What should be the EU’s stance energy and climate change? This covers topics such as energy security, deforestation and CO2 emissions.

I spent three days this week attending the Stockholm+ 40 conference.  We were a pretty eclectic group, formed of politicians, business people, young thinkers and legislators from many countries but with one common goal: to try and progress in this very complicated and difficult process to establish concrete changes to secure a sustainable environment changes that will prevent the globe from a melt down.

I can say that the Stockholm’s + 40 Conference managed to gather world’s leaders who presented their proposals and  agendas for the  Rio + 20 meeting in June, thus creating some momentum for the rather subdued expectations for Rio.

The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, stressed the importance of a circular economy and paid tributes to the Nordic countries, mostly Sweden for its role providing technical solutions for sustainable development.

Achim Steiner, Head of UNEP was one of the most outspoken speakers. He stressed that governments and businesses need to accelerate and put in a new gear to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and take the necessary actions to meet our planet challenges. He drew attention to the large subsidies that still exist for fossil fuels and wondered what is stopping us from taking concrete actions to build a greener economy.

Teresa Fogelberg, Deputy Chief Executive at the Global Reporting Initiative reported that more and more companies, government agencies and organizations report their sustainability efforts. In my interview with Teresa Fogelberg as she sees that the issue of mandatory reporting are discussed with increasing frequency.

There were about fifty young leaders from developing and developed countries that were invited to the conference. They voiced their concerns regarding the lack of popular support to actions that mitigate global warming.  According to Alex Wang, the executive director of  The Youthink Centre in Beijing, there is very little involvement from the public in green issues.

Citizens need to participate and demand that politicians prioritize the development of a low carbon economy.  However, we all know that grass roots mobilization is a slow process and perhaps the earth does not have that much lifetime left!

We are faced with few options. Either the public, politicians and the business community together embrace the urgent need of change to a sustainable economy or there will be no future for any of us.

Read the conclusions of the Stockholm +40

Listen to the opinion of Sha Zukang, the United Nations Secretary General for the Rio +20 conference on the results and challenges coming out of Stockholm +40.

Kaj Embrén - Follow on Twitter

Climate change and the 2008 financial crisis in the US are cataclysmic developments that were foreseeable long before they fully erupted in the open.

But while the consequences of the US financial crisis are reversible this will not be the case for climate change. Beyond a critical point it will become impossible to restore the earth to its status quo: Many changes will have become irreversible and the earth less habitable for human beings and innumerable species.

Both crises lead to an identical interrogation: why are human beings incapable of taking preventive action, even if they foresee events unfolding in the future?

The answer seems simple. Human beings enjoy life as it is and reject the very notion that it could change to the worse. Therefore they do not trust any “story tellers”; and the further the risk lies in the future the more averse they are to taking preventive action.

This goes for individuals, but even more so for groups.

Those far-sighted US bankers and officials who had early recognised that something was going profoundly wrong in the financial system did not dare to propose the necessary curative action, fearing that those in charge would not listen.

It was only after the crash of Lehmann Brothers and the visible turmoil in the financial markets that the President of the Central Bank and the Finance Minister succeeded in convincing Congress to approve in no time a bail-out-package of close to $ 1 trillion.

Climate change is almost not well perceivable and advancing very slowly. Neither a multi-billion cash injection nor a Congressional vote can stop it! Slowing the process requires profound changes in the life-styles of more than five billion people in USA, Europe, China, Japan, Russia, Australia, Canada and Brazil, combined with a massive deployment of alternative technologies.

Unfortunately those most responsible do not assume their political obligations, and some continue denying the phenomenon or its seriousness.

As a consequence, the international community has been dragging on from one climate conference to the next. This frustrating game has been continuing for 20 years without much hope at the horizon.

Climate change has ceased to be a top agenda item for heads of government, who bother more about their next elections, war risks in the Middle East, public debt and other short-term events.

Even Europe, traditionally the most engaged continent, is getting tired of fighting climate change on its own. It is no longer prepared to be the front-runner as it is becoming more aware that its action is largely ineffective globally, unless other major emitters of green house gases like China and the USA make similar efforts.

But the game will have to go on. It will require immense patience. One day, when climate change may have become almost irreversible, Humanity is likely to act under the impact of terrifying climate disasters, devastating huge patches of fertile land and killing millions of people within a few months.

Humanity will need its “Lehman Brothers crash” before starting to act with courage and effectiveness. This is likely to happen before the end of the century.

Fortunately, the rising scarcity of fossil energy, water, food supplies and minerals, coupled with continuing demographic growth, will accelerate the awareness of global disasters at the horizon. Oil is likely to become very expensive in the coming 40 years, gas will follow before the end of the century. Unfortunately this leaves huge untapped coal reserves as the last straw.

Humanity should therefore engage in a two-track strategy: change life styles as to material values, mobility, housing and diet and deploy alternative technologies like wind, solar, wave, biomass and, of course, energy efficiency. This will be an up-hill battle. The longer Humanity keeps delaying the necessary action the less likely will climate change come to a halt.

Annual climate conferences will continue. But hopefully they will progressively change their nature and focus more on action and follow-up than solemn but ineffective declarations and targets.

On June 20-21st the international community will remember the 20th anniversary of the last UN Conference on Development and Sustainability in Rio de Janeiro.

There is little reason to celebrate this anniversary. Though we have witnessed stunning economic progress in East Asia, the Gulf and several Latin American countries, the inequalities of living conditions on earth have widened further; the global population has grown by almost two billion more people, and C02 emissions have gone up by more than one fifth since 1990.

Altogether, the planet has become substantially less sustainable since 1992; and Humanity is heading for disaster if it fails to wake up to the issues that it will be facing in the coming decades.

The 2012 Rio Conference on Sustainable Development is therefore more than appropriate.

It will focus on seven priority areas: jobs, energy, cities, food security, water supply, oceans and disaster readiness. Each of these is very important for the future of Humanity. But it will be next to impossible to address them effectively while ignoring rapid population growth as one of the underlying basic causes.

As long as global population keeps growing by some 80 million annually. the planet will not be sustainable The overriding objective for Rio should therefore be an agreement among all 200-odd participant countries to actively promote the two-children family.

Every new-born should be entitled to share the blessings of modern civilisation, from food, to water, electricity, housing,sanitation, health and education.

But with every new born it will become more difficult to provide such blessings; on the contrary, persistent population growth will make it more difficult to contain environmental damage and climate change.

Rio+20 should therefore proclaim the right of all women to have free access to reproductive health and contraceptives. Giving all women the choice to freely meet their demands for contraceptives and reproductive health services, would help reducing global emissions of green house gases in 2050 by 17 per cent, according to UN estimates.

Population growth may no longer be a vital issue for China and other medium income countries.

But it will still be the single major handicap for higher living standards in sub-Sahara African countries. These countries are not only the poorest on earth but also those witnessing a population explosion that defies all historical experience: How can sub-Sahara Africa cope with a further demographic surge, doubling its population from one to two billion people within less than 40 years, while being unable to properly employ, feed, educate and care its present population!

On 23-25 April 2012 Sweden’s Ministry of Environment and Ministry for Foreign Affairs opens an international conference, Stockholm+40 – Partnership Forum for Sustainable Development. The discussions, which will attract a number of the world’s leading political figures, mark the 30^th anniversary of the first UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972.

But will the conference deliver any meaningful messages ahead of the Rio Earth Summit in June?

Summits in Copenhagen, Durban and other world cities have been tasked with discussing national governments’ ambitions to find global agreements on sustainable development, Millennium Development Goals and climate change. Despite this, the climate deal is still up in the air and in my view there are no clear signs of a breakthrough. Instead, I see passive national governments that are not engaged enough to bring us closer to any solid agreements.

But at the same time, we’ve seen more cities working together with businesses and their stakeholders to act positively and deliver solutions on sustainable development. It is these initiatives that have been most successful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and finding ways to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

It seems fitting that the conference is being hosted by Sweden, a country that has benefited from such programs. The Swedish now use more bio energy than fossil fuel so perhaps when discussions start on Monday, the participants will be inspired by the sort of Swedish initiatives highlighted in the new edition of Sustainable Solutions magazine. It highlights some of the country’s most innovative solutions that have been successful because they embrace local perspectives and involve all stakeholders.

The real question therefore, is whether the Swedish Government will take the lead ahead of the Summit and bring these powerful local solutions from its cities to the negotiating table in Rio? That question will be answered by Wednesday when the Stockholm+40 conference draws to a conclusion.

Kaj Embren

PS Click here to participate in the Rio+ LinkIn group

In early April 2012 the C02 prices in the EU have fallen to an unprecedented low of only € 6.0/ton compared to expectations of at least € 20.0. This has raised new questions on the viability of the EU Emission Trading System(ETS). Energy experts are afraid the low prices fail to offer the necessary incentives for more investment in low-carbon energy; the Commission therefore reflects on measures how to boost the prices without damaging energy intensive industries and provoking extra “carbon leakage”.

The decline of carbon prices is due to three major factors:

• stagnating energy demand;
• free distribution of emission quotas;
• improvements in energy efficiency, thanks to technical progress and higher oil prices.

Combined they have led to a massive overhang of unused emission permits that bear upon the market. That is why many experts recommend to take it out of the market through a set-aside operation of about 1 billion emission certificates, the equivalent of 1 billion tons of C02. But such an operation might be no more than a temporary expedient instead of curing more inherent systemic flaws.

It is preferable to reflect more thoroughly about the optimal ways of implementing the “energy revolution” to which the European Council has committed Europe at its special meeting February 4th 2011: What is the most expeditious way of reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 per cent between 1990 and 2050?

• By the middle of the century European electricity generation must have become a close to zero emitter of C02.

That is technically and economically feasible through a new energy mix composed of wind, solar, biomass, ocean and nuclear sources. Each Member state should retain the freedom to fix its own energy mix on the basis of climate conditions, natural resources and past experience with technologies.

By 2020 the EU is committed to a 20 per cent reduction of its emissions.

That will hardly be enough to reach almost zero emissions by 2050.

The EU must step up the annual rate of reduction of emissions.

By 2030 the EU should have reached a 40 per cent reduction over 1990; before the end of 2012, it should make this objective mandatory in view of offering utilities a sufficient time of for adapting their power generation mix.

• There is no need to set aside large quantities of unused certificates in view of raising market prices.

Power companies will have to auction all emission certificates after January 1st 2013. This change, combined with the prospect of a much faster reduction of emissions after 2020, will boost the futures prices for electricity and emission certificates, which will reverberate on present prices.

• The EU will need to tackle those sectors that are not subject to ETS with more vigour. This goes for mobility and buildings, the two biggest emitters after electricity and industry. It should toughen the emission standards for vehicles and recommend Member states adapting excise taxes to higher oil prices, even if this may provoke a temporary uproar.

For buildings it should have the courage of launching substantial renovation programmes as instruments for job creation.

• These measures are largely independent from the level of C02 prices.

But they would help the EU reducing its overall energy demand in the run-up to 2050, which will be a a conditio sine qua non for implementing its very ambitious long-term reduction goals.

EU directive 1999/31/EC dictates that member states should reduce their MSW (Municipal Solid waste) that they landfill to 35% of their 1995 production by 2016. The milestone targets for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Land-filling set by the directive were the following (reference year is 1995):

1. 2006 to be reduced to 75%
2. 2009 to be reduced to 50%
3. 2016 to be reduced to 35%

Moreover the directive states that “Member states that in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardized Eurostat data is available put more than 80% of their collected municipal waste to landfill may postpone the attainment of targets by a period not exceeding four years” which translates in a shift of the 3 target milestones to 2010 for the first, 2013 for the second and 2020 for the third. Countries that fall under this category are the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ireland, Greece, Estonia, Cyprus, Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

As the targets appear quite ambitious incineration seems an attractive solution since it can reduce the MSW volume up to 95%. Chart 1 demonstrates the levels of Land-filling, incineration and recycling during 2009 for EU member states.

Chart 1

*Source Eurostat.

In chart 1 we notice that there is a cluster of six leading countries Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Germany that their Land-filling level is in the single digits. These countries are the ones that have already achieve the final target set by the landfill directive as shown in chart 2 below

Chart 2

*Source Eurostat

In addition the six leading countries have at the same time the highest levels of recycling and MSW incineration. Their average recycling level is at 59% and their average incineration level at 39% and their average Land-filling is a low 2%.

Clearly without incineration the landfill directive targets would not have been achieved 7 years earlier. Proponents of reduce, reuse, recycle mantra are against incineration as they consider it as a disincentive for recycling. Data from Euro-stat shows a completely different picture. In our 6 country cluster we observe that they possess the top level of recycling. The country with the absolutely top level of recycling outside our 6 leading Member States is Luxemburg with 47% just one point shy of Denmark which is the country with the lowest level of recycling in our top 6. Moreover, the first country that doesn’t incinerate at all and just recycles is Greece which has a Land-filling ranking of 19.

Chart 3

*Source Euro-stat

From Chart 3 we notice that the increase of incineration is around a third since 1995 as opposed to recycling that had almost increased by two and half times.

Thus, data indicate that incineration and recycling can go hand in hand and complement one another in a way favorable to recycling. In addition incineration gives Europeans the benefit of reducing to some degree their level or dependency on fossil fuels in producing electricity and heat; something that should not be taken lightly given the increase that the prices of fossil fuels have undergone in recent years.

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More of waste to energy can be found at: http://www.renewablegreenenergypower.com

Link to EU directives for the Environment: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/landfill_index.htm

Link to information on Renewable energy sources at: http://www.renewablegreenenergypower.com/category/renewable-energy-2/

The 100-year old internal combustion engine will be phased out in the coming six decades or so. This is bound to happen for two concurring reasons:

• Oil will become so scarce and expensive that driving vehicles on gasoline or diesel will no longer be affordable.
• In order to successfully combat climate change, for which mobility accounts to the extent of one quarter, Humanity must find alternative energy sources.

But as long as most of our electricity demand is covered from fossil sources there is no ecological urgency for implementing the necessary technological revolution of land transport. Nor is there an economic urgency as long as e-vehicles are substantially more expensive, while being less convenient in terms of range and loading energy.

In order to reach the EU 2050 climate target of reducing C02 emissions by 80 per cent, the European transport sector will have to reduce emissions by 60 per cent.

This will be achievable by a combined approach of

• further enhancing fuel efficiency of combustion engines
• combining efficient diesel and plug-in electric engines;
• improving battery technology in view of making them lighter, cheaper and doubling their range without recharging.

Presently the average newly admitted car in Europe must emit less than 127 g C02/km. This compares to 50 g/km for the latest models of hybrid plug-in diesel cars. That big difference demonstrates the huge potential for higher fuel efficiency through diesel and hybrid engine technology.

The EU should therefore fix much stricter emission standards for new cars, while leaving manufacturers the necessary respite for adjustment and technological improvement, say 95g by 2020, 70 g by 2025 and 50 g by 2030. By implementing such a medium-term road map the EU would dispose of a completely renovated vehicle stock by 2030 that would enable it to roughly halve its C02 emissions from road transport.

Fully electrical cars will most likely remain the exception until 2030, essentially used as a city and special purpose vehicles. Their market share is unlikely to exceed 10 per cent for new vehicles which is fine considering that more than half of EU power will still be generated from fossil plants

This analysis leads to five policy conclusions for the EU:

• Toughen fuel efficiency standards for passenger and commercial vehicles. These will offer powerful incentives for improving battery, storage and engine technologies.
• Target a 40 per cent share of electricity generated from non-fossil sources by 2030.
• Negotiate comparable targets for automotive fuel efficiency and non-fossil electricity generation with USA, China, Japan, Korea and Brazil, to make EU measures globally climate-relevant.
• Abstain from granting specific research support, let alone purchase premiums for electrical vehicles. Member states should be free to do so, if necessary to keep up with the technological developments in competing countries, especially China.
• Promote effective public transport systems as the overriding priority, as e-mobility will not offer the answer to the ever growing urban and high-way congestion.

It is always pleasing when you look below the surface and see real change in a market, city or organization. No more so than with the low-carbon economy, a market that is growing rapidly and creating a more sustainable model of development. Although the low-carbon economy is not completely synonymous with the term sustainable development, it is a benchmark that provides the stimulus for growth, whilst keeping a focus on both jobs and climate change.

Let us look at a particularly important segment of this economy – end-of-life products and the problem of garbage in our city centers.

The number of landfill sites and garbage tips produced by the world’s growing cities is a huge dilemma. How much worse will the picture look in 2030, when it is predicted that 60% of the population will live in urban areas?

To a great extent, this problem is the result of consumerist societies but changing global consumption habits will be hugely difficult. Instead, in order to find a solution we must direct our focus towards the lifecycle of products and services. The answer lies in taking all of the processes involved – raw materials, design, production and recycling – and integrating them in a circular economy.

Fuelled by tougher legislation, the waste disposal issue has given rise to an increasingly lucrative market. EU law now covers everything from city landfills to vehicle recovery units, so producers have little choice but to become more responsible.

Let me highlight three examples of ways that this market is growing:

1)  Since 2001, Panasonic Eco Technology Center (PETEC) has operated a plant that transforms 1.4 billion end-of-life products into new resources. This represents enough recycled material to manufacture 95 new jumbo jets or 150,000 new cars, which meets some of the organisation’s need for aluminum, copper and steel.

2)  The Financial Times reported a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Senseable City Lab that followed the lifecycle of 3000 electronic items from Seattle. The study showed that 75% of the products ended up in recycling facilities, compared with the US average of about 34%.

3) As well as recycling for materials, garbage is also being used to generate energy through urban district heating systems. In Amsterdam, 99% of local waste (household and industrial) is used to provide heat and energy for the city’s metro, tram and road lighting. A similar system is also in use in other cities including Stockholm, Malmo and Copenhagen.

In the coming years, urban waste disposal will be about getting people to sort and recycle more of the products and materials they consume. But the question is how? I decided to ask an expert who has been working to find an answer, the CEO of Envac, Christer Öjdemark. You can watch the full interview here.

His company, Envac, has been developing waste collection systems worldwide since 1951. In the early 1960s it invented the automated vacuum waste collection system that transports waste to a central processing facility, making it easier to separate and recycle. It is still in use throughout the world – in residential areas, shopping malls, city centers, industrial kitchens, hospitals and airports – as it can be integrated with existing infrastructure, such as electricity, sewage and water supplies.

But although a technical solution exists, the greatest challenge is encouraging people’s participation and involvement, says Envac’s Director of Marketing and Communication, Jonas Törnblom. He tells me how the residents in Vollsmose, a suburb of Odense in Denmark, worked together to improve their environment: “Human behavior is always central to its success. Look at Vollsmose, a residential area with a variety of cultures, languages and experiences. With the help of local environmental ambassadors it is training its citizens in new behavior models and increased responsibility. The technical solution facilitated this transition and shows how an area can improve its environment and deal with its waste management.”

Recycling is an increasingly important part of the political agenda in almost every nation around the world. In January 2012, the EU Commission started considering changes to the current Waste Act with stronger demands for inspection, fees and taxes. Studies have shown that tighter regulation could save about € 72 billion and create an additional 400,000 jobs in the recycling industry.

Let us hope that these legislative changes stimulate further growth in this market by compelling companies to deal with their waste sustainably. As we have seen before, regulation can act as a catalyst for the rise of new and more innovative solutions.And why not inspire the Stockholm+40 conference in april and the Rio+20 Summit in june?

Kaj Embrén

For the last three months the Iberian Peninsula and South-Eastern Britain have suffered from the worst droughts for several decades, with hardly any rainfall, less than 20 mm in Spain and Portugal. This dramatic situation has hardly been noticed outside the countries directly affected: city dwellers are less and less sensitive to natural catastrophes that do not happen at their own door steps!

The droughts have severely hit agriculture, forcing farmers to change or abandon crops. Fruit and grain harvests will be substantially lower. Hydro power has been falling short, due to empty reservoirs; private and commercial water users have been invited to restrict the use of water.

The last serious drought in the Iberian peninsula dates back to 2005, when the output of grain in Spain dropped by 45 per cent, that of wine and fruits by 20 and 13 per cent respectively. If rain continues to fall short much longer the 2012 drought is likely to generate similar losses, which will further worsen the economic crisis.

The UK Environment Secretary has called the drought the “new norm”, something Europeans will have to live with; and Spanish authorities expect recurring cycles between droughts and normal rainfall.

The frequency of severe droughts in Europe, in particular in Spain and Portugal, is part of global climate change. Climate scientists have predicted this for the Mediterranean region.

Europe being incapable by itself to combat global climate change it will have to live with its many consequences, from droughts to floods, hurricanes and milder winters and practice damage limitation, droughts having cost the EU some € 3 billion annually during the last three decades, affecting 17 per cent of its territory.

The EU has woken up to the challenge, but without taking effective counter measures yet. In October 2007, the Environment Council has for the first time addressed the water challenge, formulating seven policy options: more efficient use and stricter pricing of water, improved supply infrastructure and water use technologies and a water saving culture.

It has invited the Commission to regularly review the situation and develop a scarcity and drought policy by 2012. But until this date the Commission has failed to make proposals for a comprehensive long-term water policy.

The most recent extreme drought will induce the Commission to accelerate its work.

Using less water and using it more efficiently will have to be crucial answer to a drier climate with regular drought spells. Indeed, according to EU Commission estimates some 40 per cent of water in the EU is being wasted due to inefficiencies.

These are a few tough recommendations for an EU water policy:

• Member countries should take appropriate measures for curtailing water consumption and collect essentially all rain and used water.
• Drip technologies should become the dominant irrigation technology;
• Agricultural water rates must no longer be subsidised and no incentives for large-scale irrigation.
• Household water rates should become more expensive beyond a minimum supply free of charge.
• Mediterranean member countries need to adapt their crops to changing climate conditions. This implies abandoning water-intensive cultures in favour of perennial cultures like olives and wine that are less sensitive to droughts.
• Marginal drought-sensitive land should be turned into more drought-resistant forest areas or solar power plants.

“You do not just get respect, you earn it”. This quote represents a core part of the values-based mission that led to the formation of Respect in 2000.

Twelve years later and an increasing number of individuals are earning respect for their contributions to the fields of sustainable development and environment. People are being recognized for their competence and experience, with a number of yearly rankings becoming very popular in Sweden.

Two dominant media in this field, Environmental Dayli (Miljöaktuellt) and CSR in Practise,(CSR i Praktiken) have both produced lists of the 100 people that have the most power or influence in Sweden’s environment and sustainable development fields. Anyone looking to build their networks in these areas would do well to study these rankings.

The Environmental Dayli

The Environmental Dayli’s (owned by IDG) list of the 100 most influence figures is topped by Johan Rockström, Professor and Executive Director at Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI), who will shortly be leaving the position to focus on his role as the Head of the Stockholm Resilience Center.

Number 2 on the list is Maria Wetterstrand, former spokesperson for the Green Party. She is joined by current Green Party members at numbers 3 and 4 - Isabella Lövin (MEP) and Åsa Romson (present spokesperson).

In at number 5 is Svante Axelsson, Secretary General of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), Sweden’s largest environmental NGO.

Places 6 to 10 are as follows:

6.  Christian Azar, Professor at Chalmers University, Gothenburg

7. Mikael Karlsson, President, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC)

8. Mattias Klum, Photographer and speaker

9. Johan Kuylenstierna, new Head of Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI)

10. Tomas Kåberger, President of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation.

CSR in Practise (CSR I Praktiken)

CSR in Practise (which is owned by the media company Bonnier) claims that its list of the 100 most influential people in Swedish business indicates who you can trust to work with or listen to. The first of its rankings is for strategists, communicators and people acting as market advisors.

Top spot is given to Klas Eklund, Senior Advisor to the Scandinavian Bank and Sweden’s answer to Thomas L. Friedman.

The top 5 also includes Leo Razzak, professional Speaker; Niclas Ihrén, Senior Advisor for Respect; Christian Åberg, Advisor to the tourist industry and Peder Michael Pruzan-Jørgensen, Head of BSR Europe.

CSR in Practise has also selected its 5 most influence people in civil society, which comprises of the following: Anna Ryott, Secretary General of SOS Childvillages (SOS Barnbyar); Lina Thomsgård, Founder of “Rättviseförmedlingen” (‘translating as ‘Equalisters’ in English – ‘equal’ denoting equality and ‘listers’ for all the people that contribute towards compiling huge lists of people who challenge prevailing norms); Patrik Eriksson, Head of Campaigns at Greenpeace, Magdalena Hermelin from The Cancer Foundation and Martin Åhdal, CEO of the think-tank Fores.

The third list is of people is for coming from business, with a top 5 is made up of: Monica Lingegård, CEO of Samhall; Michael Wolf, CEO of Swedbank; Sasja Beslik, CEO of Nordea Bank Fonds; Helena Helmersson, Head of Sustainability at H&M and Stina Billinger, Strategy Advisor at SPP&Storebrand.

So, when you visit Sweden next time – why not get in touch and build your network!

Kaj Embrén

The announcement by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the Popular Congress that Chinese economic growth is likely to fall from 9.2 last year to only 7.5 per cent in 2012 has immediately led to a sharp decline of the shares of the world`s mining companies that anticipate lower Chinese production of steel, copper, aluminium etc.

China has become the world`s biggest C02 emitter country and is likely to remain so in the future whatever evolution of its GDP. But lower economic growth will slow down the rise of C02 emissions and make it easier for China to become more “climate-friendly”, one of the declared objectives of Chinese economic policy.

Of course, Chinese GDP forecasts have regularly proved too prudent. But the trend towards slower growth seems irreversible. The era of two-digit growth rates belongs to the past. Economic growth should progressively descend to no more than 6 per cent annually which – for a country with an almost stable population – corresponds to an equivalent rise of living standards.

At an assumed 6 per cent annual GDP increase China should be able to contain the annual increase of emissions below 3 per cent annually if it pursued a vigorous promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energies. But this will require a resolute effort by the government and business.

At the December 2011 Climate Conference in Durban China has agreed to negotiate an international climate compact until 2015 to enter into force after 2020. Lower economic growth, higher energy efficiency and wider use of renewable and nuclear energies should enable China to take on board more ambitious commitments for green house gas emissions and achieve high living standards with much lower per capita emissions than either USA or Europe.

That is the vital challenge for China and Humanity for the 21st century.

As expected after the demonstration of power by major airline countries in Moscow February 28-29th China has not waited long before taking retaliatory action against the EU imposition of emission caps on Chinese carriers` flights to EU airports.

Two multi-billion Chinese orders for Airbus planes are at stake.

The Chinese government has blocked the authorisation of an order for 35 A 330 planes. Annulling an order for 10 A 380 is also at stake. The EADS is afraid of losing its fastest growing market, which would imply job losses and leave Boeing as the happy beneficiary.

Of course, so far these are rhetoric threats. It is not that simple to shift from one supplier to another, both with full order books. Still, it would be irresponsible to take them lightly. China is known for vigorously defending its interest, and obviously the unilateral action by the EU has hit a raw nerve.

The EU is therefore confronted with a simple option:

• “hoist the white flag” and ask the ICAO for a “reconciliation meeting” in which to improve the terms of the arrangements agreed in July 2011 for the use of more efficient engines and sustainable biofuels;
• “fight it through” to the bitter end, whatever the negative consequences for EU aircraft manufacturing and airlines.

A rational examination of the options should lead EU policy makers to take a conciliatory stand: the economic interest of avoiding “trade conflicts” that would seriously hurt the EU are far more important than reducing global C02 emissions by less than one per cent through the extension of the EU emission cap and trade regime to international air traffic.

Rather than teaching the world lessons in good “climate behaviour” the EU should focus its diplomatic skills on negotiating a better deal within ICAO, the competent UN organisation, as it is doing in its overall climate approach. The ICAO is no worse than the UNFCCC! Neither has produced visible results during the last 20 years. It is therefore not easy to see why the EU is getting more exasperate with ICAO that deals only with a 3 per cent than with UNFCC which is in charge of the bulk of emissions.

Guest Post by Paul Whaley, Editor, Health & Environment

Last week, EFSA delayed publication of its opinion on the use of thresholds of toxicological concern (TTCs) in risk assessment. And it was right to do so: TTCs are not only unlikely to be sufficiently protective of human health, their deployment would fly in the face of much of what society and the EU is trying to achieve by modernising chemicals policy and risk assessment.

TTCs are a proposal reduce the amount of data which needs to be generated in order to perform chemical risk assessments by requiring toxicological testing of a substance of unknown toxicity (such as a food contaminant or pesticide metabolite) only in the event that humans are exposed to it above a certain threshold.

Even though this means a risk assessment decision is made in the absence of specific toxicological data, proponents of TTCs argue the exposures are low enough to ensure no threat to health is posed by the unknown substances.

Interest in TTCs is driven by a need for risk management decisions on chemicals in spite of an overwhelming lack of toxicity data on the multitude of chemicals and their breakdown products present in the environment, a desire to reduce the amount of animal-based toxicity testing, and support from industry itself, which although it emphasises the animal welfare benefits of the proposal, must also see substantial financial benefits in facing reduced toxicological test requirements before bringing their products to market.

The European Food Safety Authority has a draft opinion on the application of TTCs to food contaminants (EFSA 2011) while the EU non-food Scientific Committees have also drafted a recommendation on TTCs for cosmetics (SCHER/SCCP/SCENIHR 2008).

A search of the published literature indicates they are being considered for use in a range of risk assessment and regulatory forums, including: prenatal developmental toxicity (van Ravenzwaay et al. 2011), substances regulated under REACH (Rowbotham & Gibson 2011,Marquart et al. 2011), tobacco smoke (Talhout et al. 2011), pesticide metabolites (Dekant et al. 2010), hormonally-active substances (Gross et al.2010), aerosol ingredients (Carthew et al. 2010), household and personal care products (Blackburn et al. 2005) and food additives (Pratt et al. 2009).

TTCs are calculated by creating a database of existing chronic toxicity data for a representative subset of a structural class of chemicals; ranking them from lowest to highest no observed adverse effect levels (NOAEL) in the database; and identifying the 5th percentile NOAEL for the sub-set (see here for a more detailed explanation of the rationale and method behind TTCs).

In theory this means there is only a 1 in 20 chance that a random chemical in the class is toxic at a dose equal to or less than this level. TTCs are then set by dividing this dose by an uncertainty factor of 100.

As a probabilistic method, it is always possible that a chemical is toxic at the TTC. The contention is that there are so few chemicals which are toxic at this dose, there likelihood of harm is insignificant.

Proponents of TTCs are therefore effectively offering policy-makers a trade-off: society foregoes the lesser advantages accrued from generating specific toxicological data on substances to reap the greater rewards of reduced cost and use of fewer animals in toxicological testing.

The acceptability of this trade-off turns on two questions. Firstly, can risk assessors be confident that the health risk posed by a substance below the TTC exposure thresholds really is negligible? And secondly, are the benefits of detailed toxicological testing really so marginal that they are outweighed by the benefits of waiving specific data requirements for risk assessment?

Fully examining the issues is too much for one (or even three) posts, so here we will consider only one objection, by imagining that risk assessors would lose confidence in TTCs if there was a compelling evidence that the threshold doses are too high to reliably prevent harm to health.

Are the thresholds low enough?

The effectiveness of the TTC methodology depends entirely upon how few substances are toxic at the threshold doses. The more conservative the 5th percentile is, the fewer substances will be toxic below the threshold; the more consistently the TTC database over-estimates the NOAELs for a given class of substances, the more substances there will be which are toxic at the threshold dose.

Standard critiques of risk assessment give plenty of reason to hypothesise that the NOAELs on which TTCs are based may well be overestimated. We have covered some of these shortcomings in Health & Environment (see e.g. #42, #34) and there are detailed critiques in the peer-reviewed literature (e.g. Myers at al. 2009) describing concerns with insensitive assays, failures to account for sensitive windows of development and sacrifice of animals before disease manifests, to name but three.

Suffice to say, the age of many of the studies used in the Munro databases on which TTCs are based, some of which date from the 1960s, (Munro et al. 1996) makes them all the more likely to be methodologically limited when it comes to determining a substance’s NOAEL (it has been claimed that TTCs derived from this data have been validated against newer studies and for a greater range of substances [Barlow 2005], although how this has been done is unclear).

Additionally, there are doubts that thresholds of effect truly even exist, with the US National Research Council recommending a move away from risk assessments based on no-effect levels (National Research Council 2009). If there are no thresholds of effect, TTCs are necessarily over-estimated.

Direct evidence for the hypothesis that NOAELs are overestimated would come from studies showing effects at doses lower than the 5th percentile NOAELs in the TTC databases. And such studies are straightforward enough to find.

For example, PFOA, deltamethrin and BPA would have TTCs based on a 5th percentile NOAEL of 0.15mg/kgbw/day, yet there is evidence that PFOA has effects at 0.01mg/kgbw/day (Macon et al. 2011), deltamethrin at 0.003mg/kgbw/day (Issam at al. 2009), and BPA from less than 0.05mg/kgbw/day to lower than 0.025mg/kgbw/day (Richter et al. 2007). The TTC for DEHP would be based on a 5th percentile NOAEL of 3mg/kgbw/day, yet effects have been observed at doses as low as 0.045mg/kgbw/day (Andrade et al. 2006).

A few counterexamples do not, of course, prove broken a system which only claims to be right in most cases. However, the more counterexamples there are, the more it should undermine confidence in the accuracy of TTCs, as each example is evidence that the databases of NOAELs set the TTC at too high a dose.

The European winter 2011-12 will go down in history as divided into two unequal parts: very mild until mid-January and in the first half of February.

It is therefore appropriate to draw a few lessons.

• The 2011-12 winter offers no evidence that climate change is a chimera.

It is there more than ever, marked by eccentric weather events. That is exactly what this winter has been showing with the extreme cold in the first half of February due to atypical wind and air pressure constellations between the depths of Siberia and the Azores islands.

• Europe has been able to face the extreme temperatures thanks to well-stocked gas reserves and European the gas and electricity grids functioning much better than during earlier winters. Without ample gas stocks West Europeans would have suffered badly from the cold temperatures, if they had lasted much longer.
• Prices for gas, oil and electricity have risen to “astronomical” heights, in particular during peak times, a proof that market forces function, inducing consumers to reduce their energy consumption. It would be foolish to administer energy prices, as suggested in some member states.
• Nuclear and renewable and energies, with the exception of biogas and wood pellets, have shown their limits in providing sufficient thermal energy.

Solar thermal energy has proved inadequate for generating enough heating water.

PV panels have been able to generate plenty of electricity during midday sun; but this electricity is not well suited for massive supply of thermal energy. To fully use it, member states, with the exception of France, will have to change their heating systems, which requires major investments.

• In the short- and medium term, diversity of supply and grids, combined with a functioning price mechanism, are the key ingredients for coping with extreme supply and demand situations in cold weather.
• The most serious issue remains that of providing enough thermal energy in the long-term future when we can no longer rely on fossil or nuclear energies. Assuming that by 2050 essentially all electricity will come from renewable sources, we shall still be dependent on gas, coal, fuel and nuclear to heat our buildings; and prices for fossil sources are likely to have doubled or even tripled by then. As a matter of precaution, we should therefore enhance the thermal energy efficiency by insulating buildings so perfectly that with normal winter temperatures we can do without fossil fuels.

Two policy conclusions:

• Europe should launch a massive thermal renovation programme of its building stock. As the European Commission has called for in 2011. Europe should renovate at least 3 per cent of its building stock annually. This would by the same token reduce our intolerably high unemployment.
• Europe should start adapting its heating systems for full-scale use of solar and wind energy when fossil fuels will have become so scarce and expensive that we can no longer rely on them, say by 2100.