Canada's greenhouse gas emissions down for second year in a row

Canada's greenhouse gas emissions down for second year in a row

The Globe and Mail

Saturday May 17, 2008

Greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada declined for a second year in a row during 2006, falling to 721 million tonnes, or by 1.9 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures released yesterday by Environment Canada.

The back-to-back reduction was attributed to a drop in the amount of coal used to produce electricity, warmer winters leading to reduced fuel consumption for space heating, and less fossil fuel use in the oil refining industry. Emissions haven't fallen for two consecutive years since modern record keeping on releases started in 1990.

Emissions peaked in 2004 at 743 million tonnes, and the reduction since then has been the equivalent of taking about seven million cars off the road.

Although the federal government has put in place a number of programs to cut Canada's releases, the reasons cited for the fall had little to do with federal action, and Environment Minister John Baird reacted cautiously to the numbers.

"While greenhouse-gas emissions have decreased in 2006 for a number of reasons, we have to continue the fight against climate change," he said in a statement.

Canada's single largest program to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is in Ontario, where the province has pledged to cut releases from coal-fired power plants by two-thirds below 2003 levels by 2011.

The drop still leaves Canada well behind its target for reducing greenhouse emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, which requires the country to cut its releases to below 1990 levels during the period from 2008 to 2012.

Emissions in 2006 were 22 per cent above the 1990 total and almost 30 per cent above Canada's Kyoto target of 558 megatonnes, giving Canada one of the poorer records in the industrialized world when it comes to reducing global warming pollution from the burning of fossil fuels and other sources.

Experts who follow trends in greenhouse-gas emissions expressed surprise at the drop.

It is "a surprise actually that for the second year in a row that there would be emission reductions," said John Drexhage, director of climate change and energy programs at the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080517.EMISSIONS17/TPStory/?query=climate+change

USA Today

Saturday 17 May 2008
WASHINGTON — Landmark legislation to reduce global warming is set to spark an intense Senate debate in early June.

While it is unlikely to become law this year, the Climate Security Act is seen by both supporters and opponents as evidence of how far Congress has moved on the issue and how quickly a bill is likely to pass after a new president moves into the White House in January and a new Congress takes office.

"I really believe that if we don't get across the finish line this year, we will next year," said bill proponent Jeremy Symons, executive director of the global warming campaign at the National Wildlife Federation. "This is the first bill to have a serious chance of getting passed."

The bill, by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., is the first major global warming legislation to be approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It would reduce global warming emissions by more than 65% by 2050 in an effort to slow devastating climate change that could cause massive flooding along U.S. coasts, increase the number and strength of hurricanes in the Gulf states, create drought throughout the Midwest farm states, and fuel more wildfires in the West.

The legislation seeks to give power plants, factories and refineries a financial incentive to reduce their global warming emissions. The bill would create a "cap and trade" program that limits total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and gives credits to companies able to cut their emissions through increased energy efficiency or cleaner technology. Companies can then sell those credits to other businesses that have not yet met those goals. Over the next four decades, all the affected industries would gradually have to make deep reductions in their emissions.

Supporters say the bill is crucial to save the U.S. economy and environment from the disastrous effects of climate change. They have won praise from the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and the Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Opponents, led by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., say the bill would drive energy costs higher than they are now and crush an already weak economy. They have threatened to mount a filibuster to block a Senate vote and are confident the bill's sponsors don't have the 60 votes needed to end the debate.

Even if supporters prevail in the Senate, the bill has not made much progress in the House. President Bush, an opponent, is not likely to sign it into law if it is passed by the full Congress. Still, opponents worry about increasing bipartisan support for the legislation.

"We're taking it seriously," said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which opposes the bill. "My view is that it takes several Congresses to get any controversial legislation enacted, and the only way you can stop it is by fighting it every step of the way. However far they (the bill's supporters) get this year will be a benchmark for where they start next year."

Environmentalists believe momentum is on their side as global warming hits home with more and more Americans.

"As the impact of global warming has become more visible to everyone, we have seen a broadening of support for action coming from across the political spectrum," Symons said. "We've got mayors, sportsmen, evangelical Christians and college students coming together on this issue. Global warming has leapt out of the pages of scientific journals and into our backyards, and people are taking notice."

Just this week, the Interior Department announced it was putting the polar bear on the list of threatened species because global warming is melting the creature's icy Arctic habitat. It was the first time an animal has been put on the list of threatened or endangered species based on habitat destruction caused by climate change.

"It is yet another clear signal that Congress should move quickly," Lieberman said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/environment/2008-05-17-global-warming_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

USA TODAY

Monday 19 May 2008
ARLINGTON, Va. — Ted Turner struts into one of his busiest restaurants at lunch hour and is ogled by startled customers. One overeager diner leaps in front of Turner for a handshake, then gushes, "Love your food, Ted. What's next?"

The short answer: green grub.

Turner, the media mogul turned philanthropist, now wants to be known as something of a different color: a green restaurant owner. In other words, a guy whose restaurants leave a smaller carbon footprint on the environment.

Which is why you won't find a plastic straw or cup in any of Ted's Montana Grills' 55 casual dining restaurants. The straws are made from biodegradable paper. The menus are printed on 100% recycled paper. Even the cups are cornstarch.

Turner is helping to fund a "green" restaurant initiative that the powerful National Restaurant Association (NRA) will unveil Monday at its annual convention in Chicago. The purpose: to nudge owners of the nation's 945,000 restaurants to think about controlling energy use and waste creation.

"Imagine the implications for global warming if we get the whole restaurant industry to go green," says Turner.

If the restaurant industry can dial down the enormous environmental damage it does daily even slightly, it would be huge. Restaurants are the retail world's largest energy user. They use almost five times more energy per square foot than any other type of commercial building, says Pacific Gas & Electric's Food Service Technology Center (FSTC).

Nearly 80% of the $10 billion dollars that the commercial food service sector spends annually for its energy use is lost in inefficient food cooking, holding and storage, says PG&E's tech division.

The average restaurant annually consumes roughly 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, 20,000 therms of natural gas and 800,000 gallons of water. Using the latest EPA carbon equivalents, that amounts to 490 tons of carbon dioxide produced per year per restaurant, PG&E estimates.

Then there's all that trash. Restaurants produce far more garbage on a daily basis than most other retail businesses. A typical restaurant generates 100,000 pounds of garbage per location per year, the Green Restaurant Association estimates.

There couldn't be a tougher time for the $558 billion restaurant industry to put on a green face. Consumers are eating out less due to the soft economy, and those who do eat out are spending less. The industry outlook, as measured by the NRA, fell in March to its lowest on record. Some 55% said sales fell at sites open a year or more.

But just six months into her job as the NRA's president, Dawn Sweeney is pushing the green button hard. "It's huge to me professionally and personally," she says. "We can do more, and we will."

The NRA has created a website that goes live Friday, conserve.restaurant.org, that offers tips on how restaurants can conserve water and energy and construct "greener" buildings, and gives restaurant owners a place to share ideas.

The industry didn't suddenly get a green heart. Chipotle has lived and breathed green since its founding 15 years ago. Starbucks has been an industry leader. But for the most part, the industry is responding to criticism and to new awareness that restaurants can save serious money by taking small steps:

•Placing low-flow valves in the sprayers that pre-rinse dishes can save a restaurant 73,000 gallons of water a year, estimates the FSTC.

•Replacing a standard urinal with a waterless one can save 40,000 gallons of water per year, says the Environmental Protection Agency.

•If just 10% of restaurants replaced one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, the energy savings would be $2.8 million, the EPA says.

"Everything that comes out of a restaurant could either be recycled or composted," says Charles Kubert, senior business specialist at the Environmental Law & Policy Center, among the largest environmental advocacy groups in the Midwest. "Yet, most restaurants don't do a good job of either."

Industry actions, not words, need to be watched, says Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association, which certifies green restaurants.

"It's great that everyone is hopping aboard the green bandwagon," says Oshman, who's lobbied for green restaurants since 1990. "But they need to hop on board more than the marketing."

The industry is late to the game. "The restaurant industry tends to follow, not lead," says Chris Muller, restaurant management professor at University of Central Florida.

But some chains, large and tiny, are trying:

Pizza Fusion is little-known outside of South Florida, where the chain has four of its five units. But it's raising eyebrows not for pizza, but for its pizza delivery vehicles: hybrid cars.

"There's a powerful marketing message when people see these cars," says Vaughan Lazar, co-founder of the chain.

Each store leases up to four hybrid delivery cars. Its pizza is made with locally grown organic ingredients; menus are on paper made from sugar cane pulp; and its counters are made from recycled soft-drink bottles.

This comes at a price. A large pizza with one topping fetches nearly $20, about twice the price of the competition. Lazar knows that costs him some customers. But he insists it attracts others.

Turning grease to fuel

Burgerville, a 39-unit chain with locations in Oregon and Washington collects and recycles its oil and grease into biodiesel fuel.

It collects about 4,000 gallons per month, which makes about 3,300 gallons of biodiesel fuel, says CEO Jeff Harvey. About half its restaurants compost. All recycle their refuse. Employees collect and separate guest garbage.

The chain serves local, seasonal foods such as onion rings in the summer and sweet potato fries in the fall. But with an average ticket of $8, Harvey says food at his chain can cost about twice that of the competition. "People pay the extra money for better-quality food, not to save the environment," he says.

By 2010, all new Starbucks (SBUX) stores built in the USA will be green buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit independent group that certifies buildings that meet minimum green standards. Starbucks has one green-certified location in Hillsboro, Ore.

The chain, which sells 2.3 billion hot beverages and nearly 1 billion cold beverages globally each year, hopes by 2010 to serve most of its drinks to in-store customers in ceramic mugs, says Jim Hanna, environmental affairs manager.

McDonald's (MCD) is building its first company-owned green restaurant in Chicago. It opens this summer. The pavement in the parking lot is permeable to reduce storm water flowing to city sewers. The roof collects rain and distributes it to the landscape. The goal is to get the building certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, says Jim Carras, McDonald's restaurant development chief.

Subway is testing a new way to serve subs to dine-in customers: with less wrapping. Unwrapped sandwiches are served on a thin paper sheet placed inside a basket made of 10% recycled material. The test will expand this summer to more markets, says Elizabeth Stewart, marketing chief.

But Subway's biggest green impact has been its napkins, made from 100% recycled paper. Subway figures its 4 billion recycled napkins save 147,000 trees annually.

Seeking paper straws

To go plastic-free, George McKerrow Jr., CEO at Ted's Montana Grill, searched for a paper straw maker six years ago. He couldn't find one.

Then, he located a firm that in 1888 had the first patent for paper straws. It stopped making them decades ago after plastic took off. McKerrow persuaded it to try again. Now, Aardvark Straws sells 5.6 million straws yearly to Ted's.

At 1.5 cents apiece, the straws cost five times more than plastic, concedes John Mangum, director of sales at Aardvark. "There's no hiding that. It is what it is."

Behind upscale Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Va., where a five-course dinner fetches $105, owner Cathal Armstrong raises hundreds of worms that eat some of the restaurant's organic waste. Each worm eats its weight in waste daily. Worm castings are used as fertilizer in the vegetable garden behind the restaurant.

Worms aside, the challenges that green restaurants face are many. Tops among them: eater apathy.

"If Morton's advertised that it was going green, it wouldn't make one bit of difference to me," says Ron Totin, a food distributor sales executive who eats out four times weekly. "Green is not a contributing factor in picking a restaurant." Only 29% of consumers polled last spring by Restaurants & Institutions said they would be more likely to patronize a green restaurant.

In a tough economy, many folks won't pay extra costs that some associate with green agendas. "If you ask somebody, they'd probably say green is good," says Malcolm Knapp, an industry consultant. "But in a more practical sense, you might have a couple of 20-year-old women who actually care."

Going green isn't always golden.

Ask Ben Prentice. Last year, he opened The Grille Zone across from Boston University. Among the green deeds it did was to use energy-efficient cooking equipment. The restaurant decomposed so much, it didn't need a dumpster. (It shared one with a nearby restaurant.) Its daily garbage fit into half a 55-gallon bag.

The restaurant got lots of PR. But "that publicity didn't sell many burgers," says Prentice. Within eight months, the restaurant closed.

Grille Zone's problem was a different color green — poor financing, says Prentice. Still, folks didn't beat down the doors for its $6 burgers.

Some are nudging Prentice to give the green restaurant business one more try. "I encourage it for others," he says. As for himself, "I'm not sure I have it in me right now."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2008-05-15-green-restaurants-eco-friendly_N.htm

The suicidal allure of a carbon tax

By James Travers 

The Star

Saturday May 17, 2008

OTTAWA — If a carbon tax is to define and decide the next federal election in Liberal favour, Stéphane Dion will have to be a ghostbuster. Even though he seems blissfully oblivious, the Liberal leader's bold gambit is haunted by the bad memory of too many other big ideas.

A couple of years in opposition and the changing of the old guard is not the same thing as rehabilitation. Urban as well as rural and Western Canadians still harbour ill will toward the party that strangled a simple, if controversial, gun registry with intrusive as well as ridiculously expensive red tape.

Unless the linguistically challenged Dion can make a compelling case for higher prices, a much-needed debate on this generation's seminal threat will surely become a referendum on government competence. Daycare was the issue the last time Liberals let that happen and the result was conclusive. Asked to choose between a social program and a few bucks in their pockets, voters opted for the cash.

Perhaps the overwhelming scientific consensus has done for the environment what experts couldn't do for early childhood education. Perhaps the public is now far enough ahead of politicians on the broad climate change issue to let Dion lead from behind. But there's no doubt that a specific carbon tax is a political accident waiting to happen.

First there's the inconvenient truth that a tax is always more difficult to defend than attack. Remarkably, Dion is making it even easier for Conservatives by talking about tapping wallets even as he claims the tax would be revenue neutral. After their GST experience, Canadians know federal levies and windfalls are synonymous.

Then there's a second, less obvious, problem. Inevitable and necessary as carbon taxes are, in the here and now of daily life they are manifestly unfair. Even if willing, not everyone is able to shift behaviour fast enough to escape save-the-planet penalties.

At a time when every vote counts, inequities lead to one thing: government intervention. Seniors have to be insulated from rising home-heating costs and farmers, along with the food they produce, need protection from soaring inputs. And what about long-distance truckers, vital airlines or competitively sensitive export industries?

While the line forms on the left, Conservatives will be on the right warning about nanny-state consequences. Cue the chanting about tax-and-spend Liberals, pump prices leaping by 50 cents a litre and a bureaucracy growing like Topsy.

Of course, Stephen Harper and friends would be more credible if they took global warming more seriously. Serial Conservative stabs at green policy fall well short of the heart of the matter and Canada's Bali foot-dragging was a cringing embarrassment.

Still, even if the ruling party is on the wrong side of history it's on the safe side of politics. The Conservative low-risk gamble is that Dion has neither the skill nor the time to convince Canadians to embrace wrenching change that demands sacrifice and usually takes years, if not decades, to climb the public priority pecking order.

Dion occupies the flip side of the history and politics equation. Whatever his motives, he deserves full marks for identifying the threat and challenging the conventional wisdom that it's suicidal to engage voters in a serious campaign debate.

But he also gets failing grades for misunderstanding the Liberal situation.

Canadians will be skeptical about Liberal big-government solutions until he and his party exorcise their big-program ghosts.

James Travers' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

http://www.thestar.com/article/426703

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THE extent of damage Bahrain may suffer due to global warming is to be examined in a major report, it was announced yesterday.

The Second National Communication on climate change will focus on air quality, sea levels and the effect of dredging, reclamation and greenhouse gases on agriculture and land use.

A budget of BD242,676 has been set aside for the two-year project, which will also focus on the potential solutions to its findings.

The report will then be submitted to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change in December 2010.

The main players involved in the research will be Bahrain University, Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research and Arabian Gulf University.

It will be overseen by the Public Commission for the Protection of Marine Resources, Environment and Wildlife.

The United Nations Environmental Programme will also provide financial resources and the necessary technical support.

The report was discussed at a meeting in the Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Institute of Technology in Muharraq yesterday, held under the patronage of Southern Governor Shaikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

Public Commission director of environmental assessment and planning project manager Zahwa Al Kuwari was unable to say whether Bahrain has already become a victim of climate change.

"That is why we want to make the report so that we have some scientific basis to say that," she told the GDN.

"It is very important. Firstly, it will give us a clear picture of what is the status of climate change within Bahrain.

"Secondly, it will help us to set up a plan for our future development in line with impact of climate change scenarios.

"It will also help us raise awareness among the public about the issue."

Bahrain signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and submitted its Initial National Communication in 2005.

Ms Kuwari said even if Bahrain is found not to have been directly affected by climate change, it was important to put in place protection measures for future generations.

"Although we are a small country and climate change may not be visible, rising sea levels and changing weather patterns are important issues," she said.

"It will show us which areas are more vulnerable and what could be the impact of greenhouse gasses." geoff@gdn.com.bh

 It covers the aflaj system as one of the most developed irrigation systems in olden times, highlighting the role of the system in ensuring water availability and its contribution to the growth of urban societies.  The seminar will highlight the history of water engineering in the Arab world throughout history and its role in the development of civilisation.