sponsored by the Carbon Trust in Wales
Sustainable Wales Focus on innovations Our low carbon future
2 Sustainable Wales – Focus on innovations
Foreword
Achieving a sustainable Wales means moving to a low carbon energy economy. The Stern report was clear about the economic costs of delaying action; it also highlighted the potential rewards for those countries that take a lead by developing and exporting the new green technologies that will be required. The Welsh Assembly Government is committed to action on combating the causes of climate change, and to pursuing a more sustainable form of development that uses resources more efficiently, setting Wales on a path to using only our fair share of the earth‘s resources. In the fight against global warming and the need to ensure energy security, Wales should be in the forefront of the transition to a low-carbon economy. I believe that within 20 years Wales can be self sufficient in renewable electricity, by utilising large scale marine and wind power and also encouraging smaller scale renewable installations. We are determined to show leadership in achieving major energy efficiency improvements and producing low carbon energy from sustainable biomass and waste.
In our Renewable Energy Route Map, which I launched earlier this year, I emphasised the Assembly Government’s commitment to a low carbon energy economy based on renewable and low carbon energy. We will be publishing later this year for consultation a National Energy & Savings Plan to reflect the significant potential for long term carbon and financial savings from energy efficiency.
we strive to create a ‘virtuous circle’ where our emissions are reduced by ‘home grown’ technologies which maximise the economic benefits for Wales. I look forward to the continued growth of new green technologies in, and for, a Sustainable Wales. Jane Davidson AM Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing
The Minister for Economy and Transport, Ieuan Wyn Jones, and I also plan to launch the Assembly Government’s Green Jobs Strategy later this Autumn. The development of a Green Jobs Strategy is a key element within our One Wales Programme for Government. We believe there will be a wealth of new opportunities for existing businesses and in new jobs as a result. Businesses in Wales can continue to be market leaders in areas of green technology and services, and new opportunities will open up as we move towards a low carbon, low waste economy. It is crucial that we work with business to achieve our ambitions for Wales; and the Carbon Trust, whose activities in Wales the Assembly Government helps fund, has a major part to play in supporting this partnership working. The Carbon Trust’s involvement in developing low carbon technologies in Wales through its Innovations Programme has always been important. It is becoming even more so as
Working towards a low carbon future. Carbon Trust Wales Manager Mike Batt and Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, pictured at the energy efficient Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff Bay.
University gets boost towards green heat (0=0,<.4 5= ?9/0<A,B ,> >40 *95@0<=5>B :2 '7,8:<3,9 >: 407; >408 /075@0< , 90A -5:8,== .:8-?=>5:9 ;<:.0== >4,> .,9 ;<:@5/0 +3<0091 40,>" >4,96= >: , .:9><5-?>5:9 :2 90,<7B C%%"$$$ 2<:8 >40 &,<-:9 )<?=># The purpose of the research is to increase the use of ‘unprepared’ biomass fuels, such as ‘energy’ woods like certain types of willow and poplar - known as short rotation coppice - and other energy forest produce which, despite their green credentials, are difficult to burn. Led by Professor Steve Wilcox, the University hopes to develop a chain grate combustion process that can burn biomass fuels in boilers, in a similar system that is used for burning coal. Biomass fuels are CO2 neutral in terms of emissions. Replacing just one per cent of the estimated 0.9 million tonnes of coal burned on chain grates in the industrial and service sectors would save around 25,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.
Carbon Trust Wales Manager Mike Batt, said: “The biggest barrier to a more widespread adoption of biomass fuels is the problem with efficiently burning them. Biomass fuels, like certain woods, have a relatively high moisture content so controlling their combustion is difficult. But
biomass fuels are the way forward - they deliver the same heat with far fewer carbon emissions and they are low cost too. We are confident that this research will pave the way to a new combustion system that will remove these problems and open up the market for biomass fuels to everyone.”
Sustainable Wales – Focus on innovations
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Carbon Trust Wales Manager Mike Batt - speaking at the Carbon Trust Annual Dinner 2008.
Naturally leading the way From innovative technology to worldleading government policies Wales is clearly not shying away from the issue of sustainability. For today’s businesses in Wales the opportunity is there to be the drivers for enabling the low carbon economy our government is leading the world in and whilst costs will be incurred along the way the significant benefits of keeping one step ahead cannot be ignored.
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The UK has a significant competitive advantage in key areas of sustainability and we need to ensure that a focused effort is made to achieve our potential. With our natural wind, wave and tidal resources we are ideally placed to be potential leaders in the use of these renewable energies. Further to this we have a strong engineering experience, both on and off shore, and a significant research and academic investment. This expertise is setting the scene for innovations to be made in Wales and the future benefits of protecting and maximising the potential of these assets may be key to
Carbon Trust innovation in renewables &00:279. >36- 3: .?8.,;.- ;7 85*@ ;2. 83=7;*5 975. 36 ;2. ($/: 9.6.>*+5. .6.91@ :;9*;.1@ Offshore wind is expected to play the pivotal role in the UK’s renewable energy strategy, but the technology remains a costly and highrisk business and the level of deployment to date has been low. The Carbon Trust is leading a collaborative £30 million initiative with the industry to bring costs down by focusing on a range of sector-wide needs, such as lower cost foundations, novel methods for accessing and maintaining turbines and ways to optimise the
layout of turbines to maximise energy output. Solar power has enormous potential to provide renewable electricity but the current generation of solar panels, based on silicon, remain far too expensive and are unlikely to be costeffective even in the medium term. The Carbon Trust is working on development of the next generation of solar power, in partnership with leading players.
developing our industry and thriving economy. By optimising what is already present we can enable the development of valuable intellectual property, which will in turn create original export markets and build supply chains ultimately leading to the establishment of new “green collar” jobs throughout Wales. The importance of the private sector can not be underestimated – these will be the people who invest in the new systems, infrastructures and services to meet our low carbon future. The Carbon Trust is supporting the development of these low carbon technologies and innovation throughout Wales.
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Bioenergy: Sorting The Chaff From The Wheat $,7508, *43864:,67;" $6 &4),68 '6,<43(" %,(+ 4- &,7,(6*/ (3+ $,:,1452,38 (8 8/, #(6)43 '6978" 7(;7 )04,3,6.; /(7 ( :08(1 641, 84 51(; Bioenergy refers to energy that comes from biomass. Biomass is a renewable energy source from biologically derived sources such as wood, plant material, straw, sewage sludge or even algae. It offers a sustainable source of energy with significantly lower carbon emissions than fossil fuels, since growing biomass absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. Biomass can also help reduce emissions of other greenhouse gases, particularly methane, by diverting organic waste from landfill. Understandably, there is a lot of research and development currently taking place into the production and potential of bioenergy as a fuel and energy source that could take over from the traditional fossil fuels such as oil and gas. Carbon emissions from transport are growing more quickly than other sectors and already make up about a quarter of the total emissions in the UK. In aviation, there is little alternative to liquid carbon-based fuels and biofuels are likely to be the only credible alternative to fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. With the UK using 40 million tonnes of fossil oil for transport fuels per year and heating accounting for almost half of UK carbon emissions, bioenergy in its various forms could provide a low carbon alternative to running our cars, planes, commercial vehicles, homes and offices.
‘Carbon emissions from transport are growing more quickly than other sectors and already make up about a quarter of the total emissions in the UK’ However, biofuels are currently controversial, to say the least. Although, on the one hand, they offer the potential to reduce carbon emissions and minimise the impact of climate change, on the other hand there are real and growing concerns over competition for land and escalating food prices. For example, a World Bank report obtained by the Guardian in early July suggested that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 per cent. Then, hot on its heels, came the Gallagher report, released by the UK Renewable Fuels Agency. This examined the indirect effects of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions and food prices. Among other points, it concluded that the introduction
of biofuels should be slowed as increasing demand for biofuels contributes to rising prices for some commodities. Importantly, it acknowledged a future for a biofuels industry, but urged the creation of a strong policy framework to ensure biofuels are sourced and produced in a sustainable way. The outcome of the report was a recommendation that the ramp-up of the government’s Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation should be slowed (so that a 5 per cent proportion of biofuels in retail gasoline and diesel will be required by 2013-14 rather than 2010). However, research by New Energy Finance magazine indicated that, although biofuels did play a role in increased food prices, this was much smaller than suggested by recent headlines. Their analysis suggested that increasing grain prices were driven largely by the price of oil, the decline of the dollar and supply/demand imbalances; and from 2004 to April 2008, the price of grains rose 168 per cent, of which only 8.1 per cent was due to the impact of biofuels. Despite this ongoing and important debate, the demand for biofuels for transport, heat and power continues to increase, due in part to rapidly increasing oil prices. In the US, biofuel production has increased by more than 400 per cent since 2000 and Diageo, the market leader in Scotch whisky, has recently announced it is to spend £65 million on a bioenergy plant at its largest distillery, turning 90,000 tonnes of organic waste from the brewing production process into steam and electrical power. A number of UK companies are also now working to develop and deploy novel technologies for the production of bioenergy and biofuels.
These include Insource Energy, which provides waste-to-energy project solutions and Green Biologics, which is working on a new process for biobutanol.
Bioenergy: the facts The term bioenergy really covers two areas: biofuel is the transformation of plant materials into liquid fuel, and biomass refers to the use of solid plant materials burnt in a power plant or boiler. Thermal processing, using techniques such as pyrolysis or gasification, can convert materials into liquids, gases or solids. The choice of process and the form of output depends on the type of feedstock being used and the market demands being addressed. Biological methods of transformation include fermentation of materials to alcohol products, known as bioethanol and biobutanol. Mechanical processing is normally used as a precursor to both thermal and biological routes, but may be used in isolation, for instance in the fabrication of solid biofuels for heating applications. The race is on to develop a new generation of sustainable, non-crop-based biofuels that make use of materials such as agricultural waste, cellulosic materials (the structural part of plants), woody crops (from sustainable wood sources) and algae. However, as the Gallagher report noted: ‘Advanced technologies are currently immature, expensive and will require specific incentives to accelerate their market penetration,’ so there is a particular need to drive forward the
Sustainable Wales – Focus on innovations
development of sustainable next-generation biofuel technologies. Last year, the Carbon Trust launched the Advanced Bioenergy Accelerator, an initiative which aims to identify and encourage advanced bioenergy technologies with the potential to deliver sustainable, low carbon biofuels. These technologies will be challenging to develop and the aim is to increase the pace of development dramatically and bring these technologies to market quickly, working with partners in key bioenergy areas such as pyrolysis and algae.
Pyrolysis Heating biomass in the absence of oxygen produces char, volatile gases, and a fraction (up to 70 per cent) of oil in a process known as pyrolysis. Pyrolysis oil from sustainable sources of biomass has the potential to produce low-cost fuels with low system greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — if it can be integrated into a conventional oil refinery. However, the properties of the oil produced from current pyrolysis processes are far from suitable for integration. From Holland to Chile organisations are working on this area. To further accelerate the technology towards commercialisation the Carbon Trust is working with leading academics, SMEs, and multinationals on a new pyrolysis initiative, which aims to produce oil with the properties required for integration into conventional refineries. There is also significant potential to generate fuels from algae. The advantages are clear — growing algae does not compete with food for land; algae grow much quicker than other feedstocks; the process has the potential to yield up to six to ten times as much energy per acre as palm oil; it does not rely on fresh water; and the oil produced from algae can be converted to a variety of fuels, including kerosene, the fuel that aircraft run on. The Carbon Trust is currently working with UK academics and companies on the algae fuels initiative which seeks to identify and address the challenges at each stage of the value chain — growing and harvesting the algae, processing it into oil and identifying and supplying the relevant markets. While the most suitable sites for growing the algae are likely to be abroad, research by the Carbon Trust suggests that UK-based teams have the expertise to lead the world in overcoming the initial key technological challenges related to strain selection for mass cultivation.
Biomass heating Heating accounts for almost half (49 per cent) of the final energy consumed in the UK and almost half (47 per cent) of our CO2 emissions. As much as 14 per cent of the UK’s heating requirements may need to come from renewable sources by 2020 if we are to meet the ambitious EU renewable energy targets, up from less than 1 per cent currently. Using biomass for small-medium scale heating applications provides the most cost effective carbon savings of all potential uses of biomass fuel. This simple combustion technology has been successfully used in other parts of the EU at significant scales and for many years. For example, Sweden currently sources just over 35 per cent of its heating from biomass and Finland provides almost 30 per cent. The UK has significant indigenous biomass resources. Research carried out as part of the Carbon Trust’s five-year Biomass Heat Accelerator programme showed that UK resources have the potential to save over 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. However, there are only a few hundred megawatts of biomass heating capacity currently installed in the UK, a tiny fraction of the potential. Biomass heating can also be highly cost-effective — materials such as wood, pelletised sawdust and straw bales (from sustainable sources) are relatively cheap compared to heating oil, especially given the recent surge in oil prices. Biomass development can also bring other benefits, such as improving the biodiversity of unmanaged woodlands and contributing to the rural economy. However, there are currently various barriers to widespread adoption in the UK. The high upfront cost of biomass heating equipment is a particular challenge, with the typical outlay between three and five times the conventional fossil fuel alternative. Also, the current lack of a large UK market means that the fuel supply infrastructure for biomass is immature at present. There are also various practical barriers to getting more people using biomass instead of oil and gas heating. These include the need to store solid fuel on site and the fact that biomass boilers are often significantly larger than conventional alternatives. The fuel also has to be delivered by some form of vehicle, so the necessary supply chain — sourcing the feedstock, processing it and transporting it to the customer — must be in place. Further work is needed to educate customers and engineers as to the benefits of biomass and also to tackle existing regulations which were not designed to accommodate biomass heating.
The most effective sites for biomass heating typically have a large demand for heat demand all year round. Examples include hospitals, leisure centres, prisons, community housing schemes and a range of processrelated applications such as nurseries (glasshouses), food processing factories, dairies and breweries. The most economically viable sites for biomass are those which are not on the gas grid and therefore rely on oil, LPG or electric heating. There are still a surprisingly high number of such sites in the UK, with large areas of south-west England, Scotland and Wales not connected to the gas grid. There are many thousands of potential sites with the right combination of factors to make using biomass a realistic and cost-effective heating alternative. However, to ensure more widespread adoption, the installed system costs need to come down by at least 20 per cent, so there must be an increased focus on cutting costs throughout the value chain. Historically, capital grants have been used to bridge the capital gap, typically providing up to 25 per cent of total costs. However, inconsistent availability of such grants has stymied growth and development of the sector. Carbon Trust research indicates that there is significant potential for capital and operational costs to come down over time, primarily through economies of scale, but also in learning in areas such as civil engineering and system sizing. But the necessary kickstart to growth which can bring about these changes is likely to require additional government intervention to accelerate market development. The types of support currently under review include a renewable heat obligation (similar to the renewables obligation for electricity), a set of feed-intariffs or further capital grant schemes. Whichever mechanism is chosen, it will be crucial to ensure that this provides a longterm framework, increasing investor certainty and rewarding the units of renewable heat actually delivered.
Sorting the chaff from the wheat Bioenergy must continue to provide a key plank in our energy system if we are to reduce carbon emissions and meet the government targets by 2020. Despite current controversies, the right Bioenergy – based on sustainable biomass including pyrolysis oil, algae, wood and even waste – has a vital role to play in the journey to a low carbon economy.
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6 Sustainable Wales – Focus on innovations
Steelmaker’s vision is to set the worldwide industry benchmark for sustainability Downstream we are in hot pursuit of innovation that will further improve steel’s environmental credentials: advanced, highstrength steels, for example, which will reduce vehicle weight (and fuel consumption), and also steel solar panel structures for carbon-neutral buildings.
“We have to balance the needs of tomorrow with the demands of today…” These words about sustainability could be fresh on the lips of industry leaders. But in fact they were uttered nearly 10 years ago, by the then chairman and chief executive of British Steel, Sir Brian Moffat. Speaking in a lecture, ‘In Steel – The Hidden Solution’, he defined sustainable development as, ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. Things have changed since then. But that great strides have been taken on environmental care is less well known. Improvements have given us both sustainability and competitiveness. In Wales alone, new techniques for handling raw materials, for generating and recovering energy, and in manufacturing, have created a steel industry that produced half the carbon dioxide emissions it did a generation ago. New investment has given the industry in Wales a new blast furnace, a continuous caster, the continuous annealing plant and a host of positive developments in energy optimisation and waste management which have seen us into the 21st century. Alongside our successes, our expectations grow ever-more demanding. In 2008 we have the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and ever-tighter tolerances. As the fundamental steelmaking process reaches the limits of its current energy and by-product management capacities we look to the next innovation that will help us to set the worldwide industry benchmark for steel making.
A major initiative to meet higher expectations
We’re investing in a major academic research project that could make a huge difference to the environment and sustainability of the industry. Our research may not be front-page news for the world’s media, but the industry is no less
£1m to improve our waste-line
We are investing in research and training here in Wales to meet the environmental challenge. Corus has forged a £1.2m partnership to create a Centre of Excellence at Cardiff University’s School of Engineering to examine two critical areas – the first is process waste that potentially could yield recyclable material and the second is to gain the most from energy.
The energy recovery project will reduce carbon and particulate emissions and also recycle energy for reuse on the Port Talbot site committed to it – and hungry for results! Corus is taking part in ULCOS – a multipartner, breakthrough technology project to achieve Ultra-Low Carbon Dioxide Steelmaking – a £38m, part EU funded, research and development project. This has the radical target of halving CO2 emissions per tonne of steel by 2050. The parallels between the two projects are very limited, but our commitment to making a positive difference is assured. Climate change is one of today’s most critical issues, with greenhouse gases being held responsible, and Europe is taking a lead in reducing these gas emissions. Industry has an important role to play and Corus is committed to doing its bit. As a major player in world steelmaking we have an important part to play as part of the climate change solution. We want to set the standard as a worldwide benchmark for
responsible steelmaking. And we believe that we can make significant further improvements in our environmental impact. And the solution is important for Wales. Creating a sustainable steel industry here means more than the vital role of improving our environmental footprint. Our vision is a formula of three vital ingredients: we look to contribute to society as a dynamic economic life force and a key employer, we look to be a community-builder and we strive to be a force for environmental good.
Setting new targets
But, here in Wales, we’ll not wait for the results of ULCOS. Our priority is to improve manufacturing processes to increase energy efficiency and to reduce emissions. Based on a 1990 benchmark, we are setting ourselves a target to reduce our global carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by the year 2020. This could make us an industry leader in this vital area – fulfilling our ambition to set the global benchmark. Already this year, we have announced some £70m investment at Port Talbot steelworks. The £60m energy recovery facility will create the capability for gas generated in the steelmaking plant to be collected for reuse – matching the recycling of process gas in the coke-making facility and the blast furnaces. The commitment makes an important step towards making the integrated steelworks self-sufficient and in addition there will be a reduction in CO2 emission by as much as 240,000 tonnes per year. The second investment announcement is to improve Corus’ supply process for coke. Both investments signal a vote of confidence for the future sustainability for steelmaking in Wales.
Production has been high, but great strides have been taken in environmental care
Over £1m a year is made or saved by Corus, thanks to careful waste management. Hundreds of tonnes of material, which used to be called waste, is now used again and diverted from landfill. Nowadays, markets exist for what was formerly called waste. We will produce about a million tonnes of slag this year and it is now being processed on the Port Talbot site to be an important constituent of cement or as a quality aggregate. So very little – or no – slag goes to waste – it has lost the stigma of the label ‘waste’. Similarly Corus annually now sells, 50,000 tonnes of ferrous chloride solution – previously known as ‘spent pickle liquor’. Nowadays it is a valuable compound used in the water treatment industry. And large quantities of waste oil are now used as a reductant for the Port Talbot blast furnaces, saving Corus around £300,000 a year on purchasing fuel oil. The great recycling story in our industry is well known. ‘Waste steel’ should not exist. Following Corus’ efforts here, up to 25 per cent of steel produced in Wales is recycled material – that’s over 1m tonnes of recycled steel every year. The proportion of steel cans that are successfully recycled is soaring. Corus has a waste transfer station that sorts, segregates and recovers recyclables. We have made great strides in our waste management policy. Before 1994, nearly everything went to landfill, but Corus has been working closely with the Environment Agency to meet high new targets. About 25 per cent of general waste is now recovered for recycling – from paper and cardboard and plastics, metals and oils, through to waste electrical items and fluorescent tubes. A vital driver for the economy, we exist to make a positive contribution to the communities we serve – from the immediate locality to Wales and the wider world. These are the pillars of our three-part vision to create a sustainable steel industry here in Wales.
Sustainable Wales – Focus on innovations
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Needed: a new one-planet economy Morgan Parry, right, head of WWF Cymru The crisis in the world of finance has dominated the front pages ever since investment banks in the United States started collapsing in early September. Banks and financial institutions around the world have realised that their castles are built on quicksand.The huge debts they’ve built up, which governments had encouraged, have far exceeded the capital needed to repay them: the denial and deception has stopped and the system has begun to unravel. We have been living beyond our means for many years, thinking it could continue indefinitely, not wishing to confront the consequences. In the last few weeks the symptoms of an even more serious problem have been reported, but hidden away in the inside pages of the newspapers. On September 12, 2008 the extent of Arctic sea ice dropped to 4.52 million square kilometres.The 2008 minimum is the second lowest recorded, and is two-thirds of the average minimum of recent times.This is an alarming symptom of climate change, which in turn is a symptom of our unsustainable use of the earth’s resources. A few days later, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature published its ‘red list’ of threatened species, confirming that we face an extinction crisis, with almost one in four mammals at risk of disappearing forever. We can (and have) brought a few species back from the brink of extinction, but the habitat loss and degradation and overexploitation, compounded by pollution and climate change, are more difficult to reverse, caused as they are by our unsustainable use of resources. Ecologically and economically, we are living beyond our means, consuming our capital instead of living off the renewable revenue. September was the ‘tipping point’ for the financial system, and an avalanche of unpredicted and catastrophic events followed. Because the system was created by humans we can probably rebuild it. But the coming tipping point in our planet’s natural systems, presaged by loss of Arctic ice and by species extinctions, will cost us far more, and will not be reversed by human engineering. It will result in a very different planet, where our quality of life will be much diminished. Already, according to a leading Deutsche Bank economist Pavan Sukhdev, forest loss alone is costing us $2-5 trillion a year, compared to the $1.5 trillion dollar loss in financial markets.The loss is not only greater, it’s also continuous. The economic crisis has been exacerbated by deregulation, false accounting, limitless borrowing, reckless use of capital and putting private greed before the public interest. Similarly, with our environment,
governments have given up control over their natural resources, transferred public goods into private hands, used false accounting to hide the depletion of capital reserves and borrowed from future generations. But whereas we can rewrite the laws of economics we can’t rewrite the laws of nature. Easy credit has encouraged us as consumers to live beyond our means. In the UK, we’ve downgraded manufacturing and long-term investment, and our economy seems to be based entirely on consumption and shopping.This means that the world’s richest economies have built up massive ecological deficits, intensifying exploitation of the Earth’s resources and pollution of its atmosphere.The scale of this ecological debt will soon become unpayable. We need a new one-planet economy.There has to be a step-change right across society – a new system of production and consumption, where business success depends on resource efficiency and consumer value depends on quality rather than quantity. Lower consumption (resulting in a higher quality of life) should be a sign of an efficient economy. Forest fires are a symptom of climate change. Forest loss is costing us $2-5 trillion a year What we definitely don’t need is a rebuilding of the economic system along the lines of the old. Stimulating consumption to drive economic growth would be a disaster. Mainstream economists must stop ignoring this issue, and contribute to the debate: their expertise is sorely needed. But there is a grave danger that politicians will now be so distracted by the economic crisis that their commitment to tackling the environmental crisis will recede.To do so would be short-termism at its very worst.The two issues should be addressed together. Tackling climate change won’t be cheap of course: the UK Government’s renewable energy plan was costed at £100bn. Investment may be hard to find in the years and ahead, although recent reports suggest that investment in green technology is still
buoyant. But if the Government can conjure up £500bn to prop up the banks it should do the same for the equally urgent and ultimately more significant crisis of climate change.
still too low. Leaving it to the market can also encourage speculation, corruption, moral hazard and black market trading. Markets are good at finding low-cost solutions, but what happens when all the lowest cost opportunities are taken up?Tackling climate change may be painful and costly, and governments need to be in control.
All available public and private investment should be directed to public transport infrastructure, renewable energy and energy efficiency in homes and buildings.This would be a politically popular move. According to a recent Guardian/ICM poll, most people think that taking action against climate change matters more than tackling the global economic downturn.
We can avoid the tipping point, if we act now with determination and clear purpose. We have a historic opportunity to devise an economic model that is appropriate to a world of steep population growth, resource constraints and breached ecological limits.
The current consensus among economists is that carbon trading is the answer, as this will redress the market failure. But quotas have been set too high and the price of carbon is
The planet that supports us is finite, closed and constrained by the laws of physics: we need to develop an economic system to match.