Archive for August, 2009
CSIRO recently released a report titled “An Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Carbon Biosequestration Opportunities from Rural Land Use”. The report, commissioned by the Queensland Government, examines and attempts to quantify the various biosequestration and carbon abatement opportunities associated with rural land use.
The study builds on the work completed by Garnaut (2008) in looking at three main areas:
- Agriculture — soil carbon, land rehabilitation, management of savanna burnings and so on
- Forestry — new carbon forestry plantings, carbon banks in existing forestry, biodiversity plantings
- Bioenergy - biofuels and biochar
Some key points include:
- Potential biosequestration from dedicated carbon sink forestry projects may be as high as 750 Mt CO2-e per year. Garnaut had estimated this at only 143 Mt
- Biochar has good potential for sequestration but has only been looked at for sugar cane biomass
- A number of these measures compete for resources, either land or skills. For example, biochar from sugar cane competes with generation of biofuel from sugar cane
At 172 pages it’s a significant document but for those interested in biosequestration and the potentially increasing role it might play in the Australia’s climate change response, I encourage you to have a read.
Sport contributes a significant part to the social fabric of most nations in the world. The UN Sports and Environment program makes it clear that when a person engages in sport there is an obvious impact on the environment. Perhaps that is an obvious statement, particularly when you mix the catering, accommodation, sanitation, transport and merchandising needs of the athletes, spectators, officials, media and sponsors, with the manufacturing and maintenance of the sporting equipment, facilities and infrastructure, with the ecosystems, waste, pollution, water, energy and other resources that they all impact. But the real question is how can we make sport more sustainable?
Greensense partnered with Surfing WA and the Drug Aware Pro earlier this year to help undertake a carbon audit for WA’s premier sporting event. Subsequently we are working with the Department of Sport and Recreation in WA to discuss more broadly, with leading sporting bodies, how the industry can reduce it’s impact on the environment — so thought it was a timely opportunity to write about it. I think this blog we’ll just focus on some of the great initiatives that have been put in place around the world — wet your appetite and hopefully spark some ideas for your sport and then follow that up later with some of our ideas on what you can do.
The Beijing Olympics had a theme of “The Green Olympics”. They made a number of pre-Olympic commitments around air quality, emissions from vehicles and cleaner energy. On the whole this was well achieved but a common comment is this could have been improved with more transparency on the reporting and data verification of the outcome — just showing how stakeholder engagement is critical. The London Olympics are following this up with their “towards one planet” theme and have implemented an extensive sustainability policy focused on climate change, waste, inclusion and biodiversity. The London Olympics has also committed to running this process following the British Standard 8901 — one of only a few standards for sustainable event management.
The 2008 US Tennis Open implemented a range of “green initiatives” and engaged well with their suppliers to do this.Evian provided recycling on site for 500,000 plastic bottles and 20,000 aluminum cans. Constellation Energy provided renewable energy. Lexus provided 20% of the players vehicles as hybrids. Wilson recycled 20,000 ball cans and 60,000 balls and IBM reduced the number of servers it used to keep score from 60 to 9.
The 2006 FIFA World Cup implemented it’s “Green Gold” initiative. They had 4 environmental targets for water, refuse, energy and mobility. As a result emissions from energy dropped from an estimated 7500 tonnes to 2500 tonnes and trasnport emissions from 90,000 tonnes to 73,000 tonnes.
The 2010 Vancouver Olympics has a number of initiatives underway but some that we like revolve around the venue management. They have reduced their site footprint by 30% from the original design, ensured that wood waste from construction has been re-used for compost, implemented an onsite waste water treatment plant and obtained LEED Silver green building certification for all new buildings.
The last example is a favourite — mostly because of the collaborative nature between the events. The FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball Championships and the Allianz Swiss ATP Tennis event have different organisers for each event but collaborate on sharing the same temporary location. Once the tennis is finished the courts are filled with sand for the volleyball so the spectator seating and infrastructure can be re-used among other things. They also used renewable energy from 1to1 Energy which just happens to come from solar panels installed on the local football stadium — cool!
If you are involved in running a sporting event and this has sparked some ideas for you — we would love to have a chat to look at how you can make your event more sustainable.
Barrow Island
The Australian and Western Australian Governments have just announced that they will accept the long-term liability arising from the storage of CO2 from Chevron’s Gorgon Project. Most scenarios for long-term climate change mitigation assume wide deployment of carbon capture and storage technology and this decision helps clear the way for what will be one of the worlds largest commercial projects.
If a company could be held liable ‘forever’ for the long-term risks associated with carbon storage, then it is unlikely that many projects would proceed. There is a debate going on regarding when and how governments should take on this liability. It will be interesting to see the details of this arrangement and what it bodes for future Carbon Capture and Storage projects.
East Perth Power Station. Setting a trend for coal-fired power generation in Australia?
Unsurprisingly, the proposed CPRS legislation was rejected in the Senate yesterday in what was a sad day for the environment and Australian politics.
In 2007, Rudd was voted in with a campaign that promised an Emissions Trading Scheme. Even before this Howard had announced his government’s support for an ETS. Here we are, nearly 2 years later following significant community and industry consultation and the chance to show some leadership in the global response to climate change, and our political parties can’t get past the bickering to pass the law or even to enter into meaningful negotiations.
So what now? The Government has two options: Negotiate changes to the bill to gain further support; or do nothing and table the bill in November with the aim of triggering an early election before taking it to a joint sitting. Either way, both approaches will take time – one of the most precious resources in the climate change response.
So what can you do? Rather than wait out the politics, why not use this time wisely to prepare? A cost of carbon is inevitable in some shape or form. Now is the ideal time to start educating your workforce, conduct a risk assessment and develop a long-term strategic response to climate change.
Malcolm Turnbull today finally make his case on an alternative model to the CPRS.
The independent research commissioned by the Coalition and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon was completed by Frontier Economics and illustrates emissions cuts of 10% by 2020 — double that of the 5% committed to by the Rudd government.
More information on the report can be read here.
Greensense is currently exhibiting at the Local Government Convention hosted by WALGA. Day 1 kicked off with an opening address from WALGA President Cr Bill Mitchell followed up by an inspiring message from Frans Johansson on innovation. We are excited about Day 2 with some dedicated sessions on climate change.
We are show casing our real time energy monitoring and visualisation technology (all within Lego City) as well as completing a carbon audit for the event. If you are attending — would love to say hi so please drop by.
Opening Address
The Department of Climate Change has just released drafts of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Regulations 2009 and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (Audit) Determination 2009 for public comment.
