Beijing praises emissions plan

Australia's proposed emissions trading scheme has won praise from Beijing, where it will be the model for one of six Chinese pilot schemes to be introduced in 2013. Jiang Kejun, head of the Chinese government's energy and environmental policy agency, said pilot carbon trading schemes currently being researched would trial different designs based on schemes from Australia, Europe and California. "So far we don't have a good idea what kind of model for emissions trading to implement in China, so they will take the six provinces and try different ways," he told The Age in Melbourne yesterday. "Some say what is happening in Australia is even better [scheme design] than in Europe, so in that sense Australia is leading." Dr Kejun spoke yesterday at a Victoria University climate change conference, having been brought to Australia by the government's Climate Commission as the first of six international guests to report on steps overseas to reduce emissions. Dr Kejun - from the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute and a lead author with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - gave evidence that China's emissions were increasing at an extraordinary rate, and that Beijing's five-year economic plan included a framework aimed at slowing and eventually halting the growth. China's emissions have nearly tripled since 2000 as the developing country experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth. Some estimates suggest China may emit up to 30-40 per cent more carbon dioxide than the US, the world's second largest emitter. In response it was piloting emissions trading schemes in six provinces and cities. Each area would test a different design, varying in the size of the emissions limit imposed on business and the way in which emissions levels were monitored and verified. Dr Kejun said it was unlikely China would move from pilot programs to a full national trading scheme by 2015 as some analysts had speculated. He said China's emissions level could peak by 2025 - earlier than government modelling suggestions that it would continue to rise until 2030.

Trash To Cash: Mining Landfills For Energy And Profit

A Belgian company is working on removing the raw materials from dumps, making both energy and building materials out of them, and then redeveloping the land. About 50 miles east of Brussels, next to an old coal mine, lies a festering stinkhole that few people ever visit, and most people would rather forget about. Dating from the 1960s, the Remo Milieubeheer landfill at Houthalen-Hechteren is a typical dump full of industrial waste and household garbage--16.5 million tons of it in all. Hardly the sort of the place to get anyone excited. Except, that is, Patrick Laevers, director of Group Machiels, the Belgian waste management company that owns the site. Laevers has a 20-year plan to excavate the entire expanse, recycling about 45% of its contents, and converting the rest into electricity. Eventually, after a complex, multi-phase process he calls "Closing the Circle," he hopes to turn the site back to nature. What's more, Laevers thinks Houthalen-Hechteren could be the first of many such projects around the world. "We really believe this concept is the future, and that we can all benefit from it," he says. "Everywhere in the world, people are starting to realize the potential from mining landfills."

Scientists call for end to deep-sea fishing

Industrial fishing in the deep sea should be banned because it has depleted fish stocks that take longer to recover than other species, according to a paper to be released this week by an international team of marine scientists. The article, published in the scientific journal Marine Policy, describes fishing operations that have in recent decades targeted the unregulated high seas after stocks near shore were overfished. Describing the open ocean as "more akin to a watery desert," the scientists argue that vessels have targeted patches of productive areas sequentially, depleting the fish there and destroying deep-sea corals before moving on to new areas. Certain deep-sea species have gained widespread popularity - including orange roughy and Patagonian toothfish, otherwise known as Chilean sea bass - only to crash within a matter of years. Elliott Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Institute and the paper's lead author, said the world has turned to deep-sea fishing "out of desperation" without realizing fish stocks there take much longer to recover. "We're now fishing in the worst places to fish," Norse said in an interview. "These things don't come back." As vessels use Global Positioning System devices and trawlers, which scrape massive metal plates across the sea bottom, the catch of deep-water species has increased sevenfold between 1960 and 2004, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. "What they're doing out there is more like mining than fishing," said Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.