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Buckle Up DorothyA family travelling to Australia without flying have reached Indonesia after a journey of three and a half months.
Shannon Coggins, Theo Simon and their daughter Rosa, 19, left East Pennard on 16 August to begin the 10,000-mile (16,000km) journey to Sydney.
They decided to stop flying in 2002 “because of its effect on the climate”.
The family is hoping to make it in time for Ms Coggins’ sister’s wedding on 28 December.
They have travelled through Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia, and are now in Dili, East Timor’s capital, hoping to find a boat to cross the Timor Sea to Darwin, Australia.
From there they plan to take a bus to Sydney.
“My sister moved to Australia in 2007 and she’s getting married in New South Wales on 28 December,” Ms Coggins said.
“Although we live far apart, we’re very close because our mum died when we were young but I’ve never been to her home, or taken her son to school, or even met the man she’s marrying.
“I want us all to be there on her wedding day but I am also trying to do my bit to reduce my carbon footprint by trying not to fly.”
The family saved up for several years to pay for the trip, which has cost them much more than air tickets would have done.
In August, Ms Coggins left her job as administrator at the Avanti Park School in Frome and Mr Simon finished working at Songbird Naturals in Ditcheat.
They also had to turn down bookings for their band Seize The Day during their journey.
“Our band can’t play any gigs without us, but we hope to be back in June 2024 for the summer season,” Mr Simon said.
“All three of us have campaigned in different ways for action on climate change, so we decided our journey to Australia would have to be as low-carbon as practical.”
He added: “But we’re realistic. We know that people can’t necessarily find the time to do this, and unfortunately the world isn’t currently set up to make low-carbon travel easier than flying.
“But it has been a fabulous adventure so far, and we’ve still got our fingers crossed that the harbour master in Dili can help us find a boat.”
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Another area to keep an eye on is the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. Currently, the ICT industry is responsible for a relatively modest 8 per cent of electricity consumption in Singapore. However, ICT power use has quadrupled over the last 10 years.
According to consultancy Cushman and Wakefield, Singapore is now the largest data-centre market on a city basis in the Asia-Pacific outside China, with more than 40 data centres. Given the growth potential of this industry, it is important for data centres to adopt the latest smart cooling technologies.
A further concern is maritime transport and aviation, business activities which Singapore is a hub for. The emissions associated with these sectors are generally not included in national estimates, because the fuels used are categorised as “international bunkers” and are not included in the Paris Agreement. This loophole has limited the pressure to address these sectors’ emissions until recently.
If the aviation industry fails to abate its emissions, it could consume more than a quarter of the world’s carbon budget for 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2050. Although the aviation industry has recently agreed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, this is a voluntary agreement which risks being reneged upon if procuring enough sustainable aviation fuel or commercialising electric planes proves too challenging.
A rigorous carbon accounting model would include all emissions attributable to Singaporeans’ air travel. It would also include the emissions due to shipping of goods they buy. Ideally, it would additionally account for the emissions due to the production of goods imported into the country.
While these indirect emissions are more challenging to estimate, they are crucial in getting the full picture of Singapore’s carbon footprint. It is time for individuals, companies and countries to take responsibility for their own actions and the environmental impacts they cause.
The transition away from fossil fuels is now official. The urgency of the climate crisis behoves all countries to take stock of and apportion responsibility for their emissions. The conclusion of COP28 is a chance for Singapore to review its climate strategy and decide where it should strengthen its efforts.
Roger Fouquet is Senior Research Fellow at Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore.
The view is shared by companies such as Empyrion DC, a next-generation digital infrastructure platform headquartered in Singapore.
Empyrion DC CEO Mark Fong said this involves thinking about sustainability holistically, “because every little bit counts”.
The company has taken steps to cut down its carbon footprint, including regularly upgrading technology, properly managing e-waste and reducing water usage in the bathrooms.
“The end goal is really to be able to tap off the grid clean energy,” said Mr Fong, adding that even starting with 10 per cent is a step in the right direction.
Tech giant Google has been matching 100 per cent of its global annual electricity consumption with purchases of renewable energy since 2017.
The company plans to operate its data centres around the world on carbon-free energy by 2030.
“Obviously this is very challenging, even with… the most advanced renewable markets that we have now,” said Mr Ken Siah, head of Data Center Public Affairs (Asia Pacific) at Google.
“The sun is not going to shine 24 hours a day. The wind is not going to blow 24 hours a day. So we have to really work with governments, energy producers, (and) renewable energy generators to make sure the grid is set up and properly equipped to make this transition.”
There is a need to encourage governments to tweak regulations, and invest in scores of renewable energy projects globally, said observers.
For Google, the transition also involves installing more efficient chips, using machine learning to slash power consumption, and even giving customers a chance to choose where in the world they want to run their cloud computing to meet their own sustainability goals.
“Customers are demanding it. Governments are demanding it. It is a business imperative that they have to become more sustainable,” said Mr Siah.
“And I think a lot of companies recognise this, and I think that’s why you see there’s a greater push in the industry in general to have more sustainable data centres.”
Economists have long advised Indonesia to reduce its reliance on commodity exports and promote economic diversification. The Indonesian government has been pursuing this through the establishment of special economic zones and tax holidays.
But in 2020, the Covid-19-induced recession led to a more draconian diversification approach with a ban on the export of all unprocessed nickel.
Using an export ban as an industrial policy instrument is controversial since it creates market distortions and its goals must be carefully stated and measured.
Nickel is an important material for the production of most rechargeable batteries and its significance in the global supply chain has increased dramatically with the pursuit of global net-zero ambitions.
As Indonesia is the largest producer of nickel ores, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is sanguine about leveraging this advantage to increase the domestic value added from the nickel ore export ban.
Domestic value creation is cited as Jokowi’s primary goal. On paper, the results of the export ban are striking. Almost US$14 billion has been invested in nickel smelter capacity in Indonesia.
Maluku Utara and Sulawesi Tengah, Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming provinces, experienced double-digit growth rates in 2021, driven primarily by investment in the industry. Jokowi has highlighted how the ban has seen a 30-fold increase in the value of Indonesia’s nickel-related exports.
Calculating domestic value added is not straightforward. Comparing nickel ore export values and their derivatives is misleading since downstream products also embody the cost of energy needed for production and other inputs.
Because Indonesia was one of the largest nickel ore exporters, the ban has led to an increase in the international price of nickel and its derivatives. Investors in smelters now enjoy a much cheaper domestic price for nickel ore and a much higher value for exports of nickel metal.
On top of the tax holidays and cheap energy, which are crucial for capital and energy-intensive extraction, smelters are effectively subsidized by the government.
One may justify a reduction of short-term efficiency for future gain. The ultimate aim of nickel downstreaming is to position Indonesia as a major producer of electric vehicles (EVs), and achieving this may warrant a short-term loss. But the details matter and the challenges are apparent.
Most of the nickel mined in Indonesia is more suitable for producing stainless steel than renewable batteries. General smelter incentives and the nickel export ban skew investment towards stainless steel production instead of EVs.
The government has had to introduce measures to stop the growth of stainless steel production – including taxing exports of ferronickel – to support the development of smelters for battery production and processing facilities for high-pressure acid leaching.
The processing of nickel for use in EV batteries, however, comes with a significant environmental and carbon footprint. This is important if Indonesia wants to tap into the global market for EV products, particularly in Western markets.
EVs and their components are generally still more expensive than conventional combustion engine vehicles, and the Indonesian market alone will not be large enough to build sufficient scale.
Accessing the EU and US markets is likely to be challenging. In addition to environmental concerns, both have their own industrial policies. The fact that the European Union took legal action against Indonesia over the nickel export ban and won with US support does not help.
The Chinese market, which is larger and growing faster, is a potential market for Indonesian EV production. But the highest-selling EVs in China use nickel-free batteries. Global nickel scarcity creates incentives for producers to reduce or even eliminate nickel content in their batteries through technological innovation.
The Indonesian government is considering reducing its EV import tax to encourage the adoption of EVs domestically. While this policy may help Indonesia’s domestic EV adoption goal, it runs counter to the aim of nickel downstreaming.
Indonesian EV producers must compete with imported EVs, which may reduce the market share of domestically produced EVs even further and discourage investors from building an Indonesian EV industry.
By considering an import tax reduction for EVs, the Indonesian government implicitly acknowledges that building a domestic EV industry is at odds with its 2060 net-zero emissions goal.
For now, a better bet may be to focus on electric scooters, which are easier to manufacture and more affordable to domestic consumers. By tapping into this market first, Indonesia could gradually expand its industry for larger EVs.
Trade policy remains key. If the Indonesian government thinks the European Union filing a case against Indonesia in the WTO is a form of “forced export”, it should navigate this diplomatically. If Indonesia wants to restrict its exports, it should not complain when the European Union imposes controls on its imports from Indonesia.
The Indonesian government needs to understand the reciprocal nature of WTO membership if it wants to negotiate this matter with partners.
Nickel is a small part of the whole EV value chain and building an EV industry requires much more than a ban on nickel exports. But Indonesia’s nickel downstreaming policy is here to stay.
Firms already committed to investing in Indonesia under conditions set by the policy have an incentive to resist change to the status quo. The government has to consider the country’s reputation as an unpredictable investment destination if the resource-based downstreaming story is to be sold as one of Jokowi’s biggest achievements when he ends his second term in 2024.
Downstreaming will not get any easier for the next Indonesian president. Government funding will be constrained by the debts of past infrastructure projects and the construction of Indonesia’s new capital city. Global uncertainty and high-interest rates won’t help either.
As renewable industries become more complex, factors like a predictable supply chain, proper law enforcement, market access, human resources and technology will become even more important.
The Indonesian government has to address these issues to improve Indonesia’s business environment. Relying on export bans is no magical solution in framing Indonesia’s industrial policy.
Krisna Gupta is Lecturer at Politeknik APP Jakarta and an Associate Researcher at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies.
This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.
At the most recent UN climate summit in Dubai, COP28, more than 70 000 members from nearly 200 nations include Raji Sunak, David Cameron, and King Charles. However, they are just a few of the thousands who will have flown that on their own. The British monarch, foreign secretary, and prime minister actually took three different planes to their destinations.
Around 315 private jet flights were made at COP27 in Egypt last season. This is a remarkable data, especially given that fewer earth leaders attended the COP because some were preoccupied with Bali’s G20 summit.
To calculate the carbon footprints of traveling to this year’s meeting, COP28 in Dubai, for various modes of transportation, including private jets, we assembled a group of scientific experts. In the end, we want to give participants the tools they need to choose climate-conscious go.
In order to discourage participants from using private jet unless absolutely necessary for safety, we furthermore compared the carbon footprints of the previous three Officers to help determine where the conferences might be held.
Although we do n’t yet have complete data, the use of private jets last year—and probably this year as well—indicates that this is becoming the new norm and has progressed beyond just the most important world leaders.
According to pollution from burning jet energy and because mist routes help produce high-altitude clouds that trap more heat in the atmosphere, flying is already one of the most carbon-intensive modes of transportation. Additionally, decarbonization is particularly challenging because we cannot just use electric planes in their place.
Personal jet travel is the most damaging function of all because it uses a lot of fuel while transporting some people. According to French scholar Thomas Piketty, if we are to combat climate change, we must address them because they serve as an illustration of school inequality.
Their usage by well-known individuals blatantly undermines the purpose of a climate conference and exemplifies the lack of commitment to sustainable practices as well as the disconnect between economic concerns and individual behavior.
This runs the risk of forming and influencing public opinion. According to earlier studies, people are less likely to get climate action seriously if they believe their leaders are failing to contribute.
Prior to the formal peer review, we looked at the use of private jets for the COP27 in Egypt ( our findings are available as a preprint ). The majority of private flights were short-haul, frequently lasting only an hour between the capital city of Cairo and the seminar location in Sharm El-Sheikh. As takeoff and landing consume more energy than cruising, planes are even less effective over shorter distances.
Therefore, avoiding small airlines and private aircraft is essential. In light of this, we looked into a variety of vacation choices for individuals from the UK, where we are based, to travel to COP28 in Dubai.
Even after taking into account a flight from Istanbul because you ca n’t travel the entire distance to Dubai by train or coach, private jet travel pollutes the area 11 times more than commercial aircraft, 35 times worse than train, and 52 times the amount of coach travel. For those traveling from the UK, this year’s pollutants may be higher due to the longer trip to Dubai than Egypt.
Transport from London to COP28 carbon intensity ( grams of CO2equivalent ):
The UNFCCC, the UN system that chooses where Criminal meetings will take place, may bear some of the blame for flight emissions. Conflict zones surround Dubai, making flying that necessary because they obstruct area pathways from Europe, Asia, and Africa.
While the majority of delegates will want to travel sustainably, their choices will depend on the availability of other modes of transportation, such as healthy land routes, and, for those traveling farther away, at the very least, the ability to fly directly to reduce their carbon emissions.
In this regard, Dubai is a wise choice because it has many direct flights and there is less need for following or internal flights due to its proximity to major airline hubs.
Our study emphasizes the necessity of properly weighing the effects of traveling to COP meetings on the carbon footprint. In the end, decision-makers may need to choose the spots of climate change conferences that will help reduce the carbon footprint of the attendees.
But, personal aircraft are still not advised. They have a much larger carbon footprint than other modes of transportation, worsen current weather agreements inequalities, and mislead the earth.
Professor Priti Parikh is Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and International Development at UCL, Carole Roberts is Researcher at Carbon Footprint of Transport, Mark Maslin teaches Natural Sciences there, and Prof.
Under a Creative Commons license, this post has been republished from The Conversation. read the article in its entirety.
This week Dubai welcomes COP28, an annual UN conference on combating global warming. The significance of the climate-change issue is underscored by the fact that this October marked the hottest month ever recorded in the history of meteorological observations, and scientists predict that the year 2023 may set a new historical temperature record.
COP28 is taking place amid escalating geopolitical conflicts worldwide and a slowdown in global economic growth, partly due to changes in the energy market. Nevertheless, even contentious political issues such as US and EU protectionism regarding green goods from China, such as solar panels and electric cars, or economic sanctions against Russia, are being set aside.
Climate transcends politics. Preventing an increase in the average global temperature by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 is a global imperative achievable only through international cooperation and coordinated efforts by all countries.
Sultan Al Jaber, the president of COP28, has stated that one of the summit’s tasks will be a “global inventory” of progress in fulfilling the commitments, nationally determined contributions (NDCs), that countries have undertaken within the framework of the Paris Climate Agreement.
He also emphasized the importance of fulfilling a long-standing commitment by wealthy nations, which historically accounted for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, to provide US$100 billion annually to support poorer countries in their efforts to combat climate change and transition to renewable energy sources.
This year, China will be one of the most active participants in COP28. Despite the challenges posed by its rapidly expanding industrial output, President Xi Jinping committed in 2020 to achieving net-zero emissions by 2060.
The country is making significant strides toward this goal. China has led the world in electric-vehicle production for eight consecutive years and boasts the highest installed capacity of solar and wind power plants globally, aiming to surpass 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030.
China is also assisting 40 developing countries, particularly in Africa and small island states, in addressing climate-change effects and adopting green energy solutions based on Chinese photovoltaics (solar panels).
Russia will also be a significant participant in COP28, with a high-level delegation and its own pavilion at the conference. In October, President Vladimir Putin signed the Climate Doctrine outlining a concrete action plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
Many Russian companies are already at the forefront of implementing climate programs. For instance, Rusal is the world’s leading producer of low-carbon aluminum, much of which is supplied to China.
The state corporation Rosatom plays a crucial role in Russia’s climate agenda, not only operating nuclear power plants, which account for 20% of Russian electricity supply, but also constructing nuclear power facilities in other countries, promoting decarbonization.
SIBUR, a leading Russian producer of polymers and rubber, is also actively pursuing a climate strategy. SIBUR is the first Russian company to receive carbon units through the implementation of climate projects, which it monetizes in both domestic and international markets.
In September, it was it was reported that SIBUR was in discussions with Chinese firms regarding the sale of carbon units. By purchasing carbon units in Russia, Chinese companies interested in supplying eco-friendly products to global markets can reduce their carbon footprint. As environmental regulations tighten worldwide, the volume of such transactions is expected to increase.
Russia established a national register of carbon units last year and is gradually developing a carbon-unit trading system. Trading carbon units provides economic incentives for investment in modernizing production and transitioning to green technologies.
Russia is drawing inspiration from China, where the carbon-unit trading market was established in 2021 and has already become the world’s largest, with a total transaction volume exceeding 365 million tons of carbon dioxide. Moreover, the price range for carbon units in China, ranging from 50 to 70 yuan ($7 to $11) per ton of emissions, is lower than in Europe.
While national carbon markets are important, the fight against climate change must be waged on a global scale. Thus carbon markets in different countries should ultimately become interconnected.
Pilot cross-border trade agreements are crucial steps in this regard. To achieve this, international validation, mutual recognition of carbon units from different countries, and the use of blockchain platforms that enable secure and legally significant transactions are required.
Russia’s SIBUR is collaborating with Chinese partners and plans to negotiate one of the pilot cross-border carbon unit sales in the coming months.
PUBLISHED : 24 Nov 2023 at 04:00
Thailand’s first factory to make sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from used cooking oil will begin operating in early 2025.
The output from the factory — operated by energy conglomerate Bangchak Corporation Plc — aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the aviation industry.
The SAF project is being pushed ahead as the Department of Airports and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) conduct a joint study on biofuel usage.
“We expect to install machines and necessary equipment at our SAF production facility soon,” Chaiwat Kovavisarach, group chief executive of Bangchak, told a forum “Regenerative Fuels: Sustainable Mobility,” held yesterday by the corporation.
SAF can replace jet fuel because their properties are similar, while the former has a smaller carbon footprint.
Bangchak’s oil refinery facility in Bangkok’s Phra Khanong district. The firm is building a sustainable aviation fuel production plant near the refinery. Bangchak Corporation.
This type of biofuel, which can be made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste, produces up to 80% less greenhouse gas emissions than conventional jet fuel, according to media reports citing various forecasts.
Mr Chaiwat said if SAF is used in the Thai aviation business, carbon dioxide emissions from the industry could be cut by 80,000 tonnes a year.
The 10-billion-baht SAF factory, with a proposed production capacity of 1 million litres a day, is being built near Bangchak’s oil refinery in Bangkok’s Phra Khanong district.
Mr Chaiwat said that after the company’s SAF project was unveiled, many companies had said they were eager to buy it.
He declined to name the companies, saying only they are in the aviation business and SAF purchase agreements are expected to be made in December.
The SAF business is one of Bangchak’s various environmental, social and governance projects, which are expected to help the company achieve carbon neutrality, a balance between carbon dioxide emissions and absorption, by 2030.
Bangchak also aims to use its SAF project to encourage the public to refrain from polluting the environment through improper disposal of used cooking oil or by repeatedly reusing it, which is harmful to their health, under a campaign “Fry to Fly”, or tod mai ting in Thai.
People can sell their used cooking oil at designated Bangchak petrol stations.
Mr Chaiwat expects a good business prospect for SAF sales, following growing concerns over carbon dioxide emitted by fossil-derived fuel used by aircraft. Bangchak Corporation
