Environment Forum

Bali – hand in hand or arm wrestling?

The Bali U.N. climate talks have an elaborate logo hanging around the conference halls…so when delegates make long speeches and get bogged down in details it’s tempting to try to work out what it all means.

In essence, the picture is of a brown and a white hand clasped against a background of melting Arctic ice with shapes behind symbolising an elaborate Balinese stone gate.

But it’s odd that the Arctic ice, looking like a mammoth melting ice cream, reaches as far south as India and one giant dribble is threatening the mid-Pacific. That makes it look as if the problem might be about global cooling, not warming.

And the hands are obviously meant to be rich and poor joined in cooperation in the fight against climate change.

But the firm upwards grasp makes me wonder: surely they’re arm wrestling? Might that be the real message from talks at which rich and poor countries are split about how to share out the burden of curbs in greenhouse gases?

Bali’s magic fuel

By Adhityani Arga

Gasoline made from plain water? An Indonesian company says it’s possible.

In a lavish ceremony held on the sidelines of this week’s U.N.’s climate talks in Bali, the company launched a range of gasoline and diesel products under the name “blue energy” witnessed by Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself.

Just days before the launch, Indonesia’s environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said that the country would have “its own fuel made out of plain water”. 

Five cars, pumped with “blue energy” that have made a 5-day trip from Jakarta to Bali went through a pollution test. The result: 50 percent lower emissions on average.

 Yudhoyono dubbed this “a winner for Indonesia”, cheered by the crowd in white-blue uniforms, while songs, written and composed by the president himself, played in the background. The company’s chairman said this could be Indonesia’s way out of the oil economy. In short, it’s a magic fuel.

But the magic faded.

Cycling for carbon in Bali

    Journalists and delegates are cutting carbon emissions at the Bali climate talks by cycling between the venues. So large is the Bali gathering that meeting rooms (there are dozens of them) are spread out among a number of luxury hotels.

    So, instead of everyone walking (unlikely in the steamy tropical heat) or relying on fleets of air-conditioned talks and buses, the organisers have organised free bicycles for visitors to whizz between events.

     The scheme is a success but there only a few hundred bicycles between 10,000 delegates.

     Taxi!

Guilt-free carbon emissions?

    So, you’re comfortably middle-class, drive the kids to school in an SUV (good protection for them in case of an accident, right?), have reverse-cycle heating and a kitchen with all the latest gadets.

   Life is good and yet, you’re worried about your carbon emissions, destruction of rainforests and subtle changes to the climate in your area. But what can you do?

     Then you hear about a proposal at UN climate change talks in Bali that could lead to rich nations buying carbon credits aimed at saving the rainforests. These forests soak up vast amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted by SUVs  and power stations.

     The scheme sounds very attractive. You can continue driving your SUV knowing your government is offsetting your emissions by paying to save the rainforests. Sounds like guilt-free living.

    Not quite.

    Flicking on the toaster may seem peripheral to the outcome of climate talks in Bali — but whether the electricity comes from high carbon-emitting coal or clean alternatives like wind partly depends on how far Europe and other rich countries want to meet emissions targets by carbon offsetting. That would allow you to buy permits to continue to pollute by funding emissions cuts in poor nations. The question is whether that’s the long-term answer.

    Some green groups are opposed to offset schemes that aren’t matched by real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at home by rich nations. They say there’s no such thing as buying your way out of polluting lifestyles in a world where greenhouse emissions keep rising. Forests can only absorb so much CO2 and, anyway, oil, gas and coal prices are rising, meaning the more rich nations continue to burn, the more the costs at home will burn a hole in consumers’ pockets. Making that SUV just too expensive to run.

How green is your Web site?

With thousands of the world’s most powerful environmental movers and shakers gathered in Bali to figure out next steps in combatting climate change, wouldn’t it be nice if somebody far from the fray, somebody sitting in front of a computer screen — somebody like you — could do something to cut down on the emissions of carbon dioxide that fuel global warming? That’s the idea behind the CO2Stats Project.

This online tool monitors Web sites and blogs for the amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide their visitors emit. Formulated by Alex Wissner-Gross and Tim Sullivan, PhD candidates at Harvard and Yale, respectively, the widget calculates how much power is consumed by all the visitors to a particular site and offsets it for free.

For each pound of carbon dioxide that results from Web traffic to a site where the widget is installed, the project buys carbon offsets from Sustainable Travel International. Users who install the widget pay nothing.

Wissner-Gross and Sullivan aim to make the entire Internet carbon-neutral, a couple of keystrokes at a time; they say the Internet is responsible for more than 100 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually. By contrast, U.S. power plants emit 2.79 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. The CO2Stats own Web site has so far offset less than 2 pounds of carbon. Other sites where the tool is installed show comparable results. The widget’s creators pay out of pocket for the offsets but hope for sponsorship in the future.

To learn more go to http://www.co2stats.com.

Rooftop solar power puts smile German minister’s face

Some political leaders talk about the need to fight climate change and are full of, er, ideas about what everyone else should do to cut greenhouse emissions. But if you get the chance to ask them directly what, specifically, they might be doing privately , you often get a shrug, a few vague answers, a few lame excuses or assurances they turn off their unused lights.

So it was all the more surprising when German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told me at the end of an interview the other day that his brother had just installed a photovoltaic system on his roof and that he, too, planned to put one on his roof as soon as possible. It was a precious moment — a politician doing something rather concrete and only reluctantly talking about it instead of making a fuss.

Steinmeier, who seemed genuinely taken aback by the question, has become a leading voice on fighting climate change and has warned of the threat of instability it is already causing in some unsettled regions of the world. He also says that Germany, despite its reputation as a world leader in the struggle, could do more to combat global warming.

“My brother just put up a system on his house,” Steinmeier said, as a smile started to spread across his face. “We’re going to put one up too. We’ve got to renovate a section of the roof soon anyhow, and as soon as that’s finished we’re going to put photovoltaik on it.”

But Steinmeier, chief of staff to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder who helped draft Germany’s renewable energy law (EEG) that sparked a boom in solar power, could not resist a self-deprecating joke about his government’s plans for tariffs that oblige utilities to buy solar-generated electricity. Some 300,000 private power producers are able to sell the power at nearly triple market rates, but Merkel’s government plans to accelerate their elimination.

“I just hope the EEG will still be available for me too,” he said.

Making carbon emissions visual

As climate talks get under way in Bali there’ll be plenty of earnest discussion about the need for greater regulation and international co-operation. Important stuff, no doubt. But hard to illustrate if you’re wary of the already hackneyed shots of polar bears on stranded icebergs.

This is one of the problems with maintaining public consciousness on carbon emissions — at the personal level they’re pretty much invisible.

But with a bit of creativity it’s not impossible to make them visual, as illustrated by this advert from the government of Victoria in Australia:

The ad isn’t new (2006 I think) but it was dug up by howtoons – a site that specialises in visualisation as an aid to scientific understanding that has followed up by highlighting this extraordinary wind power ad from Epulon earlier this year:

Hat tip to O’Reilly Radar for pointing this out.

Bali’s hottest job — sweltering in a polar bear suit

    In sweltering heat of more than 30 C, the hottest job at U.N. climate talks in Bali on Monday was done by an environmental activist dressed as a polar bear. 

    Looking out of his element at the start of the meeting at a tropical beach resort on the Indonesian island, “Mr. P. Bear” stood by a banner and giant thermometer saying “Don’t cook the climate”.

    ”He was only in the suit for about 20 minutes,” said Cindy Baxter of Greenpeace. “It was pretty hot in there”.

   Every now and then the Greenpeace volunteer, from the Philippines, who was trapped inside the heavy suit took off his polar bear head and took huge gulps from a bottle of water.

Many delegates from around the world, feeling overheated just south of the equator, applauded as they walked past. The suit was also used at U.N. climate talks in Montreal two years ago to highlight the risks of a melting Arctic because of global warming.

Environmentalists say that talks by about 10,000 delegates need side show stunts or otherwise become bogged down in often cryptic wrangling behind closed doors.

Should 10,000 people fly to Bali to fight climate change?

Take more responsibility for your personal carbon footprint. Fly less. Use video link-ups, instead of flying to conferences in exotic places. Sound familiar? All advice you can expect from many governments on how we should all roll up our sleeves in the fight against climate change. But over the next two weeks some 10,000 delegates including representatives from 186 governments, up to 2,000 journalists (including me) and members of 130 non-governmental organisations descend on Bali, Indonesia. They’re attending a two-week conference to kick-start two years of talks to agree a new, tougher, sharper climate change regime to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But why Bali? Indonesia’s environment ministry estimates that the event will produce 47,000 tonnes of the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, carbon dioxide. If it had to be Indonesia, why not Jakarta, instead of forcing 10,000 people to take connecting flights? Have the sponsor, the United Nations, made a PR gaffe by hosting a climate change event on a beautiful tropical paradise island at the Westin Resort, pictured above and below, which also happens to be miles from anywhere? Tell us what you think. (BTW these are my photos, taken today)