Behind the scenes of climate negotiations

FORMAT CHANGE:
Now that the pressure is building up for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15 in 12 days), there are many events that I want to share with you, and discuss. At the same time, our JAHUS project goes into a phase with smaller changes/steps and hence little to report from day to day. I will therefore start the blog-entries with comments to recent events, and I will end the blog posts with a report from our own JAHUS project.

EVENT 1: MIXING WATER TO GET ELECTRICITY
The Norwegian company Statkraft opened the world’s first osmotic power prototype today.“This new technology generates electricity simply by mixing water. New solutions to meet the climate challenges might be closer than we expect, which makes me confident that the future looks bright,” says Statkraft CEO and President, Baard Mikkelsen.


The global potential of osmotic power is estimated to be 1,600-1,700 TWh per annum, equivalent to 50 percent of the EU’s total power production. Osmotic power plants can, in principle, be located wherever fresh water runs into the sea; they produce no noise or polluting emissions and they can be integrated into existing industrial zones, for example, in the basements of industrial buildings.


http://www.statkraft.com/presscentre/press-releases/the-worlds-first-osmotic-power-prototype-opens-today.aspx

EVENT 2: BEHIND THE SCENES OF CLIMATE NEGOTIATIONS
What will happen in Copenhagen? Can the world be saved by this summit? This was the agenda when the think tank Civita hosted a breakfast meeting this morning.

Keynote speaker was Norway's chief negotiator Hanne Bjurstrøm (and she will be Minister of Labor after the Copenhagen summit). Terje Osmundsen, director of strategies and business development in the norwegian solar energy company Scatec Solar, then commented on the keynote.

I found the session very interesting and want to share some of the highlights with you.

The target for climate negotiations
The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/) is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences. In 2007 they received the Nobel Peace Prize (sharing it with Al Gore).

IPCC says that industrialized countries must reduce CO2 emissions by 25-40% by 2020 (compared to 1990) if we should have a hope of keeping the global warming from increasing beyond 2C. According to IPCC this is a level at which we can avoid the most dramatic scenarios of global warming - and is now accepted by most countries as the target for all climate talks.

IPCC also say that CO2 must be cut by 50% by 2050, but more than 40 years ahead - there is no real discussion or negotiations about this target. All emphasis is on getting sufficient cuts by 2020.

Terje Osmundsen said that it is no longer a game of numbers, but a more fundamental issue that requires the mobilization of all people (like the rest of Europe must have felt when they were fighting "the Third Reich" from 1940-45). It is either win this war or face certain catastrophy.

One other way to look at it is: you can not afford to wait and see, and then try to compensate for what you see (control engineering). With the threat of dramatic climate changes it is too late "to turn the ship" in 2020 when the first actual dramatic changes can be observed - we must act now. It is a fact that cutting 1% CO2 in 2010 is worth a lot more than the same amount in 2030.

Current assessment
The average committment from industrialized countries is currently at approximately 17% now - so according to IPCC these committments must be raised to at least 25% for the world to stay below 2C global warming.

Not only should industrialized countries (who stands for most of the CO2 emissions) stand for 80% of the CO2 cuts - but we will not reach our target unless even the developing countries cut 20% (compared to 1990).

How to achieve these cuts
Developing counties: There will be transfer of funds from industrialized countries to developing countries upfront to help them build systems and reporting on CO2 emissions. Later there will be payments for achieved tasks (they will commit to specific lists of tasks and not a specific % reduction in CO2 emissions). If we get a working market for CO2 quotas, the markets will also take care of a transfer of funds from industrialized countries to the developing countries.

Industrialized countries: the realistic target for COP15 is a binding political agreement and industrial countries must quickly come up with plans (and milestones) to implement the cuts they have comitted to. The participants in todays session criticized the Norwegian government for being good at setting high targets - but not so good at producing plans or taking actions (like introducing incentives for improving the energy efficiency of the many old homes - ref the JAHUS project).

Challenges:
There are of course many challenges they face when they meet in Copenhagen. I will list some of them here.

One question from the audience: "only 80% cuts in the industrialized countries? Shouldn't it have been 120%?" The answer....

When China talks about "the CO2 space" they mean that there is a limited CO2 space in the world and the industrialized countries have used (or taken up) a majority of this space. Now when China, India and other developing countries are being industrialized too - their growth will be curbed because the CO2 space is almost "sold out". Most countries agree that this is a correct description of the situation. Industrialized countries will be responsible for 80% of the cuts (from higher levels), but as mentioned above even the developing countries need to cut CO2 by ca 20%. It may seem unfair to most of us, and India can safely claim that they will never be responsible for as much CO2 emissions as the best performing industrialized country - but nevertheless it is an unfortunate fact that we must all pull together to reach the 2C target.

Russia was given CO2 emission quotas in Kyoto, that were higher than they actually need now - because of more problematic business development than expected during the Kyoto negotiations. They have therefore accumulated considerable amounts of CO2 quotas that they of course will insist on pulling forward into the new agreement. Even if Russia commits to 25% cuts it will not be enough because they can actually increase CO2 emissions and still be compliant (because of the unused CO2 quotas pulled forward). EU will similarly get "a free ride" from the membership countries who also have accumulated CO2 quotas.

We live in a global world, and if we produce goods in our own country - the CO2 emissions increase here. If we, however, move the production to another country - we look like a compliant country and the CO2 effect of the goods we import adds to the CO2 emission reports in the country where the products were produced. USA has suggested a special CO2 import tax - but India is clearly against such a move. Understandably so - because this would be like introducing new trade barriers and it would be more expensive for consumers in USA to buy products from China or India (World Trade Organization is fighting all such trade barriers).

PROGRESS IN OUR JAHUS PROJECT:
As mentioned yesterday, we have doubts about some of the solutions that have been implemented by the ventilation team. These issues were described in an email to the company yesterday, and today we received a brief response.

They will answer all the questions/comments when they hand over the project to us (when they have finished everything and feel they can be proud of the result).

At least they agreed to my suggested location for pulling the cool air into the separate ventilation loop that will provide the 4 bedrooms with colder air than the other rooms in the house). Not sure what they plan for the extra supply of air to this room (as they will be pulling air out of a quite small room). It does not seem like they liked the idea of using some of the air from above the heatpump on the other side of the wall (colder than the outside air in the summer months). The other question about the air being pulled into the aggregate is too warm was not answered - so I guess we'll have to wait for the handover to see what they actually did about that problem.

I read the instruction manual for the aggregate today and found out that it must be running on the medium setting (what they call "NORMAL") to provide the house with enough fresh air (500 cubic meters per hour). This setting means much more noice - and when I mentioned this, the ventilation team said that it should be sufficient air supply if we use the lowest setting (the manufacturer call this setting "Going Away"). My response to the team was that I expect the solution to deliver 500 cubic meters per hour as it is stated in the contract - and they can do (almost) whatever they like to achieve this. If this means running the aggregate at medium/normal effect, then they will have to add more silencers on the ducts/piping and in the cabinet they use for the transport of air to- and from- the rooms on the first floor (via the attic).

We are waiting in cautious optimism for the actual handover day.

Even though they had promised to come here today - it seemed to me that nothing had been done when I arrived early from work at 2pm (planned to work from home the rest of the day and answer any questions they may have). One hour later one guy showed up with some supplies, but because he had been injured by a knife in a workrelated accident earlier today (two fingers had been stitched) - he was in too much pain to do any work today. He left after 15 minutes. I later found out that he had actually started the project of adding an extra loop to the bedroom (adding another pipe from the attic through the cabinet to the basement).