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Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe

by grycjanekg Posted on November 20, 2013

Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe

By

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Europe, as viewed from a greenhouse gas.

There isn’t a country in the world that’s on track to reduce emissions to the extent needed to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 Fahrenheit). But for a glimpse of something resembling climate leadership, peer across the pond.

The Climate Change Performance Index [PDF], produced by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe, ranks countries based on their greenhouse gas emissions, emissions-reduction efforts, energy efficiency, renewable energy portfolios, and policies aimed at slowing climate change. Here’s the top-10 list from this year. Every country is in Europe:

  1. Denmark
  2. United Kingdom
  3. Portugal
  4. Sweden
  5. Switzerland
  6. Malta
  7. France
  8. Hungary
  9. Ireland
  10. Iceland

Eight of those 10 countries are part of the European Union, which is also taking action — and even committing real money — to fight climate change. The European Parliament just adopted a seven-year budget that includes an unprecedented $243 billion for climate projects. Most of that will be spent within the E.U.’s 28 states, but some of it is earmarked as climate aid for developing countries.

E.U. climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard discussed the budget during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, where U.N. climate negotiations are underway. She said that for the world to successfully tackle climate change, “one of the things we need … to change is the whole economic paradigm, including the way we construct our budgets.”

Beyond Europe, it’s not looking so good. The U.S. ranked 40th out the 58 countries on the Climate Change Performance Index, just three spots above China. The report notes that the U.S. did reduce greenhouse gas emissions 8 percent over the last five years, thanks in part to Obama administration regulations covering transportation and coal.

At the bottom of the list are Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Those are the only three countries that rank worse than Australia and Canada — two of the four countries behaving badly that we told you about on Monday.

Australia’s delegates have been accused of particularly boorish behavior during the Warsaw talks. “They wore T-shirts and gorged on snacks throughout the negotiation,” a Climate Action Network spokesperson complained to The Guardian. Worse, Australia has blocked progress toward a treaty. Along with the U.S. and E.U., Australia refused to discuss developing countries’ demands for climate-change compensation, leading to 132 countries walking out of negotiations. 

“There is a sense that Australia was being horrible and the U.S. wasn’t moving toward accepting the creation of a new body to address loss and damage,” Jake Schmidt, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international climate policy director, told Grist from Warsaw. “It was also 4:00 in the morning.”


Source
Climate Change Performance Index, Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe

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One Ambitious Electric Car Venture Just Tanked, But Zero-Emissions Vehicles Aren’t Dead

by Isaiah McKenna Posted on May 29, 2013

A Better Place electric car. Photo: Rosenfeld Media

Better Place, an electric car startup backed by $850 million in private funding, has filed for bankruptcy. The company aimed to have 100,000 electric vehicles on the road in Israel and Denmark by 2010, but had deployed fewer than 1,000 of the Renault Fluence Z.E. cars in Israel and just 200 in Denmark to date. IEEE Spectrum reports:

Better Place’s bankruptcy filing this last weekend is a blow not merely to the company itself and its influential backers, but to the vision of an electrified automotive future. This is because Better Place had what seemed an extremely persuasive business model and a sensible plan for developing the plan in the marketplace.

Israel and Denmark were the first testing grounds, and Better Place had already built 21 battery swapping stations in Israel, which is about the size of New Jersey. With Israel’s small size, high gas prices and start-up friendly atmosphere, the country seemed like the perfect testing grounds for introducing Better Place, the New York Times writes. But while Better Place did contend with some delays, ultimately it seems that people simply were not interested in buying the cars.

The company filed for liquidation on Sunday, citing financial difficulties. Better Place’s chief executive, Dan Cohen, spoke with the Times: 

Mr. Cohen said on Sunday that the vision and the model had been right, but that the pace of market penetration had not lived up to expectations. Without a large injection of cash, he said, Better Place was unable to continue its operations.

Meanwhile, Fisker Automotive, another significant player in electric car ventures that received significant U.S. federal backing, appears to be on the edge of collapse. The Times reports, in a separate story:

On the surface, Fisker had all the trappings of a potential player in the emerging electric car industry.

Serious problems emerged almost as soon as the car hit the market.

Fisker, with its technical problems, management turmoil and mounting losses, offers a cautionary tale in the fiercely competitive arena of alternative-fuel vehicles and of government subsidies for start-up businesses.

Bankruptcy now appears unavoidable, and a political reckoning is coming.

Not every electric car is crashing, however. Tesla, whose Model S won MotorTrend’s 2013 Car of the Year award, continues to shine. The company recently paid off its Department of Energy loans nearly 10 years early, had its first profitable quarter and is enjoying skyrocketing stock prices.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Seven Reasons to Believe Electric Cars Are Getting in Gear 
Electric Cars Won’t Save Us From Climate Change

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One Ambitious Electric Car Venture Just Tanked, But Zero-Emissions Vehicles Aren’t Dead

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The 16 scariest maps from the E.U.’s massive new climate change report

by Myrna Posted on November 21, 2012

The 16 scariest maps from the E.U.’s massive new climate change report

By Philip Bump

Thinking about a Mediterranean vacation? Might want to go sooner rather than later.

The above map shows how the “tourism climate index” — a calculation of how amenable the climate in a location is to outdoor activity — will be affected by climate change during the summer in Europe. Blue areas will see climatic improvements; yellow, moderately worse climate; brown, significantly worse climate. So if you want to visit, say, Italy or Spain — book your flight.

Earlier today, the European Environment Agency walked into the room and, plunk, dropped a 300-page report on the anticipated effects of climate change on the continent. Three hundred pages, chock-a-block with maps far more terrifying than that one up there. It’s a road map on minute details of what Europe can expect on temperature, flooding, forest fires, soil quality, sea animals. It’s the Grays Sports Almanac of the continent through the year 2100.

Here are some of the more alarming maps and graphs, because terror is a dish best shared. (A blanket note: All images from the full report [PDF]; on most, click to embiggen.)

Temperatures

We’ll start with the big one. Temperatures in Europe have increased across-the-board over the last 50 years.

As the report notes: “The five warmest summers in Europe in the last 500 years all occurred in the recent decade (2002–2011).”

Here, the number of summers in the 95th percentile of temperatures over the last 500 years, by decade.

That’s summers past. In the future: more of the same.

Precipitation

Over the past 50 years, warmer areas have gotten drier while colder areas have gotten wetter.

In the future, that trend will be exacerbated. During the summer, precipitation will drop almost everywhere, with the exception of the far north.

The same holds true for the winter: Snowfall will also drop.

Sea level

As you undoubtedly know, sea levels have risen around the world.

The effect in Europe has been distributed — sea levels have been dropping somewhat around Finland and Sweden, but going up dramatically near Denmark and, in a bit of very bad news, the low-lying Netherlands.

That sea-level rise is one component of a massive projected increase in “100 year floods” in certain parts of Europe. Note the 2080 projection in the U.K., below.

Fire danger

Drier conditions mean more fires. Across the continent, there has been an increased danger of wildfire.

By the end of the century, that danger will have increased dramatically for parts of the continent, and increased everywhere to at least some extent.

Agriculture

Again, drier conditions mean more need for irrigation — but also less availability of water with which to irrigate.

And, as a result, drier regions will see significant drop-offs in food production.

Even in more moderate climates, production will drop.

Impact on population

No one in Europe will be spared some environmental impact; nearly everyone will see an economic effect as well.

In summary:

Source

Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012, European Environment Agency

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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The 16 scariest maps from the E.U.’s massive new climate change report

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