Spring 2008 (YES! Magazine, Anna Fahey) – Last summer, Chinese President Hu Jintao toured the country in short sleeves to show that his countrymen could turn their air conditioners down. In China, conservation is “in.” Fashions do change.
Global warming denial is out of vogue. Unfortunately, though, the climate change do-nothing set is sporting a new line: “Why should we bother fighting climate change when China’s emissions are increasing?”
February 11, 2008 (Yomiuri Shimbun) – The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry plans to expand the nation’s environment-focused business sector to about 83 trillion yen in 2015, from 59 trillion yen in 2005, sources said. In June, the ministry plans to draw up policies to achieve this target that will include proposals for popularizing environmentally friendly technologies and businesses, according to the sources.
The ministry will promote the plan to participants at the Group of Eight summit meeting, which is to focus on environmental issues, to be held in Toyakocho, Hokkaido in July.
The ministry believes the domestic market for businesses involved in tackling global warming could grow by 54 percent to 49 trillion yen by 2015 from the 2005 level.
February 10, 2008 (Lin Yanqin and Esther Fung) Spiralling oil prices, growing global demand for energy, limited and uncertain supplies from oil-producing countries, climate change from greenhouse gas emissions – these are the challenges faced by a Singapore dependent on imports for energy needs.But even if Singapore has to be a “price-taker” in meeting its energy needs, it can still turn “energy challenges” into “energy opportunities”.
To help make this happen, a master plan – outlined in the National Energy Policy Report – was unveiled by the Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang yesterday, with six strategies mapped out for Singapore’s energy future.
Steps will be taken to improve energy security by diversifying energy sources and the mix of fuels currently used to generate electricity. Plans are also in place to grow the value-add of the energy industry, now worth 20 billion, into a $34-billion industry by 2015, and triple the number of jobs to 15,300.
From: Jeroen van der Veer, Chief Executive
To: All Shell employees
Date: 22 January 2008 Subject: Shell Energy Scenarios
Dear Colleagues
In this letter, I’d like to share reflections about how we see the energy future, and our preferred route to meeting the world’s energy needs. Industry, governments and energy users – that is, all of us – will face the twin challenge of more energy and less CO2.
This letter is based on a text I’ve written for publication in several newspapers in the coming weeks. You can use it in your communications externally. There will be more information about energy scenarios inthe months ahead.
By the year 2100, the world’s energy system will be radically different from today’s. Renewable energy like solar, wind, hydroelectricity and biofuels will make up a large share of the energy mix, and nuclear energy too will have a place.
Mankind will have found ways of dealing with air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. New technologies will have reduced the amount of energy needed to power buildings and vehicles.
January, 26, 2008 (Bloomberg) – Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda vowed to cut carbon emissions and earmark funds to help developing nations cope with global warming, in a bid to take a leading role in combating climate change. Over the next five years, Japan will spend $30 billion on new environmental technology at home and provide another $10 billion for developing countries, Fukuda said in a speech today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Fukuda also proposed a 30 percent improvement in energy efficiency globally by 2020.
January 19, 2008 (Reuters) – Overlooking a mountain lake a few hours drive from Tokyo, dozens of tall wind turbines spin in the breeze creating carbon-free power for the world’s fifth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.A sudden change in breeze spins the turbines in a different direction, an apt symbol of Japan’s efforts to shift away from fossil fuels for renewable energy such as wind power to help cut its greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
Wind farms such as the Nunobiki Plateau Wind Farm on a hill north of Tokyo, which generates enough electricity to power some 35,000 homes a year, have failed to make a dent in Japan’s obligations to cut carbon gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
But Japan is now looking towards the sea, following in the footsteps of Europe which is the world’s leader in wind energy, by planning a network of offshore wind farms to tap into the gales of the Pacific Ocean.
January 16, 2008 (Forbes) – Sitting right at the doorstep of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China, top officials at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange do not need any more evidence to support their optimism about the market potential of a new initiative for a trading center for emissions-related products. All they need do is look out the windows of their harborfront office, to a hazy horizon regularly clouded by pollution and smog. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a listed company that doubles as a market regulator, has hired consultants to look at the possibility of introducing trades of carbon emissions-related products and is moving to draw up a concrete plan by the year end. According to a new policy direction set forth by its board, it will build on its existing business and expertise in initial public offerings, exchange traded funds and index-linked products to “focus on environmental and greenhouse gases markets.”
December 24, 2007 (Bloomberg) – The world’s lawmakers should abandon attempts to set “optimistic” targets for greenhouse-gas emissions, said Bjorn Lomborg, the author of the best-selling book “The Skeptical Environmentalist. ”The U.S. and developing nations on Dec. 15 agreed at United Nations-sponsored talks to negotiate a new global-warming treaty by 2009, after the U.S. accepted a compromise agenda to protect the climate after 2012, when the existing emissions-limiting accord runs out.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol and last week’s talks on the Indonesian island of Bali are expensive and inefficient ways to tackle climate change, said Lomborg, dubbed in 2004 by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Instead, nations should spend more money on developing renewable energy such as wind and solar power, he said.
December 24, 2007 (United Nations Resident Coordinator in China, Khalid Malik) – In outgoing 2007, almost all important intergovernmental panels have so far focused their core topics for discussion on climate change, and this year will surely go down into the annuals of the world history as a crucial year.Internationally, a great deal of talks or discussions globally acknowledge that China would replace the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas in the next decade. People, nevertheless, do not known much about the unremitting, continuous efforts and contributions China has so far made in dealing with climate challenges. China was expected to invest 10 billion US dollars this year on the research and development of renewable energies, and was thus cited as the global No. 2 in term of the input made in this sphere, only next to Germany.
At a recent summit of East Asian Leaders in Singapore, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to reduce energy consumption (per unit of GDP) by 20 percent over the coming five years. This pledge of Wen’s is more or less the same with the commitment of the EU member states to reducing their greenhouse gases emission by 20 percent by the year 2020.
December 17, 2007 (SinoCast) – China Huadian Corporation just signed a framework agreement of overall strategic cooperation with UK-based EcoSecurities Group PLC and Germany-headed Deutsche Bank, involving four clean development mechanism (CDM) projects. The Chinese power generation group will annually sell 3 million tons of carbon dioxide generated by its four super-critical power plants to the two foreign buyers, who will pay EUR 33 million for the deal per year.
Notably, the transaction is the biggest one that Chinese power generation companies have ever made in carbon dioxide sale business.
Asia Cleantech 