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Make Climate Change A Personal Issue – US Diplomat

December 18, 2015 Webmaster

Errol Paisley (third left) of Stony Hill, St Andrew, accepts from Joshua Polacheck, counsellor for Public Affairs at the United States (US) Embassy, the $150,000 reward for the community’s winning effort of collecting 1,250 pounds of PET bottles in less than a month during Operation Clean Sweep. Also sharing in the occasion are project director Stephen Newland (second left) and Dr Kwame Emmanuel, global change co-ordiantor, during Wednesday’s prize-giving ceremony at the US, Embassy, Liguanea, St Andrew.

Addressing the issue of global climate change in a meaningful way can begin with small actions which, together, will have a big impact on containing carbon emissions, according to Joshua Polacheck, counsellor for public affairs at the United States (US) Embassy in Jamaica.

“People don’t think about it, but when you take a plastic bottle and just chuck it into the landfill or into the countryside and it ends up incinerated, you are adding to all the other carbons and other greenhouse effects, but if you recycle it, you are actually helping, in your own small part, to keep the global climate within manageable levels,” he pointed out on Wednesday.

“People may think, ‘oh, this is just a small local thing’, a question of beautification and resource use (but), it’s actually part of that small step that each of us needs to take to change our behaviour to help combat global climate change,” the State Department official told the Operation Clean Sweep prize-giving ceremony at the US Embassy, Liguanea, St Andrew.

Polacheck told participants in the recently concluded pilot project, under which community members from Rae Town, Kingston, Stony Hill, St Andrew, and Gregory Park, St Catherine were trained in solid waste best practices, that they needed to make climate change a personal concern.

“We think that for all countries, especially regional leaders like Jamaica and other small island developing states like the rest of CARICOM, like the countries in the South Pacific, it should be a very personal issue. It’s also a very personal issue for the United States,” he disclosed.

While it may not be something that comes readily to mind, the extensive coastline of the United States’ mainland, as well as the location of offshore territories such as Hawaii, makes the country and its citizens very vulnerable to the fallout from climate change, Polacheck disclosed.

He explained that the state of Arizona, which has extensive desert terrain, has had one of the worst droughts in a century, due mainly to the recent increase in global average temperatures.

Reducing The Fallout

With the recent international agreement on reducing carbon emission struck at the Conference of Parties (COP) 21, in Paris, presenting an opportunity for the world at large, the United States of America, which has taken a leadership role, will be looking to ramp up its collaboration with Jamaica on containing and reducing the fallout from climate change, especially at the grass-roots level.

“So the efforts that we’re making globally are going be part of the efforts we are doing on a bilateral level locally, here with Jamaica,” said Polacheck.

Meanwhile, Stephen Newland, project director for the pilot phase of Operation Clean Sweep, commended members from three select communities for their success in putting to good use the training in solid-waste management.

Residents of Stony Hill, St Andrew, took the top prize of $150,000 for the winning effort of collecting 1,250 pounds of PET bottles in less than a month.

With an average of 33 eight-ounce bottles weighing a pound, and 3,300 bottles estimated at 100lb, the number of bottles collected in and around the community since November 13 was mind-boggling.

For their efforts, residents of Rae Town, Kingston, who logged just about 200 pounds of bottles less than the winners, received $50,000, with Gregory Park, St Catherine, being the other community.

Dr Kwame Emmanuel, USAID/COMET 11’s global change coordinator, pointed to the other significant benefits of plastic-bottle collection and recycling beyond the monetary gains.

“For COMET (Community Empowerment and Transfor-mation), Operation Clean Sweep facilitated another opportunity to bolster social cohesion through the implementation of an environmental activity. The project also provided the communities with a social entrepreneurship idea, which will help to tackle the solid waste management crisis. Moving forward, it is hoped that the management team not only takes the consideration of lessons learnt during this short pilot, but also integrates the other two Rs – reduce and reuse – into the project.”

The Gleaner

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New Climate Deal A Signal To Private Sector

December 16, 2015 Webmaster

Khan … I would say to the private sector, look at investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The new global climate deal, reached after two weeks of intense negotiations, is a signal to the private sector, local and international, of the need to reassess current investment flows.

Jamaican negotiator Dr Orville Grey said the private sector will be critical, given the stated goal of the new deal of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 28C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.58C above pre-industrial levels, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.

“The private sector will at some point have to take the lead because the technologies that are likely to take us to carbon neutrality will likely come from the private sector and not the public sector, at least as it relates to technology,” Grey, coordinator for adaptation for the Alliance of Small Island States during the negotiations, told The Gleaner.

If the world is to meet the ‘well-below-two’ target, it will require a significant shift in the current high levels of consumption of fossil fuels, including coal and oil, towards renewables such as solar and wind.

Colonel Oral Khan, chief technical director in the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment, and Climate Change and himself a member of the Jamaica delegation to the talks, was in full agreement.

“The private sector is encouraged under this agreement to support the mobilisation of finance to support adaptation and mitigation,” he said.

On Jamaica’s private sector, Khan said: “The State has submitted its intended nationally determined contribution commitment to [reducing greenhouse gas emissions] to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) Secretariat. Our commitment is consistent with the goal of our National Energy Policy. I would say to the private sector, look at investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency. In time, I hope that we will see more entities entering into public-private partnerships.”

A Historic Turning Point

Neither Grey nor Khan is alone in their thinking; international leaders in business have echoed their sentiments.

“The business case for eliminating greenhouse gases by 2050 is irrefutable. Indeed, solving climate change presents the greatest economic and social development opportunity of our time,” said Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, in a release to the media on Saturday.

“The new climate agreement is a historic turning point. Now business can and must innovate to lead the transition to a clean economy. Together, it is our duty as human beings, responsible citizens and business leaders to protect the environment. A transition to a clean and green economy will lift millions out of poverty, and ensure the planet’s health for generations to come,” he added.

Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, mirrored his comments.

“This is truly a turning point in human history. We now have the chance to advance the well-being of people everywhere, while creating millions of new jobs and ending our reliance on fossil fuels,” she said in the same release.

“This will help us build a safer, more peaceful world for all. This is exactly what business needs in order to thrive in the long run,” added Huffington.

The Gleaner

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High energy costs push NIC towards alternative power sources

December 15, 2015 Webmaster

As is the case with most local operations, the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) says energy eats up a large chunk of its operational expenses, with the State-run company spending close to $500 million on electricity in 2014/2015.

This accounted for 40 per cent of its operating costs, and already for this year, the commission’s electricity bill is at 47 per cent of operational costs. “So it is increasing as we bring on additional areas. Once there is a drought, then we have to increase the amount of pumping that is done in each of these districts. In some areas, for some months the electricity cost is greater than the revenue that we generate,” NIC Managing Director Mark Richards explained at yesterday’s

Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

The NIC provides irrigation services mainly to the agricultural sector, and to a lesser extent industrial and commercial operations in Yallahs, St Thomas; Rio Cobre and Colbeck in St Catherine; central clarendon; New Forest and Duff House, in Manchester; Braco, Trelawny; Hounslow and Beacon/Little Park, in St Elizabeth; and Seven Rivers in St James

“Our electricity cost is one of the significant challenges that we operate under. We are the second-biggest consumer and payee of the JPS. For the year so far up to October, we are at $330 million. So it’s a challenge [and]we are looking at different energy management strategies and engineering strategies [such as] retrofitting our pumps [and] scheduling of our flows in order to better match the service to deal with the demand,” Director of Technical Services Milton Henry explained.

Henry said the commission faces a peculiar challenge, as while energy prices are trending down, the NIC has to be ramping up its operations to satisfy increasing demand for irrigated water.

“Every system we bring on is contributing to our cost, and we have not been able to pass on those costs to our farmers; so as we partner with them, we are saying let us find some more efficient approaches. We have had quite a bit of success… we have grown our business at a time of major challenges and continue to do so,” Henry said, noting that the NIC’s customer base has doubled from 1,265 in 2006 to 2,349 in 2014.

The NIC has moved to cut down on energy costs by retrofitting 15 of its stations with energy-saving devices. It is also looking to solar and wind energy sources. “So far we did a wind study in Manchester with a view to putting in a five megawatt capacity which would meet a significant portion of our demand. The study has been completed and shows that it is feasible. We are expected to move to the next phase… with some urgency,” he said.

The NIC is also eagerly awaiting the resumption of net billing, which the JPS suspended in May to carry out a review of the two-year pilot programme. The assessment which was conducted by the United States’ National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been completed, but up to last month the energy ministry was not able to tell stakeholders in the solar energy sector exactly when the programme would resume.

Jamaica Observer

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Climate Change Awareness

December 11, 2015 Webmaster

This week Paris hosts nearly 200 governments at the climate talk in hopes to agree a deal that keeps the dangers of global warming in check. In light of this historic event taking place, Solar Buzz Jamaica wants to educate you on what you can do to save the planet for the generations to come.

What is global warming?

Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases are released by burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities believed to be the primary sources of the global warming.

Resulting from this, the catastrophic climate change that has occurred in the last 50 years doesn’t just threaten our health, but our environments, homes, food and water supplies as well as the survival of many species.

What can be done?

Eat less meat – agriculture produces high levels of greenhouse gases.

Burn less turf – it doesn’t just cause biodiversity damage, but is more carbon-intensive than coal.

Reduce, reuse, recycle – recycle paper, plastic, metal and glass. Let store managers and manufacturers know you want products with minimal or recyclable packaging.

Choose renewable power – this is one of the most important solutions to the global warming crisis.

Benefits of going solar to combat climate change:

Solar energy can be easily utilised by both home and business and requires lower setup costs as compared to other renewable solutions.

Non-polluting: Solar energy is an alternative for fossil fuels as it is non-polluting, clean, reliable and renewable source of energy. It does not pollute the air by releasing harmful gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide or sulphur oxide. So damage to the environment is reduced.

Renewable Source: Solar energy is a renewable source of energy as it can be used to produce electricity as long as the sun exists. Solar energy reduces our dependence on the grid, lowers monthly bills, and can be used to harness power in the most remote locations.

Low maintenance: Solar systems generally don’t require much maintenance and run for a long time, they create no noise and have no moving parts. More solar panels can be added from time to time when needed. Initial cost tends to be recovered within 4-6 years.

Going solar can truly lower your carbon footprint while funnelling clean energy into the grid and into our homes and businesses. Green financing is becoming more readily available as climate awareness grows.

Be apart of something great, help combat climate change in your home and business.

Climate awareness + renewable sustainability = save the earth.

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16 win UN ClimateSolutions Award

December 11, 2015 Webmaster

A solar panel on a thatch roof in Sub-saharan Africa is part of the Azuri PayGo Energy project, which provides eight hours of emission-free lighting each day and enough power to charge cellphones. Users pay a one-time installation fee and top-up as their needs demand.

PARIS, France (UNFCCC) – Sixteen game-changing initiatives from around the world were honoured as winners of a prestigious United Nations climate change award at a special ceremony at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, on yesterday evening.

“These ‘Lighthouse Activities’ shine a light on the groundswell of climate action around the world,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a keynote address. “As the world moves toward a future built on low-emissions sustainable development, these bold ideas can inspire leaders to be more ambitious in their own policies and actions.”

The Momentum for Change initiative is spearheaded by the UN Climate Change Secretariat to shine a light on some of the most innovative, scalable and replicable examples of what people are doing to address climate change. This year’s winning activities range from a seriously cool smartphone that puts social values first, to an initiative that is enabling 40 Latin American cities to take concrete climate action.

“I am honoured to celebrate the leadership shown by the people, organisations, companies, and governments recognised as winners of the 2015 Momentum for Change Awards tonight,” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said.

“By showcasing these remarkable solutions and the people behind them we can strengthen efforts that must not only start with an agreement here in Paris, but must continue to build, as we accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon, highly resilient development path,” she said.

To help celebrate and recognise the achievements of the 2015 Lighthouse Activities, attendees at the gala event were treated to powerful photos, inspirational videos and a lively musical performance by Sean Paul.

M Sanjayan, a conservation scientist, writer and Emmy-nominated television news contributor, introduced Conservation International’s newest video in its critically acclaimed Nature for Speaking series, titled Home. Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse CEO and UNEP Goodwill Ambassador, served as the evening’s master of ceremonies.

“Modern clean technologies have transformed the expensive problem of climate change into a profitable opportunity,” said Dr Piccard. “A global economy that is powered by renewable energy, implements energy efficient and minimises waste will not only tackle climate change, but will also generate health, job creation and profit in the communities where they take place.”

Each of the 16 winning activities touches on one of Momentum for Change’s four focus areas: Urban Poor, Women for Results, Financing for Climate Friendly Investment, and ICT Solutions. All 16 were showcased at a series of special events during the UN Climate Change Conference.

They are:

Urban Poor

•E-waste: From Toxic to Green, India: Creating jobs to keep e-waste out of landfills

•Solvatten Solar Safe Water Heater — Kenya: Reducing emissions while securing access to safe drinking water

•Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative | Latin America & the Caribbean: Supporting sustainable growth in emerging cities

Women for Results

•Fostering Cleaner Production — Colombia: Reducing emissions in manufacturing

•Harvesting Geothermal Energy — El Salvador: Generating income with geothermal waste-heat

•Planting Trees to Save the Mangrove — Guinea: Establishing women-led groups that protect forests and generate income

•SELF’s Solar Market Gardens — Benin: Empowering women farmers through solar drip irrigation

Financing for Climate Friendly Investment

•Azuri PayGo Energy — Africa: Innovating pay-as-you-go energy systems for rural homes

•Deforestation-free Cocoa — Peru: Using a carbon-asset-backed loan to protect forests and produce cocoa

•Microsoft Global Carbon Fee — Global: Transforming corporate culture by putting a price on carbon

ICT Solutions

•ChargePoint Electric Vehicle Charging Corridors — United States of America: Building a network of electric vehicle express charging stations

•Enabling Farmers to Adapt to Climate Change — Uganda: Using ICT solutions to build resilience

•Fairphone — The Netherlands: Producing a phone that improves lives and the environment

•Lifelink Water Solutions — Kenya and Uganda: Using ICT tools to provide safe, sustainable and affordable water

•Mapping Exposure to Sea Level Rise — Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea: Preparing for risk with online spatial tools

•Mobisol Smart Solar Homes — Rwanda and Tanzania: Powering homes with solar energy

The 2015 Lighthouse Activities were selected by an international advisory panel as part of the secretariat’s Momentum for Change initiative, which is implemented with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, and operates in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative.

Jamaica Observer

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Coalition urges action to phase out fossil fuel subsidies

December 7, 2015 Webmaster

Members of the Jamaican delegation to COP21 at the Wider Caribbean Pavilion (from left) Ambassador Sheila Sealy Monteith, under secretary for the Multilateral Affairs Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade; Vilma McNeish, ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union; Senator Arnold J Nicholson, minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade; Dr Orville Grey, senior technical officer in the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change; and Jeffrey Spooner, head of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica.

PARIS, France — An unprecedented coalition of close to 40 governments, hundreds of businesses and influential international organisations have called for accelerated action to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, a move that would help bridge the gap to keep global temperature rise below 2°C and perhaps close to the 1.5°C for which Caricom and other Small Island Developing States are advocating.

On the opening day of the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21) last week, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key formally presented the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Communiqué to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), on behalf of the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform, The Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group and other supporters of the communiqué.

The communiqué calls on the international community to increase efforts to phase out perverse subsidies to fossil fuels by promoting policy transparency, ambitious reform and targeted support for the poorest.

Governments spend over $500 billion of public resources a year to keep domestic prices for oil, gas and coal artificially low. Removing fossil fuel subsidies would reduce greenhouse gas emission by 10 per cent by 2050. It would also free up resources to invest in social and physical capital like education, healthcare and infrastructure, while levelling the playing field for renewable energy.

“Fossil fuel subsidy reform is the missing piece of the climate change puzzle,” Prime Minister Key said. “It’s estimated that more than a third of global carbon emissions, between 1980 and 2010, were driven by fossil fuel subsidies. Their elimination would represent one-seventh of the effort needed to achieve our target of ensuring global temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C. As with any subsidy reform, change will take courage and strong political will, but with oil prices at record lows and the global focus on a low carbon future, the timing for this reform has never been better.”

In accepting the communiqué, Figueres said: “These subsidies contribute to the inefficient use of fossil fuels, undermine the development of energy efficient technologies, act as a drag on clean, green energy deployment and in many developing countries do little to assist the poorest of the poor in the first place.

“The huge sums involved globally could be better spent on schools, health care, renewable energies and building resilient societies. The current, very low oil prices are a good opportunity to really get going on this issue.”

Chair of The Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group (CLG) and former president of Alstom Power, Philippe Joubert, also spoke last Monday.

“The CLG’s long-standing efforts to put a price on carbon, including most recently working with the World Bank through the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, will soon deliver results. It doesn’t make sense that, at the same time, governments artificially deflate the cost of coal, oil and gas, the primary cause of GHG emissions. Fossil fuel subsidies must be ended to stop this contradiction and enhance a real transition to low carbon energy,” he said.

For the OECD’s part, Secretary-General Angel Gurría commented that countries need to demonstrate their seriousness about combating climate change with concrete actions and policies.

“Reforming harmful fossil-fuel support is a good place to start,” Gurría stressed.

Close to 40 countries have endorsed the Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Communiqué, including Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, The Netherlands, The Philippines, Samoa, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uganda, and Uruguay.

The communiqué is supported by The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (23 global companies employing two million people worldwide with combined revenues exceeding US$170 billion) and other business organisations working with thousands of corporations and investors, including The B Team, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the We Mean Business coalition.

The communiqué has also been endorsed by influential international organisations, including the International Energy Agency, the OECD and the World Bank.

Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies can accelerate the economic shift needed to tackle climate change and remove one of the obstacles to delivering the low-carbon future for which COP21 is aiming.

“History will prove fossil fuel to be a dead end,” Stefan Löfven, prime minister of Sweden, said. “Sweden will be amongst the first fossil-free welfare nations of the world. And eliminating fossil fuel subsidies is an important step on this path.”

Hakima El Haite, Morocco’s environment minister and candidate for the presidency of COP22, added: “Not only do fossil fuel subsidies put a strain on government coffers but they also don’t help the poorest of society.”

COP21 began on November 30 and will run until Friday, December 11.

Jamaica Observer

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1.5 Degrees Celsius Remains In Play At Paris Climate Talks

December 7, 2015 Webmaster

After a week of deliberations at the United Nations climate talks in Paris, 1.5 degrees Celsius as a possible target for holding the increase in global temperatures – crucial for islands like Jamaica and others of the Caribbean – remains in play.

“Parties hereby establish the global goal of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change, [in accordance with the objective, principles and provisions of the Convention, including common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,] with a view to [contributing to sustainable development] [and] [ensuring adaptation in the context of the goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature [below 2 degC][below [2 or] 1.5 degC] referred to in Article 2],” reads a section of the draft text on outcomes from the deliberations.

However, as evidenced by the brackets, nothing is settled as country heads and ministers come in this week to take over the negotiations from their technical experts.

Still, Caribbean islands, as others forming the Alliance of Small Island States, would have been pleased with the retention of the 1.5 target as an option – one that will necessitate significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if it is to be realised.

Only two weeks ago, head of the CARICOM Task Force on Climate Change Dr James Fletcher reinforced how critical the target is.

“The conversation has been about 28 Celsius, and we have said that two degrees cannot work for us.

“With 28 Celsius, we will have major ecosystem collapse in many of our countries,” said Fletcher, who is also St Lucia’s minister of sustainable development, energy, science, and technology.

“You will have extinction of some of the biodiversity that is so rich – both marine and terrestrial biodiversity – that makes us who we are. Two degrees Celsius will unleash major diseases on us, will cause our coastal defences to be majorly challenged,” he added.

He was speaking on November 26 at the announcement of the winner of that island’s ‘Media Climate Change Challenge’, which was won by journalist Alison Kentish of Helen Television System.

Challenges Negotiations

Meanwhile, the past week of negotiations has not been without challenges.

“OPEC countries Saudi Arabia and Venezuela stood out for their extensive efforts to derail the process in the first week, including blocking the vital symbol of human rights and ambition in the agreement, the 1.5 degree goal, as well as throwing up roadblocks around the definition of terms such as decarbonisation, carbon neutrality, and zero carbon,” read a release from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a United Kingdom-based non-profit, which has been following the progress of the talks.

“Also, despite a week of big announcements on renewables from Bill Gates, India’s Solar Alliance, Google, and more, Saudi Arabia have also questioned 100 per cent renewables as being a ‘slogan’ rather than as means to achieving the objectives of the conference,” it added.

Alongside the negotiations has been the ongoing “1.5 To Stay Alive” campaign launched in October in the Caribbean. It is the collaborative efforts of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, Panos Caribbean, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, the Caribbean Development Bank, and the Regional Council of Martinique.

The goal of the campaign is to bolster the Caribbean negotiating positions, including its effort towards securing the 1.58 Celsius target, given current climate impacts being experienced in the region.

These include sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and warmer days and nights.

The campaign, which has been gaining momentum, has so far seen ‘the launch of its Facebook page (www.1point5. info) and Twitter account (@1point5OK)

The Gleaner

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Financially Speaking | Jamaica’s Spectacular LNG Record

December 7, 2015 Webmaster

Lest we forget, Jamaica has been trying to strike deals to migrate to liquefied natural gas (LNG), and failing at it spectacularly, for well over a decade.

It all began four prime ministers ago, when Percival James Patterson was in charge and sought to broker a deal with his counterpart, Patrick Manning, in Trinidad in 2001. And we knew Patterson was serious about the issue, because that time he did not form a committee around it.

Still, it didn’t end well. Trinidad began to waffle – after all, it could get better prices for its fossil elsewhere. Jamaica wanted concessionary pricing for a yearly 1.1 million tonnes of natural gas as a family member in Caricom, but Trinidad was in favour of the hub. Business, after all, is business.

Patterson even put a dedicated man in charge of the LNG programme. That didn’t help. And since then, almost every effort at adding gas to the energy mix has coagulated. You know you have a problem when international headlines pop up asking, ‘Is Jamaica’s Energy Cursed?’

To recap, the actors in Jamaica’s LNG serialised melodrama have included Anthony Hylton, James Robertson, Clive Mullings, Christopher Zacca, Phillip Paulwell, Kelly Tomblin, Exmar, Caribbean LNG, Azurest, Energy World International, Jamaica Public Service Company and now Abengoa SA. Perhaps the only clairvoyant in the mix was Mullings, who, back in 2008, began touting coal as a more practical choice for diluting the viscosity of oil on Jamaica’s balance of payments, given the vagaries of supply in the LNG market.

Not everyone loved the idea. The thought of coal was a bit dirty, and risky, but it wasn’t entirely dismissed. Fracking has now changed that dynamic somewhat.

In 2014, some 13 years since the Patterson-Manning bro-pact and a decade after the more formalised LNG heads of agreement, ESET emerged as the latest reset when current Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller reached out to an old and trusted ally of Patterson’s – Dr Vincent ‘Head of Kitchen Cabinet’ Lawrence – to bring an end to the confusion that had become Jamaica’s energy policy.

Being a glutton for punishment, Jamaica held on to its LNG ambitions, but also opened up to proposals for coal, compressed gas, and natural liquid gases such as ethane and propane.

Blame it on the cosmos

But even the doc, despite the heavenly moniker that had been bestowed on him in the past, has been no match for the supremacy of Murphy’s law, or whatever it is in the cosmos that appears to want Jamaica to stay wedded to crude. First, the American Ethane/UC Rusal arrangement fell apart – which Lawrence insisted would not derail the 2018 schedule to begin cutting electricity prices – and now there is Abengoa.

Right about now, JPS boss Kelly Tomblin likely has fingers crossed, hoping that New Fortress Energy won’t throw up any surprises; that the arrangement with the American company to supply gas to JPS’ Montego Bay plant will – please, oh please – go right.

General Electric is currently retrofitting Bogue for LNG – a US$22.54-million project that seems to escaped the curse – and Fortress Energy is to start delivering gas by mid-2016. The final terms of the Fortress engagement are now being negotiated.

Before the LNG project was revised from a 360MW single project and split into bite-size pieces under ESET, JPS itself had tried to take on the task under a US$600-million plan that went nowhere. The power utility was said to have a financing revolver lined up but could not secure the gas supplies at the right price.

Under the reset, JPS has two projects to execute – the 120MW Bogue project in Montego Bay for which it has contracted New Fortress, and the 190MW project in Old Harbour Bay. For the latter, JPS reportedly got several bids but chose Abengoa SA, which just days later filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure billions of debt.

Somebody hadn’t done their homework. One would have thought that JPS’s foreign parents Korea East West Power Company and Marubeni – both of which operate in the energy field – would have the temperature of another big energy player. But it appears that they, and the JPS consultants, did not.

Still, Tomblin and team appear to have other options were Abengoa to falter. The Spanish company has four months to right the ship, a timetable that collides with JPS’, which wants to start site prep for the Old Harbour plant by March in order to keep its 2018 commitment. Right about now, JPS is probably reinvestigating the other bidders, hopefully using a different set of consultants than the ones who delivered up the embarrassment of Abengoa.

Old Harbour is an important project for Tomblin, who wants her legacy at the Jamaican utility to be one of transformation. She got a Jamaican power generator and distributor to run, but she wants to leave it as a ‘gas and electric utility’ with a role in developing a regional gas supply hub for the Caribbean market. Old Harbour would be the fulcrum, assuming it gets built.

With Bogue and Old Harbour in play, around a third of base load capacity would be fired by gas, a cleaner and, as important, cheaper fuel source that will allow JPS to produce and supply electricity to the grid at a price below 13 US cents per kilowatt-hour, and knock 1.2 million barrels of oil off the country’s annual orders of crude.

Still, Murphy’s law is tenacious, which means that all Jamaica can do is pray that the stars will finally align in its favour and that the energy gods are in affinity with Vin.

The Gleaner

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Bill Gates joins with Mark Zuckerberg and other top investors for urgent global action on climate change

December 4, 2015 Webmaster

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Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft [Image source: On Innovation.com, via Flickr]

On the opening day of the COP21 global climate change meeting in Paris, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have announced they have joined together with other private investors to help fight climate change by investing in renewable energy. The Breakthrough Energy Coalition will provide financial support to companies that take clean energy innovations out of the laboratory and commercialize them, the main idea being to accelerate progress on clean energy development.

“The world is going to be using 50 percent more energy by mid-century than it does today” said Mr Gates on his gatesnotes blog. “That should be good news, especially for the world’s poorest, because right now more than 1 billion people live without access to basic energy services. Affordable and reliable energy makes it easier for them to grow more food, run schools and hospitals and businesses, have refrigerators at home, and take advantage of all the things that make up modern life. Low- and middle-income countries need energy to develop their economies and help more people escape poverty. But the world’s growing demand for energy is also a big problem, because most of that energy comes from hydrocarbons, which emit greenhouse gases and drive climate change. So we need to move to sources of energy that are affordable and reliable, and don’t produce any carbon.”

Mr Gates added that although current renewable energy technologies, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future, given the scale of the challenge, the world needs to be exploring many different paths, and that means it also needs to invent new approaches. These energy breakthroughs will be made by private companies, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund.

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Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook [Image source: Jason McELweenie, Flickr]

Ways in which to promote clean energy innovation

Earlier in the year, Mr Gates set out on his blog three important ways in which to promote clean energy innovation – incentives, markets and treating poorer countries fairly.

The first of these involves governments drastically increasing their funding for research on clean energy solutions. At present, only a few billion dollars are spent per year on researching early-stage ideas for zero-carbon energy, when really, the world should be spending two to three times as much. Gates said that governments should be doing this for the public good and that the benefits of doing so are “far greater than the amount that the inventor can capture.” Expanded government support for energy research will also lead to more private investment. Gates has invested in companies developing new batteries and other energy storage solutions and also companies developing advances in solar power technology. However, governments need to act quickly on this because these energy transitions are time-intensive.

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Windmill Sunset [Image source: Max and Dee Bernt, Flickr]

The second important step is to ensure that energy prices reflect the full impact of emitting carbon. At present, the market does not factor in ‘negative externalities’ – the costs to health and the damage to the environment caused by greenhouse gas emissions. If these costs are reflected in the price, renewable energy will become more competitive with fossil fuels and that in turn will attract more investors to the market. Governments should support this process by creating incentives to develop new solutions while also ensuring certainty in the market so that energy companies can plan ahead and enact the transition to zero-carbon energy.

The third step is to recognize that, at this late stage when climate change is already starting to have disastrous effects on the world, it will continue to hit the poorest people in the world hardest. This means that those countries that have done most to create this problem should spend the most to invest in mitigation and help poorer countries to adapt. The Gates Foundation is now doing this by helping small farmers in poorer countries to adjust to hotter and more unpredictable weather by increasing productivity.

The Breakthrough Coalition

The Breakthrough Coalition consists of some of the world’s top investors who have joined together in the understanding that technology will help to solve the world’s current energy issues, particularly the urgent issue of climate change. This requires an aggressive and urgent global program of zero-emission energy innovation based on a model of public-private partnership between governments, research institutions, and investors. It will involve large funding commitments with a key role being played by governments, with aggressive increases in funding for basic and applied energy research. Current levels of government funding are insufficient.

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[Image source: CheapFullCoverageAutoInsurance.com]

The coalition is focused on the creation of a network of private capital intended to drive forward the transition to an advanced energy future. It is doing this by concentrating on providing investment for early stage companies, involving early investment through seed, angel and Series A investments, with commercial capital expected to take over in the later stages once the investments are de-risked. It will invest in a number of sectors, including electricity generation and storage, transportation, industry, agriculture and energy efficiency. The aim is to boost the development of novel technologies and innovations that make existing technologies more efficient, scalable or help to reduce costs. Given that most of these innovations will come through government research pipelines, the coalition has decided to focus its investments on countries participating in the Mission Innovation international initiative.

Mission Innovation

Mission Innovation was also launched on the opening day of COP21. It consists of a commitment by20 countries to invest in clean energy research and its aim is to “reinvigorate and accelerate global clean energy innovation with the objective to make clean energy widely affordable.” The initiative will seek to double government funding for clean energy innovation in each of its member states

The Breakthrough Coalition consists of:

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft; Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, and Dr Priscilla Chan; Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries (India); John Arnold, co-chair of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation; Marc Benioff, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com; Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon; HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Alwaleed Philanthropies, Saudi Arabia; Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group; Ray Dalio, Founder, Bridgewater Associates; Aliko Dangote, Founder and Chief Executive, Dangote Group, Nigeria; John Doerr, General Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, United States; Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn and Partner, Greylock, United States; Chris Hohn, Founder, The Children’s Investment Fund, UK; Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures, United States; Jack Ma, Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group, China; Patrice Motsepe, Founder and Executive Chairman, African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), South Africa; Xavier Niel, Founder, Iliad Group, France; Hasso Plattner, Co-founder and Chairman, SAP, Germany; Julian Robertson, Founder and Chairman, Tiger Management, United States; Neil Shen, Founding Managing Partner, Sequoia Capital China, China; Nat Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, Co-founders, Prelude Ventures, United States; Masayoshi Son, Founder, Chairman and CEO, SoftBank Group Corp., Japan; George Soros, Chairman, Soros Fund Management LLC, United States; Tom Steyr, Businessman, Philanthropist, and President, NextGen Climate, United States, Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, India; Meg Whitman, CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, United States; Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi Co-founder and CEO, SOHO China, Chairman, SOHO China; and finally, the University of California (UCLA).

The Mission Innovation initiative consists of:

Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

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US to fund climate risk insurance coverage

December 4, 2015 Webmaster

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THE US yesterday announced that it will be contributing $30 million to climate risk insurance initiatives in the Pacific, Central America, and Africa to help small island nations respond to severe climate-related impacts.

At a meeting with leaders of small island nations in the three regions, President Barack Obama said the move was part of a broader set of actions to help vulnerable populations strengthen their climate resilience, from providing climate data, tools and services, to incorporating climate resilience considerations into development assistance.

“The announcement is an important step toward the goal G-7 leaders set this summer to increase by up to 400 million the number of people in the most vulnerable developing countries who will have access to insurance against the negative impact of climate change hazards by 2020,” the WHite House said in a statement to the press yesterday.

The funds will support insurance initiatives under the Pacific Catastrophic Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative, expand the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility to include Central American countries, and support the African Risk Capacity programme.

The Observer

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