greenswitch – climate change and cleantech solutions

Canada about to flake out on Kyoto

I’ve heard that the Alberta (oil) lobby has more than 15 people working 24/7 in Ottawa to influence government to flake out of the Kyoto agreement. How about the ‘pro Kyoto’ lobby — too many little organisations, not much money and not really organized. National newspaper ‘Globe and Mail’ just obtained a governmental paper, which deals with several Kyoto options. To me it looks like Canada will again follow the big, even more stupid brother in the south. That’s too bad because the overwhelming Canadian majority is ‘pro Kyoto’. But who cares, it’s all about money and jobs…Still, there are many people here who haven’t heard anything about ‘Kyoto’. Like Jake, the bartender at the ‘Dix’ brewpub. ‘Kyoto? Dunno. Is that a city in China?’ Oh well, but she sure does pour a good Indian Pale Ale…

here are the options, as stated in the Globe and Mail article:

- Option 1: The lowest-cost approach, according to the paper. A broad range of industries that emit greenhouse gases would be forced to cut their emissions by buying emission permits. But this option would dramatically increase gasoline and energy prices and hurt energy-intensive industries. Canada’s economic growth is expected to be hurt far less under this option than Option 3.

- Option 2: The most expensive approach envisions mostly targeted government measures to induce consumers and companies to reduce emissions including public-transit investment, renewable energy, higher parking fees and toll highways and overseas development. This could cost Ottawa and the provinces a lot.

- Option 3: Big emitters such as refineries, oil sands producers and pulp and paper makers would be forced to curb emissions output, with the remainder of cuts achieved through targeted measures and international pollution permit purchases by both government and business. Of the options analyzed, this would likely have the biggest impact on the economy, reducing Canada’s gross domestic product by about 0.6 per cent.

- Option 4: A modified version of Option 3 that sees more firms get involved in reducing emissions and gives breaks to fast-growing industries, while smoothing out the impact on regions and sectors using clean-energy export credits. Like Option 3, this option strives to avoid pushing up prices of fossil fuel such as gasoline.

One Liter (239mpg) car spotted on German Autobahn

Volkswagen’s one liter concept car “Vortex” sips 1 liter per 100 km or 259mpg. Have a look here for more info and pictures — the car looks a little like a low flying black plastic rocket or UFOs for SUV drivers..Check the ‘Volkswagen timeline’ on the same site. Volkswagen also started a Vortex discussion group.

Recycling in Germany: 26 million tons less waste

Here are some info on recycling developments in Germany. “Grüner Punkt” (green dot) is an association of companies, which take care of recycling in Germany. Gruener Punkt is quite under pressure in Germany but according to this press release , published by German Öko-institute talks about the success of the recycling strategy and points to a more elaborate study.