Category Archives: Climate Change

Climate Change, Environment, Science, Society

Scientists say that Climate Change could make cities 7C warmer

URBAN HEAT ISLANDS

According to a new study, cities will be hit the hardest by climate change because of the ‘urban heat island’. This is the effect that traps warmth, with the consequence of cities being several degrees warmer than rural areas due to the heat trapped by dark-coloured roads and buildings. The research, first published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that world cities will potentially face costs twice as big compared to their surroundings.

The study states that the phenomenon is so pronounced that it ‘enables olives to be grown next to a south-facing stone wall as far north as Aberdeen.’

Through an analysis of temperature data dating back to 1950 for 1,692 cities, the researchers predicted through extrapolation techniques that one in four of the world’s biggest cities might be up to 7C warmer by the end of this century.

Such a steep increase would likely have dire consequences for the health of city-dwellers, deny companies and industries of able workers, and put great pressure on already strained natural resources such as water.

Alarmingly, the study also predicts that the worst-affected cities could lose as much as 10.9 per cent of their GDP, the annual amount of national output.

Cities cover only one per cent of the earth’s surface, but are home to 54 per cent of the world’s population.

The authors say, however, that the unique environmental factors attributed to urban landscapes are often overlooked in climate change studies.

The researchers document that studies on climate change and its impacts are mostly focused on a limited set of countries and risks. They specifically cite sea-level rises and natural water resources, but do not take into account that large cities will experience additional warming due to the urban heat island effect.

Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University says the team’s findings highlight the pressing need for locally-tailored responses to climate change.

Professor Tol has signalled that any hard-won victories over climate change on a global scale could be wiped out by the effects of uncontrolled urban heat islands. He has also highlighted that ‘city-level adaptation strategies’ to limit local warming have important economic net benefits for almost all cities around the world.

The research paper suggests modifications to urban construction to minimise heat absorption, including using ‘cooler’ alternatives to asphalt for pavements, painting roofs with a reflective coating and the planting of more trees.

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Britain, Climate Change, Energy, Government, Science

The UK’s energy dilemma

UK ENERGY NEEDS

Intro: Britain is facing a pressing problem in coping with its complex energy demands

DELAYS to the construction of the controversial Hinkley point raises a number of important questions on how the UK might meet its future energy needs. Pressingly, as the UK searches for options in how its future baseload power can be met without heavily polluting the environment, a solution in bridging the energy-gap will soon be required.

Britain is facing a pressing problem in coping with its complex energy demands. It needs to provide extra energy to meet rising demands for power in the future but at a reasonable cost – while also reducing carbon emissions by considerable levels in order to meet its climate change commitments. This will not be an easy combination to achieve. Hinkley Point, however, was considered by many experts to be a crucial determinant in reaching these goals.

Equipped with a massive 3.2bn watt capacity, Hinkley Point C has capacity in providing 7% of the nation’s electricity if completed. That would help to generate the power that would keep the nation working while renewable energy sources, mainly wind turbines, would provide the rest of the electricity needed by domestic households and firms. As one spokesperson from the Grantham Research Institute said: ‘You have to have some baseload source to provide power when it is utterly calm and renewables are not providing energy . . . Gas and coal plants – which can also supply that baseload – will no longer be viable in the future because of their carbon emissions (which cause global warming). You are then left with nuclear.’

This dilemma exposes a major drawback that affects renewable energy. Wind and solar plants are intermittent power supplies. They often provide power when it is not needed but fail to provide it when it is most needed. Until a method of storing energy on an industrial scale is developed, this drawback will continue to impede its deployment across the country. Research into ways to store energy on a large scale is now being pursued across the globe but may take decades. Other game-changing energy projects are also being worked on.

One of the most important of these future developments is fusion power (see annotation below).  This aims to recreate the process that provides the Sun with its energy. Nuclei of hydrogen atoms are fused together at colossal temperature inside huge reactors to create helium nuclei. The process also creates vast amounts of excess energy but with little pollution or radioactive contamination. Nonetheless, current devices – in particular, the international ITER fusion reactor, being built as a collaborative programme in France with British involvement – are years behind schedule and vastly over budget. Few experts believe fusion will get us out of our current energy problem.

Alternatively, we could continue to utilise carbon capture and storage (CCS), a process which uses fossil fuel plants which takes their carbon dioxide emissions, liquefies them and pumps them underground into porous rocks. Furthermore, Britain has huge, empty North Sea oil fields which many geologists and energy experts believe would be ideal for storing liquefied carbon dioxide. Several test projects were set up in recent years, with the government pledging to provide funding of up to £1bn. In November last year, though, it abruptly cancelled the programme, halting work on all major CCS projects. As devastating that announcement was to those engaged in development work, such technology is critical for the UK’s economic, industrial and climate policies.

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Fusion.gif

A fusion reaction involves the combining (or fusing) of two or more atoms to make one single atom. Fusion reactions are the ones which power our stars. In a simple fusion reaction shown, two isotopes of hydrogen combine to form one atom of helium.

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Canada, Climate Change, Environment, Russia, United Nations, United States

Russia renews its claim on vast amounts of Arctic territory…

RUSSIA AND THE ARCTIC

In an application to the United Nations, Russia has renewed its claim on 436,000 square miles of Arctic territory. Russia’s previous claim was rejected in 2002 by a UN commission on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry now says it has ‘ample scientific data collected in years of scientific research.’ The area which Russia claims extends 350 nautical miles from beyond its shoreline.

The move is likely to be diplomatically fraught as it seems certain to provoke the ire of other Arctic-bordering nations. The United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark also have territorial ambitions in the Arctic region and have rejected Russian claims to the area, which is thought to hold up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Reacting to Russia’s claim The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development, said: ‘All Arctic Ocean coastal states are committed to the orderly resolution of any overlaps of continental shelf and reaffirmed this commitment in the Ilulissat Declaration in May 2008.’

The declaration referred to by Canada was enacted to block any new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean, and contains an additional pledge and caveat for ‘the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims.’

There have been increasing rivalries in the region, exacerbated by climate change, as melting northern ice caps have allowed more opportunities for nations to explore and expand in contested areas.

These renewed territorial claims come in the midst of what has been described as the worst state of relations between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War, particularly with the ongoing conflict and tensions in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatist rebels and the pro-European Ukrainian government. NATO has openly accused Russia of actively sending troops to support the rebels.

Russia’s expansionist ambitions in the north are not new. In 2007, a Russian submarine dropped a canister containing a Russian flag on the ocean bed of the North Pole in what appeared to have been a provocative publicity stunt to rile its Arctic neighbours.

  • The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that delimits continental shelf claims, allows countries to claim an exclusive economic zone up to 200 miles from their coastline or as far as their land territory naturally extends from shore beneath the sea.
  • Russia is seeking to demonstrate that two underwater features, the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev ridge, are natural geological extensions of the Russian continental shelf.
  • Vladimir Putin has described the Arctic as a region of Russian “special interest,” and has expanded Russia’s military presence in the high north to secure its claims in the region.
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