More dangerous signs of climate change: A road map is necessary

The effect of GHG emissions and deforestation yet made by man may be more dangerous than what scientists have ever forecasted. Talks in Durban to limit global temperature rises to 2C, agreed in Copenhagen Conference in 2009, will not prevent the possibility of dangerous climate change, warns Dr. Hansen, the scientist who first raised the alarm over global warming at US senate hearings in 1988. He believes carbon dioxide concentrations – now at nearly 389 parts per million (ppm) – should be no higher than 350ppm to stop catastrophic events such as the melting of ice sheets, dramatic sea level rises and methane being released from beneath the permafrost.
Signs of these possible effects of climate change have been observed. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane– a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.
"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said. "I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them."
Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tonnes of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. One of the greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire region, which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change.
Read more about that in:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/father-of-climate-change-2c-limit-is-not-enough-6273721.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html
The solution can come through curbing GHG emissions turning to renewable sources of energy , further actions in efficient use of energy and too by stopping deforestation and instead promoting afforestation. Today great emitters of some developing countries, China and India, think that reducing or limiting their GHG emissions imply a reduction in their necessary development to satisfy people demands. Other great emitters of developed countries, USA, perhaps doesn’t limit their emissions waiting for a solution in the advancement of science and technology to make the alternatives of green economies more attractive and competitive than the actual traditional economy responsible of GHG emissions made by man. It is time to act beginning in planning a road map so as to limit GHG emissions and to invest much more in R+ D+ I in green economies.

Energy, climate change, water and green economy

Energía, cambio climático, agua y economía verde

Energía, cambio climático, agua y economía verde están íntimamente relacionados. Si de verdad queremos encontrar soluciones sostenibles, debemos asegurarnos de que nos dirigimos a los cuatro de una manera simultanea. Son piezas del mismo rompecabezas y por lo tanto no es práctico verlas de manera aislada. Cuando usted tiene un problema de energía, sin duda no se puede resolver un problema de agua; Esto funciona también a la inversa. Y si usted está preocupado por el cambio climático, en realidad está preocupado por la energía, el agua y la economía verde - ya sea que lo sepa o no. Los responsables políticos, las universidades y centros de investigación, empresas y sociedad civil están trabajando duro tratando de encontrar soluciones a los desafíos del agua y la energía dentro de una economía verde de lucha contra el cambio climático.

¿Por qué este tema importa tanto ahora?
"El cambio climático se espera que va a exacerbar las tensiones actuales sobre los recursos hídricos. [...] Se prevé una aceleración en el siglo 21 de las pérdidas de masa generalizadas de los glaciares y de las reducciones en la capa de nieve en las últimas décadas, reduciendo la disponibilidad de agua, potencial hidroeléctrico, y cambiando la estacionalidad de los flujos (en algunas regiones)”.
Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático, Cambio climático 2007: Informe de Síntesis
Por ello es extremadamente importante realizar una gestión sostenible del agua y de los ecosistemas hídricos. En los últimos años se ha agravado la sequía en el sur de Europa, Asia Central, África, Oriente Medio y regiones de Australia; mientras que las inundaciones provocan cada vez más muertes y perjuicios económicos en China, Pakistán, India, Tailandia y países europeos.
Se prevé un aumento en la demanda global de energía primaria de poco más del 50% de aquí al 2030. Shell dice que vamos a necesitar lo equivalente a cuatro Arabias Saudíes de petróleo más. Las extracciones de agua dulce se prevé que aumenten un 50% para el año 2025 en los países en desarrollo, y el 18% en los países desarrollados.
El aumento de la demanda de energía producirá un aumento en las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y en el calentamiento del planeta y por ello la disponibilidad del agua será reducida en consecuencia (de cierta calidad y cantidad, y en un momento dado, un lugar o de flujo).Mucha de esta demanda serìa del carbón por ser más barato para centrales térmicas, especialmente en China. Mientras la demanda de energía será mas creciente para conseguir agua. Un modelo nuevo y genuino de las energías renovables y el ahorro y la eficiencia en el uso de la energía y el agua dentro de una economía verde son necesarios para enfrentarse con estos retos de un riesgo probable.

La actual crisis financiera representa una oportunidad para volver a analizar la manera de gestionar este riesgo. Tenemos que aprender a considerar los temas críticos como el agua, energía, cambio climático, los alimentos, la tierra, el desarrollo y los ecosistemas en conjunto. Impulsar las nuevas energías renovables y la eficiencia en el uso de agua y energía mediante la inversión en (I+D+i) en tecnologías e infraestructura son vías fundamentales para lograr los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio. Es esencial que la actual crisis financiera no lleve a una caída en el apoyo a estas vías.
De un tiempo para acá, se viene hablando de la”‘economía verde” que se considera todavía como un concepto emergente. Su eje central, según la Agencia Europea de Medio Ambiente, es la idea de revitalizar economías a medida que vayan saliendo de la reciente crisis económica, a la vez que se reducen de manera significativa sus riesgos medioambientales y se solucionan los problemas de escasez ecológica. A nivel global, hacer la economía más sostenible es el corazón de unos esfuerzos renovados por integrar consideraciones medioambientales y sociales dentro de la toma de decisiones económicas de gran calado, hasta y más allá de la Conferencia de Río sobre Desarrollo Sostenible que celebrará la ONU en 2012.
Finalizo con una reflexión de la profesora Jacqueline McGlade, directora ejecutiva de la Agencia Europea de Medio Ambiente “necesitamos seguir reforzando el vínculo entre política e información. Se trata de un camino en dos direcciones; los responsables de las políticas deben hacer un mejor uso del abanico de informaciones medioambientales disponible actualmente; pero, al mismo tiempo, las evaluaciones medioambientales deben concebirse de la manera más relevante de cara a las políticas.” Algo que sigue brillando por su ausencia en muchos casos por imperativos inmediatos de circunstancias.
“Si queremos sostener el desarrollo social y económica, tendremos que hacer que nuestras economías sean más verdes. Esto implica una gestión equitativa de los recursos limitados, sin comprometer las funciones esenciales del ecosistema. Nuestra capacidad, como sociedad, para alcanzar con éxito este objetivo dependerá del acceso que tengamos a información y evaluaciones medioambientales relevantes, creíbles y legítimas.”

Dr. Mahmoud M. Rabbani

Trabaja y escribe en asuntos de medio ambiente

Publicado en Diario de Navarra y en Hispagua.cedex.es

Industrial estates can be partially turned to green energies

Indusrial Estate Landaben in Pamplona, Spain

Wind turbines and solar panels will be becoming familiar sights at car assembly plants as automakers slash carbon emissions not only of the models they produce, but along the whole production chain.
From 2013, BMW has decided to install wind turbines at its plant in Leipzig in eastern Germany to provide the power for the assembly of its electric and hybrid models, the i3 and the i8, being unveiled at this year's IAA motor show.
French giant Renault boasts that has opened a "zero-carbon" factory at Tangiers, Morocco, powered by wind turbines while biomass generators provide steam and heating and manufacturing waste is recycled.
And in an investment that could prove attractive not only in image terms, but in financial terms, too, the auto giant is planning to equip its French sites with solar panels by 2012.
Further information about green energies in car assembly plants in:
http://www.france24.com/en/20110914-carmakers-turn-green-energy-assembly-plants

Well, that can be extended too covering many industry plants and workshops that capture wind and solar energy in their areas. Then it will not be unusual to see solar panels upon roofs of premises in industrial estates and wind turbines decorating their panoramas. New sources of renewable energies can be so operated in situ to satisfy some of energy demands in factories and workshops in industrial parks.

Andasol: The largest thermo solar park of Europe operating now in Granada, Spain.

In a plain near the Sierra Nevada in Granada, Spain, a spectacular complex of parabolic mirrors has emerged in recent years, which track the sun from east to west, every day. For the focus of each group of mirrors, or collector, through a special glass tube, oil circulates whose temperature is increased from 300 to 400 degree temperature along the circuit due to concentrating sunlight on it, and then it gives up the heat to the water that, in the form of steam, drives a turbine. So solar energy is transformed into electricity, as in a conventional power station, using the sun as a source of clean and free energy and not coal, petroleum or gas, avoiding so greenhouse gases emissions.
Part of the energy collected during the day through the collectors is stored as heat in molten salts within huge deposits to continue generating electricity eight hours after sunset. When the days are not sunny the station can be operated by gas. They are more than 600,000 mirrors, between 2 and 2.8 meters wide, occupying a very large space, equivalent to about 210 football fields, to produce a relatively modest total power -150 MW-but it is enough to serve half a million inhabitants and that-a very important-save 450,000 tons of CO2 annually.
Andasol is already, having carried out this month the third phase, the largest thermo solar park in Europe; but is, above all, a remarkable feat of engineering on which to base future installations of this type in southern Europe and also in northern Africa and Middle East, where there are vast and empty deserts with sunlight and high temperatures.
The best available technology for the right place, with the highest viability and lowest possible cost and environmental impact. This is always the challenge to install solar energy.

Further information about Andasol in:

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/futuro/600000/espejos/sol/Granada/elpepusocfut/20111019elpepifut_1/Tes

Deal with environmental hazards for emergencies of a crowded planet

Enfrentar un peligro ecológico por las emergencias de un planeta abarrotado

La Tierra está sufriendo del hombre que le pide más y más recursos para sobrevivir y satisfacer sus aspiraciones para el consumo. ¿Pueden los avances tecnológicos evitar un colapso total de nuestro planeta?
Según la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO), el crecimiento de la población requerirá un aumento en la producción agrícola de un 50% en 2030 y el 70% en 2050. Para la mayoría de los expertos, la Tierra tiene el potencial para alcanzar estos objetivos y alimentar a 9 mil millones de personas para el año 2050 que podría tener.
De seguir las actuales tendencias de producción y consumo mundiales, ello conduciría a un aumento de 590 millones de hectáreas de tierras cultivadas o utilizadas para la ganadería (un billón y medio de hectáreas se utilizan hoy en día), pérdida de biodiversidad, un aumento de los problemas ambientales y aceleración del cambio climático.
Todos estos fenómenos se pueden evitar con otro escenario alternativo. Pero eso requiere una convergencia global hacia un nuevo modo de consumo: la disponibilidad de alimentos entonces sería de 3.000 kilocalorías por día por persona (incluyendo 500 animales), una disminución del 25% en promedio para la población de países ricos de su dieta actual; y un aumento equivalente para todos los habitantes del África Subsahariana.
La necesidad de una transición a un nuevo modelo agrícola mundial es cada vez más sugerido, incluso dentro de las instituciones internacionales: "Tenemos que asegurar una transición suave de los sistemas alimentarios y agrícolas a sistemas más eficientes y menos contaminantes " , escriben expertos del Comité de la Plataforma de Seguridad Alimentaria de la ONU en un informe el lunes 17 de octubre.
Se pone gran énfasis en la necesidad de producir más para satisfacer la creciente demanda. Pero nos olvidamos del desperdicio de alimentos o del uso de biocombustibles que compiten con los cultivos de alimentos... "
De acuerdo con un estudio publicado en 2009, el 40% de los alimentos disponibles en los EE.UU. se desperdician cada año.



Más información en:

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2011/10/20/face-aux-perils-ecologiques-les-urgences-d-une-planete-surpeuplee_1590844_3244.html#ens_id=1590846

Climate sceptics are lessening public concern about global warming

In a briefing at the Royal Society in London on October 10th, Dr Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and is widely thought of as "the father of global warming" – his dramatic alert about climate change in US Senate hearings in July 1988 put the issue on the world agenda, was frank about the success with public opinion of the climate sceptics ,whom he termed "the climate contrarians", in effectively lessening public concern about global warming.
I think that the actual economic crisis is helping the sceptics in their battle.In spite that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions have increased 45% since Kyoto protocol in 1990 and the extreme climatic phenomenos that we have seen in this period.The target agreed upon was an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the year 2012.Unfortunately,for economic reasons,carbon is everyday widely more used increasing GHG emissions and so global warming,especially in China, who became the first responsable for GHG emissions in the world followed by USA.
Part of the problem, Hansen said, was that the climate sceptic lobby employed communications professionals, whereas "scientists are just barely competent at communicating with the public and don't have the wherewithal to do it."
When he was asked if anything might re-alert the public to the dangers of climate change, Dr Hansen said: "Mother Nature."
Significant climatic "extreme events" were now occurring over 10 to 15 per cent of the planet annually, whereas between 1950 to 1980 they occurred over less than 1 per cent. He added: "So in places like Texas this year, Moscow last year, and Europe in 2003, the climate change is so big that they are undeniable. Within 10 to 15 years they're going to occur over 15 to 20 per cent of the planet, so people have to notice that the climate is changing."
Hansen's evidence that the world is warming

Texas, summer 2011
The US state this year has had its driest summer since record-keeping began in 1895, with 75 per cent of the state classified as "exceptional drought", the worst level. Shortages of grass, hay and water have forced ranchers to thin their herds – where this cow died, in the San Angelo area, there has been less than three inches of rain.
Moscow, August 2010
Russia experienced its hottest-ever summer last year – for weeks, a large portion of European Russia was more than 7 °C (12.6 °F) warmer than normal, and a new national record was set of 44 °C (111 °F). Raging forest fires filled Moscow with smoke, forcing the cancellation of air services and obliging people to don face masks.
Northern Europe, 2003
Shrivelled French grapes at the end of Europe's hottest summer on record, in 2003. The heatwave led to health crises in several countries and more than 40,000 people are thought to have died. Britain experienced its first (and so far only) 100+ F air temperature – 101.3°F (38.5°C) recorded at Brogdale, Kent, on 10 August.

More information about the briefing in http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warning-climate-sceptics-are-winning-the-battle-2368617.html

Energy, climate change and water links

Energy, climate change and water are inextricably linked. If we truly want to find sustainable solutions, we must ensure that we address all three in a holistic way. They are pieces of the same puzzle and therefore it is not practical to look at them in isolation. When you have an energy problem, you cannot resolve certainly a water problem. It works the other way, too. And if you are concerned about climate change, you are actually concerned about both energy and water – whether you know it or not. Policy makers, universities and research centres, companies and civil society are all hard at work trying to find solutions to water and energy challenges. More research and increased knowledge sharing among all these actors is necessary. Together we can break down the silos and develop solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.
Why this issue matters now
“Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources.[…] Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate through the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and changing seasonality of flows ( in some regions)”.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report

Global primary energy demand is projected to increase by just over 50% between now
and 2030. Freshwater withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50% by 2025 in developing countries, and 18% in developed countries.
Increased energy demand will produce more greenhouse gases emissions and so more environmental warming and consequently reduced water availability (of a certain quality and quantity, and at a given time, place or flow) and more increasing energy demand to get water. A new and genuine model for renewable energies and efficiency in energy and water use are necessary to meet these challenges of a probable risk.
Today’s financial crisis presents an opportunity for us to revisit the way we manage this challenge risk. We need to learn to consider critical issues such as water, energy, climate change, food, land, development and ecosystem services together. Boosting water and energy use efficiency through investment in relevant technologies and infrastructure are critical pathways to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It is essential that the current financial crisis not lead to a drop in this support.
Water and energy policy need to be interlinked: Reliable energy, GHG emissions, climate change and water data, models and analysis tools are too needed to assess risk and make informed decisions or plans. Reliable meteorological and hydrological data should be collected at national and sub national levels for that too.
On the other hand, water and energy efficiency are linked, and this needs to be expressed clearly in measurement tools and policy. A comprehensive, common approach to water and energy efficiency- or “foot print”- measurement is needed. Also, policy on water efficiency should include energy efficiency and vice versa, because trade-offs and synergies do exist between them.

More information in:
http://www.wbcsd.org/DocRoot/Dg6GYWJq7xuaLO0OwZOi/WaterEnergyandClimateChange.pdf