13 February 2018, Under the Paris Agreement, governments worldwide agreed to hold global warming “well below 2C” and to aim for 1.5C. The inclusion of that second, tougher, goal was a victory for small island states and other countries on the front line of climate change. It was an acknowledgement of fears that higher temperature rise posed an unacceptable threat to their futures. But the vast bulk of research and analysis prior to 2015 centred on the 2C threshold, a more established international target. What would it take to bend the curve to 1.5C? Enter the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate science body agreed to produce a special report on 1.5C, summarising all the available evidence. Climate Home News has obtained an early version of the five-chapter report, which is due to be finalised in September. The IPCC stressed it was a work in progress and may change substantially. It is open for review by experts and governments, and may incorporate further studies published by 15 May. Read the draft summary for policymakers in full here. What is clear from the content so far, though, is there is not much time left. Here are the main takeaways. Read More here
Category Archives: PLEA Network
12 February 2018, Renew Economy, S.A. to host Australia’s first green hydrogen power plant. The South Australia government has announced funding for what will be Australia’s first renewable-hydrogen electrolyser plant – a 15MW facility to be built near the end of the grid at Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula. The “green hydrogen” plant – to be built by Hydrogen Utility (H2U), working with Germany’s thyssenkrupp – will include a 10MW hydrogen-fired gas turbine, fuelled by local wind and solar power, and a 5MW hydrogen fuel cell. Both will supply power to the grid, will support two new solar farms and a local micro-grid, and will also include “distributed ammonia” that can be used as an industrial fertiliser for farmers and aquaculture operators. The $117.5 million project, which will receive a $4.7 million grant and a $7.5 million loan from South Australia’s Renewable Technology Fund, is being described as a “globally-significant demonstrator project” for the emerging hydrogen energy sector. Read More here
12 February 2018, Climate News Network, Hydrogen could see off fossil fuels. Hydrogen is the least talked-about renewable energy but has the greatest potential to replace fossil fuels, both to heat homes and to provide fuel for road transport. The possibility of using hydrogen has been known about for generations, but only in the last two years has it become both practical and financially viable to see it as a large-scale competitor to both gas and oil. Networks of hydrogen filling stations are now being opened in Europe and parts of the US. Batteries for road transport have attracted most of the recent publicity around renewables and have become the focus of many governments with targets for switching away from petrol and diesel, particularly in cities with air pollution problems. But hydrogen has even greater potential because its only emissions are pure water and warm air. Storage potential What has made hydrogen so attractive is that it can use surplus renewable electricity from wind and solar farms by using electrolysers to produce hydrogen. This is a process of passing an electric current through water and converting it into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be stored. Read More here
6 February 2018, Climate News Network, Ozone layer recovery falters unexpectedly. The Earth’s protective ozone layer is not recovering uniformly from the damage caused to it by industry and other human activities. And scientists are not sure why it isn’t. An international research team says the ozone, which protects humans and other species from harmful ultraviolet radiation, is continuing to recover at the poles. But recovery at lower latitudes, where far more people live, is not. The layer has been declining since the 1970s because of the effect of man-made chemicals, chiefly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and similar gases, used mainly in refrigerants and aerosols. There is a link between the CFCs and global warming, though they are different and neither is the main cause of the other. Some suggested CFC replacements themselves proved to be powerful greenhouse gases. CFCs and the other gases were banned under an international agreement, the Montreal Protocol, and since then parts of the layer have been recovering, particularly at the poles. But the latest research, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, finds that the bottom part of the ozone layer at more populated latitudes is not recovering, for reasons so far unidentified. Read More here