Green Wombat

As Green Wombat reported Thursday, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric will invest in forestry projects to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions from its customers’ energy use. Today, scientists presenting research at a San Francisco conference said, in effect, don’t bother. At least not in North America and Europe. The reason: computer modeling shows that while trees indeed do remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, in the planet’s mid-latitudes their dark leaves also absorb heat and thus have a marginal benefit in reducing global warming, according to Govindasamy Bala, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. If the scientists’ findings are confirmed by further research, it could
spell trouble for corporate efforts to mitigate companies’
contributions to global warming by planting trees rather than taking
action to actually reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. "This suggests that planting forests would not slow down global
warming," Bala told fellow scientists attending the big American
Geophysical Union confab as he showed slides depicting the results of
the study he co-authored.
Tree-planting also is being used by so-called carbon offset services
that promise to neutralize consumers’ personal emissions of carbon
dioxide from driving, flying and their consumerist lifestyle. It makes more sense, Bala said, to plant trees in the southern hemisphere as tropical forests also absorb more water vapor, creating clouds that cool the planet.  Bala cautioned that his conclusions come from a preliminary investigation based on computer modeling of what would happen if the planet was deforested – temperatures would drop slightly, the scientists found – and not on actual on-the-ground measurements. "Forests have a lot of value in our economy and for ecosystems," Bala emphasized.

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headwaters forest photo by Greg King

Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG), one of the nation’s largest utilities, will calculate its California customers’ individual greenhouse gas emissions based on their energy usage, giving homes and businesses the option to go carbon neutral by paying a small surcharge on their monthly bill that corresponds to how many pounds of carbon dioxide they acutally emit.  PG&E will then use that money to finance environmental projects that reduce greenhouse gases by an equivalent amount. The ClimateSmart program – the first of its kind – differs markedly from other "green guilt" programs that allow people to pay extra to support a utility’s purchase of renewable energy. In this case, PG&E customers are paying for real-world reductions in their actual contributions to global warming, according to the utility. PG&E will initially invest in California forestry projects. That’s because trees act as carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. PG&E spokesman Keely Wachs said the utility will preserve forests in danger of being logged as well as pay for new tree planting. "Not only are these projects great ways of reducing CO2 emissions but there are many great environmental co-benefits associated with them," he told Green Wombat. "If we preserve an old-growth forest area with a stream running through it, we also can preserve salmon and other wildlife." 

He said ClimateSmart will launch in mid-2007 and PG&E will soon begin taking bids from landowners, non-profits and others for forest preservation projects. While tree-planting and forest conservation can prove effective in cutting greenhouse gases – just how effective is a subject of scientific debate – the benefit disappears if fire or disease destroy the woodlands.  And of course the full impact on global warming from planting
new trees will be years off. Still, PG&E expects ClimateSmart will take at least 2 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in its first three years, which would be like removing 350,000 cars from the road for 12 months. If the program is successful PG&E will expand ClimateSmart to include other carbon neutral projects, though Wachs
wouldn’t specify what those might entail.

Leading the green charge in a brown industry, PG&E itself will commit $1 million to the
program and expects to raise at least $20 million from customers in its first three
years. The non-profit California Climate Action Registry and independent auditors will
certify that ClimateSmart results in actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the utility said. The ClimateSmart surcharge will average about $4.31 a month and participating customers’ utility bills will show their monthly greenhouse gas emissions. "It educates our customers and the broader public about the impact of their energy usage," says Wachs.

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photo uploaded by daechang

At a recent panel discussion on China’s green tech boom, it was noted that in a few years China will overtake the United States as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. That led San Francisco venture capitalist Bryant Tong to repeat a provocative point he had read in a Beijing newspaper: If the West relies on China to be the world’s factory, churning out cheap goods that promote our economic prosperity, doesn’t it also bear responsibility for helping China reduce its contribution to global warming from the two coal-fired power plants it brings online every week, in part, to satisfy our consumerist desires?  It’s worth putting down your iPod (made in Shenzhen) and closing your Dell laptop (assembled in Xiamen) to ponder. Open a bedroom closet or kitchen cabinet and try to find something not made in China. Remove all the China-produced products from your local Wal-Mart hypermart and you probably could squeeze the rest of the merchandise into a 7-Eleven. With discussions beginning on the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, and the need to include China in any future accord, it’s sure to be a topic of growing debate.

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When Green Wombat was in Australia last week so was Al Gore, criss-crossing the country to personally train "climate change presenters" – a hand-picked cadre who will hit the road to speak some inconvenient truths to their fellow Aussies. Now Wal-Mart (WMT) has donated $75,000  to help train 1,000 Americans to spread the word as part of Gore’s Climate Project. The donation coincides with the release of An Inconvenient Truth on DVD.  The hit documentary will be sold, naturally, at  more than 3,900 Wal-Mart outlets. The company is packaging the DVD with an energy-efficient, greenhouse gas-reducing compact fluorescent light bulb.

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The timing was probably purely coincidental, but the day after the Democrats swept back to power, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has announced that by 2010 it will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions 15 percent below this year’s level to help fight global warming. The Palo Alto, California, computer and printer giant said today it will also buy "cost-effective" renewable energy. HP will work with the World Wildlife Fund to obtain and implement technology to reduce energy use at all its facilities worldwide. The company says it will report its greenhouse gas emissions to the World Economic Forum’s Global Greenhouse Gas Registry. HP joins DuPont (DD), Wal-Mart (WMT) and other Fortune 500 companies that have recently embraced the spirit, if not the letter, of the Kyoto Accord. Look for business opportunities to help these behemoths make good on their green pledges.

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  Sunset @ Bass Strait, Australia 
  Originally uploaded by timparkinson.

An international agreement that regulates the dumping of waste into the world’s oceans has been amended to allow carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants to be pumped beneath the sea floor. Australia led the effort to change the London Convention to permit carbon storage, or geosequestration, as a way to combat global warming. "These technologies are relatively new but have enormous potential to help the world reduce its greenhouse gas emissions," said Australian environment minister Ian Campbell Friday in a statement. Australia, of course, has refused to sign the Kyoto Accord and holds vast coal deposit. In fact, 86 percent of the country’s electricity is produced by coal-fired plants. Some environmentalists oppose geosequestration, saying the risks are too high and it does nothing to reduce the planet’s reliance on coal and other greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels.

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  Originally uploaded by marymuses.

While ghouls and goblins were trick-or-treating last night, the California Energy Commission issued a scary report on the Golden State’s contribution to global warming. In 2004, California released 492 million gross metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That makes the Bear Republic the nation’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the 12th to 16th largest contributor to global warming on the planet.

However, when put in context the report shows that the California experience offers hope that greenhouse gas emissions be contained. For instance, while the state’s economy grew 83 percent between 1990 and 2003 and it had the largest population increase in the country, greenhouse gas emissions rose only 12 percent, due largely to energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. "This demonstrates the potential for
uncoupling economic trends from (greenhouse gas) emissions trends," wrote the report’s authors.

Texas, in contrast, has double the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning than California, and Wyoming has the highest per capita emission of greenhouse gases.

The report makes clear, though, that Californians will have to end their love affair with the internal combustion engine if they are to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation produces about 41 percent of the state’s greenhouse gases.

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Thirteen U.S. corporations today pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between 9 percent and 100 percent over the next decade. The companies, which range from Fortune 100 behemoths like DuPont and Intel to the Sonoma Wine Company, signed up for the Bush administration’s voluntary global warming program called Climate Leaders. (The complete list is here.) So far 58 companies have taken the pledge, and to date five companies, including General Motors and IBM, have met their greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Participating companies agree to conduct an inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions and then develop a plan to reduce or offset them. Some smaller companies have gone completely carbon neutral. For instance, Silver Spring, Maryland, printing company Ecoprint reduced its emissions to zero by buying its electricity from a wind farm and purchasing renewable energy credits to offset emissions from employee commutes, manufacturing and heating. Conservation Services Group, a 270-person Westborough, Massachusetts energy consultancy, promised to slash its annual 2,036 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions to zip by replacing its vehicle fleet with hybrids, curtailing electricity use and buying credits from the Chicago Climate Exchange, a carbon trading market.

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Part of the fun of living in Berkeley, California, is voting. Sure, there’s the usual bond measures and city council candidates – spanning the political spectrum from the left to the far left to the far out left. But in Berkeley we also like to weigh in on topics of international import, and the 2006 election is no exception. For instance, the November 7 ballot features Measure H, which calls on the city council to petition the U.S. House of of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for various high crimes and misdemeanors. Then there’s Measure G, which would have Berkeley reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. The measure, which is advisory but backed by the mayor, urges the city council to set a 10-year emissions reduction target in 2007 and develop a plan to achieve that goal.

Now on many issues Berkeley tends to serve as a bellwether only for Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Eugene, Boulder and other people’s republics. But on the environment the East Bay city has been a national leader: It was the first to adopt curbside recycling, now found in even the reddest of the red states, and in 2003 it began to convert all municipal vehicles to biodiesel.

In one of its periodic forays into foreign policy, Berkeley endorsed the Kyoto Protocol and then proceeded to make its rhetoric reality. Between 2002 and 2005 the city exceeded the Kyoto targets by reducing its greenhouse emissions 14 percent. The city also has joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, the North American carbon trading market. So as New York City and other municipalities now move to limit their own greenhouse gas emissions, they just might want to look to the left coast.

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The rubber begins to hit the road on California’s landmark global warming law on Oct. 19 when state Air Resources Board members get briefed by their staff on their role and duties in enforcing limits on greenhouse gases. One of California’s most powerful environmental agencies – just ask the auto industry – the ARB has been handed the complex job of figuring out how to implement the law’s requirement that the state’s industrial polluters reduce emissions of greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020. One thing’s for sure, there’s a lot of green in it for attorneys and lobbyists as the regulatory battle begins. Stay tuned to the wombat for further developments.

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