The end of coal: EU energy companies pledge no new coal plants from 2020, New York, other states challenge Trump over climate change regulation, & more
News
The end of coal: EU energy companies pledge no new plants from 2020
National energy companies from every EU nation bar Poland and Greece have signed up to a surprise pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020. A release from Eurelectric, the association of the electricity industry in Europe, also vowed a moratorium on new investments in coal plants after 2020. “It is a clear message that speaks for itself, and should be seen in close relation to the Paris agreement and our commitment to provide 100% carbon-neutral electricity by 2050,” said Kristian Ruby, Eurelectric’s secretary-general. Responding to the news, Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe said: “It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU.” Energy Live News and Think Progress also run the story. The pledge comes as a survey from Reuters of 32 utilities operating in the states that sued former President Barack Obama’s administration to block its Clean Power Plan showed few have no plans to alter their shift away from coal, despite US President Donald Trump’s plans to end America’s “war on coal”. The New York Times meanwhile interviewed a number of executives at the nation’s largest electric utilities and concluded coal is “on the way out”. “For us, [the prospective rollback of the Clean Power Plan] really doesn’t change anything,” said Jeff Burleson, vice president of system planning at utility Southern Company. “Whatever happens in the near term in the current administration doesn’t affect our long-term planning for future generation,” he said.
New York, other states challenge Trump over climate change regulation
A coalition of 17 US states led by New York state on Wednesday filed a legal challenge against efforts by US President Donald Trump’s administration to roll back Obama’s Clean Power Plan, reports Reuters. “The law is clear: the EPA must limit carbon pollution from power plants,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement announcing the challenge. The motion asked the court to throw out the request to delay court proceedings to allow the Environmental Protection Agency to review the regulation, adds The Hill. The coalition said the request to pause consideration of the case is extraordinary and goes against legal precedent.
Energy projects including Hinkley Point threatened by Brexit, experts warn
Energy experts have made a warning that vital energy projects – including the £18bn Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant and interconnectors used to import cheap electricity from Europe – are under threat due to Brexit, the Guardian reports. Antony Froggatt, senior research fellow at Chatham House, said EDF was already concerned Brexit will make it harder to import skilled EU nationals to build Hinkley. “I was at a conference recently where EDF were saying their main concern about skills was specialised steel fitters for the construction of Hinkley,” he said. “They said there were not enough in the country to build Hinkley and therefore this is the main area that they’re concerned about.”The energy experts were speaking at an event in London organised by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. Professor Michael Grubb from University College London added that it was vital the UK’s Brexit negotiators realise the importance of securing energy cooperation with Europe. “The implications of Brexit for energy policy hasn’t so far been a talking point, but it ought to be,” he said.
Two-third of landlords unaware of new efficiency rules that will make renting coldest houses illegal
From April 2018, UK landlords will only be able to rent properties rated ‘E’ or above for energy performance, however a survey of 500 residential landlords released this week by energy supplier E.ON shows some two-thirds of landlords are unaware of the new rules, writes BusinessGreen. A quarter of the landlords surveyed said they did not know anything about the new rules, while almost half were unaware of the penalties for breaching the regulations
Comment
Ending Emissions
A leading article in The Times today urges the government to “take its lead” from London Mayor Sadiq Khan and be bolder in penalising air polluters and incentivising cleaner transport. It comes after Prime Minister yesterday pledged support for diesel car owners in the crackdown on emissions. “Yesterday Theresa May lowered expectations of a national solution to the threat posed by diesels because of previous governments’ misguided incentives to buy them,” the Times article says. “The contrast between Mr Khan’s response and that of Westminster is striking…. If the government fails to help [diesel car drivers] make the transition to radically cleaner vehicles it will not be doing its job.” Meanwhile an editorial in the Evening Standard points to official figures which show the number of new cars registered registered in the capital in March plummeted by nearly nine per cent compared with a year ago, contradicting a national rise. “It is proof that charging polluters works,” it writes. TheDaily Mailmeanwhile runs an editorial slamming the previous push for diesel. “With depressing predictability, those footing the bill for this huge blunder will be the families who did as they were advised,” it reads. BusinessGreen also covers the debate.
To Curb Global Warming, Science Fiction May Become Fact
Eduardo Porter, New York Times
The world is not cutting emissions fast enough to prevent global temperatures from spiking into dangerous territory, writes New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter, and it would be a mistake to halt research into the “new technological tool” of geoengineering. “Let’s get real,” he writes. “The odds that these processes could be slowed, let alone stopped, by deploying more solar panels and wind turbines seemed unrealistic even before President Trump’s election.” He also suggests researchers could refrain from taking money from an American administration that denies climate science, “to avoid de-legitimising the technology in the eyes of the rest of the world”.
Science
New estimate of the current rate of sea level rise from a sea level budget approach
A new estimate of global average sea level rise suggests the rate of increase over 1993-2015 is close to 3.0 mm/yr. Using a large number of satellite datasets, the researchers find sea level rise has sped up by 0.8 mm/yr during 2004-15 compared to 1993-2004. This is mostly due to faster melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the researchers say, but also to slight increases of all other components of the sea level budget.
Enhanced rock weathering: biological climate change mitigation with co-benefits for food security?
The Royal Society has published a new mini-series of journal papers on the topic of enhanced rock weathering. This is a negative emissions technology that shortcuts the natural weathering process by adding crushed silicates to soils, ultimately increasing CO2 sequestration on land and in the oceans. The mini-series has a particular focus on deploying enhanced weathering on croplands managed for food production and bioenergy, says this introductory paper.
The role of CO2 capture and utilization in mitigating climate change
To offset the costs of CO2 capture and storage (CCS), there is growing interest in finding commercially viable end-use opportunities for the captured CO2 – known as “carbon capture and utilisation (CCU)”. In this Perspective, researchers find that it is highly improbable the chemical conversion of CO2 will account for more than 1% of the necessary cuts to CO2 emissions, and even using CO2 for enhanced oil recovery will likely only account for 4–8%. Therefore, whilst it may be an important economic incentive for some early CCS projects, “CCU may prove to be a costly distraction, financially and politically, from the real task of mitigation,” the researchers conclude.
Large historical growth in global terrestrial gross primary production
Plant photosynthesis was stable for hundreds of years before the industrial revolution, but grew rapidly in the 20th century, says a new study. Researchers have produced a global estimate of gross primary production (GPP) during the 20th century, which is based on long-term atmospheric carbonyl sulfide records, derived from ice-core and ambient air samples. Their findings suggest a 31% increase in GPP during the 21st century. This is among the highest estimates of historical GPP growth, says an accompanying News & Views article, but it is “clearly not the final word on the topic.”
Other stories
- Malaysia worried EU resolution could dent palm oil exports (Reuters )
- The Flawed Case Against Pricing Carbon (Wall Street Journal )
- EPA Watchdog Could Spark Internal Clash Over Pruitt’s Climate Denial (Inside Climate News )
- Green Brexit: Taking back control to waste energy? (BusinessGreen )