domenica 22 ottobre 2017

Climate Change, Global Warming, Pollution, Environmental Degradation and Renewable and Sustainable Energy

For a summary of the outcomes of and reaction to the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) in Paris November 30-December 12, 2015, see:
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris_en
then background:
some criticism of the agreement (see below also)
Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/business/climate-change-tesla-corporations-paris-accord.html
More general background
You could watch Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ for the background to Climate Change. If you are too mean to buy it you can watch extracts on You Tube. Or you can watch him on TED with various updates. Here are a few:
and then you could go to the Climate Project on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_mr9EqJg18
You should look at the statistics from the International Energy Agency

and for the evolution of the current international agenda see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference

Observations across the United States and world provide multiple, independent lines of evidence that climate change is happening now. Over the past century, human activities have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The majority of greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels to produce energy, although deforestation, industrial processes, and some agricultural practices also emit gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases act like a blanket around Earth, trapping energy in the atmosphere and causing it to warm. This phenomenon is called the greenhouse effect and is natural and necessary to support life on Earth. However, the buildup of greenhouse gases can change Earth's climate and result in dangerous effects to human health and welfare and to ecosystems.
Global warming refers to the recent and ongoing rise in global average temperature near Earth's surface. It is caused mostly by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is causing climate patterns to change. However, global warming itself represents only one aspect of climate change. (That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 80 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.) Climate change refers to any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among other effects, that occur over several decades or longer.
Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.5°F over the past century, and is projected to rise another 0.5 to 8.6°F over the next hundred years. Small changes in the average temperature of the planet can translate to large and potentially dangerous shifts in climate and weather. The evidence is clear. Rising global temperatures have been accompanied by changes in weather and climate. Many places have seen changes in rainfall, resulting in more floods, droughts, or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. The planet's oceans and glaciers have also experienced some big changes - oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, ice caps are melting, and sea levels are rising. As these and other changes become more pronounced in the coming decades, they will likely present challenges to our society and our environment.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/233/climate-change-and-global-warming-introduction#WhatisGlobalWarmingandClimateChange

Preventing global warming is clearly a collective public good. This means that individuals and individual countries will only really benefit from collective action by the international community as a whole. A strategy that includes only some countries will not be effective. The commitment of both the US and China, originally made in Nov. 2014
The agreement does not include sanctions on states that fail to reduce their CO2 emissions and has been criticized for this by some experts as unlikely to be effective.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/legacy-or-bust/2015/12/17/ab8bd418-a4fa-11e5-9c4e-be37f66848bb_story.html
https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/20/the-trojan-horse-of-the-paris-climate-agreement/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/hansen-calls-cop21-a-fraud/
To see how things are going:http://climateactiontracker.org/
More useful background:
European Union
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/#c5=&c0=10&b_start=0
see latest from Green Peace on European Union:
http://www.ren21.net/status-of-renewables/global-status-report/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_gas
http://www.what-is-fracking.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323894704578114492856065064.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/shale-gas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_oil_shale_industry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
Environmental Degradation and Loss of Biodiversity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_degradation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_India
http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/food-crisis/page/3566.aspx
http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/population-growth-and-environmental-degradation/
http://www.eniscuola.net/en/life/contenuti/biodiversity/left/loss-of-biodiversity/causes-of-the-loss-of-biodiversity/
http://www.globalissues.org/article/171/loss-of-biodiversity-and-extinctions
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/threatsto_biodiversity/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_protection
Pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution#Forms_of_pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_prevention
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_minimisation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_energy_use
Renewable (sustainable) energy (resources)
Renewable energy comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished) but the term often includes biomass.
Then look at this extract from the ‘Ren 21 Renewables 2017 Global Status Report’:
http://www.ren21.net/gsr-2017/chapters/chapter_01/chapter_01/
The year 2016 saw several developments and ongoing trends that all have a bearing on renewable energy, including the continuation of comparatively low global fossil fuel prices; dramatic price reductions of several renewable energy technologies (especially solar PV and wind power); and a continued increase in attention to energy storage.
World primary energy demand has grown by an annual average of around 1.8% since 2011, although the pace of growth has slowed in the past few years, with wide variations by country. Growth in primary energy demand has occurred largely in developing countries, whereas in developed countries it has slowed or even declined.
For the third consecutive year, global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and industry were nearly flat in 2016, rising only an estimated 0.2%, continuing to break away from the trend of 2.2% average growth during the previous decade. This slowing of emissions growth was due largely to declining coal use worldwide but also to improvements in energy efficiency and to increasing power generation from renewable energy sources. Globally, coal production declined for the second year in a row. In 2016, additional countries committed to moving away from or phasing out coal for electricity generation (e.g., Canada, Finland, France, the Netherlands and the US state of Oregon) or to no longer financing coal use (e.g., Brazil’s development bank). Countering this trend, however, a number of countries announced plans to expand coal production and use.
Despite the overall decline in coal production, relatively low global prices for oil and natural gas during much of the year continued to challenge renewable energy markets, especially in the heating and transport sectors. Fossil fuel subsidies, which remained significantly higher than subsidies for renewables, also continued to affect renewable energy growth. Building on international commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies – such as the 2009 commitments by the Group of Twenty (G20) and by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) – by the end of 2016 more than 50 countries had committed to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. Subsidy reforms were instituted during 2016 in Angola, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Gabon, India, Iran, Kuwait, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia.
As of 2015, renewable energy provided an estimated 19.3% of global final energy consumption. Of this total share, traditional biomass, used primarily for cooking and heating in remote and rural areas of developing countries, accounted for about 9.1%, and modern renewables (not including traditional biomass) increased their share relative to 2014 to approximately 10.2%. In 2015, hydropower accounted for an estimated 3.6% of total final energy consumption, other renewable power sources comprised 1.6%, renewable heat energy accounted for approximately 4.2%, and transport biofuels provided about 0.8%
The overall share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption has increased only modestly in recent history, despite tremendous growth in the renewable energy sector, particularly for solar PV and wind power. A primary reason for this is the persistently strong growth in overall energy demand (with the exception of a momentary pull-back in 2009 following the onset of a global economic recession), which counteracts the strong forward momentum for modern renewable energy technologies. In addition, the use of traditional biomass for heat, which makes up nearly half of all renewable energy use, has increased, but at a rate that has not kept up with growth in total demand.
In 2016, the power sector experienced the greatest increases in renewable energy capacity, whereas the growth of renewables in the heating and cooling and transport sectors was comparatively slow. As in 2015, most growth in renewable energy capacity was in solar PV (which led by a wide margin) and in wind power; hydropower continued to represent the majority of renewable power capacity and generation. Bioenergy (including traditional biomass) remained the leader by far in the heat (buildings and industry) and transport sectors.
Growth rates of renewable energy capacity vary substantially across regions and nations, with most new capacity being installed in developing countries, and primarily in China. China has been the single largest developer of renewable power and heat for the past eight years. In 2016, an ever-growing number of developing countries continued to expand their renewable energy capacities, and some are rapidly becoming important markets. Emerging economies are quickly transforming their energy industries by benefiting from lower-cost, more efficient renewable technologies and more reliable resource forecasting, making countries such as Argentina, Chile, China, India and Mexico attractive markets for investment. Nonetheless, some unique challenges remained in developing countries during the year, including a lack of infrastructure and of power sector planning, as well as off-taker risks.
At the global level, the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) formally entered into force at the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco in November 2016. Renewable energy figured prominently in a large portion of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries submitted in the lead-up to November. Renewable energy markets were affected only indirectly by these developments during 2016; more concrete policy developments resulting from commitments to the Paris Agreement and new announcements had not yet been enacted and/or implemented in most countries.
For the whole document see:

Problems with biomass energy resources:

The EU Emissions Trading System
according to the European Union:
criticism:

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/carbon-emission.28lw
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