Britain’s highest appeal court, the Supreme Court, said the government was in breach of an EU directive which put limits on nitrogen dioxide (NO2) – a colorless, odorless gas produced by burning fuels which can damage people’s breathing.

London has the highest levels of NO2 of any European capital. Around 29,000 early deaths a year in Britain are attributed to air pollution, according to a body which advises the UK government.

Before deciding on further action, the Supreme Court referred a number of legal questions to the ECJ in Luxembourg, which could take up to 18 months to answer.

The Supreme Court could eventually force the UK government to take certain steps to improve air quality but does not have the power to issue fines, according to Alan Andrews, lawyer at the firm ClientEarth which brought the case against the government in 2011.

The environmental law firm wanted to force the government to come up with an air quality plan to comply with European Union limits on N02 concentrations by 2015.

The High Court and the Court of Appeal refused to take action on the issue and the case went to the Supreme Court.

Under the EU directive, member states were supposed to comply with limits on NO2 in 2010 but the deadline could be extended by five years if a plan to deal with high levels of NO2 was delivered.

Court documents show 40 out of Britain’s 43 air quality zones exceeded the limits for 2010 and the government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said 23 zones might comply by 2015 and 16 between 2015 and 2020, while London is not expected to comply before 2025.

“This historic ruling marks a turning point in the fight for clean air and will pile the pressure on Owen Paterson,” said James Thornton, chief executive of ClientEarth, referring to the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

“He must now come up with an ambitious plan to protect people from carcinogenic diesel fumes,” he added, which are largely blamed for creating NO2.

A spokesman for the European Commission said the body could already take legal action against Britain.

“It has not been done yet because we’re working through a number of countries because it’s easier to bring one horizontal action (against them all),” said spokesman Joe Hennon.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

Companies are under pressure worldwide from policymakers, and a public increasingly concerned with green issues, to report the environmental fallout of all activities related to their daily business – from plane journeys to office supplies.

Officials hope the data generated can point to potential energy savings and encourage firms to reduce their emissions, while many companies see it as a way of planning for exposure to long-term costs such as taxes on emissions.

But for now London is the only stock exchange that forces all major companies to report in detail and many, particularly in emerging markets like Russia and across Southeast Asia, have all but ignored the idea.

The Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO) found that just 37 percent of the world’s 800 largest companies disclosed complete data and correctly adopted the basic principles of emissions reporting.

Only 21 percent had their data externally verified and only one firm, German chemicals producer BASF, reported emissions across its entire value chain – from sources such as business travel, transport, distribution and investments. This transparency placed it at number one in the rankings.

“This ought to be a wakeup call for companies. Since the majority of total corporate emissions often come from (value chain) sources, large quantities of emissions are not being accounted for,” said Sam Gill, chief executive of the EIO.

“Not only could this be a source of unmeasured risk for companies but it also means we are not getting the full picture in terms of corporate emissions,” he added.

Companies are increasingly measuring and disclosing their environmental performance in their annual reports. However, the lack of a universally accepted or mandatory standard means both reporting formats and content vary widely.

The rest of the best 10 companies at reporting emissions were telecoms firms such as Canada’s BCE, Singapore Telecom, Spain’s Telefonica, BT Group and Deutsche Telekom, according to the EIO.

The bottom 10, with no publicly disclosed emissions data, was made up of mainly Russian and U.S. utilities and oil and gas companies, such as Phillips 66, Lukoil, Edison International and First Energy.

The EIO based its findings on the latest publicly available data, which for most companies was from 2011.

Products should be made to become “designer minerals” at the end of their lifetimes so they can more simply be broken up and stripped of metals ranging from copper to gold, according to the twin studies.

“Global metal needs will be three to nine times larger than all the metals currently used in the world” if demand in emerging economies rises to levels of rich nations, said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme.

The total amount of steel in use in the United States, for instance, was an estimated 11 to 12 metric tonnes per person in 2010, compared with 1.5 tonnes in China.

“Product designers need to ensure that materials such as rare earth metals in products ranging from solar panels and wind turbine magnets to mobile phones can still be recovered easily when they reach the end of their life,” he said in a statement.

Recycling rates are low in most nations and electronic waste alone is estimated at between 20 to 50 million tonnes a year, or between three and seven kilos (7-15 pounds) per person. Most ends up dumped or burned, contaminating air, water and soil.

A third report by a non-governmental organisation quoted estimates that about 130 million mobile phones are thrown away annually in the United States. Collectively, they weigh about 14,000 tonnes and include almost 2,100 tonnes of copper, 46 tonnes of silver and 3.9 tonnes of gold.

A mobile phone alone can contain more than 40 elements including copper, tin, cobalt, indium, antimony, silver, gold, palladium, tungsten and yttrium. Most are in tiny amounts but recycling would take pressure off mining.

TECHNOLOGIES

The two reports by the United Nations’ International Resource Panel urged governments to agree on best available recycling technologies. So far, recycling laws are limited mostly to developed nations.

Manufacturers also should start with ease of recycling in mind, the reports said, for instance avoiding mixes of metals that are hard to separate. Platinum group metals, for instance, can effectively dissolve when mixed into steel.

“Some combinations are harder and uneconomic to separate,” Markus Reuter, lead author of the report on metals recycling, told Reuters. He likened some mixes to trying to separate a cup of coffee into water, milk, sugar and coffee.

Rising demand for metals will also have to be curbed with lighter-weight designs. In the European Union, for instance, the average weight of cars rose to 1.2 tonnes in 2001 from 0.85 tonnes in 1981.

Recycling could also cut energy demand and greenhouse gases compared to mining, which often uses 10 to 100 times more energy than recycling for the same amount of metal.

“Metals use seven to eight percent of the world’s total energy in their primary production. That’s larger than anyone had thought,” Ester van der Voet, lead author of the other report on metals and environmental challenges, told Reuters.

The third study, by the Gaia Foundation, said the world’s growing addiction to throwaway consumer electronics was putting enormous pressure on resources such as metals, minerals, water and ecosystems.

In the United States, it said, 80 percent of electronic waste was shipped to developing countries in Asia or Africa where it was handled in bad social and environmental conditions.

“In failing to create effective recycling systems, we are thus outsourcing our toxic waste and turning parts of the world into digital dumps.”

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Prices for EU carbon permits under the Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS) fell 40 percent to under 3 euros on Tuesday
after lawmakers rejected a plan to temporarily cut permit supply
by 15 percent for fear that higher carbon prices would cost
European jobs and harm economic growth.

About 5,000 companies generating half of the EU’s greenhouse
gas emissions must surrender a carbon permit for each tonne of
carbon dioxide they emit. Some factories receive permits for
free, while most power firms buy them from companies with a
surplus or from state-backed auctions held almost every day.

Campaigners and traders warn the carbon price could now fall
below 2 euros or even to near zero in the coming weeks, and
government sales could fail if they don’t meet minimum price
requirements, as banks that act as liquidity providers pull out.

“Forthcoming auctions may struggle to go ahead as technical
reserve prices, intended to prevent sales significantly below
the market price, could kick in,” said Bryony Worthington at
environmental campaign group Sandbag.

Under EU rules, any unsold government permits must be
offered in the next four scheduled auctions after the failed
sale, putting more pressure on carbon prices.

That will be put to the test next week when more than 23
million permits will be offered in government sales in a market
drowning in an estimated 1.7 billion surplus.

CRUMBLING CORNERSTONE OF EU CLIMATE POLICY

Parliament’s rejection of the so-called backloading bill
ends months of bitter debate among European ministers, lawmakers
and industry. The $148 billion market, once the cornerstone of
EU climate policy, has since 2008 been hit by an economic
slowdown that slashed demand and created a surplus of permits.

Despite the fall to just 3 euros from 30 euros five years
ago, speculators have stuck with the market to turn a profit
from price volatility triggered by the threat of political
intervention.

But they might quit the market now it looks likely that
prices may be low for some time, which would require them to
stump up much more capital to get the same returns.

“We are in for a protracted period of lower prices after
this vote. The danger is that this can only hasten the rush to
the exit for some carbon players,” said Mark Meyrick, head of
carbon at Dutch power company Eneco.

Some big players have already left or cut trading staff.

This year alone, Deutsche Bank shut its carbon
desk, and Swiss trading house Mabanaft will wind down operations
in June. Credit Agricole, MF Global and Cantor
have already withdrawn.

Barclays, JP Morgan and Morgan
Stanley have also pared back operations in recent years.

GLORY DAYS OVER

The Commission says it could still get agreement on the plan
by year-end, but analysts say it is unlikely to be implemented
in the current Commission’s lifetime.

Proponents of higher carbon prices, such as some EU power
companies who want to invest in cleaner sources of energy, have
called on the Commission to introduce deeper structural reform
that could include expanding it to transport and adopting a more
ambitious emission reduction target.

Power suppliers say low carbon prices remove the incentive
to switch from coal to cleaner sources. Analysts say a carbon
price of about 50 euros is needed to encourage such a switch.

Debate on deeper reform started last month, but it might
take two or three years to go through Europe’s complex lawmaking
process, meaning the market will be in limbo until 2015.

For now, even as banks pull out, the market will survive as
it is anchored in EU legislation until at least 2020, forcing
big European emitting companies to comply with emission caps.

“Speculators might exit, but industrials can’t, so we will
see a shrink in liquidity and therefore volatility might
increase sharply,” said Jacopo Visetti, emissions trader at
AitherCO2.

The effect of fewer banks could result in wilder price
swings as utilities, which are big buyers of permits, tend to
block-buy permits in the so-called hedging season, when they
sign annual contracts to supply electricity to industry.

Traders say the glory days of a market that was once tipped
to be bigger than oil have now passed, at least for this decade.

“There will always be business as there are always clients
to serve,” said one trader at a London-based bank. “Desks have
been getting smaller, teams have been shrinking or vanishing. I
wouldn’t be surprised if the exodus accelerated now.”

With power generation still dominated by coal and governments failing to increase investment in clean energy, top climate scientists have said that the target of keeping the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius this century is slipping out of reach.

“The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” said Maria van der Hoeven, the IEA’s executive director, at the launch of the agency’s report on clean energy progress.

“Despite much talk by world leaders, and a boom in renewable energy over the past decade, the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago.”

Global clean energy investment in the first quarter fell to its lowest level in four years, driven by cuts in tax incentives at a time of austerity, according to a separate report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance this week.

The IEA said that coal-fired generation grew by 45 percent between 2000 and 2010, far outpacing the 25 percent growth in non-fossil fuel generation over the same period.

A revolution in shale gas technology has triggered a switch from coal to cleaner natural gas in the United States. Elsewhere, however, coal use has soared, particularly in Europe, where its share of the power generation mix increased at the expense of gas.

CARBON CAPTURE

With the world still reliant on fossil fuels, the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is critical, but there are no commercial plants in operation, the report said.

The IEA has envisaged that CCS, which buries and traps CO2 underground, should play a major role in cutting global emissions and had forecast 63 percent of coal power plants should be equipped with the technology by 2050.

However, there are only 13 large-scale demonstration projects in operation or being built, with the capacity to store about 65 million metric tons (72 million tons) of CO2 a year. This represents only a quarter of the storage capacity needed by 2020.

New nuclear plant construction is also well behind target and global biofuel production stalled in 2012.

Government policies and the EU’s emissions trading scheme need to be strengthened to enable more energy efficiency and clean technology uptake, the IEA said.

“Unless we get (carbon emissions) prices and policies right, a cost-effective clean-energy transition just will not happen,” the report said.

The IEA did see some positive developments, however. From 2011 to 2012, the more mature renewable energy technologies of solar photovoltaic and wind power grew by an impressive 42 percent and 19 percent respectively.

(Editing by David Goodman)

Following months of bitter debate, the vote in a plenary
session of the European Parliament at around midday (1000 GMT)
is expected to be extremely close.

Uncertainty over whether the plan can succeed drove the
carbon market to a record low of less than 3 euros ($3.93) a
tonne in January compared with peaks around 30 euros in 2008.

Anticipation of a positive vote pushed allowances 2.31
percent higher to 4.87 a tonne by 0640 GMT on Tuesday.

A Commission proposal, named backloading, was meant to be a
quick fix that could be agreed by the end of last year. But it
has exposed deep divisions, with various interest groups
intensively lobbying members of the European Parliament.

The power sector and other energy companies, such as Royal
Dutch Shell, keen to promote natural gas rather than
more carbon-intensive coal, have been strong supporters.

On Monday, 42 firms, representing more than 875 billion
euros ($1.15 trillion) in turnover – ranging from E.ON
, to multinational consumer goods company Unilever
– placed a full-page advertisement in the Financial
Times, calling on the European Parliament to vote “yes”.

“Without agreement on the backloading proposal the price
will fall further threatening the long-term survival of the EU
ETS and lead to fragmentation of the single energy market
through a patchwork of national regulations,” it said.

Opponents of the Commission plan, have been led by energy
intensive industries, such as the chemical sector.

It has argued intervention in the ETS will push up energy
costs when Europe is already suffering a competitive
disadvantage compared with the United States, which has
benefited from abundant supplies of shale gas.

TECHNICAL BUT SIGNIFICANT

In theory, Tuesday’s vote is on a technical amendment to
underpin the legality of removing permits, but a “no” vote would
indicate a lack of political will to go ahead with reform.

While the power sector, already worried about how to ensure
investment, is concerned EU policy will fragment as member
states devise national solutions, carbon analysts warn that
traders will abandon the ETS.

“If the vote fails, then the market is essentially finished
until further notice,” Matthew Gray, analyst at Jefferies Bache,
said in a note.

“Some volatility may occur,” he said. “But this will surely
dissipate as utilities, speculators and industrials go their
separate ways.”

At member state level, EU sources say a majority supports
backloading even though Poland, heavily reliant on
carbon-intensive coal, is resolutely opposed to it and Germany
has failed to take a formal position because of divisions within
its government on the issue.

Theoretically, member states can continue debating
regardless of what happens on Tuesday and a second cycle of
parliamentary discussion and voting could take place.

In reality, the focus is likely to switch to deeper reforms,
such as the permanent removal of allowances and tougher limits
on how much carbon emitters can produce.

The problem is how long it will take to reach these
structural changes.

Commission officials have admitted time is running out for
agreement on them before the current team of commissioners steps
down next year.

While attention is given to curbing the carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions blamed for global warming, substances more directly
harmful to human health, notably nitrogen oxides, are pumped out
of diesel engines and from European power stations burning coal
that is getting cheaper as Americans exploit new gas reserves.

The result, say those campaigning for change, is ever poorer
air quality shortening lives. Yet a move by the European
Commission to tighten vehicle emissions rules is being
challenged by some car makers.

And, with businesses and governments in Europe desperately
short of cash for new regulation or technologies, broader new
air quality legislation can also expect opposition when the EU
executive proposes it to member states, probably this year.

The Commission has deployed its own data, showing huge costs
from pollution and substantial and growing public support for a
clean-up that could benefit firms offering cleaner technologies.

But health campaigners trying to push up the public agenda
an issue that they compare in gravity to smoking face a problem:

“One of the big difficulties in communicating this issue is
it is not visible in the way London smogs in the 1950s were,”
said Simon Moore at the Policy Exchange think-tank in London.

“There is a kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude.”

Over a weekend in December 1952, cold air, fog on the Thames
and coal smoke belching from a million homes and factories made
the Great Smog; in places, people walking lost sight of their
feet, cattle were reported asphyxiated at Smithfield market and
4,000 or more people died as a result – there were nearly twice
as many deaths that month in London as in the previous December.

That and numerous less dramatic events across Europe spawned
clean air laws from the 1950s that got rid of visible smoke. But
for all the catalytic conversion and other means to cut down CO2
emissions, unseen pollution, notably from traffic, has worsened.

TRILLION EURO COST

In all, nearly half a million of the half-billion citizens
of the European Union die a premature death each year because of
the air they breathe, according to the European Environment
Agency (EEA), an official EU organisation.

Countering fears of the cost of regulation, it puts the EU
bill for healthcare, sick days and the wider impact on the
environment at roughly 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion).

London, the continent’s biggest city, has one of the biggest
problems with air. It has the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide
(NO2) of any European capital; the colourless, odourless gas is
produced by burning fuel and can damage people’s breathing.

Through complex chemical reactions, nitrogen oxides generate
ground-level ozone; this has supplanted the old London “pea
soup” smoky fogs as the modern definition of smog. Air in the
British capital again made headlines when ground-level ozone was
80 percent over World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on
the eve of the 2012 Olympics, raising worries for the athletes.

Critics complain that successive governments have done too
little to combat toxic air, which they say is Britain’s biggest
killer after smoking. It causes 29,000 early deaths a year in a
country of 63 million, says the Committee on the Medical Effects
of Air Pollutants, which advises the government.

“Air pollution is Britain’s forgotten environmental and
public health crisis,” said Moore. “If you compare it with other
health issues in the UK, after smoking, air pollution is the
next one down in terms of financial costs and early deaths.”

It seems likely to rise up the political agenda, however; a
poll of more than 25,000 Europeans published in January by the
European Commission in Brussels showed 56 percent thought air
quality had deteriorated in the last 10 years and 72 percent
thought the authorities were not doing enough to tackle it.

Last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development predicted urban air pollution would become the top
environmental cause of mortality worldwide by 2050.

Globally, the number of early deaths from exposure to
particulate air pollutants leading to respiratory failure could
double from current levels to 3.6 million every year, it said.

LONDON’S CHOKING

The vast majority of those deaths will be outside Europe -
horror stories of unbreathable air in Beijing and other
megacities of the developing world are legion. But London’s
invisible nitrogen dioxide highlights Europe’s problems.

NO2 levels in some highly congested patches of the city,
which is roughly half the size of 20-million-strong Beijing, are
about the same as the average in the Chinese capital, campaign
group Clean Air London found after analysing samples from both.

Environmental law firm ClientEarth has taken the British
government to the Supreme Court in London to force it to come up
with a revised plan to meet EU limits on NO2 concentrations by
2015; a decision is expected in the next few weeks.

The government has so far responded by saying air quality is
on the whole good and that most British regions will achieve the
EU standards by 2020, while London may take five years longer.

Environmental campaigners are not impressed:

“There’s a public health problem here and the government
needs to take responsibility,” said Frank Kelly, professor of
environmental health at King’s College London.

“It’s not good enough to say that we can wait to 2025.”

Among those impatient for action is Rosalind Dalton, 49, who
has lived in Greenwich, southeast London, for the past 25 years.
She was diagnosed two years ago with chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, a condition usually associated with smoking.

Even though neither she nor her family have been smokers,
she was told she had the lung capacity of a woman of 71. She has
had to turn back from a short walk to her local supermarket
because the air was giving her too little oxygen to go on.

“I want to see my children grow to adulthood and not worry
about my life, or quality of life, being shortened by the impact
of air pollution on my condition,” she said.

TINY BUT DEADLY

While London’s particular problem is NO2, largely caused by
traffic, Europe as a whole has a problem with the broader
phenomenon of ground-level ozone and microscopic particulate
matter (PM), which can be small enough to penetrate lung tissue.

Almost one in three city-dwellers in the European Union was
exposed to excessive concentrations of airborne PM in 2010,
mostly caused by traffic, industry and fuel-burning, the EEA
said recently, citing EU limits. Using tighter WHO standards,
almost every city dweller in the bloc faces dangerous exposure.

Diesel-powered vehicles and coal-fired power stations pose a
particular threat across the continent, researchers say.

Even rural Switzerland, famed for its clean mountain air,
has a problem with heavy trucks in transit producing diesel
fumes that get trapped in landlocked valleys.

In contrast to much of the world, where gasoline dominates,
diesel is the main transport fuel in Europe and its emissions
are particularly unhealthy. The WHO said last year diesel
exhaust fumes can cause cancer and belong in the same deadly
category as asbestos, arsenic and mustard gas.

As part of a raft of measures, including the car emissions
law and revised air quality legislation, the EU Commission is
looking to limit diesel fumes. But regulation is problematic,
not least in measuring emissions.

Despite global efforts to combat climate change, coal-fired
electricity also continues to make Europe sick. New shale gas
output in the United States has seen Europeans import cheaper
U.S. coal to burn in power stations, while the value of official
financial incentives to use cleaner fuel have diminished.

German utility E.ON is among those to say it has
no choice but to mothball some of its most efficient natural gas
plants because it is cheaper to burn coal.

New pollution standards are also resisted by those who make
fuels. At Europia, the refiners’ lobby, spokesman Alain Mathuren
said members lacked cash for costly reforms: “Having to spend
all our funds on staying-in-business investments that do not
generate returns does not leave much to improve the business.”

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

A proposal put forward by the European Commission last year
to remove temporarily some of the glut of carbon allowances that
has depressed the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was meant to be
a quick and easy fix.

But opinion is deeply divided and EU sources say a defeat in
a plenary session of the Strasbourg parliament expected on April
16 would almost certainly kill the short-term plan.

In theory, the vote is on a highly technical amendment to
shore up the legality of removing permits from the scheme, which
is being debated in parallel by member states.

“It’s a tiny little proposal, but it’s become an enormous
debate because it’s seen as the opening skirmish,” one EU source
said on condition of anonymity.

The short-term plan would be a prelude to longer-term
structural reforms, such as the permanent removal of allowances.

“It is being watched internationally in terms of a test of
the European Union’s will to save its carbon market,” Bryony
Worthington, founder of non-governmental organisation Sandbag,
said.

Within the European Parliament, the single biggest political
group, the European People’s Party, has mostly opposed the
intervention.

In contrast, more than half of the EU member states has
backed it, but a few, including coal-reliant Poland, have not.

Dominant member state Germany, facing an election year, has
refused to take a position as industry complains a higher ETS
would drive up energy costs, reducing its competitiveness.

INDUSTRY DIVIDED

Chemical giant BASF has argued for longer term
reform, while opposing short-term intervention.

“Shale gas has made energy prices drop dramatically in the
United States, while that is not so in Europe. We need to take
that into account,” Wolfgang Weber, a vice president at BASF,
said.

The Commission has sought to address warnings from some in
industry that they are in danger of being driven out of Europe
with a “carbon leakage” list of industrial sectors entitled to
free carbon allowances to prevent them leaving the continent and
just adding to pollution elsewhere.

A study on Tuesday from Dutch consultancy CE Delft, which
has given advice to the Commission on policy issues, noted the
existing list, to be revised next year, was drawn up on the
assumption of a 30 euro ($39) carbon price, 10 times higher than
the historic low of less than 3 euros touched in January.

Of the biggest industrial sectors, it found only crude oil
and natural gas extraction should still be entitled to free
allowances, whereas other leading energy users, such as oil
refining, cement and iron and steel should have to pay for
permits to pollute through auctions of allowances.

Others in industry back the stop-gap measure, referred to as
backloading, of temporarily removing permits and returning them
to the market later.

Royal Dutch Shell, for instance, which is keen to
promote natural gas, rather than more carbon-intensive coal, has
lent prominent support. So too have many in the power sector.

Oystein Loseth, president and CEO of Sweden’s Vattenfall,
said the European Union was “at a crossroads”.

In one direction, it faces a fragmentation of EU energy and
environment policy as some states would take their own measures
to support the ETS. Britain already has a carbon price floor.

The alternative route would lead to a single, efficient
market-place and ultimately reduced costs. “The ambition must be
to re-establish the ETS as a strong driver,” Loseth said.

Those who want backloading, also want deeper reform but say
that will take too long under EU processes that require
parliament and member states to endorse proposals from the EU
executive.

Commission officials have admitted time is running out for
agreement on far-reaching measures before the current team of
commissioners steps down next year.

EU carbon prices have crept up since the January low to
around 5 euros a tonne as traders have bet on a positive vote.
Analysts predict a ‘no’ will drive the price towards zero.

“The plenary vote on 16 April will be close, and therefore
represents another do or die moment for the troubled European
ETS,” said Matthew Gray, carbon analyst at Jefferies Bache.

World seaborne trade will reach between 19 and 24 billion
tonnes a year by 2030 compared to the current 9 billion tonnes
now, the report entitled “Global Marine Trends 2030″ showed.

Some 90 percent of world trade by volume is carried by sea,
according to the Orgnisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development.

“What is striking is that even in the most negative of
the scenarios envisaged, maritime growth is strong,” said
Richard Sadler, chief executive of Lloyd’s Register.

“China, consuming three times-as-much oil as it does today
and 60 percent of the world’s coal, will be the marketplace for
maritime trade.”

The study used three factors – population growth, economic
development and resource demand – to help predict what the
maritime trade, marine power and offshore energy sectors could
look like in 2030.

China will experience the most growth in fleet ownership of
all regions in the world to rival the shares of traditionally
large owners Greece and other European countries, the report
said.

China’s share of fleet ownership will rise to 19-24 percent
by 2030 from 15 percent in 2010, while Japan’s share will
decline to 5.6-6.7 percent, from 12 percent today.

In the shipbuilding market, tankers are the only type of
ship set to see a decline in delivery over the next 20 years,
the report said.

The bulk of newbuilds, as much as 55 percent, will be done
by China, while South Korea will account for up to 27 percent.

China will overtake North America to become the world’s
largest oil consumer by 2030, nearly tripling its consumption
from 2011. World oil consumption is seen growing to 6.6 billion
tonnes from 4.4 billion in 2010.

The report also showed that world coal consumption will more
than double by 2030 to around 8.4 billion tonnes of oil
equivalent from 3.5 billion in 2010, with China accounting for
60 percent of consumption.

Natural gas consumption will also double to 5.4 billion
tonnes by 2030 from 2.7 billion in 2010, with the United States
remaining the biggest consumer.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

Any air traveller has probably experienced turbulence. It
can happen without warning and is caused by climate conditions
such as atmospheric pressure, jet streams, cold and warm fronts
or thunderstorms.

Light turbulence shakes the aircraft, but more severe
episodes can injure passengers and cause structural damage to
planes, costing around an estimated $150 million a year.

Turbulence will be stronger and occur more often if carbon
dioxide emissions double by 2050 as the International Energy
Agency forecasts, scientists at the universities of Reading and
East Anglia said in the study published in the journal Nature
Climate Change.

Carbon dioxide is one of the most potent greenhouse gases
blamed for global warming. Increasing emissions raise the global
average temperature, heating up the lower atmosphere.

However, warming also changes the atmosphere 10 km above
ground level, making it more unstable for planes, Paul Williams
at the University of Reading and co-author of the report, told
Reuters.

FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS

The scientists focused on the North Atlantic flight corridor
- where 600 planes travel between Europe and North America each
day – using computer simulations to examine the effects of
climate change on conditions there.

They found that the chances of encountering significant
turbulence by the middle of the century will increase by between
40 and 170 percent, with the most likely outcome being a
doubling of airspace containing significant turbulence.

The average strength of turbulence would also increase by
between 10 and 40 percent.

Bumpier air journeys would make flying more uncomfortable
and raise the risks to passengers and crew.

Detours to avoid strong patches of turbulence would lengthen
flight times, increasing fuel consumption, emissions and airport
delays, which would ultimately drive up ticket prices, Williams
said.

Air travel is one of the fastest-growing sources of carbon
dioxide emissions, but the effects of climate change on
turbulence have not been studied before.

“Aviation is partly responsible for changing the climate in
the first place. It is ironic that the climate looks set to
exact its revenge by creating a more turbulent atmosphere for
flying,” Williams said.

The International Air Transport Association said the issue
of climate sensitivity still held many uncertainties and the
study would not change airline procedures.

The aviation sector is aiming to halve its net CO2 emissions
by 2050 from 2005 levels through new technology, alternative
fuels and increased efficiency.

There have also been attempts to tax the sector amid slow
progress towards a global deal on curbing aviation emissions.

The European Union tried to force all airlines landing or
taking off from EU airports to pay for their emissions last year
through its carbon trading scheme. But opposition was so fierce
it almost led to a trade war, so the law was frozen for a year
for inter-continental flights.

(Editing by Alistair Lyon)