Switching to a 'green' electricity tariff

Changing to a green electricity tariff is a simple action to take to help support renewable electricity generation. However, beware the greenwash on this one! Some background information:

Firstly, what is a green tariff? It doesn't guarantee that the electricity powering your computer is from a renewable source. However, for at least some of the units you use, the energy company guarantees to put back into the grid an equivalent amount of energy from renewable sources (currently more expensive). You, the customer, pay a little bit more for them to do this, and this increases the market for renewable energy, and supports the building of new renewables capacity.

All power companies have a legal requirement to make 9% of their electricity from renewables, or purchase certificates to make up the difference. Large energy providers seem to have found a handy way of paying for this. Rather than spread the costs among all consumers, those on 'green tariffs' pay more - but without the company actually producing any more renewable energy than it is obliged to anyway.

Small providers are generally a safer bet. The website http://www.greenelectricity.org/ compares various tariffs for the green benefits on offer. From next month there will be a bit more transparency as companies will have to comply with Ofgem guidelines about providing information. The Ofgem rating system has been criticised however. The National Consumer Council did a report which goes into more detail about the issues, but individual tariffs may have changed since it was written in 2006.

One final useful bit of jargon: ROC retiral. This is a Good Thing. ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) are issued to companies producing renewable energy. They can then sell these to other energy company to enable them to meet their legal obligation (see above). Any renewables company that retires some of these certificates rather than selling them makes it harder for other companies not to invest in renewables themselves, and avoids counting the 'greenness' twice.

So, is it worth changing? Yes. Switching electricity suppliers isn't a substitute for saving energy, but here are two good reasons to take this action:
1. It's very easy to switch, through http://www.greenelectricity.org/ or another website.
2. It makes you feel good
3. When persistent sales-type people come to your front door trying to persuade you to switch suppliers, you can tell them you're with a green energy company, and they go away. This is a significant bonus in my opinion.

Biofuels: one of the worst good ideas

The EU is proposing a binding target to increase the use of biofuels made from plant matter so they would make up 10% of all road fuels by 2020. This would mean lower fossil fuel use, so would be a good thing for the planet, surely? Unfortunately not, since land use changes to grow these crops is often likely to lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. There are also serious humanitarian concerns about land rights and food production. For example, this report from Oxfam cites the International Food Policy Research Institute who blame biofuels for 30% of the recent near doubling of global food prices.

Artificially increasing the demand for biofuels would have a serious effect in countries such as Indonesia. Current deforestation, driven by demand for palm oil, timber and paper, has already led to Indonesia becoming the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only the US and China. This is not just from burning the forest, but also because the underlying peatlands, when drained and exposed, decompose emitting vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

The next vote on this issue is at the Industry and Energy Committee of the European Parliament in September. You can email your MEP from the Friends of the Earth website. Hopefully, you then get a reply from them in which they commit to voting against any targets for biofuel use. It's more likely, though, that they will only partially agree, or not commit themselves. No reason why you can't write back, and point out where you think they're wrong. There are useful tips for doing that here.

NB. the website writetothem.com is a good resource for this sort of thing. It lets you email your MP, councillor, MEP, MSP, London Assembly member, etc. at the click of a mouse.

Global warming: why is it a bad thing?

"Climate change: Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist" stated the Guardian's headline on Thursday. It was good to see these issues on the front page, where they should be, and the article was intelligent. Though I did feel that illustrating it with a picture of some plants, captioned "Drought-resistant plants...would become more common in British gardens" rather undermined its seriousness. However, inside, a table showed what the expected impacts would be. This is nicely set out, but still confusing in some ways. So I looked at its source, the Stern report, and found a much clearer version on page 57.

Clearly, there is a lot of uncertainty around these predictions, in that we can't be sure that any given impact will be as predicted, less than predicted, or indeed a lot worse (for example reports that the Arctic is losing ice so fast that the North Pole could have no ice cover in 5 years).

One of the problems getting most people to take global warming seriously is that the difference between, say, a summer's day of 20C and one of 23C is not dramatic. However, if global temperatures rise on average by just 1C, the disappearance of glaciers in the Andes will threaten water supplies for 50 million people, there will be 80% bleaching of coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef, and according to one study, we can expect 10% of land species to go extinct. At 2C, crop yield would start to decline in Africa, with potentially 20 - 30% decrease in water availability in Southern Africa and the Mediterranean.

Recent work by climate and policy experts modelled plausible scenarios. The most optimistic was that in 2010, climate-related disasters led to a dramatic change in international policy-making and a cap on total fossil fuel extraction, leading emissions to start falling as early as 2017. This scenario still led to a 2.89C rise in global temperatures by 2100. The next most optimistic was that current negotiations lead to a Kyoto style agreement for developed countries, with others joining as they achieve "first world" status. Under this, emissions continue to rise until 2030, and there would be an expected 3.31C rise in temperatures. At 3C, 1 - 4 billion more people are expected to suffer water shortages, and some models predict collapse of the Amazon rainforest.

The most pessimistic scenario was where governments make commitments on climate change, but then backtrack or fail to comply with them (i.e. as has happened so far). This has 90% probability of a 4.85C rise by 2100. At 5C, according to the Stern report, London and New York would be at risk from flooding, marine ecosystems would be seriously disrupted by acidity and many hundreds of millions in China and India would suffer from water shortages as Himalayan glaciers disappear.

Finally, one thing that has been given little emphasis in public debate is that somewhere well before 5C, positive feedback could kick in (i.e. triggering runaway global warming). For example, the Siberian permafrost melts, releasing methane, or tropical rainforests collapse, releasing carbon dioxide. One recent estimate put the 'tipping point in just 100 months' time.

So, not good. Next week I'll try and get back on the theme of 'positive things to do in the face of all this'.

Fuel poverty in the news

At first sight there may seem to be a clash of priorities between those who worry about poor households facing higher fuel bills for heating and transport, and those who see these as a driver of essential energy efficiency measures to tackle climate change. The blindingly obvious solution is to invest in making homes well insulated and energy efficient - save money, save the planet.

Unfortunately Malcolm Wicks, the energy minister, doesn't see it that way . Displaying a worrying lack of joined-up thinking, he is quoted in the Observer as saying "We are not going to sacrifice fuel poverty on the altar of climate change."

In 2001, the government committed itself to the legally binding target of eradicating fuel poverty among vulnerable households in England by 2010, and across the UK entirely by 2016-18. Working together, Friends of the Earth and Help the Aged have secured a judicial review against the government for their imminent failure to reach these targets, with the case due to be heard in October.

Recent sharp increases in fuel bills, together with large profits announced by energy companies have contributed to growing public pressure for a windfall tax on energy companies, with the proceeds to be used to tackle fuel poverty. There is a full list of supporters of the windfall tax campaign on the Compass website, along with a petition. The Select Committee on Business and Enterprise have even suggested in their latest report that it would be a good idea, given the profits energy companies have made recently from free entitlements handed out under the EU emissions trading scheme, and the scale of fuel poverty.

Needless to say, the energy companies have dug their heels in, protesting that they pay high taxes already, and threatening to withdraw investment in renewable energy schemes. Reports are that the government is also less than enthusiastic about a windfall tax, and is looking at other measures. (A good report here in the Herald.) However, with the judicial review coming up in October, the government will be under pressure to ensure some serious money is spent, and if it doesn't come from the energy companies, it will come from the taxpayer.

The Elephant in the Room

This week's big UK climate change story has to be the research by the Stockholm Environment Institute* as reported on the BBC, the Independent, the Telegraph and others. Official statistics used by the government seem to show that UK greenhouse gas emissions have been falling since the 1990s, despite the economy's growth (largely attributed to a one-off switch from coal to gas).

However, this new research shows what happens when all emissions associated with UK consumption are included in the statistics (international aviation, shipping and imports). Lo and behold, as the economy (and consumption) has been increasing, so have emissions too (as most environmentalists suspected). These extra emissions are substantial, accounting for half as much again as the UK emissions reported through the Kyoto protocol.

Essentially, as the UK manufacturing industry declined, it has been outsourcing its greenhouse gas emissions to countries such as China. For any given unit, such as a DVD player, the carbon emissions are actually greater when manufactured abroad, and transported to the UK - but on the UK's official balance sheet they count as zero.

So, the UK's responsibility is now clearer. But what happens to the emissions statistics from those countries that manufacture goods for us? Last year, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research calculated that net exports from China accounted for a quarter of its emissions. A report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF), Chinadependence, goes into more detail, with the statistic that the UK imports around 6.5 million tonnes of goods a year from China.

So the next time someone tells you that it doesn't matter what the UK does, because China is so polluting, tell them that perhaps we have more influence over Chinese pollution than we think.

Making the point on a related issue (omitting aviation and shipping from the climate change bill), see the Elephant in the Room - one of the neatest protests I've seen in a while.

Finally, a couple of fascinating statistics from the NEF report. In 2006, the UK sent 21 tonnes of mineral water all the way to Australia and brought 20 tonnes all the way back. In the same year, we both imported from and exported to Italy, 600 tonnes of, 'gums and other jelly confectionary'. Humans really are a strange species.

* Two reports, one published by Defra, the other by WWF, not published yet.