Sunday, January 29, 2012

Switching gears: Swedish policy and practice with respect to biofuels

On January 1, 2012, Swedish tax rebates favoring ethanol and biodiesel-fueled cars came to an end. Rebates are still offered for plug-in hybrid and gas-driven cars. The shift gives rise to several questions at Sustainable C about biogas, including biogas used for cars as well as that used for heating.

Why the policy shift on ethanol-driven cars? According to one energy expert, the Swedish government is more pointedly moving towards a fossil-fuel independent fleet of vehicles by 2030. http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/bilar/article3386365.ece The policy shift may also be inspired by close scrutiny of what goes into making the biofuel.

When the biofuel is made from crops such as corn, soybean, palm oil or other crops that directly replace food crops, such fuel may give rise to food insecurity.

Cultivating biofuel crops may also lead to “indirect land use change”. Indirect land use change refers to biofuel crops that take the land where food or other crops otherwise would have grown. When such biofuel crops are grown, farmers of other crops look further for land, sometimes expanding into climate crucial areas such as the Amazon rainforest or Malaysia’s tropical peatswamp forests. Some of these forms of biofuel may be even worse for the climate than oil from the Canadian oil sands, as leaked data from the European Commission suggest. http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/biodiesels-pollute-crude-oil-leaked-data-show-news-510437

But is all biofuel bad? No. In fact, a pitch should be made in support of biofuels made from waste. Farm waste, for example. One such project includes the waste-to-fuel project in Sweden’s Skaraborg municipality. http://biogasregionen.se/index.php?page=ide-fran-skaraborg-blir-eu-projekt These and other projects produce biofuel that is used for heating systems.

Sustainable C continues to watch these developments with interest, particularly biogas projects that take a climate problem like waste (which leaks methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere) and turns it into a climate solution. Sustainable C readers may also be interested in following EU policy on biogas. In spring 2012, the EU is expected to introduce new legislation concerning biogas and indirect land use change.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Taking Responsibility for a Livable Planet

In the summer of 2011 when I was pregnant with my son, the thoughts that kept me up at night were what kind of living conditions my son would encounter here on earth during his lifetime.



This may sound like a far-fetched concern, but it boils down to simple questions. Will he be able to drink water from the tap? Will he live to see the great glaciers on the mountains where I grew up? Will he have the chance to snorkel at a coral reef? Will the earth and its ecosystems still support wild salmon, polar bears, bees and other animals that we have taken for granted?

A key year for policymakers, scientists and others engaged in finding climate solutions by 2050. That is the year by which the earth will have warmed by at least two degrees Celcius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), according to conservative estimates, if dramatic measures are not taken to reverse human-caused trends. This two degrees Celcius figure translates to a loss of coral reefs, glaciers and other ecosystems, a loss of polar bears and other species, and the destruction of cities and towns at sea level, among other severe effects.

For my son 2050 is the year he will be my age. By that time he will be facing the consequences of our decisions today. He will likely wonder what I did—what we all did—to help prevent the severe effects we know are coming in the absence of change. What conveniences did we let go? What innovations did we implement? What steps did we take to protect ecosystems?

Sustainable C is back to study and explore climate solutions that I—that we all—can live by. It is my attempt to develop answers. It is my attempt to take responsibility. It is my attempt to anticipate when my son is my age, and he asks me what I did to help.