Second Globalwarming Awareness2007

The world can’t take anymore CO2

I visited in the past few times already Berlin and Germany. I’ve been invited last time by commission who try to sensitize population with some new kind of advertisement.

Plans to exempt new power stations from the next phase of the EU’s CO2 trading scheme could lock Germany into highly polluting coal-fired power plants for many years, warn researchers and NGOs. The German government on 28 June 2006 submitted its national allocation plan to the European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) for the 2nd phase of the EU’s CO2 emissions trading scheme covering the period 2008-2012.

Germany’s national CO2 reduction pledge amounts to a 21% cut because of the sheer size of its economy. Its emissions are currently about 17% lower than in 1990, the reference year of the Kyoto Protocol. The ETS is the EU’s flagship instrument to fight climate change and meet Europe’s Kyoto pledge to reduce its emissions of global warming gases by 8% by year 2012.

Under Germany’s draft National Allocation Plan, which was submitted to the Commission on 28 June, every new power station built between 2008 and 2012 would be allowed to opt out from carbon emission restrictions for a period of 14 years.

The opt-out would allow investments into cleaner yet more expensive coal-fired power stations to become economically viable, thus helping the country meet rising demand for electricity.

I think there is a rational reason for the Germans doing this, as it’s the security of supply. The German fuel mix is perfectly balanced at the moment, one third gas, one third coal, one third nuclear. So it seems to be a deliberate choice.

The EU carbon trading scheme tends to favour electricity produced from natural gas because it emits lower levels of carbon dioxide. Coal, on the other hand, has higher carbon intensity, which means coal-fired power stations need to buy pollution credits on the market to be able to operate. This in turn pushes their costs up, eventually forcing electricity produced from coal out of the market in the long run.

But I wonder why if they really want to bring down emissions you want to move to low-carbon fuels ? If you get all new installations based on coal, they may be very efficient but they are still very high in carbon intensity so you lock yourself on a certain track. Isn’t it a risk ?

A guerilla campaign was launched in automn, German friends of the Earth to create public awareness regarding pollution and carbon dioxide emission in particular. As the WTO talks are now heating up the environment, friends of the earth seem to have also accelerated their efforts for the globalwarming awareness. The basic idea of the campaign is great. However, the only concern arises that whether this campaign is able to address a larger mass.

My friends living in Berlin informed me that though the text was not readable to all but still the campaign managed to receive media attention. Some time the concept of an idea is so powerful that they enjoy enough attention despite the execution fail to address large number of people.

The text written on the balloon reads, “The world can’t take anymore CO2“. A great idea, I will try to contact some friends here in Montana, to see if we could create such concept.