Ahead of the Queens Speech tomorrow Sir David Wallace, Vice President of the Royal Society today (Monday 16 May) urged the Government to address, in the next parliamentary session, the difficult issue of how the UK can achieve an adequate supply of affordable energy while cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and warned that its current climate change policies are not working well enough.

Sir David made his comments as the Royal Society published its response to the review by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the UK climate change programme. The Royal Society warns that the Government is still overestimating how much the UK can cut its carbon dioxide emissions without changes in current policy.

Sir David said: There are some tough political decisions to be made, in this parliament, about how the UK manages its seemingly insatiable appetite for energy at a time when cutting emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide is imperative. This is underlined by the fact that, at the current rate, even the Governments revised assessment of how much carbon dioxide the UK will cut is frankly unrealistic.

The Royal Society points out that Governments climate change policies have largely not been responsible for the cuts in UK carbon dioxide emissions achieved to date. Instead these have been the result of changes such as the liberalisation of the gas market in the 1980s which led to a move away from coal and oil burning for electricity generation and a reduction in heavy industry.

The failure of Governments climate policies are highlighted by the fact that in 2002 2003 the UKs emissions of carbon dioxide actually increased by over two per cent.

The Government has already admitted that under current policies it will not meet its original target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels, by 2010. Instead it has predicted that the UK will make a 14 per cent cut requiring a seven per cent reduction in emissions in the next five years in addition to the seven per cent already achieved in the last 15 years.

The Royal Society warns that unless the rate of development of both renewable and energy efficiency measures make up for the loss of capacity resulting from the phasing out of nuclear power, the UK will actually become more reliant on fossil fuels with the result that carbon dioxide emissions will go up rather than down.

Sir David said: Our emissions are clearly going in the wrong direction. The Governments revised climate change programme must spell out its resolve to look at how we deal with the loss of capacity from nuclear power stations and look at the role that all energy sources including nuclear, along with energy efficiency measures, might play in meeting the Governments ambitions for cutting carbon dioxide emissions. This is particularly important in the year that the Prime Minister has claimed international leadership for the UK on climate change by pushing it up the G8 and European Union agendas.

The Society has also recommended that the Government should, in its revised climate change programme, introduce a carbon tax which would put a cost on all emissions of carbon dioxide from all sectors including industrial, domestic and transport. This would encourage the development of cleaner technologies and a move away from carbon based fuels in the overall energy supply as well as promoting energy efficiency measures. A report by the Royal Society has shown that the impact of a carbon tax on the long-term global GDP would be negligible.

Original press release: Government Must Face Difficult Energy Issues in This Parliament (Royal Society)

A group of scientists will meet in Bristol this week to discuss the key factors affecting melting of the ice sheets in the Arctic, and other issues related to climate change.

The meeting, the first of its kind, will focus on the Arctic because global warming is having a more direct impact there than on any other part of the planet.

Called 1ACE (Arctic Climates and Environments), the initiative will deepen our understanding of changes in the Earth’s biosphere and climate. The meeting will discuss research in this field being done at institutions belonging to the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) - which has five members in the US, six in the UK, two in China and three in Europe - as well as other centres of excellence.

The results of the project will be reported to the 2006/07 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The panel, established in 1998, provides key information to world leaders, on which politicians can then base decisions.

Dr Sandy Harrison from Bristol University, the 1ACE coordinator, said: “This project should clarify the stark choice before governments: either make comparatively modest shifts in behaviour to cut CO2 emissions now, or commit future generations to huge economic and environmental damage prompted by climate change.”

Professor Paul Valdes, also from Bristol University and a key figure in the project said: “Recent research has shown that chemical emissions from snow can have a substantial impact on atmospheric chemistry, which can impact on global warming, but such processes are not well understood and are not included in current state-of-the-art Earth System models. One of the aims of this project is to provide improved understanding and ability to model, on a global scale, the physics and biogeochemistry of snow.”

The Arctic may be remote, but climate change there is an issue for the whole world, not least because of its potential impact on ocean circulation systems. Large volumes of water from melting ice caps could disrupt the thermohaline circulation, which starts in the North Atlantic. The effects would be widespread and could include a marked cooling across Europe.

The evidence is already powerful:

• a 0.6C temperature increase every ten years since the 1960s in the high northern latitudes;
• a 40 per cent thinning of the Arctic sea ice between the 1950s and 1990s;
• a reduction in the surface area of the ice of about four per cent each decade.

1ACE will help disentangle man-made climate change from the different cyclical variations that occur naturally over geological and shorter timescales.

When not meeting face-to-face, the WUN partners use a state-of-the-art international computer grid that allows huge computational tasks to be shared and massive data collections to be readily accessed and moved around the world. In addition, the quality of video conferencing is so high, it is almost like a face-to-face meeting.

Original press release: Scientists Meet to Review Climate Change (Bristol University)

The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences and MIT today announced the creation of a research-and-education center devoted to progress on key environmental, hydrologic and energy resource goals. The foundation will fund the center at the level of $11 million over 10 years.

The Kuwait-MIT Center for Natural Resources and the Environment will be based at the Institute. The organization, whose core staff is MIT faculty in the sciences, engineering and policy studies, will promote interdisciplinary work by those investigators, by MIT students, and by Kuwaiti investigators and students.

The center will seek solutions for a range of challenges, including several that affect many countries besides Kuwait. Examples include:

• finding and accessing groundwater resources using technologically innovative and environmentally sustainable methods;
• gauging the risks of earthquakes related to the extraction of large amounts of water and petroleum from under ground, and developing techniques to minimize such risks; and
• analyzing difficult policy issues that involve natural resources like water and petroleum.

“Natural resources such as water and petroleum are critical to the world’s prosperity,” said Dr. Ali Abdullah Al-Shamlan, director general of the foundation. “By entering into this agreement, the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences and MIT have reached a new milestone in ensuring excellence in research focused on these resources.”

The center’s membership will include an initial group of five MIT faculty representing three departments. The center will also draw on the expertise of interdisciplinary MIT entities like its Earth Resources Laboratory and Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Water Resources and Hydrodynamics. Dale Morgan, professor of geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, will direct the center. Elfatih Eltahir, professor of civil and environmental engineering, will be associate director.

“We are delighted to be entering into this partnership with our good colleagues from Kuwait,” said Morgan. “We are also grateful for their investment and personal involvement in developing means for addressing problems associated with two of society’s most crucial resources, petroleum and water.” He added that the new enterprise is highly relevant to an Institute-wide initiative focused on addressing the world’s energy concerns that MIT President Susan Hockfield announced last week.

The partnership between MIT and the foundation will put a heavy emphasis on collaboration. At least two investigators from Kuwaiti institutions will be in residence at MIT at any given time, and MIT investigators will make periodic visits to Kuwait to further joint research projects.

A range of advances in technologies like remote sensing, along with new developments in related policy-making activity, have opened the way for major progress on dealing with natural resource issues. The combination of MIT’s interdisciplinary tradition and expertise, along with Kuwait’s deep commitment to careful stewardship of its resources, offers the prospect of rapid progress toward more sustainable and environmentally benign methods of resource management.

The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences was established by His Highness the Amir of Kuwait in 1976, with the understanding that the foundation would be supported by the private sector, meaning that Kuwaiti shareholding companies each contribute shares of their annual profits. The foundation supports efforts related to modernization and scientific progress in Kuwait. To that end, it sponsors basic and applied research in such areas as natural science, engineering, economics and health; recognizes achievements that enhance the development of Kuwait and other Arab nations; grants scholarships and fellowships, and otherwise supports Kuwaiti scholars and students; and forms partnerships focused on scientific research and programs on an international basis.

The foundation also awards the Kuwait Prize, an important honor that recognizes outstanding achievement in the sciences and related realms by individuals of Arab extraction. MIT’s Eltahir is among past recipients of this distinguished prize.

Original press release: MIT, Kuwait Foundation Announce Partnership to Advance Management of Water, Energy Resources (MIT)

Chemists at the University of California, San Diego and Purdue University have discovered that natural chemical processes in the atmosphere may be removing smog and other damaging hydrocarbons at a faster rate than once believed.

In the May 24th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that naturally-occurring atmospheric chemicals react with sunlight more effectively than scientists previously thought, breaking down smog and other pollutants after they absorb energy from sunlight.

While many molecules have been known to behave in this way - producing natural air cleaners called [OH] radicals - the chemicals the team studied have for the first time been observed to produce smog-destroying [OH] radicals at low ultraviolet wavelengths. This observation had long eluded scientists primarily because photochemistry at these wavelengths had been difficult to study. But a sensitive laser technique allowed the scientistsAmitabha Sinha and Jamie Matthews of UCSD and Joseph Francisco of Purdue to record these reactions for the first time.

“Thanks to an innovative laser technique that at last allowed us to observe these chemicals in action, we now theorize that the atmosphere may produce up to 20 percent more [OH] radicals from these chemicals than we once thought,” said Francisco, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and chemistry at Purdue. “We now have a better understanding of an atmospheric process that could be giving our pollution-weary lungs more breathing room.”

“This study is important because it shows that the atmosphere could be generating far more [OH] radicals than previously thought and accounted for by current models, which neglect the new chemistry we observe,” said Sinha, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSD who headed the research team. “It could imply that the atmosphere is more effective at breaking down pollution than models have shown. We hope the results will improve our understanding of how the atmosphere works.”

Sinha cautioned, however, that the results do not mean we can now safely ignore atmospheric pollution.

“This study in no way implies that we are out of the woods with regard to atmospheric pollution,” he said. “What it means is that we need to do a much more careful job with our measurements in order to accurately account for all sources of [OH] radicals present in the air.”

Much of the hydrocarbon pollutants pumped into the atmosphere by humans result from burning organic matter such as wood or fossil fuels. The atmosphere has three main ways to cleanse itself of such pollutants. Two are relatively direct: water droplets in clouds absorb and rain them out of the atmosphere or sunlight breaks the molecules apart.

“The third way is the one we are concerned with here, the way that involves breaking these hydrocarbons down chemically,” said Francisco. “For that, the atmosphere relies on a reactive group of chemicals called [OH] radicals that attach themselves to hydrocarbons and rip them into inert pieces.”

OH radicals arise naturally from many atmospheric constituents. The effect they have on pollution has long been factored into models that describe the atmosphere and attempt to predict how it will react to increasing quantities of hydrocarbon pollutants, which generate smog. But these models do not always function well, Francisco said, in part because [OH] radicals are in some ways an unknown quantity.

“One of the biggest questions in our field concerns the amount of [OH] radicals the atmosphere holds,” he said. “It’s tough to get a handle on them because they are so reactive - which means they vanish fast - and also because we don’t have complete knowledge of all the sources that produce them yet.”

The experiments - which Sinha and Matthews, a graduate student in his laboratory, performed at UCSD - used a laser technique that allowed the team to look at the [OH] radical-producing molecules in a new way. More precisely, it allowed them to observe a portion of the molecules’ spectrum which had been something of a blind spot for atmospheric scientists, who often detect chemical reactions by perceiving the telltale light frequencies that certain reactions are known to emit or absorb. Many sources of [OH] radicals strongly absorb UV light, making them easily detectable. However, the weak absorptions in the lower region of the ultraviolet spectrum, from wavelengths of about 360 to 630 nanometers, has been more challenging.

“It’s usually difficult to monitor what’s going on in that region of the spectrum because the molecules of interest typically have weak absorption features there, so they’re tough to see,” said Sinha. “However, there is a lot of solar radiation coming down over this wavelength region, so even weak absorptions become important. The upshot is that a lot of atmospheric models have ignored these weak absorption features altogether, assuming that because nothing can be seen using conventional techniques, nothing must be happening.”

The sensitive laser technique, called ‘action spectroscopy,’ however, enabled the team to characterize the minute quantities of radiation absorbed by a substance called methyl hydroperoxide when it breaks up in sunlight and forms [OH] radicals. Methyl hydroperoxide is one of the substances that can absorb light in the lower UV spectrum, and the team theorizes that the sensitive laser technique, called action spectroscopy, could reveal [OH] radical production from other chemically related molecules as well.

Francisco, who contributed to the study’s computations, said he hopes the study also would encourage other refinements to atmospheric models.

“Models are only as good as the information we put into them, and we must always keep a cautious perspective about the results models return,” he said. “Sometimes things are happening that you can’t see using standard methods. Now we hope to take this improved understanding of the atmosphere and include it in future models. That’s the next step.”

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

Original press release: Study Reveals Smog Clearing Properties of Atmosphere (NASA Earth Observatory)

Institutional investors managing USD 3.22 trillion back new call for action at 2005 Investor Summit on Climate Risk

An unprecedented grouping of pension funds, foundations, European investors and US state treasurers have joined today with the United Nations to back a new call for urgent action by the global investment community to tackle the threat of climate change.

Faced with growing evidence of the negative economic consequences of climate change this powerful alliance of institutional investors managing USD 3.22 trillion (see below) are pressing for capital market regulators to demand more rigorous corporate disclosure of climate risks.

Amongst other commitments, they are also seeking to unlock USD 1 billion in capital in the next year for investment in clean technology. The 2005 Call for Action was made at a summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told participants at the summit, “The local and global challenges created by climate change - environmental, economic and social - are manifold and will both multiply and accelerate in our lifetimes. For the world’s financiers, investors and capital markets the time to act is now.”

Toepfer continued, “If our money markets are to manage climate risk more effectively then we must have greater corporate disclosure of how companies are dealing with the economic threats posed by global warming.”

The United Nations’ environmental head welcomed the 2005 Summit “Call for Action” - signed by 20 major investors - and said, “Investors backing these practical and pragmatic steps send a strong signal to the markets that climate risk is real and needs to be managed aggressively.”

The 2005 “Call for Action” came as more than 400 financiers, government and civil society experts met at UN headquarters in New York for a summit to explore risks to the investment world resulting from global warming. The summit, which follows on from the first such gathering in November 2003, is co-hosted by UNEP, the United Nations Foundation, the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships and the Boston-based US non government organization CERES.

The four co-hosts are backing three post summit initiatives to support the call for action by the investors. The initiatives are:

A New Climate Risk Disclosure Initiative (CRDI). This will be aimed at enhancing corporations’ climate risk disclosure. The effort will focus on disclosure of corporate emissions, climate actions, scenario analysis, strategic analysis, and plans to address climate risks and opportunities.

UNEP and the UN Global Compact, working with leaders in the institutional investment community, are developing Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

A New Forum for International Investor Cooperation in Addressing Climate Risk. This forum will promote collaboration and information sharing among investors internationally about actions to address the financial risks and investment opportunities posed by climate change.

The New York summit comes shortly after the world’s biggest reinsurance companies confirmed that 2004 saw the largest ever insured losses from natural catastrophes.

According to Munich Re, economic losses totalled US$145bn in 2004. This included insured losses of US$ 44bn from natural catastrophes, the highest ever recorded. While Swiss Reinsurance has published statistics that show 2004 was a record year in terms of claims, mainly dues to hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons.

“On the one hand, the negative economic consequences of climate change are clear,” said Toepfer. “Yet for the financial and business communities our efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change and its impacts present emerging opportunities for those with the vision, entrepreneurial flair and commitment to embrace new business challenges,” he said.

As well as seeking to understand the economic and financial risks associated with climate change the business world is also awakening to a range of emerging opportunities associated with efforts to tackle global warming.

It is estimated that greenhouse gas emissions trading markets could be worth $2 trillion by 2012 and it is further estimated that the market for clean technologies could be worth $1.9 trillion by 2020.

Original press release: Global Finance Community Joins UN to Tackle Climate Change (UNEP)

NASA and student researchers at four universities combined efforts to analyze characteristics of the Earth’s atmosphere from a one-of-a-kind, high-flying laboratory. At the same time, grade school students are conducting science experiments from a unique perspective, 30 miles above Earth on a NASA scientific balloon.

Undergraduate students from Penn State University, State College, Pa.; Montana State University, Bozeman, Mont.; the University of Alabama, Huntsville, Ala.; and Auburn University, Ala., have science experiments on NASA’s new Deep Space Test Bed facility. NASA’s 40 million cubic foot balloon was launched May 9 from Fort Sumner, N.M. The test bed is an aluminum gondola about the size of a standard passenger car.

“It’s our hope to provide these student scientists with hands-on experience in systems design, construction and flight,” said NASA engineer Mark Christl, project manager for the Deep Space Test Bed at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. “This is a terrific way to help inspire and train the next generation of space explorers, while helping NASA fully test a versatile, valuable science resource.”

The gondola was prepared for flight by engineers from Marshall and the University of Alabama. The student experiments will help test the structural integrity, power systems, data storage, and command system of the floating science lab.

The primary payload for this balloon flight is the High-Energy Replicated Optics, (HERO), instrument developed by Marshall. HERO is a hard X-ray focusing telescope. It uses high-resolution and high-sensitivity hard X-ray mirror technology. It is designed to create images from high-energy X-ray light.

During the flight, the university experiments will identify pollution related aerosols in the atmosphere; measure radiation and its impact on the integrity and behavior of the balloon; measure the external temperature of the balloon material; and gather magnetic field data.

While the university teams are conducting atmospheric research, the younger students are testing the effects of the flight environment. Experiments from eight grade schools are flying in a NASA Student Experiment Module.

The experiments are housed in brick-size plastic containers inside two larger containers about the size of large briefcases. The experiments are looking at the effect of the flight environment on test articles such as materials, microscopic organisms and seeds. The students will receive their experiments approximately two to three weeks after their flight.

Launch, flight and recovery operations for the pilot-less, helium filled balloon are conducted by the National Scientific Balloon Facility, Palestine, Texas. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., manages the Balloon Program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

Original press release: NASA and Students Partner for High Altitude Research (NASA)