Crop Fires Can Push Delhi Air Pollution 20 Times Beyond Safe Levels, Study Finds

04.04.2018

As of 2016, New Delhi was the 11th most polluted city in the world, which was a positive development compared to 2014, when it had the dubious honor of being number one, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data reported by The Huffington Post.

Now, research by the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) published Friday found that a dangerous new tradition can double air pollution levels in the entire state of Delhi on some fall days.

Since around 1980, farmers in the agricultural region of northwest India have switched from traditional to mechanical agricultural techniques, which leave crop residue behind after harvesting. Farmers have taken to burning the residue in order to clear their fields after the fall harvest, in October and November, a practice that sends clouds of black carbon and particulate matter downwind to the larger National Capital Region of Delhi, which is home to more than 46 million people.

The practice is technically illegal, but, as the Harvard press release announcing the results pointed out, the law isn’t often enforced, partly because it was not known to what degree the crop-fire smoke was actually contributing to Delhi’s air problems.

The results, published in Environmental Research Letters, have changed that. “On certain days during peak fire season, air pollution in Delhi is about 20 times higher than the threshold for safe air as defined by the World Health Organization,” SEAS graduate student and study author Daniel H. Cusworth said in the release.

In order to determine the link between fires and air pollution, researchers used satellite images of fires obtained from NASA for October and November of 2012 to 2016. They then plugged that data into models that tracked how smoke particles would travel based on geography, physics and wind patterns. The particularly stagnant air following monsoon season makes the autumn the absolute worst time to burn crops, since the smoke doesn’t disperse into the atmosphere as it otherwise would.

The results confirm the fires as a major contributor to an already serious public health issue. According to the introduction section of the study, deteriorating air quality in Delhi led to a 60 percent increase in mortality between 2000 and 2010. People in the region suffer from air-pollution-related illnesses at a rate 12 times higher than people in India overall.

The study’s findings give officials another tool to help combat the problem. “This information can provide policymakers with a quantitative sense of the consequences of current agricultural burning practices in regions upwind of the city in order to inform decision-making,” the study concluded.

Source: ecowatch.com

Antarctica Lost a London-Sized Area of Underwater Ice in Only 6 Years

04.04.2018

Antarctica’s ice sheet is retreating due to warm ocean water circulating beneath its floating edge, researchers from the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds have found.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, shows that the Southern Ocean melted 1,463 square kilometers of Antarctica’s underwater ice between 2010 and 2016—an area roughly the size of Greater London.

“What’s happening is that Antarctica is being melted away at its base. We can’t see it, because it’s happening below the sea surface,” professor Andrew Shepherd, one of the authors of the paper, explained to The Guardian.

The team also produced the first complete map showing that the ice sheet’s submarine edge, or “grounding line,” is shifting.

Lead researcher Dr. Hannes Konrad and his team found “extreme” grounding line retreat at eight of the ice sheet’s 65 biggest glaciers. The pace of deglaciation since the last ice age is roughly 25 meters per year. However, the grounding line at these glaciers has been retreating more than five times that rate, the authors determined.

According to the paper, “Although most of the grounding line is stable, we estimate that 3.3 percent, 21.7 percent and 9.5 percent of East Antarctica, West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, respectively, are measurably in a state of retreat.”

This study could spell major implications for global sea level rise.

“The changes mean that very soon the sea-level contribution from Antarctica could outstrip that from Greenland,” Shepherd added to The Guardian.

Konrad noted in a statement, “Our study provides clear evidence that retreat is happening across the ice sheet due to ocean melting at its base, and not just at the few spots that have been mapped before now. This retreat has had a huge impact on inland glaciers, because releasing them from the sea bed removes friction, causing them to speed up and contribute to global sea level rise.”

Although the retreat of some glaciers has sped up, others such as the Pine Island Glacier have halted, the researchers found.

“These differences emphasize the complex nature of ice sheet instability across the continent, and being able to detect them helps us to pinpoint areas that deserve further investigation,” Konrad said.

Source: ecowatch.com

China Joins World Green Building Council Community

04.04.2018

China’s Green Building Council has officially partnered with the World Green Building Council in a major boost to international efforts to curb the environmental impact of the building and construction sectors, the two organisations announced yesterday.

The partnership was hailed as “hugely significant” by the World GBC, given China’s position as the largest building construction market in the world, responsible for the construction of up to two billion square metres of building space each year. The country is expected to account for nearly half of new global construction over the coming decade.

The Chinese government is one of 90 countries to include its building sector in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the international Paris Agreement, with commitments covering energy efficiency, construction waste and low carbon urbanisation. It also aims to increase the share of new green buildings in urban areas by 50 per cent by 2020.

China GBC will therefore cooperate with other national Green Building Councils to leverage and share best practices. It has also committed to introducing a ‘nearly net zero’ standard for its Three Start rating system in 2018 as part of the World GBC’s Advancing Net Zero project.

As well as tackling greenhouse gases, the group will also focus on improving the impact of buildings on both indoor and outdoor air pollution.

Terri Wills, CEO of the World Green Building Council, said the significance of China joining the global green building movement “cannot be underestimated”.

“Just as China has sought to assert its commitment to combating climate change on the global stage, this partnership marks a new era in cooperation between the world’s largest green construction market and our community of Green Building Councils in over 70 countries,” she said. “We look forward to learning from their expertise and experience as we seek to create green buildings for everyone, everywhere.”

Due to Chinese regulations, officially China GBC is not a registered NGO and therefore cannot become a formal member of the World GBC, although the two organisations have agreed a “close partnership enabling China GBC’s participation in the global movement”.

Headquartered in Beijing, China GBC is operated as part of the non-profit research organisation Chinese Society of Urban Studies. To date 523 million square metres of buildings have been certified using its Three Star green building rating system, according to the organisation.

Professor Wang Youwei, chair of China GBC, said the organisation was “strongly committed” to driving the development of healthy and low-carbon developments across the country. “This partnership will enable China to learn from global best practices, share the progress we have made in China, and to accelerate our commitments made in the Paris Agreement,” he said.

Source: businessgreen.com

EPA Moves to Relax US Vehicle Emission Standards

04.04.2018

Zagađenje, Auspuh, Automobil — Photo: Pixabay

Scott Pruitt, the head of the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), has revealed plans to roll back emissions standards for vehicles in a move that could impact the country’s transport emissions for decades to come.

In a statement released yesterday Pruitt said the Obama administration had set vehicle emissions standards too high and was guilty of rushing through new rules with “politically charged expediency” just before leaving office.

Pruitt said he would revise the standards imposed by Obama’s EPA, which require trucks and cars sold in the US to average more than 50 miles per gallon by 2025.

The EPA is also re-examining a special waiver given to the Californian auto market under the Clean Air Act, which allows the state to impose stricter emissions standards for vehicles sold in its state than federal law requires.

The waiver is important because California is by far the largest US car market and some 12 other states follow its regulatory lead, creating a standards bloc covering about one third of the entire US auto market. As such, carmakers routinely ensure new vehicles are manufactured according to the more demanding Californian state vehicle emissions standards.

“Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country,” Pruitt warned yesterday. “EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford – while still expanding environmental and safety benefits of newer cars. It is in America’s best interest to have a national standard, and we look forward to partnering with all states, including California, as we work to finalise that standard.”

The emissions standards introduced by the Obama administration – in part as a condition of the post-financial crash auto industry bailout engineered by the Obama White House – were widely credited as a key plank in US efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, drive the market for electric vehicles, and honour the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Earlier this year data from the Energy Information Administration revealed transport is now the leading emitter in the US, overtaking power generation.

As such, Pruitt’s announcement, which is the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to sweep away Obama-era environmental protections, represents a major blow for environmental campaigners.

However, green groups will harbour hopes they could protect the planned standards through potential legal action.

Source: businessgreen.com

Half a Degree of Warming Makes a Big Difference to Global Food Security, Study Finds

03.04.2018

climate change — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

A study published Monday indicates that it makes a big difference to global food security whether signatories to the Paris agreement are able to keep global temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, or allow it to rise a full two degrees.

The study, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, focused on how different warming scenarios would impact food security in 122 developing countries. The research team, led by the University of Exeter with participation from the Rossby Center in Sweden, Cranfield University, the Technical University of Crete, the Met Office, and the European Commission, found that limiting warming to 1.5°C would lead to relatively less food insecurity in 76 percent of the countries studied. Two degrees of warming would cause unprecedented levels of food insecurity in four countries: Oman, Bangladesh, Mauritania and Yemen.

To assess food insecurity, the researchers examined how climate change is projected to increase either drought or rainfall in various regions.

“Such weather extremes can increase vulnerability to food insecurity,” study author and University of Exeter professor Richard Betts said in a university press release.

To obtain their results, the researchers used a new atmospheric circulation model based on sea ice and sea-surface temperatures.

In addition to its projections on global food security, the study also has important implications for regional river systems.

The study found that the flow of the Ganges could more than double if warming increases by two degrees. Floods that last more than four days are expected to increase in India and Bangladesh especially.

On the other extreme, the flow of the Amazon could decrease by 25 percent in a two-degree-warmer world.

Wet weather will increase globally, though Asia will be more impacted by extreme rainfall, and South America and Africa will be more impacted by drought.

The study also found that a 0.5°C temperature difference overall could lead to much higher temperature differences in some regions. For example, a 2°C increase in global temperature would lead to maximum daily temperatures five degrees higher in parts of Europe, while 1.5°C of global temperature rise would only increase maximum temperatures by three to four degrees in the same area.

This isn’t the first study to indicate the impact that an extra five degrees of warming could have on the earth. A study published in Nature Climate Change in 2017 focused on the difference half a degree can make by looking at extensive climate changes in the past half-century when average temperatures rose by one degree.

However, if we want to limit warming to 1.5°C, we have to act quickly. A draft of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paper said that meeting the target was “extremely unlikely” unless we make a radical shift away from fossil fuels by 2040, DW reported in January.

Source: ecowatch.com

ABB Technologies to Enable Expansion of Solar Park in Dubai

03.04.2018

ABB has won an order worth more than $90 million from Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), the leading power utility in United Arab Emirates (UAE), to build the Shams 400 kV substation that will integrate solar power from upcoming phases of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park into the city’s electrical grid. This will be ABB’s second substation for the park, exemplifying the company’s commitment to deliver reliable power to consumers and serve the building and infrastructure sector alongside utility and industry customers.

Following years of rapid growth and urbanization, Dubai continues to be one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, and booming growth in population and economic sectors, like tourism, have increased demand for energy. To increase power supply and meet goals for increased use of renewables, the UAE launched its ambitious Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to make Dubai a global center of clean energy and green economy.

The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park, located inland 50 km south of Dubai, has been a central part of Dubai’s renewable strategy. When completed in 2030, the park will occupy 214 square km, generate 5,000 MW and reduce carbon emissions by approximately 6.5 million tons.

ABB is responsible for the design, supply, and installation and commissioning of the Shams 400/ 132 kV substation, which once completed, will have an overall capacity of more than 2,000 megavolt amperes (MVA). When Phase-3 of the project is finished in 2020, which is the same year that Dubai will host Expo 2020, the total solar power generated through Solar Photovoltaic will exceed 1,000 MW, and significantly lower carbon emissions.

“We are proud to work with DEWA and continue to contribute to this landmark project with our state-of-the-art technologies that will boost capacity and bring cleaner solar power to the people,” said Claudio Facchin, President of ABB’s Power Grids Division. “Integrating renewables is a key element of our Next Level strategy and our proven track record reinforces our position as a partner of choice for enabling a stronger, smarter and greener grid.”

“In Dubai, we have a comprehensive approach to the energy sector. We are committed to achieve the objectives of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, which was launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to provide 75 percent of the Emirate’s total power output from clean energy by 2050. Meeting the clean energy objectives requires a capacity of 42,000 MW of clean and renewable energy by 2050. The most prominent project to achieve these objectives, is the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which will have a generation capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030, with investments totaling AED50 billion. The solar park will contribute to reducing over 6.5 million tons of carbon emissions per year when completed”, said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of DEWA.

The ABB substation includes supply of 400 and 132 kV gas-insulated switchgear, power transformers, protection, automation and control systems as well as surveillance and communication systems. The substation will also be IEC 61850 enabled, to support open and seamless communication with all intelligent devices. In 2017, ABB delivered its first substation connecting the second phase of the MBR Solar Park and integrating 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the transmission grid.

Source: PV Magazine

JinkoSolar To Open First US Solar Factory In Florida In Support Of 2,750 Megawatt NextEra Energy Deal

03.04.2018

alternative-2225__340, solar — Photo: Pixabay

US-based NextEra Energy has signed one of the largest solar panel supply deals in history with China-based JinkoSolar for 2,750 megawatts (MW) alongside a separate move in which JinkoSolar will open its first US manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Florida.

In moves which will encourage both the global solar supply market and the North American solar industry in particular, JinkoSolar Holding announced on Friday that it has signed one of the largest solar panel supply deals in history with NextEra Energy that was first raised back in January. At the time, JinkoSolar announced that it had signed a solar supply agreement with an unnamed US counterparty for around 1.75 gigawatts (GW), and was advancing plans for the construction of a US-based manufacturing facility.

“This deal will further solidify our leadership in the US market,” said Nigel Cockroft, General Manager of Jinko US at the time. “An agreement of this magnitude exemplifies JinkoSolar’s commitment to provide our clients with the most reliable products and dependable, regional customer service.”

Fast forward two months and JinkoSolar confirmed that NextEra Energy was not only the previously-unnamed “US counterparty” but that the supply agreement would be increased from 1.75 GW to 2.75 GW. Similarly, the previously “advancing plans” were confirmed in the form of a US solar manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Florida, which is expected to create more than 200 direct jobs and support hundreds of additional local jobs in shipping and other related industries.

“As NextEra Energy continues to invest heavily in new solar projects across the country, we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to buy cost-effective, reliable solar panels made here in America,” said Jim Robo, NextEra Energy’s chairman and CEO. “JinkoSolar shares our commitment to delivering affordable clean energy solutions, and we are pleased to welcome them to our home state of Florida.”

The new Jacksonville “state-of-the-art” manufacturing facility will have the capacity to build 400 MW of solar modules annually — or around 1 million solar panels each year. Production is expected to start later this year, and JinkoSolar is currently anticipating to rely on the Port of Jacksonville for a large volume of its necessary important and exporting.

The move was heralded by Florida Governor Rick Scott, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, and Eric Silagy, president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Company, which currently operates more than 930 megawatts of solar capacity in Florida, including 14 solar power plants, who said that “It’s exciting to know that solar panels built in Florida will be helping power FPL customers in the not-too-distant future.”

The JinkoSolar manufacturing move is unsurprising given the recent decision by US President Donald Trump to impose a 30% tariff on all solar module and cell imports. While overall the tariff will have a negative impact on the American solar industry — reducing US solar installations by 11% over the next five years, or a reduction of around 7.6 GW — it will force big-name solar manufacturing companies like JinkoSolar to re-evaluate whether or not to invest in US-based manufacturing facilities.

“Investing in this solar panel manufacturing facility makes clear our commitment to Florida and the growing US market,” said Kangping Chen, CEO of JinkoSolar. “This will be one of the world’s most advanced solar panel manufacturing facilities, which will provide us with the flexibility and manufacturing capacity to support our local partners and growing U.S. customer base.”

Source: cleantechnica.com

UK Government Confirms Historic Low Emissions As Wind & Solar Become Second Biggest Electricity Source

03.04.2018

Provisional statistics from the UK Government have confirmed previous analyses that the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have reached levels not seen since 1890, thanks in part to the increase in electricity generation from wind and solar which together now account for the second largest source of electricity.

The UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published a raft of new statistics relating to the country’s energy sector and its greenhouse gas emissions to cap the end of March. Amidst the numerous publications, it was revealed that provisional greenhouse gas emissions for 2017 confirmed previous analysis conducted in early March by Carbon Brief, which claimed UK CO2 emissions hit levels last seen in 1890, thanks to a 2017 emissions decrease of 2.6% and a 19% decline in national coal usage.

Specifically, the BEIS’s provisional figures show that carbon dioxide emissions for 2017 were 366.9 million tonnes (Mt), 3.2% down on 2016. At the end of 2017, UK greenhouse gas emissions were down 43% on a 1990 level baseline.

The decline in 2017 emissions was caused mainly by reductions in the energy supply sector, which were down 7.6% to 8.7 Mt of CO2-equivalent due to a decrease in power station emissions. Leading the way is the country’s dramatic reduction in coal usage, down 28% between 2016 and 2017, and which has resulted in a massive switch to gas and renewable energy supply.

The UK Government’s new statistics also highlight the impressive increase in renewable energy generation. The BEIS concluded that low-carbon generation — including wind, solar, hydro, bioenergy, and nuclear — accounted for around 50% of electricity generation in 2017. Specifically, wind and solar generation overtook nuclear generation in the fourth quarter of 2017 to be the country’s second highest source of electricity for the first time, thanks to increased capacity and higher wind speeds.

Wind in particular had a great year, accounting for 15% of the UK’s electricity demand, its highest ever amount, and up from 11% in 2016. Renewables (low-carbon minus nuclear) accounted for 29.4%, up from 25% in 2016. Onshore wind generated 8.5%, up from 6% in 2016, while offshore wind generated 6.2%, up from 5%. The report noted that “falls in the amount of electricity generated by coal and gas were offset by renewables, primarily wind generation.”

“These official figures confirm that it’s been another record-breaking year for wind energy, which generated 15% of the UK’s electricity in 2017,” said RenewableUK’s Executive Director Emma Pinchbeck. “The move to a smart, renewables-led energy system is well underway.

“The cost of new offshore wind halved in 2017 and onshore wind is already the cheapest of any new power source in the UK. So it’s vital that new onshore wind should be allowed to compete in the market for the sake of consumers.”

Source: cleantechnica.com

Melting Permafrost Emits More Methane Than Scientists Thought

03.04.2018

glacier-19114__340, permafrost — Foto: Pixabay

Methane emissions are the source of the greenhouse gas which, after carbon dioxide, probably causes climatologists more sleepless nights than any of the other gases. And now it appears they have quite a lot more to bother them than they had realized.

Methane is reckoned to be at least 30 times more powerful than CO2 at warming the earth, with some estimates putting its potency much higher still. The good news, research has suggested, is that there is far less methane than CO2 in the atmosphere to worry about.

The bad news, announced by an international research team, is that previous calculations may have been seriously wrong, and that thawing permafrost is likely to be producing appreciably more methane than anyone had thought.

The researchers were headed by Christian Knoblauch of the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, make it possible to predict better how much of this significant gas may be released by the thawing of the Arctic permafrost.

Methane and carbon dioxide are both produced in thawing permafrost as dead animal and plant remains decompose. But methane is formed only in the absence of oxygen. Until now, scientists had also thought that more greenhouse gases were formed when the ground was dry and well aerated—in other words, when oxygen was available.

So they did not expect much methane to be produced by the thawing permafrost. What Dr. Knoblauch and his colleagues have now shown is that water-saturated permafrost soils without oxygen can be twice as harmful to the climate as dry soils—which means the role of methane has been greatly underestimated.

They have, for what they say is the first time, measured in the laboratory the long-term production of methane in thawing permafrost. The team had to wait for three years before their roughly forty-thousand-year-old samples from the Siberian Arctic finally produced methane.

They observed the permafrost for a total of seven years and found that, without oxygen, equal amounts of methane and CO2 were produced.

A co-author of their report, Susanne Liebner, from the Helmholtz Center Potsdam – GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, said: “By combining process-based and molecular-microbiological methods, our study shows for the first time that the methane-forming micro-organisms in the thawing permafrost have significant influence on the greenhouse gas budget.”

The team used the new data to improve a computer model that estimates how much greenhouse gas is produced in permafrost in the long term—and they compiled a first forecast: the permafrost soils of northern Europe, northern Asia and North America, they say, could produce up to one gigaton (one billion tons) of methane, and 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide, by 2100.

Earlier studies have expressed concern about the interplay between permafrost and global warming, and this latest research will be exhaustively scrutinized as other teams try to corroborate, modify or contradict it. That is how science works. And there are certainly uncertainties that need resolving.

For example, how deep will the soil actually have thawed by the end of the century? Will it be wet or dry? What is certain, the team concludes, is that the new data will enable more accurate predictions to be made about the impacts of thawing permafrost on the climate.

Source: ecowatch.com

Almost All Power Capacity Added In India In Q4 2017 Was Renewable

03.04.2018

solar-panels- — Photo-ilustration: Pixabay

Renewable energy technologies, led overwhelmingly by solar power, continued to lead in new power generation capacity installed in India in the fourth quarter of last year.

According to data released by the federal government agencies, more than 93% of the power generation capacity added in India between October and December 2017 was based on renewable energy technology. This marks a continuation in the trend seen in the third quarter last year when just over 92% of the power generation capacity added in India was based on renewable energy technologies.

The overwhelming share of renewable energy technologies in new capacity added speaks volumes about the rapid pace at which solar and wind energy projects are being commissioned and the sluggish to no growth seen in the thermal, primarily coal-based, power sector.

Of the 2,887 megawatts of new capacity added in Q4 2017, 2,689 megawatts was based on renewable energy technologies. None of the capacity added during the quarter was based on any fossil fuel technologies. Solar had a massive share of 79% in the total new capacity added while bioenergy projects was a distant second with 8% share. Large hydro and wind energy projects had a share of 7% and 5%, respectively. Small hydro power projects wrapped up the new capacity addition with a share of 1%.

Hydro power projects with an installed capacity of more than 25 megawatts are currently not classified as renewable energy projects in India. However, the federal government has been mulling a change in this classification for a long time.

In the third quarter, solar power had a share of 82% in net capacity addition. Wind energy had a share of 10%, while large hydro power projects registered a share of 8% in the net new capacity added.

The thermal power sector not only saw no new capacity added in the third and fourth quarters last year but witnessed a decline in installed capacity. India retired and permanently shut down 1,126 megawatts of thermal power capacity in Q3 and 490 megawatts of capacity in Q4 last year. This is the reason the total renewable energy capacity added in Q3 and Q4 has been more than the net new capacity added.

Against a net capacity addition of 879 megawatts in Q3 India added 1,854 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, including 1,657 megawatts of solar power capacity. And against a net capacity addition of 2,397 megawatts in Q4, India added 2,689 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, including 2,281 megawatts of solar power capacity.

Source: cleantechnica.com

World’s Largest Desert Growing Even Larger, Partly Due to Climate Change

02.04.2018

The Sahara Desert—which takes up about 3.6 million square miles of northern Africa—is growing ever larger, signaling daunting news for people living in the Sahel border region who stand to lose valuable arable land to the expanding desert.

The boundaries of the world’s largest hot desert, already around the size of China or the continental U.S, have grown roughly 10 percent since 1920 due to natural climate cycles as well as man-made climate change, according to a new study by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientists at the University of Maryland.

“The trends in Africa of hot summers getting hotter and rainy seasons drying out are linked with factors that include increasing greenhouse gases and aerosols in the atmosphere,” said Ming Cai, a program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences.

As a summary of the new study pointed out, as the Sahara expands, the Sahel retreats—putting the region’s fragile savanna ecosystems and human societies under threat.

“These trends have a devastating effect on the lives of African people, who depend on agriculture-based economies,” Cai noted.

For the study, published this week in the Journal of Climate, researchers analyzed annual rainfall data recorded throughout Africa from 1920 to 2013. Deserts are defined as places that receive less than four inches of rain per year. After analyzing the rainfall data, the researchers determined that many areas in the Sahara now fall under this threshold.

“It is shown that the Sahara Desert has expanded significantly over the twentieth century, by 11 percent-18 percent depending on the season, and by 10 percent when defined using annual rainfall,” the study states.

The researchers only studied the Sahara, but the results suggested that other deserts could be expanding as well.

“Our results are specific to the Sahara, but they likely have implications for the world’s other deserts,” said Sumant Nigam, an atmospheric and ocean scientist at the University of Maryland, and the senior author of the study.

According to the research team, natural climate cycles such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation have primarily driven the Sahara’s rapid expansion, but these forces account for just two-thirds of the Sahara’s total expansion.

The remaining one-third can be attributed to human-caused climate change. Nigam explained that deserts usually form in the subtropics because of what’s called Hadley circulation, through which air rises at the equator and descends in the subtropics. Climate change, the researchers warn, could widen that circulation and cause subtropical deserts to inch north.

“Climate change is likely to widen this Hadley circulation, causing the northward advance of subtropical deserts,” said Nigam, adding that at the same time, “the southward creep of the Sahara suggests that additional mechanisms are at work.”

The African continent is one of the most vulnerable to climate change, yet its inhabitants are the least responsible for it. Truly, one of the great injustices of our time.

The researchers suggested that longer climate records that extend across several climate cycles are needed to reach definitive conclusions.

“Our priority was to document long-term trends in rainfall and temperature in the Sahara,” said Natalie Thomas, a researcher at the University of Maryland and lead author of the paper. “Our next step will be to look at what’s driving these trends, for the Sahara and elsewhere.”

Source: Eco Watch

How Smartphones Are Heating Up the Planet

02.04.2018

When we think about climate change, the main sources of carbon emissions that come to mind for most of us are heavy industries like petroleum, mining and transportation.

Rarely do we point the finger at computer technologies.

In fact, many experts view the cyber-world of information and computer technologies (ICT) as our potential savior, replacing many of our physical activities with a lower-carbon virtual alternative.

That is not what our study, recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, suggests.

Having conducted a meticulous and fairly exhaustive inventory of the contribution of ICT—including devices like PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones and tablets—and infrastructure like data centers and communication networks, we found that the relative contribution of ICT to the total global footprint is expected to grow from about 1 percent in 2007 to 3.5 percent by 2020 and reaching 14 percent by 2040.

That’s more than half the relative contribution of the entire transportation sector worldwide.

Another disconcerting finding is that all this extraordinary growth is mostly incremental, essentially shattering the hope that ICT will help reduce the global carbon footprint by substituting physical activities with their virtual counterparts.

Perhaps the most surprising result of our study was the disproportionate contribution of smartphones relative to the overall ICT footprint.

We found that the relative emissions share of smartphones is expected to grow from 4 percent in 2010 to 11 percent by 2020, dwarfing the individual contributions of PCs, laptops and computer displays.

In absolute values, emissions caused by smartphones will jump from 17 to 125 megatons of CO2 equivalent per year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in that time span, or a 730 percent growth.

The lion’s share of this footprint (85 to 95 percent) will be caused not by the use of the device, but rather by its production. That includes, in addition to the manufacturing energy, the energy for material mining for gold and the so-called rare-earth elements like yttrium, lanthanium and several others that today are almost exclusively available only from China.

Another guilty participant in this excessive carbon footprint are the phone plans that encourage users to get a new smartphone every two years. That accelerates the rate at which older models become obsolete and leads to an extraordinary and unnecessary amount of waste.

These findings pertain to the device side.

On the infrastructure side, we predict the combined footprint of data centers and communications networks will grow from 215 megatons of C02 equivalent a year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in 2007 to 764 MtCO2-e/yr by 2020, with data centers accounting for about two thirds of the total contribution.

For comparison purposes, the entire carbon footprint of Canada was about 730 MtCO2-e in 2016 and is expected to decrease by 2020.

The growth in smartphones and data centers aren’t unrelated.

Indeed, it’s the dizzying growth in mobile communications that’s largely driving the pace for data centers. For every text message, video download, photo exchange, email or chat, there’s a 24/7 power-hungry server in some data centre that’s making it happen.

It’s the energy consumption that we don’t see.

Finally, and perhaps the most ironic aspect of all this, is that it’s software that is driving the overall growth in ICT as a whole, devices and infrastructure included.

Software companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo boast some of the largest data centers in the world. The rise in dominance of the mobile operating systems, namely Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, along with the millions of mobile applications that are built on top of those platforms, has spawned the mobile communication age.

The incredible—as well as unsustainable—growth in the emission footprint of all this hardware is there for only one purpose: To support and serve the software universe.

In other words, while it’s the hardware that does all the dirty work, it’s the software that’s calling all the shots.

At the societal level, we must demand that all data centers run exclusively on renewable energy.

At the individual level: Hold on to your smartphone for as long as you can, and when you do upgrade, make sure you recycle your old one. Sadly, only 1 percent of smartphones are being recycled today.

Source: Eco Watch

Saudi Arabia to House World’s Largest Solar Project

02.04.2018

According to the most recent data available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Saudi Arabia is the second largest oil producer in the world. It produces 13 percent of the world’s oil and gets 60 percent of its own electric energy from petroleum.

But the desert nation, whose Paris agreement action plan was rated as “critically-insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker in November 2017, is about to go from zero to hero on the green scale.

On Tuesday, it announced that it would partner with Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank to build the world’s largest solar power project, Bloomberg reported.

Except that “world’s largest” doesn’t quite cover of size of the project’s ambitions.

According to Bloomberg, the project, which will be built in the Saudi desert, is projected to generate 100,000 jobs and produce 200 gigawatts of power by 2030, 100 times the next biggest planned project, the Solar Choice Bulli Creek PV Plant in Australia, which only aims to produce two.

“It’s a huge step in human history,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told Bloomberg. “It’s bold, risky and we hope we succeed doing that.”

Solar power is a logical choice for Saudi Arabia. It’s capital, Riyadh, averages 8.9 hours of sunshine a day, and the country is also projected to be severely impacted if climate change raises global temperatures above 1.5 degrees Celsius above industrial levels. According to Climate Action Tracker, if global temperatures rise to three or four degrees Celsius, 75 percent of the country would be excessively arid by the end of the century.

“The kingdom has great sunshine, great size of available land and great engineers, great labor, but most importantly, the best and greatest vision,” SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son said of the new project, as reported by Bloomberg.

To provide more context for the scope of that vision, Fortune pointed out that the total capacity of all existing solar installations is around 400 gigawatts, which is only double what the Saudi/SoftBank project plans to produce on its own. China’s Tengger Desert Solar Park, the largest installation currently in operation, generates a little more than 1.5 gigawatts. Since the Saudi project estimates an output of 7.2 gigawatts by 2019, it will more than quadruple the output of the current leader in just one year.

The project is projected to cost $200 billion overall. Saudi Arabia will have to import panels at first, and it will also need to build up the battery capacity to store the solar energy. The first phase will cost $5 billion, $1 billion of which will come from the Vision Fund, which Saudi Arabia and SoftBank are joint investors in.

Son told Fortune he thought the investment would be worth it.

“The project will fund its own expansion,” he said.

The Saudi government’s bold investment in solar power humbles the U.S., which, according to EIA data, is the country currently leading it as no. 1 oil producer.

However, instead of encouraging the solar industry in order to reduce production of fossil fuels, the Trump administration has given it the jitters by announcing a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels this January.

Source: ecowatch.com

Pollution Sources Have Increased More Than 50% In Last 8 Years, China’s Environment Ministry Reports

02.04.2018

In relation to a new nationwide survey meant to ascertain the amount of environmental damage done by the last 30 years of rapid growth, China’s environment ministry has revealed that the number of pollution sources within the country has increased by over half in just the last 8 years.

Considering that such a large figure makes for bad PR, it’s interesting that the ministry has publicly reported as much — which makes one wonder to a degree whether actual figures could be somewhat higher.

It should be realized, though, that the ministry in question is an entirely new one — the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) — so perhaps the figures are actually accurate.

As explained by the head of the new ministry’s pollution survey office, Hong Yaxiong: “The goal for the census is to do thorough data collection so that it can reflect the extent of the pollution.”

Reuters provides more: “The government is currently conducting a second nationwide ‘environmental census’ aimed at identifying pollution threats throughout the country. The first was published in 2010. … The environment ministry absorbed new duties formerly held by the land, water, and agriculture ministries as part of the biggest government shake-up in years. It will also now be in charge of climate change and carbon emissions.

“The new census is due to be completed in 2019. According to preliminary estimates, the total number of pollution sources now stands at 9 million, including 7.4 million industrial sources, 1 million in rural areas, and 0.5 million from urban locations, Hong said.

“The first census conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics from 2007 to 2009, uncovered 5.9 million sources of pollution nationwide, with the industrial provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang at the top of the list. The survey also identified 209.8 billion tonnes of waste water, 63.7 trillion cubic meters of waste gas emissions, and 3.852 billion tonnes of industrial solid waste nationwide.”

Interestingly, further aspects of the survey will involve the widespread examination of common soil pollution sources (sources of lead, mercury, and cadmium, amongst other compounds). Considering the scale of the country’s population, and the widespread contamination and destruction of much of its farmland as the result of industrialization, such a survey would seem prudent.

Source: cleantechnica.com

Clean Air Is Now a Status Symbol in the World’s Most Polluted Cities

01.04.2018

The Cordis hotel in Shanghai boasts proximity to railways and the airport, a beautiful pool, and double-filtered air. Indeed, air quality seems to be a selling point for this luxury hotel — each of its 396 rooms is equipped with a pollution monitor, The Guardian reports.

Breathing clean air is the new cool in super-polluted cities such as Shanghai, Beijing or Delhi. And it’s just another way that the rich can afford to distinguish themselves from the poor, who are forced to constantly choke on sickening, polluted air.

In 2014, the WHO quantified the effects of toxic air. It is, in short, thought to cause around 7 million premature deaths per year and is responsible for an array of medical conditions including lung cancer and heart attacks.

Governments have tried to downplay the issue. But Asia’s megacities, the pollution crisis became too severe to ignore — the Chinese government was forced to take action or risk undermining its popularity among families worried for their children’s health.

Putting a literal price on clean air might not have been part of the plan, but it seems to be a natural result; the private sector has jumped on the opportunity to make a profit in the face of crisis. From expensive schools in Delhi, attended by the children of the local elite or of rich expats, to luxury hotels like the Cordis, those who can afford it are making clean air a commodity.

“I think back to the days when everyone used to charge for the internet,” John O’Shea, managing director of the Cordis, told The Guardian. “Now the internet’s like hot water – if you don’t have high speed, fast, easy-access internet for free, then it’s over. The indoor air quality is going to be like that too – if you can’t guarantee your customers much better air quality than the competitors, it’s going to be a fait accompli. It’s already getting that kind of importance.”

In many parts of the world, wealth equals health (or, at least, gives you much more access to it). Prohibitive healthcare costs mean that, if you’re not wealthy, treating your diabetes or cancer may not be an option.

The pollution divide, too, may soon become the new normal.

Countries will undoubtedly continue efforts to clean up their air, but this will likely happen slowly. In the meantime, people who can’t afford to breathe better air will keep suffering from asthma, lung cancer and heart conditions.

Source: Futurism

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