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‘Rethink Coal Plan’ – Environmentalists Decry Nain Plant Proposal, Gov’t Official Also Wary

August 5, 2016 Webmaster

Diana McCaulay

Jamaica will pay dearly in terms of the health of its people and the environment if the new owners of the Alpart bauxite facility in Nain, St Elizabeth, are allowed to build a proposed 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant, according to the Jamaica Environmental Trust (JET).

The organisation yesterday registered its strong opposition to the proposed energy source “due to the harm to human health and climate posed by coal-fired power plants”.

“Rethink this harmful project,” Diana McCaulay, JET’s chief executive officer, appealed to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, the portfolio minister for environmental issues.

She went on to argue some of the potential negative impacts of the various greenhouse gases discharged into the atmosphere by coal-fired plants, which are being phased out in developed countries.

“The pollutants from coal-fired plants that pose significant risks to human health are sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and particulate matter. Sulphur dioxide is a trigger for asthma attacks and combines with water vapour to form acid rain, which will also affect crops and soil health in the farming parish of St Elizabeth and beyond,” JET said in a release.

“Nitrogen oxides are a precursor to smog and increase the likelihood of respiratory ailments such as wheezing, coughing, colds, flu, and bronchitis.”

JET continued: “Mercury is a neurotoxin associated with irreversible IQ deficits and neurobehavioral pathologies. Particulate matter, also called PM or soot, consists of microscopically small, solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in the air. The smaller the particles, the deeper they can penetrate into the respiratory system and the more hazardous they are. There is a robust association between daily rates of human mortality and levels of particulate matter even when levels are below air-quality guidelines. Emissions of these pollutants can be reduced with modern equipment, but this type of coal plant is not cheap to build and does not produce cheap electricity.”

Mining Minister Mike Henry recently announced the sale of the old Alpart plant to the China-based Jiuquan Iron & Steel (Group) Company Limited (JISCO).

He said JISCO would be investing US$2 billion to establish an industrial zone at Nain, employing more than 3,000 people.

It was announced that the industrial zone would comprise bauxite mines, an alumina refinery, a coal-fired power plant, a local electricity network, rolling wire mills, and a range of aluminium products, among other enterprises.

The Government’s consideration of coal-fired power generation is also a matter of concern for Clifford Mahlung, project administrator at the Climate Change Division in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation.

“There are other options out there I would have preferred, but they come at a cost,” he told The Gleaner yesterday.

“I’m figuring that is probably the most cost-effective way of achieving what they want from the plant. But, yes, the emissions are of concern, and so we hope that the impact will be minimised as much as possible so that we can be proud of that plant.”

However, yesterday, Energy Minister Dr Andrew Wheatley said no application had been made for construction of a coal-fired plant in St Elizabeth.

“There was no approval or anything like that done. They need to get their facts straight before they comment,” Wheatley told The Gleaner/Power 106 News Centre.

Mahlung explained that while construction and operation of a coal plant would not be a breach of climate-change conventions, it could fly in the face of Jamaica’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 1.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030.

While carbon capture and underground storage of the pollutants is an option, Jamaica does not have the technology, which would involve the use of large underground caves consistent with the size of the Green Grotto Caves in Discovery Bay, St Ann.

However, that does not seem a practical option in light of the country’s geological formation, which is mainly limestone, which is very porous.

“So it can’t keep the CO2 (carbon dioxide) underground … . Maybe they can find a way to capture that CO2 and transport it to somewhere else in the island. But all of this is at a cost to store it if that technology becomes possible, but these would add to the cost.”

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com

The Gleaner

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‘Climate Change Greatest Threat To Agriculture’

August 2, 2016 Webmaster

Steadman Fuller, custos of Kingston has described climate change as the single greatest threat to local agriculture and, by extension, the Jamaican economy.

“Sadly, ladies and gentlemen, the food security to which we are traditionally accustomed is under serious threat. Only this time, it is under threat not directly from crop diseases and pests or praedial larceny, but from a more severe, potentially devastating and costly phenomenon called climate change,” Fuller told patrons on Sunday while delivering the keynote address on day two of the annual Denbigh Agricultural, Industrial and Food Show.

Explaining climate change as a “noticeable and sustained variation in weather conditions”, the custos sought to drive home to his audience the impact of climate change.

“The excessive heat that we have experienced; the long, dry season and the disappearance of some of some of our beaches, such as what is taking place at Hellshire in Portmore, are the direct result of climate change. You may even want to account that the heat that you have been feeling today is part of that phenomenon. In relation to agriculture specifically, climate change is a ticking time bomb,” Fuller declared.

VULNERABLE

“Just to give you an example, the destructive forces of flood and bush fires which destroy hundreds of acres of crops and farmland across Jamaica in the process, are reminders of our vulnerability to the intensity of natural disasters due to climate change. If left unchecked, climate change could reduce crop yields and the overall contribution of agriculture to national development. The farming sector could be wiped out if measures to safeguard the industry are not swiftly implemented and vigorously pursued.”

Fuller said that the theme of this year’s show ‘Grow What We Eat … Eat What We Grow Through Climate-smart Agriculture’ is evidence that the Jamaica Agriculture Society is well aware of the imminent danger and is ready to have that important conversation with farmers and other stakeholders in order to avert the potential danger.

He also had a message for policymakers.

“While there is no simple solution to the threat and consequences of climate change, it is a reality that measures and strategies must be implemented to ensure that our farmers can continue to do what they have done for centuries, and that is feed our nation.

“As a nation, we have to introduce measures to embrace climate-smart agricultural practices, so that rural communities can remain economically viable; our tourism and hospitality sector can have a sustained supply of fruits and vegetables and high-quality products; (and) our agro-processing sector can achieve its growth potential.”

Gleaner

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New Climate Change Programme Raises Concern – Mahlung

August 2, 2016 Webmaster

A new proposal expected to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface has raised concerns among policymakers.

They indicate it could provide an incentive for countries not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Solar Radiation Management proposal is currently being discussed among several stakeholders with the aim of addressing some of the risks associated with climate change. It is expected to inject sulphate particles into the earth’s stratosphere, which will reduce the amount of solar radiation and add a cooling effect with respect to the earth’s temperatures.

Following the Conference of the Parties, which was held in France last year, several countries committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to curtail global temperatures. Clifford Mahlung, project administrator at the Climate Change Division in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, said while he welcomes any initiative to mitigate against the effects of climate change, it is critical that any such project takes into account the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“It wouldn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it would have a cooling effect on the earth’s temperature. It’s a new science initiative. It hasn’t been tried anywhere else in the world, but there are some conclusions that it has very good potential …” he said.

“The big concern for me, though, being from a small island which suffers greatly from the negative impact of climate change, is that it could also provide an incentive for countries not to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Instead, they would rely on this technology, which would be defeating the whole purpose to combating climate change. It could give people a false sense of hope,” Mahlung told The Gleaner.

“Also, you are not sure how long those sulphates will remain in the atmosphere and, if, over time, it will not have a reverse effect. There’s a concern with respect to what is known as acid rain, which is a mixture of ordinary rainfall and sulphur dioxide which can be harmful to trees,” he added.

However, he said that once the project is properly thought through, it could produce positive results.

Gleaner

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JMMB Invests In Solar System

July 23, 2016 Webmaster

JMMB Group Limited will spend US$420,000 ($53 million) on a solar energy system to power various offices across Jamaica this year.

The project forms part of a wider move by JMMB to reduce its carbon footprint.

“We plan to implement this on a location-by-location basis, with the first implementation taking place at one of our locations in Kingston, in the coming months. The cost is as stated, US$420,000,” the financial conglomerate told the Financial Gleaner.

JMMB estimates the project payback period will span just about five years based on expected energy savings.

The solar plant will generate up to 293,935 kilowatts, hours of electricity per year with the use of clean renewable energy.

“The system is expected to save the company US$90,000 annually, and reduce oil energy dependency by 34 per cent,” JMMB said in its newly released annual report for year ending March 2016.

Roughly three years ago, JMMB embarked on a company-wide initiative coined ‘Go Green’, with one of the primary objectives to change the group’s energy practices in a way that was more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient.

“This investment in a grid-tied solar system is just another step in the direction of making us even more efficient at how we use energy,” the company said via email.

A grid-tied solar system is one where the system itself is tied to the external electricity grid, as opposed to batteries.

“In other words, the system uses the sun to generate our electricity needs, with any unused electricity going back to the external grid, as opposed to being stored in batteries,” said JMMB.

JMMB expects the project to expand over time through exploration of other renewable resources to all JMMB Group locations, where possible.

JMMB Group made $2.3 billion profit off $10.42 billion of net revenue in FY2016.

Gleaner

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UN Ready To Help Region Secure Clean Energy

May 24, 2016 Webmaster

Chief Executive Officer of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Energy for All Rachel Kyte has said her organisation is ready to partner with Caribbean governments and institutions to secure a clean, affordable and reliable energy future.

She was delivering the William G. Demas Memorial Lecture at the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) 46th annual Board of Governors Meeting at the Iberostar Resort in Lilliput, St James, on Tuesday.

Sustainable Energy for All is the brainchild of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Its main objectives are ensuring universal access to modern energy services and doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and the share of renewables in the global energy mix.

Kyte said that energy demand is not only the dominant contributor to climate change, but is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.

She noted that there are 1.1 billion people around the world who still have little or no access to energy, and three billion who rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating.

DESERVE ACCESS

“We the peoples of the UN want a planet and a future that’s not ravaged by climate change. We the peoples deserve access to affordable, clean and reliable energy and we the peoples know that the time for action is now,” she said.

Kyte noted that the impacts of climate change are being felt all around the world, particularly in the Caribbean. She added that rainfall patterns are changing, which have caused a number of islands to experience prolonged dry seasons and severely low reservoir levels.

“This severely impacts the ability of island nations to grow local crops,” she pointed out, citing loss of an estimated 2,190 hectares of crops valued at millions of dollars in Jamaica due to drought.

Kyte pointed out that the CDB has an essential role to play in providing financing for sustainable energy projects.

The Gleaner

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Oil company records from 1960s reveal patents to reduce CO2 emissions in cars

May 24, 2016 Webmaster

ExxonMobil and others pursued research into technologies, yet blocked government efforts to fight climate change for more than 50 years, findings show

The forerunners of ExxonMobil patented technologies for electric cars and low emissions vehicles as early as 1963 – even as the oil industry lobby tried to squash government funding for such research, according to a trove of newly discovered records.

Patent records reveal oil companies actively pursued research into technologies to cut carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change from the 1960s – including early versions of the batteries now deployed to power electric cars such as the Tesla.

Scientists for the companies patented technologies to strip carbon dioxide out of exhaust pipes, and improve engine efficiency, as well as fuel cells. They also conducted research into countering the rise in carbon dioxide emissions – including manipulating the weather.

Esso, one of the precursors of ExxonMobil, obtained at least three fuel cell patents in the 1960s and another for a low-polluting vehicle in 1970, according to the records. Other oil companies such as Phillips and Shell also patented technologies for more efficient uses of fuel.

However, the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil lobby, opposed government funding of research into electric cars and low emissions vehicles, telling Congress in 1967: “We take exception to the basic assumption that clean air can be achieved only by finding an alternative to the internal combustion engine.”

This 1970 patent, assigned to Esso (now ExxonMobil), is a design for a low-polluting engine system. Photograph: Handout

And ExxonMobil funded a disinformation campaigned aimed at discrediting scientists and blocking government efforts to fight climate change for more than 50 years, beforepublicly disavowing climate denial in 2008.

The patent records were among a new trove of documents published on Thursday by the Center for International Environmental Law, and deepen the legal and public relations challenge for Exxon.

“What we saw was an array of patent technologies that demonstrated that these companies had the technologies they needed and could have commercialised to help address the problem of C02 pollution,” said Carroll Muffett, president of the Ciel. “They then turned to Congress and said you don’t need to invest in electrical vehicle research because the research is ongoing and it’s robust.”

The findings echo those in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, which explored the deliberate destruction of GM’s first electric vehicles.

Alan Jeffers, an Exxon spokesman, insisted he could not comment directly on the documents as he was unable to access the Center for International Environmental law website on which they were published on Thursday morning.

In an emailed statement, Jeffers said: “The Guardian gave us only a few hours to comment on documents from four decades ago.”

Jeffers went on: “This further illustrates the Guardian’s well-established bias on climate change issues which has been demonstrated previously through its keep it in the ground campaign.”

He said the company believed the risks of climate change were real, was researching lower emission technologies, and engaged in “constructive dialogue” with policy makers about energy and climate change.

Researchers discovered more than 20 such patents filed by oil companies from as early as the 1940s for technologies that could help in the development of electric cars.

However, Ron Dunlop, president of Sun Oil and API chairman, told a joint hearing of the commerce committee in 1967 that government funding of research into electric cars would be misplaced – because the oil companies were so advanced in their research of cleaner cars. “We in the petroleum industry are convinced that by the time a practical electric car can be mass produced and marketed, it will not enjoy any meaningful advantage from an air pollution standpoint,” he told Congress. “Emissions from internal-combustion engines will have long since been controlled.”

Muffett said the findings were the result of three years of research and were not exhaustive.

“The question is what did they do to try to commercialise these technologies, knowing what they did about climate change,” he went on.

The revelations, the second set of documents released by Muffett’s organisation, reinforce charges by campaigners that Exxon was well aware that the burning of fossil fuels was a main driver of climate change – despite its public posture of doubt.

In addition to the technologies with potential for electric cars, Exxon and other oil companies were actively researching methods to cut emissions of carbon dioxide – the main greenhouse gas.

In another historic document that surfaced last month, a Canadian subsidiary of Exxon admitted the company had the technology to cut carbon emissions in half. However, the corporate memo dating from 1977 said it would be prohibitively expensive – doubling the cost of electricity generation, according to the documents obtained by Desmog blog.

New York and 17 other attorneys general, including DC and the US Virgin Islands, are investigating whether the oil company lied to investors and the public about the threat of climate change.

Campaigners plan to further turn up the heat on the company next week when Exxon holds its annual shareholder meeting in Dallas.

Campaigners have argued for more than a decade that Exxon bankrolled a network of front groups and conservative think tanks aimed at discrediting well-established science – confusing the public and delaying governments efforts to cut the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for warming.

Those efforts to put Exxon on the spot gathered pace after Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times reported that the company’s own scientists knew as early as the 1970s that greenhouse gases caused climate change.

The attorney general of the US Virgin Islands has subpoenaed Exxon to turn over email, documents and statements over the last decades.

Exxon has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated.

However, the company has reversed its opposition to fuel cell technology. Earlier this month, the company announced it had been conducting a joint research effort on fuel cell power plants with FuelCell.

The initiative, which got underway in 2011, aims to route the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning power plants into fuel cells, producing low emissions electricity. The company has estimated it can cut 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.

“At ExxonMobil, we share the view that the risks of climate change are serious and warrant thoughtful action,” Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chief executive, told the US Energy Association after receiving its annual award.

The Guardian

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Caribbean Youth Get Their Say On Climate Change

May 24, 2016 Webmaster

WITH the launch of Caribbean Climate Trackers, the region’s youth now have the chance to become more vocal on climate change.

The youth-led writing initiative, as hub manager Dizzanne Billy describes it, is intended “to identify and support young climate actors from around the world”.

With its genesis as the Adopt-A-Negotiator initiative, the effort was rebranded in Paris in December and is looking to amplify the perspectives of youth on climate change.

To that end, Billy, who is also president of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network in Trinidad, said youths recently had two publishing windows April 5 to 22 and May 4 through 15 that have qualified them for writing fellowships.

The April 5 to 22 window saw them writing on why the world should be free from fossil fuels and the effects of fossil fuels on health and air pollution.

The May 4 to 15 window saw them writing on climate change, human rights and energy transition.

“Coming out of these two publishing windows, the goal was to select 15 young people to be a part of a paid writing fellowship, as well as to choose two persons to be a part of the Climate Trackers team to COP22 (the 22nd meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held later this year in Marrakech),” said Billy.

fellow selection

“So far, the 15 persons have been announced and we successfully have one person from the Caribbean Climate Trackers chosen to be a fellow.

“Her name is Amrita Dass and she’s from Trinidad and Tobago. The two persons for the team have not yet been announced, but should be this week,” she added.

The fellowships, which got underway earlier this month, covers subjects including:

• an introduction to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change;

• the annual Conference of the Parties and what it means;

• climate change and health;

• climate change, water and biodiversity;

• climate change, human rights and gender; and

• climate change variability in the Caribbean.

With the start of their operations in the region in March, the first order of business has been to address visibility while prompting support for their work.

Caribbean Climate Trackers therefore joined the Earth Day 2016 InstaMeet event, which ran from April 22 to 24 on the social networking service Instagram.

“In Trinidad, we met at the Botanic Gardens in Port-of-Spain, with young, spoken-word artistes performing about earth and the environment and

conservation. We also did some networking and speaking about climate change, [as well as] exchanged ideas on the Paris Agreement,” Billy told The Gleaner.

Their activities at the Botanic Gardens were shared on Instagram, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Billy has urged Caribbean youth to join the movement.

“We need to stop operating in insularity. We need to find now the power that we have when we work together,” she said.

“Young people tend to feel that their opinion does not matter or that they are like a box that needs to be ticked off.

” Our opinion matter and the only way we can get it out there is by doing the work, and we will see the results after,” Billy added.

The Caribbean hub joins seven others from across the world Latin America, Brazil, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Balkans.

pwr.gleaner@gmail.com

The Gleaner

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UN Ready To Help Region Secure Clean Energy

May 22, 2016 Webmaster

She was delivering the William G. Demas Memorial Lecture at the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) 46th annual Board of Governors Meeting at the Iberostar Resort in Lilliput, St James, on Tuesday.

Kyte said that energy demand is not only the dominant contributor to climate change, but is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.

She noted that there are 1.1 billion people around the world who still have little or no access to energy, and three billion who rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating.

DESERVE ACCESS

Kyte pointed out that the CDB has an essential role to play in providing financing for sustainable energy projects.

The Gleaner

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Global Photo Contest Promotes Climate Change Adaptation

May 13, 2016 Webmaster

The Adaptation Fund – from which Jamaica is benefitting to the tune of $10 million – has launched a global photo competition to promote readiness of the world’s coasts and watersheds for climate change.

The contest was launched on April 22 – recognised internationally as Earth Day – and this year, also when the new climate deal, dubbed the Paris Agreement, opened for signatures.

“The contest is aimed at involving all Adaptation Fund stakeholders, countries and projects, implementing entities, project staff and beneficiaries, executing entities, governments, non-governmental organisations and the general public to raise awareness of climate change issues affecting vital resources around the globe and the importance of developing adaptation solutions,” said a release from the fund.

With half the world’s population living within 60km of the ocean and 75 per cent of all large cities located by the sea, coastal areas are a major source for livelihoods through fishing, natural resources, trade, tourism, boating and recreation.

However, they are under increasing threat from climate change due to sea level rise, storm intensification, flooding, erosion, rising water temperature, species migration and pollution.

“Inland watersheds are equally endangered by climate change-related droughts, floods and extreme rainfall variability, as well as damage to natural protective ecosystems like degraded forests, wetlands, grasslands and river pollution from runoff or contamination,” the release added.

Coastal Zone Management Critical

Coastal-zone management projects that include sea walls, salt barriers and restoration of mangroves offer tremendous benefits in improving sustainability of both the ecosystem and community livelihoods over the long term.

Also beneficial are programmes to enhance urban and rural watershed resources through disaster risk reduction, forest protection, biodiversity conservation, water harvesting, drip-irrigation agriculture and landslide control.

Photos depicting the effects of climate change on coasts and inland watersheds, as well as adaptation actions to address them can be submitted to AFBSEC@adaptation-fund.org by June 3, 2016 with the email heading, ‘AF Photo Contest’.

Complete contest criteria, including relevance to the theme, and the fund’s vision of helping vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, as well as visual impact, originality and informational value, can be found on the fund’s rules page.

Contest winners will be selected by a panel of judges composed of climate change experts with country field expertise, and the winning photos will be displayed at the fund’s Global Climate Readiness Seminar in Washington, DC, July 13-14.

All photo submissions received will be posted by the fund to its Facebook page in an album dedicated to the contest, where anyone can go to like and comment on photos.

The Gleaner

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Jamaica Preps For Full Benefits From Green Climate Fund

April 20, 2016 Webmaster

Albert Daley: We have developed a proposal and they are favourably disposed to making the funding available to us.

With its role as National Designated Authority (NDA) with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) secure, Jamaica’s Climate Change Division is moving to ensure it successfully fulfils the functions.

To that end, the division recently applied to the GCF for financing to boost its capacity to deliver on its mandate as NDA.

“We have developed a proposal and they are favourably disposed to making the funding available to us, but there are some conditionalities that we have to meet,” the division’s principal director, Albert Daley, told The Gleaner.

It was not clear when the island would receive the official final word from the Fund.

Meanwhile, as NDA, the division serves as the GCF’s “first point of contact” for the country while also providing information to local actors on the GCF.

“An important role is not only to provide information re the GCF’s facilities, services and offerings for loans and grants; it also has the task of recommending national implementing entities (NIEs), which are institutions through which the GCF channels funds to a country or region and which is given oversight responsibility for the funds,” Daley noted.

Already, he said, the division has approached two public entities that could likely fill that role.

“Once we recommend, then the GCF will begin working with the entity we recommend to complete the process of accreditation,” he revealed.

OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP PROPOSALS

With an accredited NIE, the island can go all out to develop proposals for projects that it can itself administer.

“The ideal thing is not for people outside the country to submit proposals on our behalf, but for us to submit our own projects so that whatever returns from them will be in the country,” Daley noted.

As NDA, the division also has as its mandate to provide assurances to the GCF that whatever proposals are coming from Jamaica are in line with the island’s national priority areas for action, pursuant to its climate-change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

“The NDA is required to submit a no-objection letter to the GCF to say we have no objection, as the NDA, to [any proposed] project going forward because it is a national priority. We are also expected to indicate the extent to which a consultative process was followed in terms of developing the project,” Daley revealed.

According to the division boss, there is no question of the value of the step Jamaica has taken in having the CCD so designated.

“If we don’t have an NDA, we cannot initiate dialogue or advance any work with the GCF. For a country to engage with the GCF, it is a requirement that they have an NDA. They will only consider a project, for example, if it is endorsed by an NDA; it is a prerequisite for engagement with the GCF,” he explained.

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