Coal seam gas 'clean' claims under attack

A report commissioned by the coal seam gas industry into its own greenhouse gas emissions, and held as commercial-in-confidence for months, shows that Australian gas exported to China is likely to be little better for the environment than coal. The industry has been running an advertising campaign claiming that coal seam gas is ''up to 70 per cent cleaner than coal''. But the report, by consulting firm WorleyParsons, compared black coal and coal seam gas exports from Australia to China and showed that only best case scenarios come close to the promised major greenhouse gas savings. Gas would release less CO2 when burned in a Chinese power plant, but most of the difference would be eaten up by the extra emissions from extracting and processing the gas in Australia. While the emissions from processing coal made up only 2.7 per cent of its total greenhouse gas output, processing made up 22 per cent of the total emissions from coal seam gas. The industry is already under fire from the independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, who have tied their support for the federal government's resources tax legislation to an investigation into the benefits of coal seam gas. The report calculated a range of scenarios, the majority of which showed gas would perform slightly better than coal. It excluded the possibility of major or ongoing serious methane leaks from coal seam gas wells, and relied on data from the American Petroleum Institute.

Vulnerable islands urge climate deal before end-2012

A group of island states most vulnerable to global warming have lashed out against rich nations for wanting to delay a new international climate pact until years after the Kyoto Protocol on curbing carbon emissions expires in 2012. The 42-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) said countries such as Japan and Russia were "reckless and irresponsible" for promoting a delay in the adoption of a new international agreement until 2018 or 2020, just weeks before the start of a United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa. "If we allow this to happen, global warming problems are going to worsen and the impact on a country like Grenada will be devastating," Joseph Gilbert, Grenada's environment minister and current chair of AOSIS, said in a statement. "We therefore cannot continue to delay making decisions, to 2018 or 2020, as there will not be sufficient time for countries to take action," he said. If world governments fail to agree a pact that sets tough climate targets then small island countries in the Caribbean, the Pacific, Africa and elsewhere will be further exposed to severe drought, rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes as a result of climate change, Gilbert said.

A clear and fair incentive to pollute less

This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed a rather unusual bill directly addressed to Europe. Through the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act H.R. 2594, America's legislators want to tell American airlines not to respect an EU law. This seems to me a rather unorthodox course of action, but here in the EU we are confident that in the end the United States will respect our legislation, just as the EU respects U.S. legislation and U.S. lawmakers' authority in U.S. airports. After all, there is nothing new or unusual in requiring airlines to meet certain rules which, given the global nature of the industry, have international ramifications. As Congressmen who opposed the House bill pointed out, the United States itself requires international airlines to comply with a wide range of U.S. laws when it comes to passenger, baggage and cargo security in order to do business in the U.S. Other laws also require overseas ports to put in place certain security measures before cargo can be sent to the U.S. If the U.S. wants to handle emissions from aviation differently, that is fine; our legislation clearly envisages that if a country outside the EU takes 'equivalent measures' to address aviation emissions then all incoming flights from that country can be exempted from the EU system. We are ready to engage constructively with the U.S. and all other partners about such an approach. We also recognise and encourage agreeing to global measures to reduce GHG emissions from aviation. In the event of such agreement, we could adapt our legislation. To us, what matters, is that aviation also contributes to fighting climate change.