National Grid backs plan for earlier petrol and diesel ban
News
National Grid backs plan for earlier petrol and diesel ban
The 2040 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales should be brought forward by a decade, says National Grid, the company that runs the UK’s national electricity network, report the Guardian and others. The firm says it could cope with the demands on the grid from an earlier surge in electric vehicles, the Guardian says, adding that National Grid wants to build a network of “superfast” car charging points at motorway services. A senior National Grid official told MPs that the UK should aim to match or beat targets in other European countries for phasing out conventional car sales, reports the Daily Mail. It quotes the official saying: “The sooner you make the change the easier it is to achieve the target. I think from a National Grid point of view 2030 or 2040 is far enough out.” Separately, the Times reports that drivers of “eco-friendly cars” are to be hit with the largest increases when rates of vehicle excise duty – which it calls “road tax” – change next month. The rate for new cars continues to incentivise lower-CO2 models but this incentive disappears after the first year, the Times notes.
Canada to miss 2020 climate target: audit
Canada is likely to miss its interim 2020 carbon target and will need “substantial” additional measures to meet its commitment under the Paris Agreement, says AFP, covering an audit from Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand. The audit also found most Canadian provinces lacked adequate climate adaptation plans. Environment minister Catherine McKenna, also quoted in the piece, says the report is “backwards looking” and does not take into account a new federal climate plan published last year.
Vehicle pollution still rising in Germany: agency
Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 0.5% in 2017, largely thanks to the closure of coal-fired power plants, Reuters reports, even as the transport and industrial sectors saw rising emissions, citing preliminary data released by the German federal environment agency. Emissions in the power sector fell by 4.1% while transport emissions rose 2.3% on the back of rising vehicle ownership and a booming economy.
UK MPs call on Gove to trigger climate reporting clause
A group of MPs say UK financial regulators should be forced to report on their plans to cope with climate risks, reports Climate Home News. The Environmental Audit Committee says ministers should use a clause in the UK’s Climate Change Act to compel disclosure. BusinessGreen also covers the news. In a separate article, BusinessGreen reports on the Green Finance Taskforce urging government to ensure mandatory climate risk disclosures from companies, investors and regulators.
China says it has met 2020 climate goal
China has reached its 2020 climate target three years early, says the Hill, citing a report from the state-run news agency Xinhua. The target was to cut the level of CO2 emissions associated with each unit of GDP by 40-45% by 2020, compared to 2005 levels. China hit a 46% reduction in 2017, according to Xie Zhenhua, China’s special representative on climate change.
Subsidy-free renewable projects on ‘cusp of breakthrough’
Plans to build the world’s first offshore windfarm built without government subsidies, announced last week, are being “hailed by many as a milestone for the renewable industry,” reports the Financial Times, which adds that subsidy-free renewables are also on the “cusp of breakthrough” in the UK. Like Carbon Brief‘s in-depth Q&A on the same topic, the FT cites “significant challenges” that stand in the way of subsidy-free deployment, particularly the risks due to volatile wholesale power prices.
‘Extreme’ fossil fuel investments have surged under Donald Trump, report reveals
Global bank holdings in the dirtiest fossil fuel projects have “skyrocketed” during Donald Trump’s first year as US president, says the Guardian, covering a new report from a group of NGOs. Most of the increase was due to a doubling in loans and bonds to Canada’s tar sands oil industry during 2017, the report found. The Financial Times also covers the findings. [Note that, in addition to Trump’s taking office, 2017 also saw oil prices continue to rebound from lows plumbed in early 2016.]
Comment
One of Europe’s Biggest Polluters Is Turning Toward Wind Power
Ewa Krukowska and Maciej Martewicz, Bloomberg
Poland’s largest utility, Europe’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, is shifting to embrace wind power, Bloomberg reports. PGE SA wants to build offshore windfarms in the Baltic Sea and is also working to speed up investments in gas-fired generation, in moves that “reflect the plunging cost of wind turbines and rising costs for emissions permits”. The article continues: “Poland’s right-wing government is shifting its view, too. It recently announced a plan to reduce dependence on coal.” Monika Morawiecka, PGE’s director of strategy, tells Bloomberg: “I used to defend coal on the ground that it was a wider element than energy policy, that it facilitated our foreign policy…But renewables can also guarantee energy independence once you build them.”
Science
The Paris Agreement zero-emissions goal is not always consistent with the 1.5 C and 2 C temperature targets
Achieving “net zero greenhouse (GHG) emissions” is not necessarily required to keep warming below 1.5C or 2 C above pre-industrial levels, a new study suggests. Using a simplified integrated assessment model, the researchers show that extremely rapid mitigation in the near-term would allow GHG emissions to stay slightly above zero by 2100 while still meeting the 1.5C and 2C temperature limits. “Refinement of Paris Agreement emissions goals should include a focus on net zero CO2 – not GHG – emissions, achieved early in the second half of the century,” the researchers conclude.
A Mediterranean coastal database for assessing the impacts of sea-level rise and associated hazards
Researchers have developed a new coastal database for the Mediterranean basin to inform regional impact and adaptation assessment to sea level rise and associated hazards. Using information on coastal morphology, human settlements and administrative boundaries, the database divides the Mediterranean coast into 13,900 “coastal assessment units”. For each unit, the database contains 160 physical and socioeconomic variables, such as extreme sea levels, vertical land movement and number of people exposed to sea level rise.
Increased importance of methane reduction for a 1.5C target
Environmental Research Letters
Early mitigation of methane emissions would significantly increase the feasibility of meeting the 1.5C warming limit, a new study says. The researchers show that cutting methane emissions frees up how much CO2 can be emitted, making it easier to meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement. They find a simple “robust relationship” between reducing the concentration of methane in the atmosphere by 2100 and the extra carbon emissions that allows. Cutting methane would have co-benefits for human and ecosystem health, the study notes.
Other stories
- Off the lamb: how to eat with a low carbon footprint (The Guardian)
- SoftBank Vision Fund, Saudi Arabia to create world’s biggest solar power firm (Reuters )
- Rio Tinto sells Australian mine as it pulls out of coal (The Times )
- EDF to invest €8bn to bolster electricity storage in renewable push (Financial Times )
- ‘Sun shield’ could be used to protect Great Barrier Reef from warming, say scientists (The Independent )
- Comment: The challenge of carbon dioxide removal for EU policy-making (Nature Energy )
- Cornwall’s Wave Hub energy project yet to produce electricity (BBC News )
- ‘Coal is our Heritage, not our Future’: Inside the Community Protecting Pont Valley from Banks Mining (DeSmogUK )