam Dadvand et al., “Maternal Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution and Term Birth Weight: A Multi-Country Evaluation of Effect and Heterogeneity,”  Environmental Health Perspectives. ehp.niehs.nih.gov/2013/02/1205575/

“An Unlikely Duo: Air Pollution’s Link to Low Birth Weight, with Tracey Woodruff,” an Interview with one of the authors of the Dadvand et al. study, Environmental Health Perspectives (06 Feb 2013). ehp.niehs.nih.gov/2013/02/trp020613/

Hannah Hoag, “Air pollution delivers smaller babies,” Nature (06 Feb 2013).  www.nature.com/news/air-pollution-delivers-smaller-babies-1.12358

See “Particulate Matter” in the iePEDIA section of irish environment (September 2009).   www.irishenvironment.com/iepedia/particulate-matter/

Environmental Protection Agency (RoI), Ireland’s Environment 2012: An Assessment, esp. Chapter 3 on “Air Quality” www.epa.ie/downloads/pubs/indicators/name,33606,en.html

EPA, “EPA Ireland Archive of PM 2.5 Monitoring Data“. Associated datasets and digitial information objects connected to this resource are available at: Secure Archive For Environmental Research Data (SAFER) managed by Environmental Protection Agency Ireland erc.epa.ie/safer/resource?id=0dc73e08-7e15-102b-aa08-55a7497570d3 (Last Accessed: 2013-02-15)

“Chinese struggle through ‘airpocalypse’ smog,” Guardian (16 Feb 2013)  www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/16/chinese-struggle-through-airpocalypse-smog

See story of London Fog 1952 in Robert Emmet Hernan, This Borrowed Earth:  Lessons From the 15 Worst Environmental Disasters Around the World (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010; China Machine Press, 2011).  www.environmentaldisasters.info/environmentaldisasters.info/LondonEngland.html

See story of Love Canal in Robert Emmet Hernan, This Borrowed Earth:  Lessons From the 15 Worst Environmental Disasters Around the World (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010; China Machine Press, 2011).  www.environmentaldisasters.info/environmentaldisasters.info/LoveCanalNewYork.html

See Martine Vrijheid, “Health Effects of Residence Near Hazardous Waste Landfill Sites: A Review of Epidemiologic Literature,” Environmental Health Perspectives, 108(1), pp. 101-1 12 (2000).  Available at www.epa.gov/region4/foiapgs/readingroom/hercules_inc/index_pg3.htm

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US), “Low Birthweight and the Environment”  ephtracking.cdc.gov/showRbLBWGrowthRetardationEnv.action#exposure

Lifestrong, “The Effects of Low Birth Weight on Infants,”  www.livestrong.com/article/499220-the-effects-of-low-birth-weight-on-infants/

NI Department of the Environment, “High Air Pollution Monitored in Parts of Northern Ireland” (20 Feb 2013)  www.northernireland.gov.uk/index/media-centre/news-departments/news-doe/news-doe-200213-high-air-pollution.htm

The claim:

Lomborg makes many statements that almost all climate scientists would agree with. These include:

• Investments in hurricane resilience should be increased due to projected increases in storm intensity.
• In the long run, the world needs to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
• Investments in renewable energy technology R&D should be dramatically increased.

However, Lomborg ends these common-sense recommendations with the conclusion that current investments in climate mitigation, including renewable energy subsidies, are wasteful. He uses a series of distracting and misleading statements about trends in extreme weather to minimize the risks we face and delay action.

The context:

• The Wall Street Journal has a long history of reporting on the impacts of climate and environmental threats in their news pages, but minimizing and discrediting the same threats in their editorial pages.

The facts:

Lomborg’s statements on wildfires, drought, hurricanes, and economics are all extremely misleading.

• On wildfires, Lomborg references only the number of global fires. Length of active wildfire season and total area burned are considered much more accurate metrics, and both have increased significantly along with global warming.
• On drought, Lomborg is right that some areas across the globe have become more severely droughted, while some have become less so. This is consistent with climate predictions: dry areas get drier while wet areas get wetter. Lomborg implies that these changes simply cancel each other out, and can thus be ignored. In fact they are often devastating due to crop losses in the droughted areas and flooding in the wetter areas.
• On hurricanes, Lomborg references Accumulated Cyclone Energy, which is still under debate as a way to measure overall hurricane activity. He also references a projected decline in damages as a percentage of GDP without stating that damages are increasing, just more slowly than GDP.
• On economics, Lomborg implies in his op-ed that the climate problem can be solved solely through investment in research and technology. While economists are divided on the role of subsidies, nearly all agree that a price on carbon is necessary to drive innovation and change (including Lomborg himself).

Straight from the scientists:

“Lomborg loves to play the nit-picky ‘I’m the honest statistician’ role and then use this stance to imply that doing much of anything except R&D is a waste, ignoring the huge body of evidence that pricing GHG emissions can have large net benefits. We need to be putting a substantial price on our GHG emissions either with a cap and trade program or with a tax. AND we should be investing heavily in R&D on reducing the carbon and energy intensity of the economy. I’m quite sure that most economists, Republican and Democrat, would agree with these statements.”

– William Shobe, Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies and a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Virginia

“Using number of global fires as a metric of climate-induced wildfire dynamics is wrong, in that most fires globally are human-caused for agricultural clearing. The better metrics are length of active wildfire season, which has increased by about 2 months in the western US in the last 40 years, and area burned, which has also doubled … Future projections indicate a dramatic increase in area burned.”

— Steven Running, Regents Professor, Forest Ecology, College of Forestry & Conservation at the University of Montana, and Director of the Numerical Terradynamics Simulation Group

“The area of drought worldwide is not really very relevant when it is particular areas being impacted with greater and greater intensity … When those regions are particularly important to society, such as major grain-growing regions, the impacts can be very severe.”

— Mike MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs with the Climate Institute, former senior global change scientist to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, former President of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences

“Lomborg’s allusions to hurricane response to climate change are misleading in a number of respects. While it is true that one published report indicates decreasing global accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), that report was based on a hurricane data set known to have strong biases outside the North Atlantic region. Independent analyses based solely on satellite data show that the proportion of high intensity hurricanes has been increasing in most places. As to the projected decline in hurricane damage as a fraction of GDP, an even casual reading of the relevant paper shows that while actual damage is predicted to increase in most places, GDP is forecast to go up even faster, so that the ratio declines. That paper’s projection of increased hurricane damage is consistent with numerous scientific studies that project increasing numbers of the most destructive hurricanes.”

– Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science at MIT

“The President did not refer specifically to hurricanes, but he did refer to extreme precipitation events. The Northeast region of the country has experienced a 75% increase in these events.  This means that routine nor’easters, especially when they follow storms like Sandy (that eliminate much of the capacity of natural protection from dunes and marshes) create much more damage … [NYC] has invested billions over the past few years in adaptation investments. Some have worked well, but some have been overwhelmed by recent events. Only slowing the pace of climate change will allow adaptation investments … to keep pace…”

– Gary Yohe, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Climate Science Watch as a guest post from Climate Nexus and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team.  ie Editor Note: The Post has been edited slightly for re-publication.

ie Editor Note: for Lomborg’s Wall Street Journal OpEd piece, see online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323485704578258172660564886.html?KEYWORDS=bjorn+lomborg

Outlining the policy priorities at the launch of the presidency in December, the Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore T.D spoke of “people-centred recovery, designed to last” through stabilising Europe’s banking system (Banking Union) and through improved economic co-ordination. The Irish presidency will also place a spotlight on youth unemployment, which is at levels of over 25% in 13 EU Member States.

The rather ambitious aim of the presidency, which rotates between EU member states every six months, is to act as a ‘recovery country driving recovery in Europe’. It will allow Ireland to direct much of the policy focus of the Union for the first half of next year within an 18-month joint ‘trio’ programme with the subsequent presidencies of Lithuania and Greece. Although the Irish presidency has recognised that the challenges we face “cannot be addressed effectively in the long term without a continuing emphasis on green growth and resource efficiency”, presidency plans might suggest that the Irish are talking the talk but failing to walk the walk.

In a letter to Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny in December, the Green 10, a collection of 10 European environmental NGOs, criticised the Irish for adopting a popular theme but failing to develop tangible solutions, stating “Jobs and growth are nothing new: they have been a recurring theme since the EU Lisbon Strategy (in 2000). The Irish Presidency needs to innovate by providing a more focused impetus for this theme to be meaningful in the present context of economic recovery.”

It advises that true ‘greening’of the economy means building more sustainable employment across the entire economy: in manufacturing, financial services, retail and public services, as well as in those areas traditionally associated with ‘green jobs’, and urges Ireland to refine the current statements regarding the high level themes that define the Irish Presidency, stating “A lack of clear focus will effectively make the ‘jobs and growth’ theme vacuous, and Ireland will miss the opportunity to provide leadership in this crucial period.”

Greenpeace meanwhile has expressed concern that unless emphasis is placed on ways to pursue lasting economic benefits and sustainable employment from economic systems, EU countries would once again subsidise old polluting technologies. As Greenpeace adviser for the Irish presidency Dónall Geoghegan recently noted, “The Irish presidency needs to focus on things that work and benefit everyone, not just the banks: paying less for fuel, saving energy and creating jobs with better insulation, and cutting food and resource waste.”

Aoife O’Grady is an Irish, Brussels-based journalist focusing on environmental issues.

As a landscape architect with over 16 years experience in the Netherlands, the prospect of rising sea levels and living below sea level is neither upsetting nor alarming. The change is manageable.  In fact currently whole swathes of Dublin are located below sea level, behind coastal defences that are gradually becoming insufficient to stem the tide. ´No change´ is not an option! And NIMBY reactions can’t be pushed down the road or solved with a call to your local TD.

Image credit: REDscape > Areas under sea level in Dublin

In defining the new coastal defences of Dublin we need to search laterally through design for these added opportunities. Instead of raised defences, we could be talking about new amenity areas. Instead of barriers, we could be talking about new park zones and connections to new habitats of marine flora and fauna. Dublin bay needs not just a defence but a design for its defences which embraces and optimises change to retaining existing values, while creating new qualities for the future. In the Netherlands, new coastal protection projects are seen as opportunities to innovate, and devise integrated solutions, often combining many different uses such as infrastructure, buildings, nature development, water management, dredge storage, parks and even housing with new defences. REDscape is currently working on the design and construction of the super dike that will house woodland, a new village of 1300 houses and a marina for the city of Kampen. The so- called ‘super dike’, is the first inhabited primary dike in the Netherlands for over 50 years. This culture of design and innovation is lead by the Ministry of Water, an approach our new Water Board will hopefully be inspired by.

Image credit: DP6 architectuurstudio Delft > The hollow dike in Katwijk.

The contribution of design to the process has been essential in delivering more creative solutions in the Netherlands with multi faceted uses. The delivery of flooding defences is seen as a collaborative task for engineers, landscape architects, urbanists and ecologists alike. Once technical starting points have been established by the engineers, designers are requested to develop the design further in a collaborative process. With their design skills and ability to integrate uses, visualise and communicate to the public, landscape architects and other designers have been pushed to the fore of these new national projects.

Image credit: Dingeman Deijs & Steven Delva landscape architects. > Multifunctional dike.

A new national programme of defences around the Ijsselmeer and Amsterdam has delivered a combination of new solutions from raised dikes and offshore buffer systems to dune making and dike buildings to name but a few. Many of these solutions encompass a concept I call ‘engineering with landscape’ in which the natural dynamics of landscape are introduced into the process of defence building itself. Dune making is a good example of this process, as are other forms such as the dredge dike shown here, in which newly pumped dredge is transported from the Rhine inland to construct a dike over thirty years. Can engineering with landscape be applied to Dublin? Can our offshore wind farms provide tidal protection? Can the dynamics of our coastline deliver natural defences?

Image credit: REDscape landscape & Urbanism > The dredge dike, a dike built over 25 years with lightly polluted dredge from the Rhine. The new dikes create more storage space for the Rhine in the form of inundation polders during peak flows. 

Ireland has still yet to develop an integrated approach to designing its flooding defences. Although government departments earmarked €350 million for flood defences in 2010, there were no funds allocated to design or innovation of these new defences.  Surely a programme of such national importance so intrinsically related to the quality of our landscape, towns and cities deserves to be properly designed. Is it not time that our policy makers recognise the role and importance of design in our national infrastructure projects and develop adequate measures to include these in a meaningful way in our public tendering processes?

Patrick Mc Cabe is a landscape architect and founder of REDscape, a design office for landscape and urbanism that delivers solutions for spatial questions. Patrick has recently been involved in redeveloping the harbour quarter in Deventer, a self build, bottom up development in an existing industrial area in the Netherlands.  REDscape specialises in integrated design for cities, harbours and industrial areas with a focus on water management and flood defences.  See, for example, redscape.nl/project/green-port-dublin/

The Commnetary was originally published as a Blog entry in PIVOT Dublin, a Dublin City Council initiative, devised and co-ordinated by Dublin City Architects, because cities that value and apply design in how they think plan and act are more humane, attractive and competitive.    www.pivotdublin.com/index.php/blog
 

Figure 1.

Key Concepts

• In the last 200 years, humanity has transitioned into a new geological era — termed the Anthropocene — which is defined by an accelerating departure from the stable environmental conditions of the past 12,000 years into a new, unknown state of Earth.

• In order to maintain a global environment that is conducive for human development and well-being, we must define and respect planetary boundaries that delineate a “safe operating space” for humanity. We must return to the long-term stable global environment that nurtured human development.

• The nine areas that are most in need of planetary boundaries are climate change, biodiversity loss, excess nitrogen and phosphorus production, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, global consumption of freshwater, change in land use for agriculture, air pollution, and chemical pollution. See Figure 1 above.

• We estimate that humanity has already transgressed three of these boundaries: climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen production.

• Several steps can be taken to establish and enforce these boundaries, and they are suggested here.

The Challenge

Over the past half century, we have become adept at dealing with environmental problems on a local and global scale. The worst excesses of the Industrial Revolution have, in many cases, been ameliorated. Rivers, such as the Thames in London, have been cleaned up and the air quality in major cities, such as Los Angeles, is better. Synthetic pesticides once sprayed on our crops, such as DDT, have been banned in most developed countries, and lead has been removed from petroleum-based fuels. These impressive successes have been celebrated, perhaps most notably in Bjorn Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist.  Note 3.

However, to say we have done enough globally would be false on two counts. First, while these problems have been addressed in many European and North American nations, over three-quarters of the world’s people do not live in developed countries. For them, many of the local and regional environmental problems still exist and, in many cases, are worsening. Second, the environment — our life-support system — is under increasing threat from a wide range of human pressures, many of them emanating from consumption in the wealthy countries. The deterioration of the global environment puts even more pressure on the poorest countries to limit growth, even as they struggle to bring their populations out of poverty.

This is an entirely new situation for humanity. In the past when we fouled our local environment, we could move to someplace else. As human population has grown, these short-term solutions are no longer viable. Furthermore, the impacts of our presence were not usually felt beyond our immediate surroundings. This is also no longer the case. The global environment has provided an especially accommodating environment over the past 12,000 years for humanity to develop and thrive. Note 4.  But the world population is no longer small, spread out, and technologically limited.

Does our planet have boundaries regarding the amount of growth it can absorb? We believe it does and that certain preconditions must be set that acknowledge and respect those boundaries.

This new situation is captured in the concept of the Anthropocene, a newly defined geological era beginning around the 1800s, with the Industrial Revolution. The term was introduced and popularized by Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, (Note 5) who felt the recent influence of human activity on the Earth was significant enough as to constitute the naming of a new epoch. The past 12,000 years or so is a period defined by geologists as the Holocene, an epoch in which global average temperature has been remarkably stable and during which time agriculture developed, followed by the appearance of ever larger settlements and the development of complex civilizations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America, and the Mediterranean region.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the human enterprise has expanded so rapidly that we are now overwhelming the capacity of the Earth system to absorb our wastes and to sustainably provide the services we require. In the period since the Second World War, the acceleration of development has become particularly dramatic. Humanity is fundamentally changing the Earth’s physical climate, (Note 6) overwhelming its capacity to provide ecosystem services, homogenizing its biological diversity, (Note 7) and substantially modifying the global cycles of key elements like nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus. Note 8.  We are indeed passing through the exit door of the Holocene and into the unknown world of the Anthropocene.

So what is the solution to this dilemma? Humanity needs to change course, but in what direction and what principles should guide the journey? The problem has been recognized for several decades, and many attempts have been undertaken to define or inform solutions—limits to growth, (Note 9) safe minimum standards, (Note 10) the precautionary approach, (Note 11) and tolerable windows, (Note 12) for example. These provide an excellent knowledge base from which to work toward a more sustainable future.

The Concept of Planetary Boundaries

How do we begin to identify what aspects of our planet need boundaries and what those boundaries are? The concept of planetary boundaries, (Notes 1,2) while building on earlier efforts, takes a rather different approach. It does not focus so directly on the human enterprise, as do most of these earlier approaches, but rather emphasizes the Earth as a complex system. Here we identify nine areas that are most in need of set planetary boundaries: climate change; biodiversity loss; excess nitrogen and phosphorus production, which pollutes our soils and waters; stratospheric ozone depletion; ocean acidification; global consumption of freshwater; change in land use for agriculture; air pollution; and chemical pollution (see Table 1 below).

What do we mean by “boundary”? This refers to a specific point related to a global-scale environmental process beyond which humanity should not go. The position of the boundary is a normative judgment, informed by science but largely based on human perceptions of risk. This doesn’t mean that any change in the Earth system is dangerous. Our planet can undergo abrupt changes naturally. An example is the sudden switch in North Atlantic ocean circulation when a critical level of freshwater input is reached. But these thresholds and abrupt changes are intrinsic features of the Earth system and cannot be eliminated or modified by human actions, such as the development of new technologies. We have to learn to live with thresholds and respect them. An abrupt change is a hardwired feature of the Earth system independent of human existence, while violation of a boundary is a subjective judgment by humanity about how close we wish to approach dangerous or potentially catastrophic thresholds in our own life-support system.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, and phosphorus and nitrogen production are just three areas in which boundaries can be determined and measured, and we will use these as examples.

Rockström et al. Ecology & Society (2009) and Richard Morin/Solutions  Our initial analysis yielded nine planetary boundaries for Earth-system processes, such as for climate change, which undoubtedly features threshold/abrupt change behavior, and for others, such as biodiversity loss, which are slow processes that erode resilience over time.

Human-provoked climate change is no longer disputed. Scientists can measure climate change by studying the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere. Our proposed climate boundary is that human changes to atmospheric CO2 should not drive its concentration beyond 350 parts per million by volume, and that radiative forcing—the change in the energy balance at the Earth’s surface—should not exceed 1 watt per square meter above preindustrial levels. Transgressing these boundaries could lead to the melting of ice sheets, rising sea level, abrupt shifts in forest and agricultural land, and increasing intensity and frequency of extreme events like floods, wildfires, and heat waves.

A second example is biodiversity loss, which does occur naturally and would continue to some degree without human interference. However, the rate of animal extinction has skyrocketed in the postindustrial age. Compared with fossil records, today the rate of extinction per species is 100 – 1,000 times more than what could be considered natural. Human activities are to blame: urban and agricultural development, sprawl, increases in wildfires that destroy habitat, introduction of new species into environments, and the exploitation of land for human consumption — such as the destruction of the rainforests. We believe another 30 percent of wildlife will come under the threat of extinction this century if change is not made. The dangers of biodiversity loss go beyond nostalgia for certain animals: entire ecosystems rely on certain threatened species.

Setting a planetary boundary for biodiversity is difficult because there is so little known about the way in which species are interwoven and how they connect to the broader environment. However, we propose beginning by using the extinction rate as a flawed but acceptable indicator. Our suggested planetary boundary is that of ten times the background rate of extinction. More research may change this boundary.

In our third example, we propose that no more than 11 million tonnes of phosphorous should be allowed to flow into the ocean each year — which is ten times the natural background state. Excessive production of phosphorus, along with nitrogen, is a by-product of our agricultural system. Excessive phosphorous and nitrogen production pollutes waterways and coastal areas and adds harmful gases to the atmosphere. Current levels already exceed critical thresholds for many estuaries and freshwater sites, and so further research may reduce the current phosphorus and nitrogen boundaries.

We propose that a boundary be set for each of the nine areas and that it be respected globally, in order for humans to continue along a healthy, productive path for an indefinite amount of time (see table 2 below). It is important to acknowledge that we don’t know precisely where the threshold might lie along the control variable (i.e., a variable—sometimes a human intervention—that can influence whether or not a threshold is crossed) or how much change in a slow process will undermine resilience at larger scales. Thus, we need to define a zone within which we are reasonably sure the threshold lies or beyond which we are reasonably sure that a significant degree of resilience will be lost.

Staying within the “planetary playing field” does not assure that humanity will thrive, or even survive, but straying outside the playing field will make it very difficult for humanity to thrive under any circumstances. Implementing the concept of planetary boundaries presents huge challenges for global governance and institutions.

Critical Features of the Planetary Boundaries Concept

Several features of the planetary boundaries conceptual framework are critical to understanding how the approach works.

First, planetary boundaries are explicitly designed for the global scale and are aimed at keeping the Earth within safe ranges that existed prior to the Industrial Revolution. Although some Earth-system processes, such as ocean acidification, are intrinsically global in scale, others become global only when they aggregate from much smaller scales.

In no way does this mean that local or regional environmental issues, which have largely been the focus of policy and management for decades, have become less important. Efforts to reduce pollution and limit and reverse ecosystem degradation at local and regional scales continue to be very important and in fact have become even more important because of their larger-scale implications. However, we must now also focus on the global scale explicitly—in addition to and not at the expense of the many environmental issues we still need to solve at smaller scales. A global solution to the sustainability challenge is thus a prerequisite for living sustainably at local and regional scales.

Second, there is much interaction among the planet’s features that lies at the heart of the planetary boundaries approach. This is not at all surprising given that the Earth behaves as a single, complex system at the global scale, but it does complicate the formulation and implementation of planetary boundaries. There are cascading impacts, in which transgressing one boundary can have implications for other boundaries. For example, converting the Amazon rainforest to a grassland or savanna could influence atmospheric circulation globally and ultimately affect water resources in East Asia through changes in rainfall.

Rockström et al. Nature (2009) and Richard Morin/Solutions   We have assigned a control variable (or parameter) to each of the Earth-system processes and, in addition, have taken a first guess — some better substantiated than others — at a planetary boundary for each. To see how humanity is faring with respect to the boundaries, we have listed the current and preindustrial values of the control variable along with the proposed boundary.

Even small changes can have a synergistic effect when linked to other small changes. For example, conversion of forest to cropland, increased use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, and increased extraction of freshwater for irrigation could all act together to reduce biodiversity more than if each of these variables acted independently. Many changes feed back into each other. The processes involving ocean acidity and atmospheric CO2 concentration are an example of a reinforcing feedback loop. An increase in ocean acidity reduces the strength of the “biological pump” that removes carbon from the atmosphere, which in turn increases the atmospheric CO2 concentration, which increases the physical uptake of CO2 by the ocean, which further increases acidity, and so on.

Finally, the planetary boundaries approach doesn’t say anything explicit about resource use, affluence, or human population size. These are part of the trade-offs that allow humanity to continue to pursue increased well-being. The boundaries simply define the regions of global environment space that, if human activities push the Earth system into that space, would lead to unacceptably deleterious consequences for humanity as a whole.

Because the planetary boundaries approach says nothing about the distribution of affluence and technologies among the human population, a “fortress world,” in which there are huge differences in the distribution of wealth, and a much more egalitarian world, with more equitable socioeconomic systems, could equally well satisfy the boundary conditions. These two socioeconomic states, however, would deliver vastly different outcomes for human well-being. Thus, remaining within the planetary boundaries is a necessary—but not sufficient—condition for a bright future for humanity.

The Implications for Governance

As a practical solution for living sustainably in the modern era, the planetary boundaries approach raises important questions and opportunities for governance and institutions, even to the point of challenging the concept of national sovereignty. We have identified four specific challenges for governance: (Note 13)

• Early-warning systems. The nature of Earth-system dynamics — the nonlinearities, tipping elements, thresholds/abrupt changes — strongly suggests that humanity needs a system to warn us when we are approaching such potentially catastrophic points. Indeed, the planetary boundaries approach is based directly on this feature of the Earth system. An early-warning system is a prerequisite for being able to recognize and steer away from such thresholds.

• Dealing with uncertainties. Each of the planetary boundaries is placed within a zone of uncertainty, some much larger than others. Although further scientific research will reduce these uncertainties in many cases, they will never be completely eliminated. In a poisonous political environment, uncertainties can be exploited as reasons for inaction, but scientists must be able to address uncertainty without being attacked. A global governance system will need to live with a certain level of uncertainty, emphasizing the need for a precautionary approach when determining the position of boundaries.

• Multilevel governance. Interacting with the traditional institutions that currently exist at national, subnational, and local levels will be necessary, and probably will be complex and challenging to implement. Creating effective multilevel governance systems will be especially important for those planetary boundaries that are based on aggregates of many local and regional actions.

• Capacity to assimilate new information. In addition to reducing the zone of uncertainty for some boundaries, scientific research will continue to uncover more insights into the dynamics of the Earth system itself. This could lead to the need for additional planetary boundaries or the reformulation of existing ones. The increasing flow of new scientific information will undoubtedly put pressure on any institutional framework to keep up with the pace of new knowledge. A case in point is in the debate over how much greenhouse gas can be released without disastrous effects. After a long time trying to convince the international community that the climate change boundary should be 450 ppm CO2, a growing number of scientists are suggesting that a 350 ppm CO2 boundary would be more appropriate.

 Ultimately, there will need to be an institution (or institutions) operating, with authority, above the level of individual countries to ensure that the planetary boundaries are respected. In effect, such an institution, acting on behalf of humanity as a whole, would be the ultimate arbiter of the myriad trade-offs that need to be managed as nations and groups of people jockey for economic and social advantage. It would, in essence, become the global referee on the planetary playing field. While humanity is still a long way from meeting this challenge, some creative thinking about new institutions is showing some promise. For example, one proposed institution that moves in this direction is the Earth Atmospheric Trust, (Note 14) which would treat the atmosphere as a global common property asset managed as a trust for the benefit of current and future generations.

Summary and Conclusions

Earth-system science is still in its infancy and much more needs to be known to create a robust solution to humanity’s global dilemma. Nevertheless, we know enough now about the functioning of the Earth system that we must learn to respect the hardwired limits of our own life-support system. And we must find practical ways to respect those limits. Much more work is required to refine the concept of planetary boundaries and make it operational. The nine proposed boundaries outlined here are a preliminary estimate. For some of the boundaries, the zone of uncertainty is still huge, and for two of them — atmospheric aerosol loading and chemical pollution — we are unable to make even a first, rough guess at where the boundary might lie. In fact, we are not even sure that these nine boundaries are sufficient to define the planetary playing field; more may be needed.

Figure 2.  The left panel shows a boundary for a process that has a well-defined threshold, leading to an abrupt change if that threshold is crossed. The right panel shows a boundary for a “slow” process that does not have a threshold but is important for maintaining resilience at regional or global scales. In each case there is a zone of uncertainty as to where the threshold lies or where an unacceptable erosion of resilience occurs.

Just when we are now developing some solutions for environmental problems at the local and regional scales — at least in developed countries — we are confronting the challenge of a more complex nature at the global scale. Climate change is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, with many more linked environmental and socioeconomic and cultural changes sweeping rapidly across the planet.

Effective solutions for living sustainably in the postindustrial age require innovative frameworks and implementation strategies. Rather than tackling these global-scale problems one by one, as we are attempting for climate change, we need a far more holistic and integrated approach. The planetary boundaries framework provides such an approach.

Within the boundaries of the planetary playing field, there is an infinite number of strategies, tactics, and trade-offs that humanity can deploy as it continues to strive to improve well-being. The rules of the game are familiar — economics, trade, laws and regulation, ethics, local and regional environmental protection, and so on. What is new is that the playing field for this game is not infinite; it has boundaries and the players must respect these boundaries.

Implementing the concept of planetary boundaries presents huge challenges for global governance and institutions. Science is on the way to defining the planetary playing field, but we have yet to define the roles of the global referees and grant them the authority to keep the players on the field.

Respecting the boundaries means respecting the global commons — the atmosphere, oceans, and ecosystem functioning and the services derived from that functioning. The solution, as Peter Barnes (Note 15) has suggested, is to greatly expand the “commons sector” of the global economy with institutions that can keep humanity within a safe operating space. These new kinds of commons institutions need to be developed at multiple scales, from local to global, with participation of the affected stakeholders.16 Solutions will provide a venue for this critical ongoing discussion and design process.

Author Note: This article is based on the papers “A safe operating space for humanity,” (Note 1) published in Nature, and “Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity,” (Note 2) published in Ecology and Society. See these papers for a complete description of the planetary boundaries. Here, we present the underlying concepts and suggest ways to limit continued growth of the material economy on a finite planet.

References

1. Rockström, J et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475 (2009).

2. Rockström, J et al. Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society [online] 14, 32 (2009). www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32.

3. Lomborg, B. The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001).

4. Costanza, R et al. Sustainability or collapse: What can we learn from integrating the history of humans and the rest of nature? Ambio 36, 522–527 (2007).

5. Crutzen, P. The effects of industrial and agricultural practices on atmospheric chemistry and climate during the Anthropocene. Journal of Environmental Science and Health 37, 423–424 (2002).

6. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Solomon, S et al., eds), Climate change 2007: The physical science basis (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007).

7. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2005).

8. Steffen, W et al. Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet under Pressure (Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, 2004).

9. Meadows, DH, Meadows, DL, Randers, J & Behrens, WW. The Limits to Growth (Universe Books, New York, 1972).

10. Ciriacy-Wantrup, SV. Resource Conservation: Economics and Policies (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1952).

11. Raffensperger, C & Tickner, W, eds. Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle (Island Press, Washington, DC, 1999).

12. German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). Scenario for the Derivation of Global CO2 Reduction Targets and Implementation Strategies: Statement on the Occasion of the First Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Berlin (March 1995) [online]. www.wbgu_sn1995_engl.pdf.

13. Young, OR & Steffen, W in Principles of Ecosystem Stewardship: Resilience-Based Natural Resource Management in a Changing World (Chapin, FS, Kofinas, GP & Folke, C, eds), The Earth system: Sustaining planetary life-support systems, 295–315 (Springer, New York, 2009).

14. Barnes, P et al. Creating an earth atmospheric trust. Science 319, 724 (2008).

15. Barnes, P. Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, 2006).

16. Ostrom, E. 2010. “A multiscale approach to coping with climate change and other collective action problems.” Solutions [online] 1, 27–36. www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/565.

Steffen, W. Rockström, J. Costanza, R. 2011. “How Defining Planetary Boundaries Can Transform Our Approach to Growth”. Solutions. Vol 2, No. 3. pp. www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/935   Republished under the Creative Commons – Share Alike license.

Will Steffen Executive director of the ANU Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University, Canberra

Johan Rockström Executive director of two international research institutions, the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Stockholm Environment Institute

Robert Costanza University Professor of Sustainability at the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University

The ETS works by the ‘cap and trade’ principle: a cap is placed on total greenhouse gases within the system and under this cap companies receive emission allowances which they can sell to or buy from one another. At the end of each year each company must handover enough allowances to cover all its emissions. If a company reduces its emissions, it can keep the spare allowances to cover its future needs or else sell them to another company. However, if the company exceeds its allowances, it must pay a heavy fine. The number of allowances is reduced over time so that total emissions fall. The limit on the total number of allowances available should ensure that they have a value, however oversupply has diminished their worth.

Shortly before the summer break in Brussels, the Commission proposed changing the timing of when allowances are auctioned in an effort to improve the functioning of the market. Specifically, the Commission wants to postpone or ‘back-load’ some auction volume from 2013-2015 towards the end of phase three (2013-2020). This will require a change to legislation on the ETS which must first be approved by the European Parliament and the Council.

At the announcement of the proposal, Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard noted, “The EU ETS has a growing surplus of allowances built up over the last few years. It is not wise to deliberately continue to flood a market that is already oversupplied. This is why the Commission today has paved the way for changing the timing of when allowances are auctioned. This short-term measure will improve the functioning of the market. If the political will is there, all the necessary decisions can be taken before the next auctioning phase starts at the beginning of 2013. Now it is up to the European Parliament and Member States to deliver. After the summer recess, the Commission will also finalise the options for long-term structural measures.”

                                                                  Commissioner Hedegaard

While environmental groups Greenpeace and WWF welcomed the news, they expressed disappointment that the Commission has not yet suggested structural measures to reform the carbon market, such as permanently removing allowances or increasing the EU’s emission reduction target.

Greenpeace EU climate policy director Joris den Blanken said, “We need swift and decisive action or the scheme will deteriorate fast and will not deliver any real reduction in carbon emissions for at least a decade. The number of allowances needs to come right down or companies might as well be trading Monopoly money.”

Phase three of the scheme, which covers emissions from power stations, combustion plants, oil refineries and iron and steel works, as well as factories making cement, glass, lime, bricks, ceramics, pulp, paper and board, aims to bring emissions down by 21% compared to 2005 levels. During this phase an EU-wide cap per sector will be introduced rather than the previous per-country cap and more than half of the allocations will be auctioned as opposed to the mainly free allocations of previous phases.

The ETS covers about 11,000 industrial installations in 30 countries and, at the end of August, it was announced that Australia intends to be the first non-European country to sign up to the scheme. If the Commission’s plan is approved by the European Parliament and EU governments , the Commission will release a detailed proposal specifying the timing and exact amount of allowances that should be withheld from the carbon market.

Aoife O’Grady is an Irish, Brussels-based journalist focusing on environmental issues.

More information:

Changes to ETS: ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/hedegaard/headlines/news/2012-07-25_01_en.htm

European Commission: ETS ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets/index_en.htm

Greenpeace/WWF: Strengthening the EU emissions trading scheme and raising climate ambition

Facts, Measures and Implications www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/Publications/2012/ETS-report/

Modern industrial society alters the biosphere and causes environmental degradation in three significant ways.

1. Society mines and disperses materials faster than they are returned to the Earth’s crust. Industrial societies have extracted pollutants that were previously stored for millions of years as fuel and mineral deposits. The extraction and combustion of fossil fuel deposits, such as oil and coal, results in GHG emissions, which contribute to climate change. Many of the mineral deposits, such as mercury and cadmium, are toxic, basic elements that cannot be broken down into less toxic components.

2. The chemical industry has created tens of thousands of new man-made chemical compounds that are released and leak out into and damage natural systems. Many of the substances are organic compounds of chlorine, fluorine and bromine and include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), dioxins, and chlorofluorocarbons. Such substances are referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). They interfere with organic systems and are not degraded by physical, chemical or biological processes and even in low concentration can harm humans. Exposure to chemical pollutants has been documented as playing a major role in determining children’s health. (US EPA, 2002b).

3. Society depletes or degrades resources faster than they are regenerated (for example, through deforestation and overfishing), or by other forms of physical degradation of ecosystems (for example, paving over fertile land or causing soil erosion). As a consequence of the physical destruction of the environment the restorative capacity of eco-systems is being reduced, while the outputs of industrial wastes are increasing. (Broman et al., 2000).

This article describes how Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers(PRTRs) significantly address the points 1. and 2. by offering a mechanism capable of providing periodic and reliable data on releases and transfers of pollutants.

The Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention) is the first legally binding international agreement on the issue and since its entry into force in 2009 the PRTR Protocol offers a solid legal framework for enhancing public access to information and for pursuing international cooperation on PRTRs.

The PRTR

In addressing the above challenges, the role of scientific monitoring of pollutants and the publication of relevant data on these releases is critical. A PRTR is a publicly accessible register providing periodic and reliable data on emissions and transfers of pollutants, including greenhouse gases (GHGs), heavy metals and toxic chemical compounds. The Aarus Convention provides that at the national level, each individual shall have “appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their communities”, and that States shall “facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available”.

Releases and transfers of at least 86 pollutants are covered by the Protocol, including greenhouse gases, acid rain pollutants, ozone-depleting substances, heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, and certain carcinogens, such as dioxins. Data from point sources and diffuse sources can be entered into the register and is typically gathered and reported annually. Parties to the Protocol are required to work towards convergence between PRTR systems.

Although regulating information on pollution, rather than pollution directly, the Protocol is expected to exert a significant downward pressure on levels of pollution. The existence of a PRTR can serve as a major driving force for pollution reduction throughout many sectors of the economy. In fact, dissemination of PRTR data has led to competition among generators of hazardous chemicals and/or pollutants to reduce their releases. After all, no one wants to be perceived by the general public as a wilful spoiler of the environment or contributor to possible adverse health effects.

On 20 June 2012, Ireland became the twenty-ninth Party to the Convention’s Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers. Many more countries are in the process of developing their national PRTR. The Irish PRTR created by the Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is available at prtr.epa.ie/ and Ireland’s PRTR interactive map is available at prtr.epa.ie/map/default.aspx

The Protocol requires each Party to establish a PRTR which:

• is publicly accessible through Internet, free of charge

• is searchable according to separate parameters (facility, pollutant, location, medium, etc.)

• is user-friendly in its structure with links to other relevant registers,

• presents standardized, timely data on a structured, computerized database;

• covers releases and transfers of at least 86 pollutants covered by the Protocol,

• covers releases and transfers from certain types of major point sources (e.g. thermal power stations, mining and metallurgical industries, chemical plants, waste and waste- water treatment plants, paper and timber industries);

• accommodates available data on releases from diffuse sources (e.g. transport and agriculture);

• has limited confidentiality provisions; and

• allows for public participation in its development and modification. (Web-4)

Benefits of the PRTR

PRTRs benefit Governments by enabling Governments to review the compliance of local facilities with their permit conditions; to track the release of hazardous chemical substances and pollution trends over time; to examine progress in reducing emissions; to monitor compliance and national progress with international commitments; to set priorities for reducing or even eliminating the most potentially damaging releases; to identify priority industrial sectors for eco-innovation; to use PRTR results as one input for assessing risks to human health and the environment; and to help achieve pollution prevention, lessening the burden of control regulations, which require a large bureaucracy to monitor and enforce. PRTRs also reduce costs to Government and industry by providing a coordinated reporting system.

PRTRs benefit both management and workers, through stimulating improved environmental management. For facilities, the exercise of monitoring or estimating pollution levels, as well as their mandatory publication, can encourage efforts to improve efficiency and reduce pollution levels and associated costs. The existence of a PRTR can serve as a major driving force for pollution reduction and eco-innovation throughout many sectors of the economy. PRTR data listing specific industrial processes that produce large quantities of both GHGs and eco-toxic substances helps to identify potential sectors and facilities that may be starting points or priorities for the introduction of technologies for cleaner production, eco-innovation and synergistic processes to reduce co-emissions of both GHGs and eco-toxic substances. Dissemination of PRTR data also enables similar industries to benchmark their environmental performance with other companies in the sector and to reduce releases, thereby saving money.

PRTRs serve the general public, citizens’ organizations, researchers and academics by providing access to information on local, regional or national pollution. PRTR data is accessible via the Internet and searchable according to individual facility, owner/operator, type of pollutant and type of activity and environmental medium (air, water, land). The public can use PRTR information to learn about releases and transfers occurring in their communities and to become better informed about the environmental performance of individual facilities and economic sectors. Health professionals can use the information in public health decisions. PRTRs can be a valuable tool for environmental education. Researchers and academics can use PRTR data for modelling or other studies, and the financial sector for evaluating investment proposals or for considering insurance or sustainability issues.

PRTRs as an informational tool for monitoring GHGs

The principles underlying the Aarhus Convention and its PRTR Protocol have special relevance to the achievement of the objective established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty. The UNFCCC sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. The Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC establishes legally binding commitments for the reduction of four greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases hydro-fluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs). Parties to the UNFCCC treaty and its Kyoto Protocol annually submit to the Secretariat of the UNFCCC their inventory of national greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, HFCs and PFCs.

In some countries, the GHG inventory is a comprehensive top-down national assessment of national GHG emissions, and they use top-down national energy data and other national statistics (e.g. on agriculture) to prepare their annual reports. To achieve the goal of comprehensive national emissions coverage for reporting under the UNFCCC, most GHG emissions are calculated via activity data from national-level databases, statistics, and surveys. The use of the aggregated national data means that the national emissions estimates are not broken-down at the geographic or facility level.

The PRTR Protocol, by contrast, requires Governments to collect annual reports on major GHG emissions (among other pollutants) by industry on a facility-by-facility basis and to share this information with the public. All of the substances identified in the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol are also contained in the PRTR Protocol’s Annex II list of threshold pollutants.

National registers created under the PRTR Protocol can help countries meet the objectives of the Climate Change Convention in three ways:

• where GHG emissions data are directly incorporated into a national register, the data can be used to supplement information needed to calculate the national GHG inventory;

• PRTR GHG data provided on a facility-by-facility basis can be used to cross-check data derived from other sources, and help identify data gaps;

• GHG data incorporated into a national PRTR can raise public awareness of major emitters of GHGs, and contribute to the demand for improved environmental performance from industry and other sources.

PRTRs, eco-toxic thresholds and the pre-cautionary principle

The concentrations of substances that can be accepted in environmental systems without putting human health and economy at risk in the longer term depend on properties such as eco-toxicity and bio-accumulation.

It can be difficult to foresee what concentrations will lead to unacceptable consequences. Due to delay mechanisms the ultimate consequences of the increasing concentrations of the toxic substances in the biosphere are difficult to predict. The pre-cautionary principle is of relevance where there is uncertainty of ecological limits/eco-toxic thresholds.

PRTRs help to identify industrial processes (or hotspots) that contribute most significantly to both climate change and eco-toxicity. Utilizing PRTR data to identify the specific industrial processes that produce large quantities of both GHGs and eco-toxic substances helps to identify potential sectors and facilities that may be starting points or priorities for synergistic processes to reduce co-emissions of both GHGs and eco-toxic substances. Eco-innovations, production volumes and societal competence in safeguarding these substances are relevant in reducing concentrations of GHGs and toxic chemical compounds produced by society.

Applying PRTRs to track mercury releases and transfers

PRTRs provide information on primary and to a lesser extent secondary anthropogenic emissions of mercury, including fossil fuel combustion installations, non-ferrous metal, cement and pig iron and steel production, waste incineration, primary mercury production, crematoria and mining operations. Health effects from high levels of exposure to elemental mercury include damage to the stomach and large intestine and permanent damage to the brain and kidneys.

PRTR data can help identify potential areas and facilities that could be important as examples for reducing mercury releases. Mercury is a natural constituent of coal and there are therefore co-benefits of emissions mitigation measures involving mercury from any sectors that utilise coal to generate energy.

UNEP Governing Council Decision 25/5 (III) specifically requests that an International Negotiating Committee (INC) be convened with the mandate of developing a global legally binding instrument on mercury. The INC should consider inter alia provisions to reduce atmospheric emissions of mercury, to address compliance, to address mercury-containing waste and to increase knowledge through awareness raising and scientific information exchange. The INC should also consider prioritization of the various sources of mercury releases for action, as well as the need to achieve cooperation and coordination with relevant provisions contained in other international agreements and processes. Specifically looking to a global legally-binding instrument on mercury, PRTRs offer the potential to:

• enhance and consolidate national mercury emissions inventories;

• provide reliable information on anthropogenic mercury emissions at the facility, state (regional) and national level;

• inform on location and quantities (measured and/or estimated) of mercury used and mercury wastes;

• identify hot-spots of mercury emissions;

• provide information on emissions trends over the years;

• facilitate access to updated information on mercury emissions;

• facilitate stakeholders involvement through the inherent participation of stakeholders in the PRTR development process;

• assist countries to comply with foreseen reporting requirements of the treaty; and

• serve as a practical basis from which the effectiveness of voluntary and regulatory actions intended to decrease mercury emissions can be assessed.

PRTRs do not address natural mercury sources and currently do not comprehensively capture mercury emissions arising from product use and disposal, although efforts have begun on the issue of hazardous substance releases during product use.

With respect to transfers, a fundamental PRTR function is to provide information on movements of mercury from one holder to another, such as from a facility generating mercury wastes to one designed for long-term waste storage. PRTRs can be foreseen as an integral part of the eventual mercury-emissions reporting and tracking which would be an anticipated element of a global instrument on mercury. (Web-5)

PRTR is an indicator for sustainability and the success of a green economy

National PRTR systems monitor and publish data on pollutant releases and transfers for substances of critical importance in sustainable development, such as GHGs, heavy metals and eco-toxic chemical compounds. The PRTR data therefore could be utilized as a science-based indicator for measuring the success of sustainability and a ‘green economy’.

Published data on material flows that are in violation of scientific conditions for ecological sustainability are key indicators for a ‘green economy’ to be truly ecologically sustainable. Governments, academia, research institutions, the public, and business driving eco-innovation can utilize the PRTR as a common indicator to inform their strategic goals.

The PRTR Protocol facilitates and requires development toward compatible PRTR systems in different countries. PRTR data are therefore a valid option for inclusion in an indicator set for measuring the success of those ‘green economies’.

Parties to the Protocol on PRTRs recognize that an integrated approach to minimizing pollution and the amount of waste resulting from the operation of industrial installations and other sources can achieve a high level of protection for the environment as a whole, help move us towards sustainable and environmentally sound development, and protect the health of present and future generations.

The author Mark Keenan is an Irish environmentalist. He has worked with the Sustainable Development Council, Ireland and has conducted postgraduate studies in Sustainable Development and Climate Change, and PhD research in National Sustainability Strategy.

Copyright Mark Keenan 2012

References

Broman G., Holmberg J., and Robèrt, K-H. (2000). Simplicity Without Reduction – Thinking Upstream Towards the Sustainable Society. Interfaces: International Journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. 30(3).

US EPA. (2002b). Priority PBTs; Mercury and Compounds. Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic Chemical program. Office of Pollution Prevention. Available at epa.gov/pbt/mercury.htm

Web-1: www.sos2006.jp/english/rsbs_summary_e/ScienceOnSustainability2006.pdf, consulted 5 March. 2012.

Web-2: www.naturalstep.org/~natural/the-system-conditions, consulted 5 March. 2012.

Web-3: www.unece.org/env/pp/prtr/docs/prtrtext.html, consulted 5 March. 2012.

Web-4: www.unece.org/env/pp/prtr.guidancedev.html, consulted 5 March. 2012.

Web-5: www.chem.unep.ch/mercury/WGprep.1/Documents/k10_2%29/English/WG_Prep_1_INF2_PRTRs.doc, consulted 5 March. 2012.

Expectations of UN environment conferences have admittedly been dampened in the past 20 years but even still, most did not anticipate the anti-climax that was Rio+20. Before even a single world leader had touched down in Rio, delegates negotiating on their behalf had presented the conference ‘outcome’ text entitled ‘The Future We Want’. The 49-page document, pieced together by the Brazilian hosts after months of difficult negotiations, represented what was widely acknowledged as a ‘compromise text’.

‘The Future We Want’ purports to set out a common vision for sustainable development. Focusing on the global shift to a ‘green economy’, it introduces the concept of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to complement the Millennium Development Goals, and outlines the need to mobilise financing for sustainable development and promote sustainable consumption and production. In particular, it reaffirms commitments to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. The document also establishes a secure budget, a broader membership and strong powers to initiate scientific research for United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and encourages companies to place a higher value on nature by considering the environment within their financial reporting.

Finalised in the early hours of Tuesday morning, a full day before the conference proper began, the text that emerged was dominated by the ‘softened language’ of the middleground and lacked the all-important firm commitments and figures that tie countries to their promises. As conference participants fervently combed through the text on the eve of the conference opening, other major criticisms that emerged were its failure to guarantee the reproductive rights of women and to layout a rescue plan for the oceans. Although the text provided for the strengthening of UNEP, many countries had been lobbying for a full upgrade of the agency to give it equal status with other UN bodies.

In reaction to the text, Greenpeace typically pulled no punches, immediately branding the document an ‘epic failure’ that would, “cook the planet, empty the oceans and wreck the rain forests”. Meanwhile the Major Group for Children and Youth were equally direct, warning leaders, “If these sheets of paper are our common future, then you have sold our fate and subsidised our common destruction.”

The conference therefore began with the strange knowledge that the compromise outcome was all but fixed, making this gathering of world leaders less like an epic opportunity and more an international photo call. EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso, France’s Francois Hollande, China’s Wen Jiabao and India’s Manmohan Singh were among the premiers who took to the UN podium on a rolling basis over the three days of the conference. Common ground and compromise were shared motifs peppering the speeches of what sometimes seemed like a conveyor belt of world leaders. Barroso acknowledged, “None of us has achieved in full what was wanted initially. But we have all worked together to develop common ground. Let me reassure you that the EU will continue to strive for more ambitious actions that our planet and its people require.”

Ireland, which negotiates as part of the EU bloc, was represented at the conference by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan. The Minister noted that the text could have been more ambitious in relation to the SDGs but added that the ‘broad agreement’ would chart a path for progress on critical areas. He particularly welcomed the agreement’s “strong commitment to ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for present and future generations.”

There was a flurry of media excitement with the arrival of US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who said that the outcome document marked a ‘real advance’ forward for sustainable development and called on the world to be ‘pragmatic, but also optimistic’. Meanwhile, Bovilian President, Evo Morales was typically rousing, warning against a green capitalism “that converts every tree, every plant, every drop of water and every natural being into a commodity.”

In spite of the foregone conclusion, throughout the event NGOs and activists continued to lobby their governments for stronger language, more firm commitments, and stirred up protest with colourful chants and demonstrations. Saba Loftus from Cork, who had been following preparatory negotiations for the conference since 2010 as a representative of the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY), noted, “The agenda put forward at the original Rio conference 20 years ago – Agenda 21 – was not strengthened here, it was actually weakened. It’s our future that world leaders are playing with and they obviously don’t care about it. That’s why we’re here – to make sure change happens.”

On the other hand, Martina Bianchini of Dow Chemical and Chair of International Chamber of Commerce Green Economy Task Force praised the outcome and the process, “We welcome the outcome document and we applaud the multilateral approach to the dialogue – as we know, economies across the world are interconnected. This summit has recognised that business plays a vital role in achieving sustainable development”.

In spite of the dissatisfaction of civil society, for the most part, the conference rolled lazily towards its undramatic conclusion. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon assured that the text would guide the world on to a more sustainable path but warned that words must be matched by actions. Echoing the thoughts of many leaving the soon-to-be deserted conference centre on the final evening, he noted, “The road ahead is long and hard.”

Mary Robinson, attending the conference as an ‘Elder’ – a member of the group of the world leaders working for peace and human rights – criticised the text for ‘backsliding’ on certain issues, particularly its failure to mention women’s reproductive rights. She added however, a more hopeful conclusion, “The UN has its drawbacks but it is the global way in which we move forward. It’s a ‘not great’ text but it’s the text we will work with. We have an energised community, a community that’s angry and energised – maybe that will help us to hold governments and institutions to account for more progress.”

Read more:

The Future We Want (Rio+20 outcome document) www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/thefuturewewant.html

The People’s Summit Final Declaration rio20.net/en/propuestas/final-declaration-of-the-people%E2%80%99s-summit-in-rio-20

Aoife O’Grady is an Irish, Brussels-based journalist focusing on environmental issues.

1 Wind energy makes global warming worse

Myth: A study led by a team from the University of New York has shown for the first time that wind farms can worsen climate change by pushing up temperatures. The US right-wing television network Fox News ran a report on its website titled “New Research Shows Wind Farms Cause Global Warming”. The US team studied satellite data from west-central Texas, which is home to four of the world’s largest wind farms. The study found that over a decade, the local temperature at these projects rose by almost 1°C, particularly at night, compared with nearby areas without wind farms.

Fact: Local temperature effects have no bearing on global climate change. CO2 is the biggest factor behind climate change, and the largest source of man-made carbon emissions is coal-fired power stations. In the EU in 2010, wind energy avoided the emission of an estimated 126 million tonnes of CO2 by displacing energy produced by coal, oil and gas. The US study acknowledges that the change in local temperature was small compared with the overall change in the land surface temperature, and says more studies are needed, at different locations and for longer periods.

2 Using wind energy adds to CO2 emissions

Myth: Wind power could actually produce more CO2 than gas, and is inordinately expensive and ineffective because of the need for back-up power stations, warns Civitas. The British social-policy think-tank argues that turning back-up gas-fired power stations on and off, to cover spells when there is little wind, produces more carbon than a steady supply of energy from an efficient modern gas-powered station.

Fact: The Civitas report cites as evidence the findings of retired Dutch physicist Kees le Pair, a long-time critic of the wind industry. Ruth Lea, the report’s author, is an economist with links to several right-leaning think-tanks, and has been a critic of the UK’s climate policies, especially the promotion of renewables.

All forms of power generation require back-up, and no energy technology can be relied on 100%. Variations in wind farm output are barely noticeable over and above the normal fluctuation seen in supply and demand. Therefore, at present there is no need for additional back-up because of wind energy. Gordon Edge, director of policy at the trade association RenewableUK, points out that modern gas-fired plants are not required to provide back-up for wind. Instead, wind is “integrated” into the existing system to act as a fuel-saver, enabling Britain to harness a free electricity source when it is available. Additional investment is required, but Edge points out that “credible analysis” makes clear it will cost less for consumers than relying on fossil fuels, which are rising in price all the time. “This report, based on outdated and inaccurate information, does nothing to advance the debate,” he adds.

3 Wind energy is heavily subsidised

Myth: More than 100 UK Members of Parliament wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron this year demanding cuts to the £500m ($773m) in annual subsidies for the wind industry. They claim that in financially straitened times, it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient, intermittent onshore wind.

Fact: Public subsidies for wind power are dwarfed by the tax breaks enjoyed by fossil fuels. OECD figures show that coal, oil and gas in the UK were subsidised to the tune of £3.63bn in 2010, while onshore and offshore wind received only £700m in the year to April 2011. All renewables in the UK benefited from £1.4bn in that period, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. In the 37 countries that the International Energy Agency analysed, coal, oil and gas received $409bn in 2010, compared with $66bn for renewables.

4 Turbines are a serious threat to birds and bats

Myth: Spinning blades and fluttering wings are clashing more frequently as greater numbers of turbines are being installed.

Fact: The anti-wind lobby exaggerates the threat to birds. The American Bird Conservancy notes that wind turbines kill just 0.088% of the 500 million birds killed each year by pet cats in the US.  A UK review by the Centre for Sustainable Energy says that for every bird killed by a turbine, 5,820 are killed by flying into buildings — typically windows.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) says: “We have not so far witnessed any major adverse effects on birds associated with wind farms.” However, it stresses that there are “gaps in the knowledge and understanding” of how turbines affect bird and bat populations. UK wind farms are always subject to an environmental impact assessment, and RenewableUK members work with the RSPB and English Nature to ensure that designs and layouts do not interfere with sensitive species.

5 Turbines use lots of rare-earth minerals

Myth: China, which supplies more than 90% of the world’s rare-earth metals, has imposed controls on mining and exports after more than a decade of extraction depleted its resources and harmed the environment.   Western media have investigated the environmental destruction in Inner Mongolia, which contains more than 90% of the world’s known reserves of rare-earth metals, specifically neodymium, the element needed to make turbine permanent magnets. Sceptics suggest this shows that the wind industry is not as environmentally friendly and sustainable as it makes out, and that its sources of rare-earth metals could dry up in future, leaving it with higher costs and production difficulties.

Fact: The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) report on critical metals in strategic energy technologies shows that the European wind industry is not a significant user of rare-earths.  “The share of the neodymium and dysprosium that will be used by the European wind-power sector in the 2020-30 time frame will remain at 1% of world supply if realistic supply assumptions are used,” says Justin Wilkes, policy director of the European Wind Energy Association. The JRC report says that in 2020, the European wind industry will use between 326 and 635 tonnes of neodymium — equivalent to 1.8-3.5% of the world’s supply in 2010. In 2030, it is forecast to use 192-730 tonnes (1.1-4% of the world’s 2010 supply).  In 2020, the European wind industry will use 22-44 tonnes of dysprosium (1.9-3.6%) and in 2030 it will use 13-50 tonnes (1.1-4.2%).

6 Turbines cause noise and health problems

Myth: Living near wind farms can lead to a greater risk of heart disease, panic attacks and migraines, according to New York paediatrician Nina Pierpoint, who has carried out a five-year study of people living near turbines in the US, the UK, Italy, Ireland and Canada. She believes turbines are dangerous because the low-frequency sounds (infrasound) they emit interfere with the ear’s vestibular system, which controls our sense of balance.

Fact: RenewableUK says that in more than 25 years and with more than 68,000 machines installed around the world, no member of the public has ever been harmed by the normal operation of wind turbines. Geoff Leventhall — a consultant on noise vibration and acoustics, and author of a report for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the effects of low-frequency noise — says: “I can state quite categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.”

7 Wind turbines discourage tourists

Myth: Donald Trump claims that proposals to build an 11-turbine offshore test facility are a threat to his luxury golf resort north of Aberdeen, Scotland. The US property tycoon warns that Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond will be known as “Mad Alex — the man who destroyed Scotland” because its “pristine countryside and coastlines will forever be destroyed and it will go broke” thanks to “horrendous monstrosities” that will “destroy Scottish tourism”.

Fact: There is no evidence to suggest wind farms adversely affect tourism. In fact, the UK’s first commercial wind farm at Delabole, southwest England, received 350,000 visitors in its first ten years of operation, while 10,000 visitors a year take the turbine tour at the Ecotech Centre at Swaffham, eastern England. A Mori poll in Scotland showed that 80% of tourists would be interested in visiting a wind farm. Developers are often asked to provide visitor centres, viewing platforms and rights of way to their sites. A 2011 poll for tourist body VisitScotland found that 80% of UK respondents said their decisions about where to visit would not be affected by the presence of a wind farm.

8 Wind farms spoil the landscape

Myth: One of Britain’s largest conservation groups, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), broke ranks with other environmental groups to attack the rapid development of onshore wind farms. It criticises the “cavalier approach” of many developers when dealing with local concerns. The CPRE has big worries about wind farms due to be built next to national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and sites of special scientific interest.

Fact: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, studies regularly show that most people find turbines an interesting feature of the landscape. On average, 80% of people support wind energy. UK surveys conducted since the early 1990s near existing wind farms have consistently found most people are in favour of wind energy, with support increasing among those living closer to wind farms.

9 Wind power is expensive

 Myth: Critics claim that Europe’s focus on wind power is crippling energy users with additional costs, as it is not a cost-effective way to reduce CO2 emissions. Civitas calls wind energy unreliable and believes it requires back-up gas-powered stations to maintain a consistent supply. Economist and UK government adviser Dieter Helm also casts doubts on the economic value and affordability of offshore wind. Helm, who is a professor at New College, Oxford, suggests gas generation could be a more affordable low-carbon alternative.

Fact: The cost of generating electricity from wind has fallen dramatically over the past few years. The cost of most renewables technologies “has declined, and significant additional technical advancements are expected”, says the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

10 Wind farms harm property values

Myth: Homeowners living near UK wind farms could see their property values plummet after a legal case in which a couple from Lincolnshire, central England, were told they would get a huge council-tax refund because their home was said to have been rendered worthless by a turbine 1km away. It means many other families living in the shadow of turbines could see the value of their homes crumble, as the government pushes ahead with plans to build more wind farms over the next decade.

Fact: RenewableUK says there is no evidence that wind farms affect house prices. Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory spent three years examining nearly 7,500 homes in ten communities near 12 wind farms in nine states. They found no evidence that property prices were affected by the view or the distance between the home and the wind farm.

Christopher Hopson, London

This article was reproduced with the kind permission of Recharge and the author, Chris Hopson.  It was first published in Recharge on 8 June 2012.  www.rechargenews.com/energy/wind/article315027.ece

The serious approach would require that they have their Executive produce a briefing note (about 10,000 words) that outlines the technical, economic (including enterprise), social and environmental issues that arise for a host community, and the real choices that arise. The elected members supported by the Executive could then take this and engage with communities, enterprise leaders, experts – including personnel at EPA, Geological Survey of Ireland, and other agencies – and the general public via hearings, written submissions, interactive media, and use this combination of expertise and feedback to arrive at a well judged understanding of the issues, the choices faced, and likely social, economic, and environmental implications and choices for their area.

Unfortunately, this is not how some local authorities act…

… as exemplified by the potential of fracking– where a wellbore is drilled into reservoir rock formations, and the energy from the injection of a highly-pressurised fracking fluid creates new channels in the rock which can increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of fossil fuels. 

Instead of doing the serious effort we have a right to expect, we observe grandstanding – behaviour that is intended to get public attention and approval — which is typically informed more by anecdote than by serious analysis, or willingness to listen. It can entertain and is often harmless. But when it becomes a habit of politicians, it can be destructive.

In recent weeks elected members of three local authorities – Leitrim, Roscommon, Clare – have been seeking to ban fracking by inserting provisions in development plans doing so.  There are fundamental reasons why this should not happen.

• Firstly, it is very probably illegal. When elected members in Mayo banned mining in Mayo in 1992, the provision in their development plan purporting to do so was declared illegal.
• Secondly, exploration for sources of energy is supported by all political parties and is vitally necessary if Ireland is ever going to reduce its 86% dependence on imported sources of energy.
• Thirdly, it is not the function of elected members to make decisions of this nature. Our democratically elected Parliament has enacted a complicated and stringent code of environmental laws that provides that decisions on any project of potential environmental significance should be made by persons qualified to make them. In Ireland that is the EPA and An Bord Pleanala – both of which have a very good record in this respect. In the 20 years since the EPA was established, there are few, if any, authorised projects that are causing serious pollution or public health problems.

By banning fracking, elected members are prejudging the issue – they may be correct, but there is little evidence that they have listened to both sides of the story.

If the Government wants to ban fracking, it should.  And it is entitled to make a law doing so. But until it does, those exploring for energy are entitled to have their cases heard impartially by professionally qualified persons in State bodies whose function it is to decide on their applications. If they decide that fracking is unacceptable for environmental or any other legally permissible reasons, they have power to refuse permission for it.

Does it matter that local authorities behave this way?

Yes.  It does for the following reasons:

• Grandstanding explains in part why local authorities in Ireland lose, and continue to lose, responsibilities and powers in many areas.  Some of this leakage has to do with achieving economies of scale and scope, but a lot has to do with lack of credibility. Local authorities  – and especially their elected members as a group – are not seen to behave in ways that informed citizens would regard as reasonable.  Behaviour that goes down well in a partisan crowd in the local hall is not seen by the generality of citizens as thoughtful or responsible. The inevitable reaction is to move powers to the centre.  This pattern, soon to be extended to water, damages local democracy, and it can also damage performance, in that the intimate local knowledge which can improve decisions and their implementation, gets lost.  And areas of real achievement, such as vocational education, get damaged in the fall out.
• The ability of elected members to make impartial decisions that are legally robust on matters which may arise in connection with the consideration of any application for permission for a project involving fracking (for example, a variation of a development plan) can be compromised.
• And it discourages from public service those existing and prospective elected members who have an interest in evidence, the strategic issues, and listening to all sides.

Frank Convery is Chairman of Publicpolicy.ie and Senior Fellow at the UCD Earth Institute.  He has been active on a number of EU wide investigations and bodies focused on how to mobilize markets to protect the environment rather than destroy it.  He has been a member of the Science Committee of the European Environment Agency and President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and in Ireland served on the board of Comhar Sustainable Development council (chair), the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (chair), and the National Roads Authority. He has written extensively on resource and environmental economics issues with particular reference to agriculture, forestry, energy, minerals, land use, urbanisation, environment and development in developing countries.

Professor Yvonne Scannell is Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin where she teaches Irish and European Environmental Law, Planning Law and Regulatory Law, and is a Member of the Board of Public policy.ie.  Dr. Scannell has written six books and numerous articles on Environmental and Planning Law and some on Constitutional Law; served on the Boards of Forfas, An Foras Forbartha, Habitat for Humanity, Tara Mines Ltd., the Irish National Petroleum Corporation and on the Advisory Board of the EPA; and worked for UNDP and the EU in Eastern Europe. She practices Environmental Law with Arthur Cox, Solicitors.

You can view video interviews with Frank Convery in the June 2010 Issue of irish environment, and with Yvonne Scannell (on the failures of the Irish planning system) in the current issue of the magazine.

It was factors such as this that led Indaver Ireland Limited, part of an international waste management group with facilities and operations in Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, to announce in May 2001 that it proposed to build two incinerators at Ringaskiddy. The first incinerator was to be for a 100,000 tonnes per annum incinerator for hazardous and non-hazardous industrial and commercial waste. Indaver planned to build a subsequent incinerator for non-hazardous commercial and household waste. The traditional method of waste disposal in Ireland, land-filling, sits at the bottom of the preferred options of the European Union Waste Strategy which, based on the proximity principle (i.e. that waste should be dealt with as close as possible to where it is produced) puts waste prevention, recycling and incineration ahead of land-filling as the preferred methods of dealing with waste. This policy found expression in Ireland’s National Hazardous Waste Management Plan 2001 which argued that incinerator facilities were necessary if Ireland was to become self-sufficient in hazardous waste management.

Indaver applied for planning permission to Cork County Council on the 13th November 2001. Over 20,000 people objected to the application and although the County Councillors refused to grant permission, they did so on the sole ground that the development would constitute a material contravention of the Development Plan. The majority of the elected 48 Councillors in fact voted in favour of the application but this was less than the number of votes needed in circumstances where a planning application involves a material contravention of the Development Plan.

Indaver appealed this refusal to An Bord Pleanála while a large number of interested persons (including a group calling itself the Cork Harbour For A Safe Environment (CHASE)) appealed on the basis that the refusal should have been made on further grounds.

An Bord Pleanála decided to hold an oral hearing under the control of Mr. Philip Jones, a Senior Planning Inspector of the Board and the hearing was held over 13 days in September and October 2003.

The grounds of objection advanced by CHASE and others were numerous. They criticised the site selection process as not complying with World Health Organisation Guidelines and argued that its location at the end of the peninsula, with only one access road and where it was subject to the risk of seawater flooding and erosion on the eastern side of the site in storm conditions rendered the site entirely unsuitable. For example, the WHO Guidelines recommend against locating incinerators near high-density residential housing areas and educational establishments. The Ringaskiddy incinerator would have been 2km across the harbour water from Cobh which has a sizeable residential population and would have been located less than 100m away from the National Maritime College of Ireland.

Of particular concern to the objectors was what they regarded as multiple breaches of Council Directive 96/82/EC on the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances (the Seveso II Directive) which was implemented into Irish law by the European Communities (Control of Major Accident Hazards Involving Dangerous Substances) Regulations 2000. The National Authority for Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) is the relevant authority established under the 2000 Regulations. NAOSH wrote to the planning authority on the 7th March 2002 indicating that it “did not recommend against” the grant of planning permission. A body of evidence, apparently uncontradicted, was given on behalf of the objectors before the oral hearing of the Board that this advice was significantly deficient in numerous respects. At the Board’s request, NAOSH officials gave evidence to the oral hearing. Among the criticisms made were that NAOSH:

(a) had not conducted any modelling of offsite impacts of fires in waste containing biologically active pharmaceutical waste or specified risk material;

(b) did not realise that there was an 18-inch high pressure gas main pipeline running through the site and therefore did not take the additional risks posed by that pipeline in the event of a major accident into account at all;

(c) did not realise that the site was subject to coastal erosion and therefore did not calculate any risk factor posed to the integrity of the plant in the event of an accident;

(d) did not advert to the fact that the site was immediately adjacent to a public beach and thus contra-indicated in site selection terms in the Seveso II Directive;

(e) were not aware of the groundwater conditions where there is an inflow of seawater;

(f) did not collect any evidence about the hazard record of the proposed incinerator type, a fluidised-bed incinerator; and

(g) mistakenly asserted that the modelling for likely accidents scenarios on site would not cause structural damage to the adjacent National Maritime College when the data submitted by Indaver itself to NAOSH showed in fact a likelihood that the windows of the college would be blown in.

The Inspector submitted his report of the hearing to the Board on the 5th January 2004 in which report he concluded that the proposed development should be refused for 14 distinct reasons. Unusually, he did not even make any recommendations to the Board as to conditions which might be imposed in the event that it was minded to allow the development to proceed. He concluded that it would not be prudent for the Board to rely on the land use planning advice given by the NAOSH which he characterised as being “based on incomplete and inaccurate information and incorrect assumptions.”

He considered that the Board should conclude that there was not sufficient evidence before the Board to satisfy it that the proposed development would not pose risks to public safety in the event of major accident hazard. He found that the Environmental Impact Statement which Indaver had submitted was inadequate and failed to comply with the relevant European Directives.

Notwithstanding the views expressed by Mr. Jones, the Board proceeded by a decision of the 15th January 2004 to grant permission for the development subject to a number of conditions. While the Board accepted that the development was in breach of the Cork County Development Plan, the Board placed reliance on the national policy that Ireland had to become self-sufficient in relation to its handling of toxic waste. Despite the criticisms made by the Inspector of the evidence given on behalf of NAOSH, the Board simply stated that it had regard to the advice of NAOSH which did not recommend against the grant of planning permission.

Although Indaver still had to obtain a waste licence from the Environmental Protection Agency (and it was the division of function between the planning authorities on the one hand and the Environmental Protection Agency on the other that was to prove critical in the subsequent legal battle), a number of the members of CHASE led by Mary O’Leary commenced High Court proceedings on the 9th March 2004 by way of judicial review seeking to quash the Board’s decision (O’Leary –v- An Bord Pleanála & Ors).

The judicial review procedure requires that applicants for judicial review apply to the High Court for leave to commence the judicial review proceedings. In the area of planning law, the applicants have to show that they have “substantial grounds” upon which they are asking the Court to quash the decision in question. Both An Bord Pleanála and Indaver vigorously opposed CHASE’s application but following various exchanges of affidavits, the High Court granted CHASE leave on the 24th January 2005 to challenge the Board’s decision on a number of grounds. These grounds included a claim that the decision was invalid because the Board failed to carry out an integrated assessment of the project as required by the provisions of Council Directive 85/337/EEC (the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive or the EIA Directive), which failure, it was alleged, stemmed from the State’s failure to properly transpose the provisions of the EIA Directive into domestic law.

Meanwhile, Indaver applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for a waste licence (which it needed in addition to the planning permission from an Bord Pleanála). The controversy was intensified when in July 2004, the government appointed a former executive of Indaver as a director of the EPA although the EPA made it clear that she would not participate in any EPA decisions concerning incinerator licences.

On the 27th October 2004, the EPA gave a provisional decision to grant a waste licence to Indaver for the Ringaskiddy incinerator (and for another incinerator in Co. Meath). This was not a final decision however as CHASE and other interested parties stated on the 28th October 2004 that they would seek an oral hearing. (Ironically, on the day in question a storm resulted in the incinerator site being submerged in 3ft of water which CHASE seized upon as demonstrating the unsuitability of the site).

The EPA oral hearing ran for 2 weeks in February 2005 but on the 22nd November 2005, the EPA made its final decision granting the waste licence to Indaver.

In a second set of proceedings (Ringaskiddy and District Residents’ Association Limited –v- EPA & Ors), the applicants sought to quash the EPA decision by way of judicial review where again, one of the principal grounds of challenge was that the decision was invalid as a result of the State’s failure to properly transpose the provisions of the EIA Directive into domestic law.

CHASE and the other applicants then sought a hearing date for these judicial review proceedings. However, the critical issue of the transposition of the EIA Directive had also been raised in distinct proceedings concerning a different incinerator to which An Bord Pleanála, the State and Indaver were all parties (Martin –v- An Bord Pleanála & Ors). The State (with the support of the Board, the EPA and Indaver) successfully applied to adjourn the fixing of a hearing date in respect of both Ringaskiddy proceedings pending the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal in the Martin case.

It was widely considered likely that the Supreme Court would refer the transposition issue to the European Court of Justice given that it involved a critical issue of interpretation of the EIA Directive and where the European Commission had already expressed concern as to whether Ireland had properly transposed the Directive.

The Supreme Court delivered its judgment in Martin on the 10th May 2007. The Court held that the EIA Directive had been properly transposed into Irish law and declined to make any reference for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice, stating that there was no necessity to do so.

The full hearing of CHASE’s case against An Bord Pleanála (and the leave application in the case against the EPA) were then fixed for hearing for the 30th October 2007. It was apparent that in light of the Supreme Court decision in Martin the applicants could not maintain the argument based on the improper transposition of the EIA Directive in either set of proceedings.

Crucially, however, in the period leading up to the hearing, the applicants were wholly unaware of any ongoing communication between the European Commission and the State in relation to the adequacy or otherwise of the manner in which the EIA Directive had been transposed into domestic law, and still less were they aware of an imminent decision on the part of the Commission to bring infringement proceedings against the State in respect of that issue.

On the 17th October 2007, a few days before the High Court hearing, the applicants learned for the first time, from a report in the Irish Times, that the Commission was expected to bring legal action against the State relating to the issues surrounding the transposition of the EIA Directive. On the same day, the Commission decided unanimously to institute such proceedings against Ireland under what was then Article 226 of the EC Treaty.

From communications with the Commission, the applicants became aware that a reasoned opinion had been notified by the Commission to Ireland on the 29th June 2007, that the State had responded to this and that the Commission, considering the response inadequate, had decided to institute proceedings against Ireland.

On the 30th October 2007, the applicants applied to the High Court for an adjournment of their proceedings in circumstances where, from a purely domestic law viewpoint, those proceedings would (at least in relation to the transposition issue) inevitably fail but where, if the Commission’s proceedings against Ireland before the European Court of Justice were successful, the Supreme Court decision in the Martin case would be effectively overruled. The essential ground for the adjournment application was the need to avoid a potential conflict between a decision of the Irish High Court which would, inevitably, have to hold that there was nothing wrong about the transposition of the Directive given the Supreme Court decision in Martin, and a decision of the European Court of Justice if the Commission transpired to be successful in its proposed proceedings. Nonetheless, the High Court declined to grant the adjournment. The applicants then appealed that refusal to the Supreme Court (where the High Court agreed to defer the hearing pending the outcome of that appeal).

However, by the time the appeal came on before the Supreme Court on 9th June 2008, there did not appear to be much progress by the European Commission in actually bringing the proceedings which they had announced against Ireland. Accordingly, by a decision of the 31st July 2008, the Supreme Court dismissed CHASE’s appeal against the decision of the High Court refusing the adjournment.

While the Supreme Court was prepared to accept that the Commission, having made a decision to bring proceedings, would as a matter of probability commence such proceedings at some stage in the future, the Supreme Court maintained that it did not know the final formulation of the legal basis upon which the Commission would bring proceedings against Ireland and that the risk of a conflict depended on the speculation that the Commission would be successful. In the circumstances, the Supreme Court was not satisfied that there was a substantial risk of a conflict of decisions and dismissed the appeal against the refusal to grant a stay or adjournment.

While this meant that the applicants in both sets of Ringaskiddy proceedings lost those proceedings, the Supreme Court’s confidence that there was no substantial risk of a conflict of decisions transpired to be misplaced. On the 4th February 2009, the Commission commenced proceedings against Ireland before the European Court of Justice alleging a failure on the part of Ireland to properly transpose the EIA Directive. By a judgment given on the 3rd March 2011, the Court of Justice upheld the Commission’s complaints thus vindicating the argument that had been the foundation of CHASE’s and the other applicants’ attack on the decision of both An Bord Pleanála and the EPA.

The transposition issue can be summarised as follows. The 1985 EIA Directive requires that projects which are likely to have significant effects on the environment are subject to a requirement for a “development consent” and an environmental assessment with regard to their effects. This Environmental Impact Assessment must identify, describe and assess in an appropriate manner the direct and indirect effects of a project on factors such as human beings, fauna, flora, soil, water, air, climate, the landscape, material assets and the cultural heritage. Critically, Article 3 of the EIA Directive requires that the Environmental Impact Assessment should assess the interaction between these factors.

The Irish implementing legislation in 1992 introduced a sharp division of function between the planning authority (and, on appeal, the Board) on the one hand, and the Environmental Protection Agency (which has the responsibility for issuing the integrated pollution control licences) on the other hand. In deciding whether or not to grant planning permission, the Board is obliged by statute to disregard matters which relate to the risk of environmental pollution from the activity. (The only exception to this is that when the matter first comes before the planning authority, it has to decide whether an Environmental Impact Statement is needed at all and it takes this decision by reference to both planning and environmental considerations. However, once it decides that an EIS is necessary, the planning authority thereafter does not evaluate those parts of the EIS which deal with the risk of environmental pollution from the activity).

Conversely, when the EPA comes to decide on the grant of an IPC licence in respect of the various emissions etc. which are to be controlled by such a licence, it must confine its consideration of the project to matters which relate to the risk of environmental pollution from the activity.

The fundamental point which was made by CHASE and the other applicants and then by the European Commission was that by giving exclusive jurisdiction on planning matters to the planning authority and exclusive jurisdiction on environmental matters to the EPA, no provision was made for the mandatory requirement under Article 3 of the EIA Directive that the Environmental Impact Assessment should assess the interaction between all of the relevant factors. Indeed, the structure created by the implementing legislation positively prevented a consideration of this interaction and therefore prevented both the planning authority (and on appeal the Board) and the EPA from carrying out the type of Environmental Impact Assessment required under the EIA Directive. This is the argument which, although rejected by the Irish Supreme Court in the Martin case, was upheld by the European Court of Justice in the decision of the 3rd March 2011, Case C-50/09.

Ireland’s argument was that Article 3 of the EIA Directive states that the assessment is to be made “in accordance with Articles 4 to 11” and that since the Irish legislation does provide for the matters that are dealt with in Articles 4 to 11 (collecting and exchanging information and allowing for the possibility of consultation between the different agencies), Ireland must be deemed to comply with Article 3. However, the European Court considered that Articles 4 to 11 were merely procedural provisions which did not concern the implementation of the substantial and much more fundamental obligations contained in Article 3. While the planning authority is obliged to “take into account” an Environmental Impact Statement where it accompanies an application for a planning permission, that falls short of an obligation to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment and to assess the interaction between the various factors set out in Article 3.

The Court had no difficulty with the concept that the “development consent” required by the EIA Directive could be made up of two separate consents given in two successive stages (the planning permission from the planning authority or the Board and the IPC licence from the EPA). But the Irish legislation did not require any coordination between these two activities. The fact that as a matter of practice a developer requires both a planning permission and an IPC licence did not in itself bring about the consequence that either of the relevant authorities considered the interaction between the factors mentioned in Article 3. The fact that the authorities have a discretion to consult with each other fell short, in the Court’s view, of the obligation to ensure that the interaction between the relevant factors was considered as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment.

The Court identified the oddity that the EPA has no entitlement to call for an Environmental Impact Statement with a view to then conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment. Instead, the power to call for an EIS is reserved to the planning authority which, having received it, cannot make an assessment on environmental grounds. Thus, the bizarre situation could arise that an application could be made to the EPA for an IPC licence (prior to any application to the planning authority for planning permission) and the EPA would then have to make its decision without the benefit of any Environmental Impact Statement and where it has no power to call for such an EIS. Accordingly, the European Court held that Ireland had failed to fulfil its objectives under the EIA Directive.

Mary O’Leary and the other members of CHASE and the Ringaskiddy and District Residents’ Association may have lost their individual legal battles but they won the war because given the length of time the various legal proceedings and appeals took, the 5-year life of Indaver’s planning permission expired before they could commence any construction work on the project.

However, on 28th November 2008 Indaver made an application for a fresh planning permission under a new fast-track procedure whereby applications for projects of strategic national importance can be made directly to a new Strategic Infrastructure Development Section of An Bord Pleanála. The Board held an oral hearing from the 27th April 2009 until 18th June 2009 presided over by one of the Board’s Senior Inspectors, Ms. Oznur Yukel-Finn who recommended refusal on 30th October 2009. On the 10th June 2011 the Board refused to grant Indaver permission to build the incinerators on four grounds.

First, the Board was not satisfied that the development would be compatible with the Waste Management Strategy for the region. Secondly, the Board considered that the development would constitute over-development of the site and seriously injure the amenities of the area. Thirdly, the road serving the site is at the risk of flooding and the Board was not satisfied with the proposed mitigation measures. Finally, the Board was not satisfied that it had sufficient information concerning the risk presented to the site from coastal erosion in the future. Mary O’Leary described herself as “totally stunned and obviously delighted with this decision.”

However, a fresh legal battle commenced when the High Court granted Indaver leave on the 25th July 2011 to commence judicial review proceedings of An Bord Pleanála’s decision. Among the grounds relied upon by Indaver is the possibility that An Bord Pleanála may have been unaware of a decision by Cork County Council in May 2010 to cancel plans to build an alternative waste facility in Cork. Insofar as the Board relied upon the Council’s plans to build its own waste facility as a primary reason for refusing Indaver’s application, Indaver argues that the Board failed to take into account a relevant consideration. The current situation is that the Board has filed its papers in opposition to Indaver and the matter now awaits a High Court hearing.

As for the European Court decision of the 3rd March 2011 that Ireland failed to properly transpose the EIA Directive, no amending legislation has yet been introduced to bring Ireland into compliance with the European Court decision although one presumes that there must be draft amending legislation under consideration. Otherwise, Ireland will find itself facing further proceedings from the Commission for failure to comply with the judgment of the Court of Justice. Meanwhile, Mary O’Leary, her friends and colleagues are lining up to support their erstwhile enemy, An Bord Pleanála, in its High Court defence against Indaver. This is a fight that is clearly not over.

Michael M. Collins, SC is a Senior Counsel and a member of the Bars of Ireland, England and New York. He practises  in the areas of EU law,  environmental law, competition law, commercial law and international arbitration. A former chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland and a Bencher of King’s Inns, he is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin Law School.

Anything scarce and in demand commands a price; this is one of the basic principles of economics. Water is scarce in some contexts (drought, degraded quality), so water pricing is increasingly seen as an acceptable instrument of public policy. Water-use charges, pollution charges, tradable permits for water withdrawals or release of specific pollutants, and fines are all market-based approaches that can contribute to making water more accessible, healthier and more sustainable over the long term. For this reason, OECD countries are working toward the goal of “internalising” the full marginal costs (including environment costs) into decisions that affect water use and water quality.

One particular area of water policy that has become increasingly subject to pricing principles is that of public water supply and wastewater services. Efficient and effective water pricing systems provide incentives for efficient water use and for water quality protection. They also generate funds for necessary infrastructure development and expansion, and provide a good basis for ensuring that water services can be provided to all citizens at an affordable price. The metering of water consumption is a prerequisite for the application of efficient water pricing policies. About two-thirds of OECD member countries already meter more than 90% of single-family houses, although universal metering remains a controversial issue in some contexts.

Selective metering is less controversial, particularly if the public knows that new water resources are scarce, or if the metering applies to discretionary water use, like private swimming pools. Metering new homes is also more widely accepted than converting older ones.

Most of the OECD area population still lives in apartments, where metering tends to be for water supplies entering the building, rather than for individual apartments, although this is starting to change.

In terms of the structure of prices for public water services, there is a clear trend in OECD countries away from fixed charges and towards volumetric charging; in other words, the more you use, the more you pay. Even where fixed charges still exist, the policy of allowing large free allowances is decline. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, for example, already use pricing systems based solely on volumetric pricing, with no fixed charge element at all.

To encourage conservation, the trend in volumetric charging is also moving away from decreasing-block tariffs and towards increasing-block ones. This means that the charge increases with each additional unit of water used or wastewater treated, rather than providing discounts to high-volume users.

The pricing systems for wastewater treatment are rather more complicated than they are for water supply. This is partly because responsibility for sewerage, sewage treatment, and drainage is typically held by different bodies, each with their own principles and practices. Another complicating factor is that use of water directly from natural sources in the environment represents roughly 75% of total water consumption by the industrial sector (on average) in OECD countries.

Nevertheless, the basic charges for wastewater services are sometimes linked directly to volumes of water delivered from the public water supply system. Where this is the case, the structure of wastewater charges tends to mirror that of water supply systems.

Overall, however, industrial water consumption levels are actually not a very good proxy for industrial sewerage and sewage disposal costs, as discharges vary so much from industry to industry. Hence the trend in OECD countries towards separating industrial water use charges from wastewater charges.

In most countries, standard sewerage charges are supplemented by “special strength” charges designed to recover the costs of any extra capacity required to treat particular industrial effluents.

Industrial effluent charges can also be set by pollution content. In France, for example, a charge is levied on the eight types of pollutant deemed most dangerous and difficult to treat (heavy metals, phosphorus, soluble salts, etc.). The charge is calculated as a function of pollution produced during the period of maximum activity on a normal day. In other cases, the charging formula involved can reflect the costs of treating a particular effluent, or the environmental sensitivity of the receiving waters.

Service providers generally receive the proceeds of any industrial effluent charges. This revenue is sometimes channelled into an investment fund that can either allocate the money to water service providers, or to commission wastewater treatment investments directly.

Water charge levels have been rising in most OECD countries in recent years. One reason for this is that water quality is often getting worse as a result of over-consumption (especially where groundwater is used). Moreover, government budgets have been stretched to the limit, putting upward pressure on charges. Indeed, there is a demand for more efficient and equitable approaches than across-the-board subsidies for achieving social goals, like affordability.

There are other contributing factors, too. There may be past pollution of groundwater that necessitates more sophisticated and more expensive treatment, with a consequent need to develop more expensive demand-management or supply-based regimes. Maintaining and enhancing existing sources can also require more elaborate treatment to deal with new organic pollutants, often from non-point sources. And there may be legislative reasons, with EU directives, for instance, demanding tighter wastewater treatment standards.

As these trends are unlikely to be significantly reversed in the near future, further price increases are in the offing for most OECD countries.

Concern about the affordability of household water services for vulnerable groups, such as low-income households and retired people, has led to the development of a range of policy measures aimed at resolving affordability problems, while still meeting economic and environmental goals. In general, policies that target specific vulnerable groups – such as through income-related support – have been found to be more efficient at achieving all three objectives than across-the-board subsidies.

As regards “non-public” water services, about half of OECD countries levy some form of general charge on water abstracted outside the public system. In some countries, this charge has an explicit environmental objective, so the proceeds are allocated to an environmental fund. The Netherlands, for example, has two abstraction charges: one levied by the provinces for groundwater protection; and the other levied by the state within the general taxation regime.

For various reasons, some industries are finding that it is more efficient to avoid using the public treatment system to dispose of their effluents, and are developing their own self-treatment and re-use facilities.

General discharge controls are also often imposed on direct wastewater discharges that do not go through public sewers. The proceeds of these charges always go to the government, since there is no service provider involved. For example, a permit is usually required for discharging directly back into a river or aquifer. Some countries reduce these charges on the basis of environmental criteria. For example, there is a 75% reduction in the basic charge in Germany if the environmental standards envisaged by current regulations (expressed as “best available technique”) are maintained.

Subsidy conundrum

While pricing structures for municipal and industrial water services increasingly reflect the full costs of providing the services, agricultural water use – primarily for irrigation – remains heavily subsidised, which encourages inefficient use of often scarce resources. Recent OECD reports indicate that industrial and household water users often pay more than 100 times as much as agricultural users, although comparisons of this type are difficult because of the differing water quality needs and conveyance standards of different users. Nevertheless, it is clear that water prices are significantly lower for agriculture than for other user sectors in most OECD countries.

OECD countries are working towards more complete recovery of infrastructure and operating costs from users, although rather slowly. Greater transparency, including in the level of implicit subsidies provided through undercharging for infrastructure use, could help build public support for further reforms.

Tom Jones is with the Environment Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation (OECD).

Reprint of article © OECD Observer, No. 236, March 2003 www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/939/Pricing_water.html

References:

OECD (1999). The Price of Water: Trends in OECD Countries.

OECD (2003). Social Issues in the Provision and Pricing of Water Services.

OECD-IWA (2001). Water Management and Investment in the New Independent States.

Note: Pricing outside the OECD

Recent OECD work has also examined water pricing policies in the countries of eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), and in China. Unlike most OECD countries, many of these countries face serious financial deficits in the water sector. This results in underfunding of necessary maintenance and expansion of water and wastewater treatment infrastructure. In the EECCA countries, the extensive water infrastructure left from the Soviet period is deteriorating, resulting in reduced service quality and increased health and environmental risks. These countries face significant problems in even maintaining existing infrastructure, let alone expanding it.

irish environment Editor’s Note:

 See also the © OECD (2012), Water Quality and Agriculture:

Meeting the Policy Challenge, OECD Studies on Water, OECD Publishing. dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264168060-en

(12 March 2012).

We must leave the overwhelming majority of unconventional fossil fuels in the ground to avoid catastrophic warming, but [New York Times writer] Nocera wants to open every spigot.

Significantly exceeding 450 ppm risks several severe and irreversible warming impacts.  Hitting 800 to 1,000+ ppm — which is our current emissions path and the inevitable outcome of aggressively exploiting unconventional fuels like the tar sands as Nocera advocates — represents the near-certain destruction of modern civilization as we know it as the recent scientific literature makes chillingly clear.

NY Times business columnist Joe Nocera responded to my post “Joe Nocera Joins the Climate Ignorati.”  He also interviewed Bill McKibben for his new column, “The Politics of Keystone, Take 2.”  But he is still very wrong, and he didn’t represent McKibben’s position well at all.  Nocera’s new arguments are more elaborate. Since you see them a lot from centrist economist types, I will respond  in some detail –  with the help of McKibben, who explains here what he was trying to explain to Nocera and why Nocera’s final paragraph is “very unfair.”

I’ll also show that Nocera holds the environmental costs of the pipeline up to a considerably different standard of analysis than he does his hand-waving assertions of the supposedly vastly larger non-environmental benefits of Keystone.  A leading expert on life-cycle greenhouse gas analyses of the tar sands responds to Nocera’s lowball estimate.

Nocera goes astray almost immediately: “Here’s the question on the table today: Can a person support the Keystone XL oil pipeline and still believe that global warming poses a serious threat?  To my mind, the answer is yes.”

I know what you’re thinking.  Since when does Nocera “believe that global warming poses a serious threat”?

If Nocera really believes global warming poses a serious threat, you’d think he’d write about it regularly.  But his first Keystone article never mentioned warming and dismissed all environmental concerns.  Nocera wrote a long piece on the Chevy Volt last year and never mentioned warming or CO2 at all.

If you google his name and “global warming,” you’ll find 2008′s “At Exxon’s Can’t-Miss Meeting,” in which he touts the widely debunked nonsense peddled by physicist Freeman Dyson and dismisses knowledgeable people who express science-based views as trying to “push Exxon Mobil toward their belief system — their global warming religion.”

Needless to say, folks who “believe that global warming poses a serious threat” do not generally use the phrase “global warming religion.”  That was a key reason I called him a member of the climate ignorati.  The science says that global warming is an existential threat (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization” and literature review here).

Heck, the International Energy Agency, a staid and conservative group of economists and the like where Nocera should feel at home, says the world is on pace for 11°F warming and “Even School Children Know This Will Have Catastrophic Implications for All of Us”.

So Nocera lacks any “street cred” to either pose or answer the “question on the table today,” as he has never shown any indication that he believes global warming poses a serious threat — and indeed he has written in the past as if he does not.  In his first Keystone piece last week he wrote: “Along with the natural gas that can now be extracted thanks to hydraulic fracturing — which, of course, all right-thinking environmentalists also oppose — the oil from the Canadian tar sands ought to be viewed as a great gift that has been handed to North America.  These two relatively new sources of fossil fuels offer America its first real chance in decades to become, if not energy self-sufficient, at least energy secure, no longer beholden to OPEC.”

Now that doesn’t sound much like a climate realist.  Apparently Nocera wants us to think he is concerned about the global warming threat while simultaneously embracing full exploitation of unconventional oil and gas.  The analysis by James Hansen (and others) makes clear that those two views are in fact incompatible.  [See also Bombshell Study: High Methane Emissions Measured Over Gas Field "May Offset Climate Benefits of Natural Gas.]

That’s a key reason why all the folks best known for worrying about the threat posed by global warming oppose the pipeline.
Let’s dive into the piece itself.

Nocera’s piece continues: “The crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, which the pipeline would transport to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, simply will not bring about global warming apocalypse. The seemingly inexorable rise in greenhouse gas emissions is the result of deeply ingrained human habits, which will not change if the pipeline is ultimately blocked. The benefits of the oil we stand to get from Canada, via Keystone, far outweigh the environmental risks.”

Talk about moving the goal posts and misstating the problem and handwaving.  First off, no individual pool of carbon can “bring about global warming apocalypse” by itself.  But in combination with  the conventional coal, oil, and gas we are burning unconstrained — a policy Nocera appears to endorse wholeheartedly — then, yes, the tar sands will be a clear contributor to impacts that deserve the label apocalyptic.  Nocera would know that if he bothered to talk to real climate scientists like Hansen.

Blocking the tar sands isn’t about changing “human habits” — it’s about blocking access to a vast pool of carbon that needs to be left in the ground.  Obviously if  you frame all efforts to  stop catastrophic climate change as attempting to change “deeply ingrained human habits” then you can hand wave all action away.

And speaking of  handwaving, Nocera  never actually quantifies the supposed “benefits of the oil we stand to get from Canada.”  That’s probably because such quantification is difficult if not impossible, since those benefits are minimal.

In fact, Nocera simply asserts that tar sands oil and shale gas gives us a chance to become “no longer beholden to OPEC.” But that may be the sloppiest statement Nocera has written on this subject.  He knows  that the price of oil is set on an international market.  The Keystone XL pipeline would carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil a day.  That’s a little over 1% of global supply (and 4% of U.S. supply, assuming we got it all, which we won’t) –  it will have no significant impact on the price of oil or OPEC’s ability to control price (neither will shale gas).  Now, if Nocera is really proposing a vast expansion of tar sands oil significant enough to be even, say, 10% of global oil supply, well, then that would be precisely what opponents of the pipeline have been arguing — that it opens the door to levels of tar sands  exploitation that would in fact make a major contributor to climate catastrophe.

Nocera continues: “When I tried to make that case on Tuesday, however, I was cast as a global warming ‘denier.’ Joe Romm, who edits the Climate Progress blog, said that I had joined ‘the climate ignorati.’ Robert Redford — yes, that Robert Redford — denounced my column in The Huffington Post. ‘Let’s put the rhetoric aside, and simply focus on the facts,’ he wrote.”

NOTE TO NOCERA: Calling you part of the climate ignorati does not mean I am casting you as a “global warming ‘denier’.” I reserve that term for people who spread long-debunked disinformation knowingly and/or as part of the broader anti-science disinformation campaign.  The ignorati are, as Google quickly reveals, “Elites who, despite their power, wealth, or influence, are prone to making serious errors when discussing science and other technical matters.”

Actually, Nocera didn’t try to make that case.  He never detailed the supposed benefits of the pipeline, and he called concerns about environmental risks posed by expansion of the tar sands “ludicrous.”

Nocera continues: “Yes, let’s. In particular, let’s focus on two issues that have become the cornerstone of the opposition to Keystone. The first is that the crude from the tar sands is, in Redford’s words, ‘the dirtiest oil on the planet’ — so dirty, in fact, that it will dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions and greatly exacerbate the growing threat of global warming.  There is no question that oil from the tar sands will increase greenhouse gases. But by how much? According to a study by IHS Cera, a leading energy research firm, the oil from the tar sands emits only 6 percent more greenhouse gases than other, lighter forms of oil. (Environmental groups have tried to poke holes in the study, but even they don’t come up with the kind of increase that would doom the planet.)”
No and no.

First, the IHS Cera analysis isn’t transparent, and therefore it isn’t very useful.  It isn’t just enviros who have issues with it.   I interviewed one of the country’s foremost authorities on comparative lifecycle GHG analyses of the tar sands, Adam Brandt.  He is in Stanford’s Department of Energy Resources Engineering, and author of the December 2011 study, “Variability and Uncertainty in Life Cycle Assessment Models for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Canadian Oil Sands Production.”

I asked him why IHS Cera was on the low side of most other analyses and what he thought was the best range to use.  He said, “I am not sure of exactly what CERA did in their study” and “I have a hard time commenting on numbers that CERA derives, because I can’t see what they did.”  He says: “There is a lot of variability depending on the oil sands project in question.  I think a reasonable range for the existing oil sands projects is a 5%-30% increase over the California baseline value.  When speaking to reporters, I cite a baseline industry-average increase of 10-15% compared to the California baseline.”

Second, again, to avoid catastrophic global warming we need to leave the majority of hydrocarbons in the ground — and the overwhelming majority of unconventional fossil fuels in the ground.  The tar sands is at the top of the list of unconventional fossil fuels that need to be left in the ground, particularly if you’re talking the kind of exploitation needed to actually have any impact whatsoever on U.S. energy security — see Hansen slams Keystone XL Pipeline: “Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts.”

X-axis is the range of potential resource in billions of barrels. Y-axis is grams of Carbon per MegaJoule of final fuel.

Nocera continues: “What’s more, there is plenty of oil being produced today with the same greenhouse gas consequences as the oil from the tar sands. As Michael Levi, an energy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, says, ‘The argument you hear is that because it increases greenhouse gas emissions, we shouldn’t tolerate it.  Well, so do the lights in my house. You have to be discriminating’.”
Seriously.

That may be the lamest analogy in the history of energy and climate.  Nocera is actually analogizing the GHG emissions increase from 900,000 barrels a day of dirty tar sands oil with flicking on the lights in your house!  And remember, Nocera wants a lot more oil than that.

How bad is this analogy?  Many people choose to get their  electricity from renewable sources — so for them turning on the lights don’t even increase GHGs.  The point is people don’t have any choice about  the dirty tar sands oil — but Obama does.

Nocera continues: “The second argument is that the tar sands oil won’t help the United States because it is all headed for export. This is perhaps the silliest argument of all. Right now, most of the big refineries on the Gulf Coast export around 20 percent of their refined product. Why? Because every barrel of crude oil is converted partly to diesel and partly to gasoline — and the rest of the world is far more reliant on diesel fuel than we are. The gasoline remains in the United States. Keystone wouldn’t change that equation one bit. Normally, one wouldn’t have to point out that exporting high-value products is good for the country. But, of course, improving our trade balance is irrelevant when you’re facing the apocalypse.”

Actually, it isn’t a silly argument because Nocera titled his piece “The Politics of Keystone.” Exporting this oil is a political killer.  But in any case, Nocera is willing to hand wave away all the environmental arguments because Keystone would enrich U.S. refiners?

He continues: “You want to know another little secret about the tar sands? It’s already coming here, thanks to existing pipelines — and it is already doing us a great deal of good. The influx of Canadian oil is partly why our imports from OPEC are at their lowest level in nearly a decade. And because the crude from Canada is selling at a steep discount to Saudi Arabian crude, it is stabilizing the price at the pump.”

Another handwaving argument.  Let’s see if Nocera can find a study that says 900,000 barrels of tar sand oil will lower US oil prices over the long term.  Good luck.

Consider an analogous case, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2009 report, “Impact of Limitations on Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf.” The EIA  analyzed the difference between restrictions to offshore drilling and full offshore drilling, which means about half a million barrels of oil a day more in U.S. oil production in the 2020s and beyond.  In 2030, US gasoline prices would be three cents a gallon lower.  Woohoo!

Noticera continues: “Somewhat to my surprise, the most reasoned Keystone opponent I spoke to this week was Bill McKibben, who led the protests against it. Although the tar sands ranks as ‘the second biggest pool of carbon in the world,’ he told me, ‘Keystone, by itself, won’t make or break the environment’.  Rather, he said, he and other environmentalists had decided to draw this particular line in the sand because stopping Keystone would help accelerate what he described as the difficult transition from a fossil fuel economy to a new, brighter world based on renewable sources of energy. ‘The most sensible way to go about dealing with global warming is one pipeline at a time,’ he said. ‘These kinds of fights are extremely important because they are the way the message gets out that we need to change’.”

You won’t be surprised to learn this isn’t what McKibben was saying.  McKibben writes me: “What I said, in fact, was ‘the most sensible way to go about dealing with global warming is not one pipeline at a time.’ And of course that’s true–it would make the most sense to have a real policy that put a stiff price on carbon. But since that’s not happening at the moment, despite our best efforts, we’re in a constant fight to try and keep carbon in the ground wherever we can.  The tar sands are key for the reason we’ve said from the start: there’s so much carbon in there that if you tap it heavily it’s ‘game over for the climate’ no matter what else you do.  The other thing that I talked with him about but failed to get across was that the biggest danger was not the extra carbon in tar sands oil but the sheer scale of the new deposit they’re now opening up. He seems to have dropped his earlier insistence that they’d get it to Asia somehow anyway: I think he heard from people about the opposition to the Gateway pipeline.   He’s taking what I think he conceives of as a ‘realist’ stance, from someone immersed in the world of business and diplomacy. What I tried and failed to explain to him is that there’s a deeper kind of realism that comes from physics and chemistry, a kind of realphysics that will trump realpolitik.”

Nocera ends his piece: “Maybe — just maybe — stopping the Keystone pipeline would be worth it if it really was going to change our behavior and help usher in the age of renewable energy. It would, indeed, be worth turning our backs on oil that we badly need and that is already making our country more secure and prosperous.  But let’s be honest. It’s not going to change anyone’s behavior. If Keystone is ultimately blocked, the far more likely result is that everyone who opposed it will get to feel good about themselves while still commuting to work, alone, in their S.U.V.’s.”

Again, it’s clever but specious to turn this into an issue about changing our behavior.  We need to leave most of the fossil fuels in the ground and that should start with the tar sands.

McKibben writes: “The last paragraph is very unfair. ‘Everyone’ opposed to keystone is not commuting to work alone in their SUV; the people I’ve met in the course of this fight are the most spirited, engaged, sincere and lovely bunch of people I can imagine.  But you know, you could add one more thing from me please:  ‘Nocera at least heard the criticism of his column and circled back for another look. He didn’t reverse what he said, but he did soften his tone. And that’s good. This is complicated stuff if you’re new to it, the power of the status quo is strong, and over time our leading journalists are starting to figure it out. It wouldn’t surprise me if eventually he ended up where the New York Times editorial page arrived many months ago: understanding that Keystone really was an important part of the fight for a working planet’.”

Hear!  Hear!

Posted by Joe Romm on think progress on Feb 13, 2012 at 12:27 pm

thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/13/423525/joe-nocera-wrong-unfair-keystone-xl-tar-sands-pipeline-mckibben-hansen-explain-why/
Editorial Note:

The opinion pieces by Joe Nocera in The New York Times can be found at:

Joe Nocera, “Poisoned Politics of Keystone XL” The New York Times, February 6, 2012.

www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/opinion/nocera-the-poisoned-politics-of-keystone-xl.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Nocera%20Keystone&st=cse

Joe Nocera, “The Politics of Keystone, Take 2,” The New York Times, February 10, 2012

www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/opinion/nocera-the-politics-of-keystone-take-2.html?scp=1&sq=Nocera%20Keystone&st=cse
For more on the debate, see:

George Hoberg, “The Three Logics of Climate Politics” Posted on February 13, 2012

greenpolicyprof.org/wordpress/?p=790

Bryan Walsh, “Pipeline Politics: Keystone, Advocates and Analysts,” Posted February 15, 2012

ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/02/15/pipeline-politics-keystone-advocates-and-analysts/

For another blog post on the relation between fracking for shale gas and extracting oil from tar sands, see “The Hidden Cost of Canada’s Oil Sands,” The Harbinger: Green Culture & Politics in New Brunswick

nbharbinger.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/fracking-and-the-tar-sands/

“EU tar sands pollution vote ends in deadlock,” The Guardian, February 23, 2012 www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/23/eu-tar-sands-pollution-vote?INTCMP=SRCH

But before I was handcuffed, I addressed fellow activists who had gathered outside The White House with these words:

Let us return for a moment to the election night in 2008. As I sat in our farmhouse in Pennsylvania, watching Barack Obama’s victory speech, I turned my head aside so my wife would not see the tears in my eyes. I suspect that millions cried. It was a great day for America.

We had great hopes for Barack Obama — perhaps our dreams were unrealistic — he is only human. But it is appropriate, it is right, in a period honoring Martin Luther King, to recall the hopes and dreams of that evening.

We had a dream — that the new President would understand the intergenerational injustice of human–made climate change — that he would recognize our duty to be caretakers of creation, of the land, of the life on our planet — and that he would give these matters the priority that our young people deserve.

We had a dream — that the President would understand the commonality of solutions for energy security, national security and climate stability — and that he would exercise hands–on leadership, taking the matter to the public, avoiding backroom crippling deals with special interests.

We had a dream — that the President would stand as firm as Abraham Lincoln when he faced the great moral issue of slavery — and, like Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, he would speak with the public, enlisting their support and reassuring them.

Perhaps our dreams were unrealistic. It is not easy to find an Abraham Lincoln or a Winston Churchill. But we will not give up. There can be no law or regulation that stops us from acting on our dreams.

Tar Sands and Unconventional Fossil Fuels

In a previous post “Silence Is Deadly” I wrote, “The environmental impacts of tar sands development include: irreversible effects on biodiversity and the natural environment, reduced water quality, destruction of fragile pristine Boreal forest and associated wetlands, aquatic and watershed mismanagement, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disruption to life cycles of endemic wildlife particularly bird and caribou migration, fish deformities and negative impacts on the human health in downstream communities.”

Figure 1: Total conventional fossil fuel emissions (purple) and 50% of unconventional resources (blue).

Now, I’ll illustrate the emissions scenario from potential burning of tar sands oil and other unconventional fossil fuels (UFF) as contrasted with conventional fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal). Figure 1 helps make clear why the tar sands and other unconventional fossil fuels ought not to be developed and burned. The purple bars show the total emissions to date from the conventional fossil fuels. These past emissions, plus a smaller contribution from net deforestation, are the cause of the CO2 increase from 280 to 391 ppm — where we are today. I wrote before, “Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on earth.”

The blue bar is 50% of known UFF resources. Supporters of UFF development argue that only 15% of the tar sands resource is economically extractable, thus we may exaggerate their threat. On the contrary, Figure 1 is a conservative estimate of potential emissions from tar sands because: the economically extractable amount grows with technology development and oil price; the total tar sands resource is larger than the known resource, possibly much larger; extraction of tar sands oil uses conventional oil and gas, which will show up as additions to the purple bars in Figure 1; development of tar sands will destroy overlying forest and prairie ecology, emitting biospheric CO2 to the atmosphere.

We show in “The Case for Young People” that it is probably feasible to avoid dangerous climate tipping points, but only if conventional fossil fuel emissions are phased down rapidly and UFFs are left in the ground. If governments allow infrastructure for UFFs to be developed, either they don’t “get it” or they simply don’t care about the future of young people.

Preserving creation for future generations is a moral issue as monumental as ending slavery in the 19th century or fighting Nazism in the 20th century.

Citizen’s Arrest on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

George Bush confessed our addiction to oil. Taking tar sands oil amounts to borrowing a dirty needle from a neighbor addict. Fortunately, Congress adopted and Bush approved the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007, which was intended

to prevent US agencies from buying alternative fuels that generate more pollution in their life cycle than conventional fuel from customary petroleum sources. Tar sands oil not only exceeds conventional petroleum, but the energy used in mining, processing, and transporting tar sands oil makes it slightly worse — in terms of CO2 produced per unit energy — than coal.

Who would drive a car powered by coal!?

This raises a question: if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, can we make a citizen’s arrest on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for violating the Energy Independence and Security Act?  If they were put in the back of a hot paddy wagon in DC and held for at least several hours with their hands tied behind their backs, maybe they would have a chance to think over this matter more clearly.

Real Solution

Let’s address a common criticism: “It does no good to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, because other pipelines will be built.” Indeed, pipeline opposition and other stopgap actions (closing a coal–fired power plant, etc.) have little ultimate effect unless we put in place the real solution.

Let me address the following points that would lead to the real solution:

a. ‘Law of gravity’: as long as fossil fuels are cheapest, someone will burn them.

b. Fossil fuels are cheapest because: direct/indirect subsidies; human health costs not paid by fossil fuel companies; and climate disruption costs not paid by fossil fuel companies.

c. Only workable solution: rising across–the–board flat fee on carbon, collected from fossil companies at point where fossil fuel enters domestic market (domestic mine or port of entry).

d. Larson rate — $10/ton of CO2/year — at year 10 yields 30% reduction in US emissions.

e. 30% of US emissions is ~ 13 Keystone XL pipelines!!!

By year 10 the Larson fee is equivalent to $1/gallon of gasoline. The public will not allow this to happen unless 100% of the collected fee is distributed to the public, which could be done electronically to bank accounts or debit cards. By year 10 the fee collected from fossil fuel companies would be over $500 billion per year, providing $2–3,000 per legal adult resident of the country.

Jim Dipeso, Policy Director of Republicans for the Environment, endorses this approach, saying that it “makes use of market principles, by prodding the market to tell the truth about the costs of carbon–based energy through prices. It would not impose mandates on consumers or businesses, create new government agencies, or
add a penny to Uncle Sam’s coffers.”

Further: “Businesses would seek out more opportunities to improve their energy efficiency. Other businesses would sell products and services that enable them to do so. Low carbon energy sources would be more competitive with high–carbon sources.”

Finally: “Transparent. Market–based. Does not enlarge government. Leaves energy decisions to individual choices. Takes a better–safe–than–sorry approach to throttling back oil dependence and keeping heat–trapping gases out of the atmosphere. Sounds like a conservative climate plan.”

How could this be achieved, given our well–oiled coal–fired Congress? Not easily.

Obama had the chance when he was elected. He would have needed to explain to the public that national security, energy security and climate security all yield the same requirement: an honest price on carbon emissions that provides market–based incentives for moving to clean energies.

Obama lost his chance for a spot on Mount Rushmore by not addressing the moral issue of the century. He would have needed Teddy Roosevelt’s drive and Franklin Roosevelt’s ability to speak to the public. A second chance if re–elected? It would be much harder, even if characters like Inhofe are smoked out by then. And it cannot be done with a sleight–of–hand approach, pretending there will be little impact on fossil fuel prices as in the proposed cap–and trade, or with government picking winners as in the would–be “green jobs” program.

The energy/climate matter will be addressed eventually. But will it be in time and which country will lead? There is an incentive to be the first to put an honest price on carbon: future global technologic and economic leadership. Europe squandered its resources on government specified inefficient technologies. If the United States
continues on its current path, and if China seizes the opportunity to be the leader by putting an honest price on carbon, it will probably mean second–rate economic status for the United States for most of this century.

If President Obama chooses the dirty needle (approves the Keystone XL pipeline) it is game over (for the earth’s climate) because it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing, like the other well–oiled coal–fired politicians with no real intention of solving the addiction (of fossil fuels). Canada is going to sell its dope (dirty tar sands oil), if it can find a buyer. So if the United States is buying the dirtiest stuff, it also surely will be going after oil in the deepest ocean, the Arctic, and shale deposits; and harvesting coal via mountaintop removal and long–wall mining. Obama will have decided he is a hopeless addict.

Have no doubt — if the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is approved, we will be back, and our numbers will grow. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must find a leader who is worthy of our dreams.

©2011. James E. Hansen

Dr. James E. Hansen is director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental

The article was first published on www.climatestorytellers.org, the website founded by Subhankar Banerjee, an Indian-born American photographer, writer, environmental educator, and activist, and the article is reprinted with Subhankar’s kind permission.  www,climatestorytellers.org

Editorial Note:

For an argument similar to Hansen’s that “Preserving creation for future generations is a moral issue as monumental as ending slavery in the 19th century or fighting Nazism in the 20th century,” see Damian Carrington’s Environment Blog in the Guardian (January 4, 2012) where he reports on “Future generations risk ‘enslavement’ without a vote now:  intergenerational justice.”  Rupert Read, a philosopher at the University of East Anglia, in a report called Guardians of the Future for the think tank Green House proposes an idea that is both radical and straightforward: a council of “Guardians of Future Generations”, chosen like a jury from the general public, would sit above the existing law-making bodies and have two core powers. A power to veto legislation that threatened the basic needs and interests of future people and the power to force a review, following suitable public petition, of any existing legislation that threatens the interests of future people.

See also the idea that we do not inherit this earth from our ancestors, but we borrow it from our children.  The sentiment is usually attributed to the American Indian Chief Seattle .

Finally, the concept has been raised by the United Nation’s Environment Program (UNEP) in a recently issued “Common Statement.”  The Statement reflects various issues that the UN agencies believe need to be addressed at the Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), better known as Rio+20, in June 2012.  In the “Common Statement,” the UNEP calls for more inter-generational equity even urging creation of “a special arrangement for oversight of and advice on equity as an outcome of the development process, including for future generations, such as an independent special rapporteur for equity…”. www.unep.org/

In 1992, it was accepted that the occupied atmospheric space would need to be vacated to make room for the emerging world to grow because emissions are an outcome of economic growth. This acceptance recognised the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities in reducing emissions. A firewall was built to separate those countries that had to reduce emissions to make space for the rest of the world to grow. That year in Rio de Janeiro, the world was talking about drastic cuts of 20 per cent below the 1990 levels to provide for growth as well as climate security. Even in that age of innocence, the negotiations were difficult and nasty. The US argued its lifestyle was non-negotiable and refused to accept any agreement specifying deep reductions. In 1998, the Kyoto Protocol set the first legal target for these countries much below what the world knew it needed to do.

Two decades later, the idea of equity has become an even more inconvenient truth. By now there are more claimants for atmospheric space. Emerging countries have emerged. China, which in 1990, with over a quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for only 10 per cent of annual emissions, contributed 27 per cent by 2010. So, the fight over atmospheric space is now real. While the rich countries have not reduced emissions, the new growth countries have started emitting more. In 1990, the industrialised countries accounted for 70 per cent of the global annual emissions. In 2010, they accounted for 43 per cent but this is not because they have vacated space. The new growth countries—China in particular—have only occupied what was available. Emission reductions proposed 20 years ago have still not been committed or adhered to. In fact, in most already industrialised countries emissions have either stabilised or increased. In coal and extractive economies, like Canada and Australia, emissions have risen by 20 per cent and 46 per cent respectively.

The world has run out of atmospheric space and certainly of time. Will the rich, who contributed to emissions in the past and still take up an unfair share of this space based on their populations, reduce emissions? Or will the emerging countries be told to take over the burden? This is the big question, and an inconvenient one at that.

And mind you climate change is not the problem of the present but past contributions. The stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has a long life. This means that any discussion on how the carbon cake will be divided, must take into account those gases emitted in the past and still present. So while China accounts for 27 per cent of the annual emissions, in cumulative terms (since 1950) it still accounts for only 11 per cent. Similarly, India contributes 6 per cent to the annual global emissions, but is only responsible for 3 per cent of the stock. The rich countries, with less than a quarter of the world’s population, are responsible for some 70 per cent of this historical burden. This stock of gases is responsible for an average global temperature rise of 0.8°C and another 0.8°C in future, which is inevitable. To keep temperature rise below 2°C, the world needs to cut emissions by 50-80 per cent below the 2000 levels by 2050. Now equity is no longer a moral idea, but a tough challenge. It is for this reason that global climate negotiations reached their nadir in Durban. It is for this reason that the US and its coalition are hell bent on erasing any mention of historical emissions from all texts. It is for this reason that the rich world is pointing to the emission growth in China and India, and dismissing their need for development as their obdurate right to pollute.

It is also an idea that is difficult to sell in a world distrustful of idealism and any talk of distributive justice. Even climate change negotiators do not really believe this form of climate-socialism can happen. They will tell you that the world is never going to give up space, that the world is too mean to give money or technology to poor nations for transition to low-carbon growth.

But this is because they forget that climate change is the market’s biggest failure. We cannot use the market for its repair. To avoid catastrophic changes it is essential to reach a collaborative agreement, which will be effective. And cooperation is not possible without fairness and equity. This is the pre-requisite. Take it because we must.

                    *                                        *                                        *

Sunita Narain is a writer and environmentalist, the director general of the Centre for Science and Environment, the director of the Society for Environmental Communications, and publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth, all in India.  In 2005 she was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, she has received the World Water Prize for work on rainwater, she is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Climate Change, and a member of the National Ganga River Basin Authority, chaired by the Prime Minister, set up to implement strategies for cleaning the river.

The article was first printed in Down To Earth (December 2011).

www.downtoearth.org.in

In EU, the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) is based on the idea that modern water management needs to take account of ecological, economic (including pricing) and social functions throughout the entire river basin.

Water pricing is one of the measures used to reduce water demand. The Water Framework Directive requires EU Member States to ensure that by 2010 the proportion of the cost of water services – such as pumping, weirs, dams, channels, supply systems – with a negative impact on the environment – must be paid by the users (e.g. agriculture, hydropower, households, navigation). Member States are required to split the costs according to the ‘polluter-pays’ principle in order to reduce the impact on the environment and promote economic instruments to tackle the decline of natural resources. If Member States fail to include other infrastructures than drinking water supply and wastewater treatment in their economic analyses, there is a major risk that such infrastructures already identified as creating major environmental problems will be exempt. Consequently, the economic burden of water bodies reaching ‘good status’ by 2015 will remain with citizens, who already pay high prices for water services.

There has been a general trend towards higher water prices in real terms throughout Europe over the past 20 years, and wide variations in water charges exist both within individual countries and between different countries in Europe. This is due to the wide range of factors that determine local water prices and the level of recovery costs.

In several countries, increased water prices decreased household water use significantly (see figure below). In many eastern European countries, water prices were heavily subsidised until 1990. After 1990, there was a marked increase in prices in these countries during their transition to market-economies, resulting in lower water use. In Estonia, for example, water prices increased markedly after subsidies were removed, which in conjunction with water measuring and application of more advanced sanitation devices, led to a more than 50 % reduction in water use in the last 15 years (Figure WAT_PRICE_b).

WAT_PRICE: Effect of water price on household use in A) Denmark 1985-2004 and B) Estonia 1990-2004

Source: A) DEPA 2004 updated by EEA and B) Estonian Environment Information Centre, 2006

Measuring water use is a prerequisite for water prices reducing consumption. Households with water meters installed generally use less water than households without meters. In Europe, household and industrial water metering continues to increase. Many of the NWE countries already meter the majority of water uses. However, in many countries and in relation to agriculture water use metering is still limited.

When addressing water charges, focus should also be placed on households and agriculture that have difficulties with paying for water for essential purposes (since it is generally recognised that no one should have to compromise personal hygiene and health). The Water Framework Directive requires an affordable price to guarantee a basic level of domestic water supply (Article 12a).

Over the past 10 years there has been a marked increase in the amount of information provided to consumers (e.g. water-efficiency labels for households’ appliances, information on efficient lawn watering and gardening practices, etc.) and agriculture. Many countries, NGOs, large municipalities, water companies and international organisations have dedicated home pages to water conservation and water use behaviour.

Re-published with permission from European Environment Agency

Fracking

Fracking (or “hydrofracking”) is the deliberate inducing of an underground detonation in a methane bearing formation from which methane cannot otherwise be extracted. It consists in the high-pressure injection of massive amounts of water, sand and undisclosed chemicals into production wells. The effect of the injection is to shatter the methane bearing rock strata, which releases the methane for commercial recovery through pumping the same well. The pumping liquid, highly toxic, is returned to the surface as part of the recovery process. While Pennsylvania has highly articulated and longstanding programs for regulating both coal mining and landfilling municipal waste, which embrace removal and disposition of methane associated with those activities, the Pennsylvania program for regulating methane extraction, itself quite old, was never designed to consider fracking. That program, as you can see by examining the permit application form of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (“DEP”) [ www.elibrary.dep.state.pa.us/dsweb/Get/Document-48256/550-2100-002.pdf ], involves only notifying the Department of the location of the well and providing assurances on the amount of local water that will be consumed in the proposed fracking operation. This latter requirement exists only because certain other governmental agencies, such as the Delaware River Basin Commission and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, are required by law to safeguard their associated river basins from excessive extractions of surface and groundwater. There is, for example, no requirement that chemicals used in a particular fracking operation be disclosed in the permit and in fact the fracking operator need not disclose these chemicals to anyone under federal law, which prohibits such disclosure as a “trade secret.” Neither is there any requirement that fracking operators assess or protect groundwater in the vicinity of their operations, despite the fact that common sense consideration of the impact of an underground detonation, coupled with Pennsylvania’s long historical experience with coal mine and quarry blasting, inevitably suggests that there will be some significant deleterious impact on groundwater near such detonations or even considerably distant from them.

What is the actual, on the ground experience with fracking in Pennsylvania? From the standpoint of the methane extraction industry, production has been good, huge pipeline projects are being eased through a complacent regulatory process that is noticeably lighter in touch than that experienced by their business cousins in the coal mining and landfill industries.

From the standpoint of landowners, householders or well users, the experience has been radically different. It takes little imagination and scant sympathy to recognize that exploding toilets or flammable tap water were not part of ordinary life in Pennsylvania prior to fracking, yet these are some of the assaults that have occurred. Free methane in groundwater is not and never has been an ordinary occurrence in Pennsylvania.  While a DEP sympathetic to the fracking industry pushes its half measures through Pennsylvania’s cumbersome legal process, landowners worry deeply about contamination of their groundwater.  Of course, since all of the fracking chemicals are exempt from disclosure, no one really has any idea what the extent of the contamination might actually be. I will not try to list individual instances of damage likely occurring as a result of fracking in Pennsylvania, but instead refer the interested reader to the website maintained by Robert Myers, which is comprehensive if not indeed currently definitive on negative occurrences in Pennsylvania which are reasonably attributable to fracking. www.lhup.edu/rmyers3/marcellus.htm  Most recently, and most astonishingly, the DEP, only twenty-four hours after the errant driller made his request, allowed the driller to stop potable water delivery to a family whose water well was much earlier found to have been contaminated by the driller’s activities. The evident theory of DEP is that methane in the family’s well has reached “acceptable” levels. There was of course no analysis of what fracking chemicals – protected from disclosure even in these grievous circumstances – are still present in the family’s household well. See citizensvoice.com/news/dep-cabot-ok-to-stop-dimock-water-deliveries-1.1220633#axzz1bJy9kQqe

What’s Not Reached Under The Current Pennsylvania Program for “Regulating” Fracking?

Pennsylvania has one of the most evolved systems of environmental law in the U.S. Yet none of it is regularly, effectively or thoroughly applied to fracking. The Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law, 35 P.S. 691.1 et seq., is a comprehensive statute that regulates the discharge of all forms of industrial waste to ground and surface waters within Pennsylvania, yet clearly the prohibition on discharge of industrial waste to such waters is not enforced as to fracking activities. Likewise, the Pennsylvania Solid Waste Management Act, 35 P.S. 6018. 101 et seq., is clearly applicable to the sort of wastes generated by fracking, but it seems simply not to occur to Pennsylvania regulators actually to engage in such an undertaking. Both those statutes provide for stringent civil and criminal penalties for violation of permit terms and for discharges in violation of the statutes. They are still regularly applied, however, to other regulated entities, such as coal mining operations, landfilling of trash, steel fabrication, sewage treatment and a variety of other private and public activities in Pennsylvania – just not to methane drilling and extraction activities.

The False Promise of Severance Taxes

There is repeated talk of imposing a severance tax on methane extraction in Pennsylvania. Such taxes are generally opposed by the industry, although the experience with severance taxes on coal in other U.S. coal mining states has been that such taxes actually lead to increased coal extraction since the states earn substantial revenue from granting, at times indiscriminately, permits for more and more coal mining. (Editor’s Note)  In addition, with nonrenewable geologic substances such as coal and methane, when the extraction ends – when the coal’s all taken or the methane exhausted – revenues stop abruptly and governments are without the financial means to function. This includes any governmental ability to abate damage left behind by coal mine operations, which has been substantial and largely unaddressed. Pennsylvania has some 50,000 miles of streams. Of that total, some three thousand miles are contaminated irretrievably by coal mining discharges.

These two drawbacks – pressure to issue dangerous permits and ultimate loss of a revenue source on which government becomes dependent and with no ability to replace it – argue strongly against such a tax.

Fracking in Pennsylvania State Parks

Pennsylvania has one of the oldest and most extensive state park systems in the U.S.A. Most of the land was acquired at sales of land for local taxes that had not been paid, typically timber operations that were no longer profitable. What Pennsylvania acquired in these purchases was usually just the surface estate, but not the still potentially lucrative mineral rights, which include the right to extract methane. Thus many of Pennsylvania’s 117 pristine state parks, all heavily used by the public, are now subject to methane extraction operations that cannot be stopped absent a legislative prohibition on methane extraction activities in such areas. In the vast Allegheny National Forest, a U.S. preserve within Pennsylvania, a U.S. court has recently authorized drilling in the forest, also a heavily used tract of publicly accessible land used for camping, hiking, hunting and fishing. Ironically, drilling may also take place on the grounds of Pennsylvania’s prison system, including Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Waymart, Pennsylvania. See citizensvoice.com/news/state-prisons-eyed-for-drilling-1.1220635#axzz1bLfoHU7r

Coalbed and Landfill Methane

Coal mining has been part of Pennsylvania life at least since the early 1800s. The amount of unaddressed historical damage to land and water from coal mining is astonishing, although at least since the early 1970s, the grosser abuses of coal mining have been significantly curbed under a panoply of specialized statutes aimed at damage from coal mining. Among those statutes are Pennsylvania’s laws on deep mine safety, which have required for many, many years that methane (often encountered underground by mining laborers) be vented from the mines for the safety of the workers. More recently, as disputes over ownership of such methane have been resolved, efforts to recover it commercially have increased. All aspects of the coal and methane extraction operations remain subject to strict regulations as to effects on groundwater quality and quantity (including household wells), surface water quality and quantity, air quality, worker safety and public safety. None of these considerations apply with respect to fracking.

Likewise, landfilling of municipal waste in Pennsylvania is also stringently regulated and it also produces substantial amounts of methane for commercial recovery. The same considerations as for coal mining and associated methane extraction also apply to Pennsylvania regulation of landfilling and associated methane extraction – protection is required for groundwater quality and quantity (including household wells), surface water quality and quantity, air quality, worker safety and public safety. Again, none of these considerations are required by DEP with respect to fracking.

Areas Unsuitable For Mining

Under the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. 1201 et seq., the federal government prohibits coal mining in certain areas, e.g., within one hundred feet of an occupied dwelling. It also provides a discretionary governmental process whereby an individual may seek to have certain tracts of land declared unsuitable for coal mining based on predictable or likely deleterious environmental effects or to protect the public health safety and welfare from mining activities. Pennsylvania has long since adopted a similar set of prohibitions and a similar administrative process for coal mining in Pennsylvania, yet it has no such prohibitions or processes for fracking, despite the damage drilling operations have already caused in Pennsylvania.

Conclusion

Pennsylvania’s experience with methane has been largely negative, fraught with mishaps and environmental damage. Neither DEP nor the Pennsylvania General Assembly demonstrate any meaningful inclination to regulate methane drillers as they do methane extraction accompanying coal mining and landfilling of municipal waste, so it is most likely that methane extraction will proceed with permanently unabated and avoidable environmental harm and deleterious effects on the public health, safety and welfare. Given Pennsylvania’s extensive history of successful regulation of these other two methane-producing industries, this omission seems as intentional as it is inexcusable. Any jurisdiction considering allowing fracking should look closely at the largely negative Pennsylvania experience and see if similar mistakes can be avoided in their own geographic province.

Jim Morris is an environmentalist who formerly worked for the Pennsylvania environmental protection agency.

Editor’s Note: The President’s Commission investigating the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico pointed out a similar outcome to severance taxes.  The federal agency responsible for assuring that oil drilling did not harm the environment was also responsible for raising revenues for the government from oil drilling.  In the 1980s, under President Reagan and Secretary of the Interior James Watts there was an explosive expansion of oil drilling, their version of “Drill, baby, drill.”  As a result, royalties and revenues from oil and gas resources constituted the second largest source of revenues for the US.  Not surprisingly, regulatory oversight, intended to protect the natural resource being exploited, disappeared so that between 1990 and 2009 unannounced inspections in the Gulf of Mexico by the federal agency fell from almost 3,000 a year to a few hundred a year.

While implausible concerns about “rebound effect” have been around since the mid-nineteenth century, they have not impeded recent progress in improving the efficiency of energy use and reducing its environmental impacts.

The most obvious rebuttal to “rebound effect” claims is the performance of the US economy since the early 1970’s: between 1973 and 2009, US economic production more than tripled even as total US energy use increased by less than a third. If “rebound effect” advocates were right, that record would have been flatly impossible, since savings in energy use would be offset by activities that demand energy, keeping energy use trends in lockstep with economic growth (just as they were for the first three decades after World War II).

That was indeed the confident prediction of some economists when we began our careers in the mid-1970s, and such forecasts lie today on the ash heap of history — along with hundreds of unmourned power plants that never had to be built and mines that never had to be dug.

Yet the same discredited thesis has resurfaced recently in reports by The New Yorker writer David Owen and the iconoclastic Breakthrough Institute, which today released a report subtitled, “A Review of the Literature” [translation: “don’t expect anything new”].  In the report, the Institute acknowledges that, “truly cost-effective energy efficiency measures should be vigorously pursued as they will lead to an improvement in the general welfare.” Since we agree entirely with that conclusion, it is tempting to end the discussion there, but the authors of the study also insist that the “rebound effect” will deny the global environment any benefits following that “improvement in the general welfare,” so an additional word is in order.

We reject the Institute’s implication that there is some kind of emerging academic consensus around the “rebound effect.” To the contrary, the most respected academic energy efficiency think tanks such as the UC Davis Center on Energy Efficiency  and Stanford’s Precourt Institute on Energy Efficiency share the view that energy efficiency delivers big economic and environmental benefits. The reality is that energy efficiency is a huge success story and a key tool to reducing global warming, increasing electric reliability, slashing energy bills for those consumers who can least afford them, and avoids the need to build new costly power plants.

The Breakthrough Institute blames a host of evils on efficiency, but fails to back up their accusations with facts. It acknowledges that serious energy analysis of rebound effects shows them to be “comparatively trivial.” People who insulate their houses don’t absorb all the savings by sweltering through the winter, and buyers of efficient refrigerators don’t start leaving the doors open gratuitously. But after admitting that studies show rebound effects to be small and getting smaller over time, it tries to create a counter-narrative by inserting warnings that “the available evidence to date remains too limited to draw precise conclusions.”

Efficiency does not mean restraining energy services growth. It means using less for the same amount of service. The skeptics are confusing this trend with the sometimes-on, sometimes-off trend towards more efficiency, and claiming that more efficiency induces more demand for energy services.

The problem is that neither Owen nor the Breakthrough Institute has presented any evidence that this is happening in the real world: all of their examples are devoid of any mention of how efficiency leads to demand for activities that demand more energy, as opposed to other economic factors. Instead, they rely on naïve interpretations of economic theory—the same interpretations that show that cost effective energy efficiency is impossible.

Given the weaknesses of this form of economic theory for the purposes of efficiency analysis, it is even more important than usual to rely on data. The clearest data-focused test of the “rebound” hypothesis is whether an economy that embarks seriously on efficiency policy really can cut its overall energy use. Because without question, if the thesis has any plausibility at all, the answer has to be “no”; or at least “not nearly as much as predicted.”

Fortunately for the cause of economic truth, we have such experiments. California, for one, embarked on a broad set of policy reforms to encourage efficiency and promote renewable energy in 1974.

The influence of energy efficiency policies are helping the whole California economy (California would be the 8th largest national economy in the world if it were a nation) to save much more than one would expect. California is not the only example of a state or country promoting efficiency through policy and then showing divergent usage trends from its neighbors and thus demonstrating that energy really is saved. Perhaps this is why serious studies have found that the economy-wide rebound effect is trivially small.

In my blog, I show how California’s projected savings from energy efficiency programs, derived year by year in real time by the California Energy Commission, have resulted in 15 percent reductions; and these programs have resulted in 40 percent reductions compared to the rest of the country.

California is just one example. Other states and several countries that have pursued efficiency policies also demonstrate lower energy usage and growth than those that did not so implement such policies.

Energy efficiency saves energy, increases electric reliability, avoids the need to build new power plants, and saves Americans money. It’s really that simple.

The article was originally published on David Goldstein’s Blog, at SWITCHBOARD: Natural Resources Defense Council Staff Blog, switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dgoldstein/energy_efficiency_and_the_rebo.html

A recent survey showed that the vast majority of Irish people consider that they care for the environment.  Some of us even act on that concern – picking up litter, monitoring the lives of the birds in ‘our’ gardens, writing letters about gas refineries, cycling to work. But even those of us who consider ourselves as acting with concern for the environment would do well to pause for a moment and ask, on what basis do we act with concern?

Various reasons have been given for why people show concern for the environment but the first, foremost or sometimes only reason is, how the environment affects particular humans.  For example, with climate change, Americans are only or mainly concerned for the impact on the United States, the Irish for the impact on Ireland, and so on.  Self-interest, or self preservation, is extended only insofar as it is felt that its extension will extend the benefits to the self. There is no actual ethical consideration in this position.

However, there is also another perspective on why we ought to consider the right and wrong – the ethics – of our actions towards the environment. This relies on thinking of the environment as having value in and of itself. From this perspective, individual organisms, entire species, and entire ecosystems are valuable for their own sakes and not because humans are there to value them.  Pigs, dogs and horses, as well as microbes and whole, natural ecosystems, have value by virtue of their being evolved, independently of human agency, and of being alive.

The word “environment”, derives from a latinate root, still evident in the French term, environ, meaning “round about or surround”. By environment, in a sense, I mean, the neighbourhood, that surrounding milieu within which we live out our lives. This includes, most obviously, the human environment, in the sense of the community of people, but also the built landscape, by which we are surrounded. It also includes the environment in the more traditionally understood sense: the natural world, from the microbial to the entire biosphere: the living ecosystems around us, and the material, mineral, gaseous backdrop upon which they evolved. The microbial environment is not only external, existing in the soil around us, as well as in all our humanly built constructions. It’s also within us: in our guts and bloodstreams, in the air, water and food, passing in and out of us, and living alongside the primate part of us as intimately and intertwined as if we were one co-organism.

Morality is about more than acting in our own interests.  The requirement of ethics is to go beyond simply doing as you would be done by – only in order that someone or something does something good to you in return. Instead of acting kindly in the hope that someone will act kindly back, we also act kindly for the other’s sake. In acting morally, we don’t act for a reward, even if a reward of some kind is one element of motivation. Instead, we act because we recognise that the other has value too. We treat that other – either human agent or ‘the environment’ – not as an instrument of our own good, but as an end in itself, recognising that certain conditions are good for the other quite independently of their being good for us.

Once we admit to ourselves that individuals and communities of other species have their own agendas, their own interests (though that does not imply that they need to be conscious of those interests) , independent of our interests, then we’d be hard pressed to ignore that information and continue as though the only interests which mattered were human.

Human agents – individuals or communities – which operate purely on self-interest are impoverished by the lack of imagination and creativity they display. To human beings, and indeed to human societies, which have evolved through the strategy of thinking, of problem-solving, any process, such as imagination, which curtails thinking is bound to curtail the ability to behave resiliently when under threat. In reality, a curtailment of imagination, of creativity, is actually a curtailment of resilience, a failure to use the full potential that humans have to react and respond to emergency situations.  Without imagination, especially the ability to imagine the life of other humans or species, we often resort to fear and violence for survival. Just as ‘de-humanising’ others is used as a strategy to facilitate the killing of other humans in war, so a denial that other organisms or clusters of organisms have interests of their own allows us – illegitimately – to justify their destruction.

There is an argument that living with ethical concern for the environment involves a contradiction in terms. We can’t help but to destroy life in the course of our own living. Our living requires that we kill to eat (even as vegetarians), to clothe and heat ourselves, for shelter – taking space from other creatures. And we are simply too large as organisms to be able to avoid the unfortunate unintentional killing of countless tiny lives as we go about the course of our days.

What this argument fails to recognise is that having a concern for the environment for its own sake implies developing an attitude of respect not only towards the environment, but towards one another. However hard it seems, we need to rebalance the consideration of interests involved, including the interests of the environment. This involves using all the tools we have, internal, external, to imagine how our lives impact on other lives.  We necessarily still kill and destroy others in the environment, but if our attitude is to minimise the harm that we do to the interests of others in the environment, then we are far more likely to come to a balance than if we only consider, ‘what’s in it for me’.

However ethical we want to be, self-centredness will still be one important motivating factor in any decisions about how to relate to the environment. However much we respect and even revere living entities in all their shapes and forms, from mountains to molehills, from oceans to octopi, we have also to recognise that it is most certainly in our own interests to be involved in the protection and conservation of the environment and of natural biodiversity, where this means a rolling back of the influence of human interventions. We really don’t need to be hair shirt wearers to act ethically towards the environment. We don’t need to pretend that we’re on some moral high ground either. As human agents we have the capacity to step outside ourselves, to understand that we’re not alone in having an interest in being alive. Without acknowledging that  recognition that there are other interests at stake, narrower, shorter-term interests will always take precedence. But we need to do more than appeal to pragmatism. Because beneath and beyond our self-interest, concern for the environment is more than just ‘doing it for ourselves’.

Lucy Bingham McAndrew is a PhD student at NUI Galway researching environmental ethics

This week has seen a new green meme emerge: the idea that investment in high-carbon companies is creating a “carbon bubble” that could leave the world exposed to another financial crash. The catalyst is a fascinating report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative that explores the obvious but usually overlooked mismatch between the world’s stated climate change targets and the market response – or lack thereof.

We’ve known for a long time that the world’s remaining carbon budget is tiny compared with the total amount of exploitable oil, coal and gas reserves. In other words, our chance of tackling climate change mainly comes down to one thing: how much fossil fuel the world can be persuaded to leave in the ground.

Although that sounds obvious, it’s worth restating, because for all the crucial current debate over renewable energy and nuclear power, it’s important to bear in mind that low-carbon technologies are necessary but not necessarily sufficient. Even if we had enough low-carbon power to match current energy consumption that wouldn’t in itself mean that the fossil fuels would stay in the ground; the world might simply use more energy.

Given that meeting the world’s agree climate target  limiting global warming to 2C – will almost certainly require huge quantities of valuable fossil fuels to be left untouched, it’s surprising that the environment community hasn’t been quicker to flag up what that might mean in terms of business risk for fossil fuel companies. If most oil, coal and gas reserves are “unburnable”, could the primary assets of the world’s biggest energy companies be as toxic as the dodgy mortgage debts being traded in the run-up to the 2008 financial collapse?

Thanks to the Carbon Bubble report, we now have some better numbers to help us grapple with that question. Based on research by the Potsdam Institute , the report suggests that if the world wants an 80% chance of staying within the 2C limit, we should avoid emitting more than 565 gigatonnes (GT) of CO2 by 2050. That equates to just one-fifth of the world’s total proven fossil fuel reserves, which contain enough carbon to produce a massive 2,795GT of CO2, the report estimates.

Of course, a large proportion of the world’s fossil fuels are controlled by state-owned companies such as Saudi Aramco. But even if these states could somehow be persuaded to leave all their oil, coal and gas in the ground for the greater good, that wouldn’t solve the problem because, according to the report, even just the top couple of hundred private energy companies listed on world’s stock markets have significantly more carbon assets that the world can afford to burn. And yet fossil fuel companies – which are heavily invested in by our pension funds, as well as by private investors – are generally considered among the safest companies to put money into.

So what’s going on here? It seems there are four scenarios that could explain the apparent mismatch:

1. The markets are in fact working properly and the cost of energy investments already reflect the considerable risks of unburnable assets. However, this doesn’t seem likely given that until the Carbon Bubble report came out there wasn’t even an easily available reference with which to compare the carbon content of reserves with the acceptable carbon budget. More fundamentally, it doesn’t seem likely when you consider that the big energy companies are openly prospecting for new reserves: if they and their investors really believed they were going to have to leave some of their existing fuels in the earth, why would they be spending large sums of money looking for new ones?

(The most recent BP annual report is typical of the industry’s public stance on this question: it softly acknowledges that carbon regulation could increase costs and reduce growth opportunities but also states emphatically that “BP’s future hydrocarbon production depends on our ability to renew and reposition our portfolio”.)

2. The markets understand the big-picture risks of unburnable assets but believe these will be obviated by the development of technologies that allow us to inexpensively capture the CO2 released by fossil fuels – either at the point of use or through a massive rollout of ambient carbon scrubbers. This seems unlikely, given carbon capture’s painfully slow development.

3. The market is acting irrationally or on bad information and, as the report suggests, gradually inflating a carbon bubble.

4. Conversely, the market believes simply that the risks of unburnable carbon are small because the world shows no sign of taking the two-degrees target seriously.

The really worrying thing, I think, is that the fourth scenario seems just as plausible as the third – and will remain so until the UN process shows some progress on legally binding emissions cuts at the global level. In other words, let’s hope that there does indeed turn out to be a carbon bubble, because at least a bubble can burst. The alternative – that the markets are correctly predicting there will never be enough political will to impose the 2C temperature limit – is the really scary prospect.

Duncan Clark is an environment journalist, author and campaigner.

The article was originally published in the Guardian on July 15, 2011.

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jul/15/high-carbon-bubble

In May 2008 a helicopter flew over unexplored parts of the Amazon in Acre State in Brazil, near the country’s border with Peru. Onboard were officials from Funai, the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department, on a mission to prove the existence of unknown Amazonian tribes who have never been in contact with the outside world. The few aerial pictures Funai has released show startled and intrigued people and their huts but do not reveal any landmarks which could be used to identify the exact location.

The alarming rate of deforestation in the Amazon poses a very concrete threat to such remote tribes. It does not only threaten their livelihood but also their way of life. Loggers and cattle ranchers continue clearing the forest cover and moving further into the heart of forest, inflicting often irreparable damage to the environment as well as exposing remote tribes to diseases for which they have no immunity.

Unfortunately, the Amazon and its tribes are not the only ones bearing the consequences of the growing global demand for natural resources. Five years ago Bisie was jungle. Located in the Wailikale territory, east Congo, it is now a cramped township as a result of the discovery of cassiterite, a derivative of tin that is a crucial component in the circuitry of many modern gadgets. It’s in mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and gaming devices. Today despite the boom in mining activities in its forests, the large majority of the Congolese remains extremely poor.

Thousands of kilometres from Bisie, in the state of Orissa nestled up against the Bay of Bengal, live Gangi Bhuyan and her husband Sukru Bhuyan with their young family. This is east India, the legendary spring of India’s mineral wealth and a major source of materials for global industrial growth in the past.

For about five months of the year Gangi and Sukru feed their family from the less than half acre plot of land they cultivate on the verge of the forest that surrounds Raibada, their village. During this time they also harvest vegetables, seeds, fruit, medicine and building materials (such as grass) from the forest. For a further four months, this is their main supply of food. Without the forest they would starve. For the remaining three months they are forced to migrate to large urban areas such as Bangalore or Mumbai where they work as labourers.

For many indigenous people the forest is their lifeline, while the timber or the minerals buried beneath are sometimes a curse. Across the world, because of their relatively higher dependence on the environment, the poorest of the poor are often the most affected by environmental degradation. This damage is driven by global demand for raw materials, which in turn is driven by human consumption.

Unfortunately, such communities’ historic claim to forest resources and land has rarely been transcribed in modern society’s legal systems. Government bodies like Funai or non-governmental movements like Survival International are faced with a daunting task. To have the rights of such indigenous tribes protected fully, in the case of the Amazon and Peru, they might first have to prove the existence of these tribes.

In other cases, like in India, there has been some progress. The Forest Rights Act is now facilitating the transfer of land rights to tribal communities. Gangi and Sukru Bhuyan have not received a title to the plot of land but some of their neighbours have. These one-sided, carefully laminated pieces of paper are clutched with a mixture of pride and surprise. The success of their neighbours means that the Bhuyan family has hope.

Most of the losses in forest cover take place in developing countries and are largely caused by weak governance structures for forest conservation and management. But the pressures forests and forest communities face are not limited to developing countries.

Despite growth in forest cover and stronger forest governance structures, Europe’s forests and forest communities also feel the bite of growing demand for natural resources and environmental degradation.

We are using our planet’s resources faster than they can replenish themselves but we want to continue consuming and producing ever more. We not only risk running out of vital resources, we are actually making our home less and less habitable.

Perhaps the solution lies in recognising the fact that we are only one species among many and our wellbeing depends on harmonious interaction with all others. All living things, including us, have a rightful claim on the forests of the world, even if we live in an urban area on the other side of the planet, because the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink, and the climate we live in depend on them.

What forests do for you

Forests can provide all sorts of food: fruit, honey, mushrooms, meat and so on. If properly managed, they can also deliver a sustainable flow of resources such as wood to the economy.

Forests are also crucial in terms of the medicines they store. In India, As many as 8 000 species of plants are regularly used as medicine by the people of India with 90–95 % coming from forests. Less than 2 000 of these plants are officially documented.

But forests do a lot more. For example, trees and vegetation help ensure a healthy climate locally and globally by absorbing pollutants and greenhouse gases. Forest soils decompose wastes and purify water. And people often travel far to enjoy the beauty and tranquillity of forests, or to engage in pastimes such as hunting.

All of these services — providing food and fibre, regulating the climate and so on — are valuable. We would pay a lot for machines that could do the same thing. For that reason, we should think of ecosystems as a form of capital, which provides services to the owner but often also to other people nearby and far off (as in the case of climate regulation). Crucially, we need to maintain our natural capital — not overexploiting the ecosystem and not over-polluting — if it is to continue providing these hugely valuable services.

Reprinted from the European Environmental Agency (22 April 2011).  For further information and related material, see www.eea.europa.eu/articles/forests-and-their-forgotten-communities

Adaptation is a process. It can be one change made by an individual, such as a farmer changing the planting time of his crops, or a national or global action supported by legislation. We can identify two primary types of adaptation based on how the process takes place: reactive and anticipatory. Reactive adaptation is prompted by an extreme event, such as hurricane Katrina, while anticipatory adaptation is a planned approach to adapting to anticipated climatic changes. Reactive approaches are much less cost effective than anticipatory approaches, as we all know a stitch in time saves nine.

Adaptation is distinct from mitigation actions that lower our greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation and mitigation ideally go hand in hand but this is not always the case and this can lead to what is known as mal-adaptation. An example of this is the increased demand for air conditioning units in the summer months which although tackling the heat increase leads to an increase in emissions. Adaptation should be appropriate, feasible and effective. It needs to be appropriate to the place that it is in and the conditions, it needs to be feasible with appropriate funding, and it needs to be cost effective.

Why the urgency?

Prevention is undoubtedly better than cure; it’s preferable to tackle a problem at source rather than trying to deal with the consequences. This idea is wholly applicable in the case of climate change adaptation. Recently international bodies have failed to address and mitigate anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and this has led to a global mean temperature rise of on average 0.76°C. Furthermore, the rising trend is accelerating and we are now urgently in need of a cure. It must be highlighted that adaptation is not a Plan B or an alternative to the reduction of greenhouse gasses. Adaptation should be viewed as a vital component of the effort to address the wider issue of climate change. Thus adaptation and mitigation should be pursued urgently and in parallel with each other, in a complementary and timely way.

One of the biggest arguments put forward for attempting to adapt now is that climate change has already built significant momentum. Even if we could switch off all emissions now, we would not stop or reverse the effects of climate change over the next 50 years due to inertia in the climate system. This means that some climate change is inevitable due to historic and current emissions of greenhouse gases. In essence the different rates of response of the climate system mean that the effects of greenhouse gases emitted today will not be felt for years to come. We as a society then have to come to terms with the fact that we must urgently adapt to climate change, irrespective of how greenhouse gas emissions are presumed to change over the coming decades. We have seen that the establishment of reduction targets and agreements is highly politicised and can become badly side-lined.

The calls from experts are clear. In Ireland the Irish Academy of Engineers has highlighted the risks posed by climate change to critical infrastructure. Over the coming century we can expect higher sea levels which will threaten Ireland’s cities and major towns. We as a nation can also expect more intense storms, warmer temperatures and warmer waters, more flooding, summer droughts and changing rainfall patterns. By 2050 we expect to see a 25% reduction on the amount of surface water available and a population increase of 2.5 million; both factors will have a severe impacts for Ireland and in particular on Dublin which relies heavily surface based resources. It would not take a great leap of the imagination then to come to the conclusion that if current climatic conditions test our infrastructure, such changes will only serve to cause further hardship. Look at the lessons from the November 2009 floods.

The impacts and risks associated with these changes are real, are already happening and will have consequences for us all, including many systems and sectors that are necessary for human livelihood, including water resources, flood protection and energy supply. Reactive adaptation is an expensive and risky option. Academics have noted that in the absence of planned and anticipatory adaptation, autonomous adaptation will inevitably occur, but the residual costs associated with this strategy, and potential losses associated with the wait and see policy, severely outweigh the cost of building a more robust society now. By avoiding the costs of adapting now we only place a larger burden on future populations. Uncertainties in the models of the climate system and gaps in knowledge need not be a limit to pursuing adaptation through identifying win-win options, those which are designed to be effectual today, tomorrow and under a wide range of climatic conditions.

The maintenance of Ireland’s society, economy and ecology can be climate proofed through robust anticipatory adaptation strategies. This is an issue that cannot be put on the long finger. The proof of what is happening is before us and many systems are already at the limit of their capacity to absorb shocks. The Dublin water supply system, Cork flood defences and our unique wetlands are just some of the examples. To ensure a secure and prosperous future we must be proactive now, and not shy away from our responsibility to future generations

Some Challenges to Begin

As adaptation requires action on the part of society, it poses a great challenge, as factors such as personal ethics, goals and values, awareness/knowledge, understanding the risk posed and ingrained cultural behaviours influence how and why people act or do not as the case maybe.

People’s ethics and values greatly control how and why they act, as it is what motivates them. If there is no value or benefit to changing one’s actions to adapt, or the current lifestyle is valued more, goals will never be set and action will never be intentionally taken. In Ireland, our capacity to adapt to climate change is large relative to that of other nations, even if the current financial crisis has dented substantially our ability to mobilise capital resources to address these problems.

In terms of adaptation, knowledge can affect adaptation in very different ways and can either aid our ability to adapt or hinder it. At the personal level, knowledge is often derived from past experiences which shape our opinions or understanding of issues and events. In the case of climate change adaptation, people who have experienced natural hazards or climate extremes will be more aware of the importance and need for adaptation to occur and may have some idea of how this would be done. These people have developed a local knowledge that facilitates their adaptive capacity. For people with no experience of these types of events it may not be quite so easy to see the necessity or urgency of adaptation to climate change and therefore they may be unable or unwilling to adapt. However, this is not the only way that knowledge will challenge adaptation. On the wider scale, where people have considerable knowledge about future climate trends there may be questions raised as to whether this knowledge is “trustworthy”. Climate scenarios are based on modelled projections and are therefore inherently uncertain.  Although this uncertainty can be accounted for and quantified, it can never be eliminated. For this reason climate model outputs and future climate scenarios are often viewed as untrustworthy knowledge by the public and lead people to wonder if there is a point in adapting to changes that we are unsure about.

What we perceive as a risk and whether it should be acted upon can reduce adaptation actions on an individual and societal level. Perception of risk can interact with underlying values and factors such as social status and as a result can form limits to adaptation. The perception of vulnerability is linked to the perception of risk. A population can either see themselves as vulnerable to a particular risk or see themselves as not threatened or vulnerable. When a population does not see themselves as vulnerable they do not see the need to adapt. Many populations do not see themselves as vulnerable or at risk due to a lack of knowledge about local impacts. People see climate change impacts as removed from them in space and time (not here, not yet).

The most immediate challenge for adaptation then is to make the threat of climate change, and the imperative of adaptation, here and now.

MSc in Climate Change, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth:

Dr. Conor Murphy (Course Director), Liam Barnard, Patrick Barrett, Stephen Barry, Sarah Boggan, Jessica Butler, Nicola Cadogan, Eimear Flynn, Aoibhinn Lynch, Ciara McTeigue, Elizabeth Moran, Robert Moss, Suzanne Mulholland, Susan O’Driscoll, Marie O’Connor, Laura Watts.