Link

Solar ready to thrive without subsidy, says US Energy Secretary

by

Solar ready to thrive without subsidy, says US Energy Secretary

02. September 2015 | Applications & Installations, Global PV markets, Industry & Suppliers, Markets & Trends | By: Ian Clover

Ernest Moniz says the Obama administration backs Democrats’ calls for an extension of the Federal ITC, but stresses the solar industry will grow even without further subsidy.

The solar industry in the U.S. is primed to grow and survive even without the need for subsidy support, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has said this week.

With the price of solar having fallen dramatically over the past few years, Moniz believes that the cost of electricity from rooftop solar arrays could fall to $0.06/kWh in some U.S. states very soon – a situation that would make solar “extremely competitive” with fossil fuel-based power generation sources.

Democrats in Congress are pulling hard for an extension of the Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which currently stands at 30% until January 1, 2017.

However, despite the Obama administration fully backing the goal of extending that 30% ITC further, Moniz is nevertheless sanguine about solar’s ability to survive free from subsidies.

“I certainly see solar growing, even without subsidy,” Moniz said. “The cost reductions have been incredible for the solar industry, making for an improved value proposition in many contexts.”

The Obama administration is in favor of supporting the extension of the ITC indefinitely, but a Republican-controlled Congress is likely to throw up roadblocks to stop that from happening. The issue, however, is not as simple as Democrats being in favor of renewables and Republicans in opposition – the growth of the wind industry has been rooted in many red states, prompting support for further subsidy support among Republicans in Congress.

pv magazine has explored this issue in dept in the September edition of the magazine. You can read more here.

There is a vast, untapped solar potential in New York City’s roofs

by

Fast Company

Photo courtesy of Fast Company.

New York City seems like it would be a difficult place to build a solar installation. But with so many buildings packed into a small area, the rooftops offer seemingly limitless potential.

A startup called Mapdwell, previously a Fast Company Innovation By Design award winner, has calculated how much.

Using its 3-D modeling and visualization technology combined with aerial data, it looks at more than one million buildings in New York City and identifies 11 gigawatts of “high yield photovoltaic potential” that could deliver over 13 million megawatt-hours per year. For those unfamiliar with energy terms like those, that’s equal to powering 1.2 million homes while offsetting the carbon emissions equivalent to planting more than 185 million trees, or $40 billion in business potential.

…

Mapdwell, a company that spun out of MIT, has launched Solar System so far in nine cities, including Boston, Washington, DC, and Boulder, Colorado.

…

Read the full article in Fast Company.

*Mapdwell has just launched in San Francisco, as well. You can read more about Mapdwell in the Autumn 2013 issue of Energy Futures.

Arizona Regulators to Utilities: Get Your Money Out of State Politics : Greentech Media

by

Here are some of the stories we’re reading this morning.

Arizona Daily Sun: Regulators Want Utilities to Keep Money Out of Campaigns

Two state utility regulators want the Arizona Corporation Commission to adopt a formal policy urging utilities to stay out of future races for the panel.

And if the request doesn’t stop the money, they may seek an audit of affected companies to find out exactly how they’re spending their money on politics.

In pushing the plan, Chairwoman Susan Bitter Smith and member Bob Burns cited media reports of the apparent involvement of Arizona Public Service and Pinnacle West Capital Corp., its parent, in trying to elect two specific Republicans in the 2014 race by funneling money through outside groups.

SF Gate: PG&E Plan Would Hit Solar Homes Harder Than Previously Thought

California’s utility companies have proposed making solar power less financially attractive to homeowners, now that so many are generating their own electricity and cutting their monthly bills. Now it appears that for customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., those changes could have a bigger impact than initially thought.

On Aug. 3, PG&E and the state’s other big utility companies proposed changing the state’s financial incentives for people who install solar panels on their roofs. On Thursday, however, the San Francisco utility refined its estimates. Some solar homeowners who take aggressive steps to cut their energy use and install batteries connected to their solar arrays would end up paying $13 more per month than they would under today’s rules.

Financial Times: Eni Discovers ‘Supergiant’ Gasfield Near Egypt

Italian energy group Eni has discovered what it says is a “supergiant” gasfield off the coast of Egypt, the largest ever found in the Mediterranean Sea and which could provide a much-needed boost for the country’s economy.

Eni, one of Europe’s biggest oil and gas companies, said on Sunday that the Zohr discovery “could become one of the world’s largest natural-gas finds” and would play a “major” role in meeting Egypt’s natural gas demand for decades once fully developed.

Mint: WTO Rules Against India in Solar Panels Dispute With the U.S.

A World Trade Organization panel has ruled against India in a dispute raised by the U.S. over the country’s solar power program, requiring the government to offer a level playing field to both foreign and domestic manufacturers of solar panels.

India is likely to appeal against the dispute settlement panel’s ruling, which could give it a two-year breather to implement the program.

The commerce ministry received the ruling last week, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Boulder Weekly: U.S. and India Compete to Have the Largest Solar Power Field in the World

The U.S. Navy is investing in what will be the largest solar farm in the world in order to provide power for 14 of its bases.

In the same week that the U.S. Navy disclosed its plans, the central Indian state of Madya Pradesh announced it was to construct a 750-megawatt plant (1 megawatt is roughly enough to supply 1,000 typical British homes) on barren, government-owned land in the country’s Rewa district.

It is claimed that it would be the world’s largest solar plant, and the state’s energy minister, Rajendra Shukla, says the plan is to have the plant up and running by March 2017.

Tags: arizona, arizona corporation commission, editors news feed, politics

World’s largest fully solar-powered airport will reduce 300,000 tons of carbon emissions in India

by
BY: SWIKAR OLI

It seems India is as sick as we are of hearing about its pollution. Recent studies have linked their pollution to scary health effects and mounting death tolls. While their environmental policies are well overdue, the recent attempts at going clean shows they are heading in the right direction.

The Cochin International Airport (CIAL) is the first airport in the world to run on 100 per cent solar power. The 45 acre facility – the size of about 25 soccer fields – is equipped with 46,000 solar panels and has full energy independence by generating about 52,000 units of electricity daily. The project cost $9.5 million to build.


“When we had realized that the power bill is on the higher side, we contemplated possibilities,” said V.J.Kurian, the energy facility’s managing director, in a recent press release. And numbers show that India will be saving more than just money on its electricity bill. The project is set to reduce 300,000 tons of carbon emissions over the next 25 years, which the report says is akin to planting three million trees.

According to The Telegraph, the airport is the third largest in the country by passengers, and received 6.8 million passengers in the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

India is quickly becoming a leader in harnessing solar energy. Its 750 mega-watt (MW) solar power facility in Madhya Pradesh will become the world’s largest, far exceeding the current 392 MW facility set up in California. For perspective, that is a little more than 60 times the power generated by the CIAL.

Sources: tiozambia.com, ecowanderlust.com, wordlypost.in, archivi.diariodelweb.it

Latin America Green News: 100% renewables in Chile would save lives; climate change costly for agriculture in Colombia and Mexico

by

Posted September 1, 2015

Latin America Green News is a selection of weekly news highlights about environmental and energy issues in Latin America.

Latin America Green News will be taking a break and resume after the Labor Day Holiday. August 22nd – September 1, 2015 Climate Change

A strong climate action plan that puts Chile on a trajectory toward 100% renewables by 2050 would save the country billions of dollars, create jobs and reduce pollution-related deaths, according to a new study launched by the Citizen’s Committee on Climate Change, a coalition of Chilean environmental groups. The new study, prepared by the NewClimate Institute, found that switching to 100% renewable energy would help Chile avoid spending $5.3 billion a year on fossil fuels, create 11,000 green jobs and prevent 1,500 premature deaths from outdoor air pollution in Santiago. Chile released a draft climate action plan, or Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), for public comment late last year, but according to the Citizen’s Committee on Climate Change the proposal does not go far enough. The Committee is urging the government to increase the ambition of its climate action plan to achieve the needed transition toward cleaner and low impact energy sources. (Futaleufú Riverkeeper 09/1/2015)

At a roundtable on financial innovation models held this week by Colombia’s Department of National Planning (DNP), Director Simón Gaviria Muñoz, discussed results of a study conducted by DNP, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and advised the country is in danger of losing 0.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) annually through 2100 unless it implements actions to mitigate the effects of climate change. The loss would cost the country approximately USD $1.2 billion annually and wreak havoc on several sectors of the economy as well as the poorest 20 percent of the population. Financially, the agricultural sector will be hit hardest with an estimated 7.4 percent decrease in productivity annually. Transportation, fishing and livestock also follow closely behind with similar negative productivity rates. (Departamento Nacional de Planeacion 8/28/2015)

Rising temperatures caused by climate change and increased industrialization of rural areas in Mexico have forced the country to have to import 80 percent of its legumes. Agricultural areas are becoming unsuitable for production and some are being encroached by growing urban areas leaving only three million of the twenty five million available hectares for legume production. Experts from the International Research Network on Sociourban, Regional and Environmental Problems warn that federal, state and local governments are not doing enough to contain urban sprawl and protect the agricultural sector from the effects of climate change putting in danger food supplies for communities. (El Occidental 8/26/2016)

A new giant has risen in the middle of the Amazon jungle in Brazil seeking to study the effects of climate change in a region that has been dubbed “the earth’s lungs.” The USD $7.4 million, 325 meter-tall orange and white tower, referred to by some as the “Eiffel Tower” of the Amazon, is the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) and it has the unique mission of saving the world. Scientists hope that by closely studying this incredible region which produces half of the world’s oxygen and stabilizes the planet’s climate through carbon capture, they can solve a key piece of the global warming puzzle. Though it won’t start collecting data until later in the year, its strategic location far from civilization is expected to produce relatively pure data. (La Nacion 8/23/2015)

Conservation

Peru and Chile are joining forces against the trafficking of flora and fauna between the two countries. This new collaboration stems from meetings prompted by commitments made during the third meeting of the Committee on Frontier Integration and Development between Peru and Chile last year. Representatives from both countries discussed areas of potential collaboration to protect trafficked wildlife on the border, particularly as they relate to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). (Andina 8/24/2015)

Deforestation

A new monitoring study by the World Wildlife Fund Mexico (WWF) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) revealed that illegal logging degraded 19.9 hectares in Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, the highest figure since 2009. According to the study, 96 percent of the illegal logging occurred in the community of San Felipe de los Alzati, one of the 33 communities located within the reserve. Omar Vidal, director of WWF in Mexico, urged the government to work with the community to address the illegal activity and noted the need to increase strategic investments to improve conservation in the area. (Milenio 08/26/2015)

Data from Colombia’s Department of National Planning (DNP) raised concerns over the increase in illegal mining in the country, one of the biggest contributors to the country’s deforestation rate. The practice of illegal mining in the country has become so lucrative that it rakes in profits 3.5 times higher than drug trafficking. The federal government has committed to reducing deforestation form illegal mining from 120 thousand hectares a year to 90 thousand hectares by 2018, a plan which they revealed in their National Development Plan 2014-2018. The Ministry of the Environment has also pledged to crack down on the illicit activity by joining forces with prosecutors and police. (Caracol 08/25/2015)

This Dad Found a Wonderful Use for Restaurants’ Leftover Crayons

by

In 2011, Bryan Ware was enjoying his birthday dinner at a restaurant with his wife and two sons. He was watching his kids draw on the paper tablecloth with crayons their server had given them. A thought struck him.

“I wondered, ‘What happens to these crayons after we leave if we don’t take them with us?'” Ware, who lives in the San Francisco area, told The Mighty.

He later questioned a restaurant employee and was dismayed to learn that every crayon put out on the table had to be thrown away after the table’s customers left – whether it’d been used down to a nub or left completely untouched. Convinced the crayons’ lives didn’t have to end so early, Ware started taking restaurant crayons with him. He made it his mission to come up with a way to get the unwanted crayons into as many children’s hands as possible.

Two years later in 2013, Ware founded The Crayon Initiative, a nonprofit organization that repurposes old unusable crayon wax into new crayons and distributes them to children’s hospitals across California.

Photo from The Crayon Initiative Facebook page

First, Ware collects old crayons from restaurants, schools and acquaintances. He separates them by color, melts down the wax and molds the melted wax into new crayons.

Photo of the crayon melting process via The Crayon Initiative Facebook page
Photo of the melted crayon wax via The Crayon Initiative Facebook page

Next, Ware puts the melted wax into a one-of-a-kind crayon mold. The mold, which is large and triangular rather than small and circular, was specifically designed with help from an occupational therapist to be easier to grip for small children and kids with special needs.

Photo of the crayon mold via The Crayon Initiative Facebook page

The company then puts the new crayons in boxes and delivers them to children of all ages who are in the hospital for any reason.

Photo from The Crayon Initiative Facebook page

So far, The Crayon Initiative has donated more than 2,000 boxes of crayons to children’s hospitals. In September 2015, Ware will make his first out-of-state delivery to a hospital in New York City. He hopes The Crayon Initiative can continue to expand and bring crayons to kids in hospitals all over the country.

Ware also hopes these crayons can help children in hospitals express themselves artistically, continue normal childhood development and communicate through drawing what they may not be able to say verbally. But more than anything, he hopes he can play some part in making their hospital stays a little easier.

“From my perspective, the biggest goal is to give them an escape,” Ware told The Mighty. “I can’t even fathom what these kids are going through. If these crayons give them an escape from that hospital room for ten minutes, we did our job.”

Photo courtesy of Bryan Ware
Photo courtesy of Bryan Ware
Photo courtesy of Bryan Ware

To learn more about The Crayon Initiative, visit the organization’s website and Facebook page.

Things you should know about Fertilizers!

by

What exactly is fertilizer? And, why do plants benefit from it?

Fertilizer is simply a material added to soils or directly to plant tissues that contains nutrients essential to the growth and health of the plant. Usually, this means Phosphorous, Nitrogen, and Potassium. These basic elements are usually in the form of chemical compounds that can be converted by the plant to access the needed elements. For instance, plants require Nitrogen, but use it in the form of larger compounds like ammonia (NH4) or nitrate (NO3-). Soils naturally contain these required chemical compounds, but often there is an imbalanced ratio. Fertilizers are inputs that farmers and gardeners can use to increase the amounts and balance the ratios of these essential chemical compounds.

Soil is not dirt. Soil is very much a living, breathing, organic system of nutrients and matter, which plants draw from to build themselves. When you look at a plant, and think of all the matter making up that plant, you realize that all of it came from three places: air, water, and soil. In nature, those plants will die and decompose back into the soil, helping to return much of that matter. In farming and gardening, the plants are removed from their location, to be consumed. This means that all of that matter has now exited the soil permanently. Over years of use, soils become less nutritious. To mend this, we add inputs back into the soil. Often times, this is in the form of a fertilizer.

Replacing and fortifying nutrient levels is key to maintaining healthy soils. Check out our awesome infographic below for a visual guide to understanding some fertilizer basics!

fertilizer-facts-what-when-how-often.jpg

Staring Into Someone’s Eyes For 10 Minutes Leads To Altered State Of Consciousness

by

A psychologist in Italy has figured out how to induce a drug-free altered state of consciousness by asking 20 volunteers to sit and stare into each other’s eyes for 10 minutes straight.

Not only did the deceptively simple task bring on strange ‘out of body’ experiences for the volunteers, it also caused them to see hallucinations of monsters, their relatives, and themselves in their partner’s face.

The experiment, run by Giovanni Caputo from the University of Urbino, involved having 20 young adults (15 of which were women) pair off, sit in a dimly lit room 1 meter away from each other, and stare into their partner’s eyes for 10 minutes.

The lighting in the room was bright enough for the volunteers to easily make out the facial features of their partner, but low enough to diminish their overall color perception.

A control group of 20 more volunteers were asked to sit and stare for 10 minutes in another dimly lit room in pairs, but their chairs were facing a blank wall.

The volunteers were told very little about the purpose of the study, only that it had to do with a “meditative experience with eyes open”.

Once the 10 minutes were up, the volunteers were asked to complete questionnaires related to what they experienced during and after the experiment. One questionnaire focused on any dissociative symptoms that the volunteers might have experienced, and another questioned them on what they perceived in their partner’s face (eye-staring group) or their own face (control group).

is a term used in psychology to describe a whole range of psychological experiences that make a person feel detached from their immediate surroundings. Symptoms such as a loss of memory, seeing everything in distorted colors, or feeling like the world isn’t real can be brought on by abuse and trauma; drugs such as ketamine, alcohol, and LSD; and now, apparently, face-staring.

“The participants in the eye-staring group said they’d had a compelling experience unlike anything they’d felt before,” Christian Jarrett writes for the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest.

Reporting in journal , Caputo says the eye-staring group out-scored the control group in all the questionnaires, which suggests that something about staring into another human being’s eyes for 10 uninterrupted minutes had a profound effect on their visual perception and mental state.

“On the dissociative states test, they gave the strongest ratings to items related to reduced color intensity, sounds seeming quieter or louder than expected, becoming spaced out, and time seeming to drag on. On the strange-face questionnaire, 90 percent of the eye-staring group agreed that they’d seen some deformed facial traits, 75 percent said they’d seen a monster, 50 percent said they saw aspects of their own face in their partner’s face, and 15 percent said they’d seen a relative’s face.“

The results recall what Caputo when he performed a similar experiment with 50 volunteers staring at themselves in a mirror for 10 minutes. The paper, entitled Strange-Face-in-the-Mirror Illusion, reports that after less than a minute, the volunteers started seeing what Caputo describes as the “strange-face illusion”.

“The participants’ descriptions included huge deformations of their own faces; seeing the faces of alive or deceased parents; archetypal faces such as an old woman, child or the portrait of an ancestor; animal faces such as a cat, pig or lion; and even fantastical and monstrous beings,” Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik write for Scientific American. “All 50 participants reported feelings of ‘otherness’ when confronted with a face that seemed suddenly unfamiliar. Some felt powerful emotions.”

According to Jarrett at the British Psychological Society , while the eye-staring group of this most recent experiment only scored on average 2.45 points higher than the control group in their questionnaires (which used a five-point scale where 0 is “not at all” and 5 would be “extremely”), Caputo says the effects were stronger than those experienced by the 2010 mirror-staring volunteers.

So what’s going on here? Martinez-Conde and Macknik explain that it’s likely to do with something called neural adaptation, which describes how our neurons can slow down or even stop their responses to unchanging stimulation. It happens when you stare at any scene or object for an extended period of time – your perception will start to fade until you blink or the scene changes, or it can be rectified by tiny involuntary eye movements called microsaccades.

Information’s and image from : Science Alert

We in Alaska see that climate change is real. The time to act is now | Othniel Art Oomittuk

by

How can we say no to drilling in the Arctic when we use oil every day? We use it for heating our houses, fueling our four-wheelers and cooking our meals. But saying no to oil does not mean we have to go back to old times.

When I grew up in Point Hope, 50 years ago, we used dog sleds for transportation, seal oil for warmth, whale bones and sod for shelter. All these energy sources came from our land and our ocean through the animals to us.

We were an independent sovereign culture. Fossil fuel was introduced to us. We weren’t looking for it. It changed our way of living; it made life easier, more comfortable, it afforded us luxuries – but it certainly came at a price. We have become dependent on an outside energy source; just like any other modern community in the world.

Shell believes there is oil in our ocean. But extracting it comes at too big a risk for the indigenous people of the Arctic. The Inupiaq culture is centered around the harvest of marine mammals. We are who we are because the animals give themselves to us on their yearly migration.

We exist because they feed us with their body and their spirit. We don’t hunt for fun or for trophies, we hunt to subsist, to sustain what is left of our sovereign way of life. An oil spill will destroy the Arctic and it will destroy our subsistence way of life.

The US government predicts a 75% chance of an oil spill happening. Even in the small likelihood there is no spill, the drilling itself will disturb our animals. Shell itself estimates in its last environmental permit application that drilling activity will harass 13% of endangered species like bowhead whale, grey whale and ringed seals.

Using the oil locked in the Arctic Ocean will accelerate climate change.

Climate change is already here for us. The ice has changed. It comes late, it leaves early. It has become unreliable and hard to read, making it dangerous to cross during hunting. Our ice cellars are melting and eroding, making it difficult to store our subsistence food. It rained this past winter, it never rains in the winter. The ice in the fall used to protect our coastline from heavy waves. Now the waves wash away our shores.

To keep climate change from destroying the Arctic any further, Arctic Ocean oil needs to stay in the ground. According to a recent study funded by the UK Energy Research Centre a third of the oil reserves should remain in the ground and not be used before 2050 if global warming is to stay below 2C (3.6F). A temperature rise limit set for this century that will hopefully prevent catastrophic climate change.

There is energy in the Arctic other than oil. Solar and wind power is available for everyone here. What we need is the affordable technology to develop and store these natural unlimited energy sources. There certainly is enough room for wind farms and solar farms. We can make a different choice now – just look at Hawaii’s recent commitment to become completely fossil fuel independent by 2045.

“Alarm Bells are ringing”, says president Obama about climate change in an infomercial announcing his visit to the Arctic. Here in the Arctic, those sirens have been sounding for decades. Shell is drilling in our ocean, threatening our way of life with its noise and probable oil spills. Climate change is happening in the Arctic, with the Arctic ice pack melting faster than ever. The rest of the world is in the same boat, they just don’t know it yet.

President Obama, time changed and it will change again. It is now that we have to make the transition to new energy sources for the world. Moving away from oil is not going back into time, it is moving forward. There will be a time that talking about fossil-fueled car will sound as old as dog sled transportation sounds now.

For the sake of the Inupiaq and for the sake of the earth, leave the oil in the Arctic and put the government’s money and energy into perfecting the technology to unlock natural renewable energy sources that are available to everyone. We need energy sources that can be used locally and that will give us back our independence – and we need it now.

EPA Urged by Nearly 100,000 Americans to Redo Highly Controversial Fracking Study

by

The public comment period for the highly controversial U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) fracking study ends today. Food & Water Watch, Environmental Action, Breast Cancer Action and other advocacy groups delivered nearly 100,000 comments from Americans asking the U.S. EPA to redo their study with a higher level of scrutiny and oversight.

The study produced significant controversy due to the discrepancy in what the EPA found in its report and what the agency’s news release title said. The study stated that “we did not find evidence” of “widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources,” but the title of the EPA’s news release said, “Assessment shows hydraulic fracturing activities have not led to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources”-a subtle but significant difference that led to most news coverage having headlines like this one , “EPA Fracking Study: Drilling Wins.”

In addition to the misleading EPA headline, the groups were also quick to point out that the study had a limited scope and was conducted with a lack of new substantive data. “Concluding that fracking is safe based off a study with such a limited scope is irresponsible,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch. “How many more people must be poisoned by the oil and gas industry for the EPA to stand up and protect people’s health? It’s time for the agency to do its job and stop letting industry shills intimidate it.”

The groups emphasize that despite the limitations of the report, the agency still found numerous harms to drinking water resources from fracking. For instance, the EPA found evidence of more than 36,000 spills from 2006 to 2012. That amounts to about 15 spills every day somewhere in the U.S.

“By downplaying its findings of water contamination from fracking, the EPA ultimately provided cover for the fracking industry to continue to poison our drinking water with chemicals linked to a variety of health problems, including breast cancer,” said Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action. “When the EPA finalizes its study, they need to focus on protecting public health-not the fracking industry-by highlighting and condemning drinking water contamination from fracking.”

But still, groups claim that there was huge oversight in the report. “The EPA’s report clearly shows that fracking pollution harms our water supplies, but the agency also turned a blind eye to some of the biggest risks of this toxic technique,” said Clare Lakewood of the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s bizarre and alarming that the EPA report refused to look at the harm caused by the disposal of toxic fracking waste fluid into unlined pits and underground injection wells. The EPA needs to get serious about the threat of fracking and look at every pathway to water contamination.”

Jennifer Krill, Earthworks ‘ executive director, agrees. “In its June study on fracking’s impacts on water, EPA cited more than 140 waste spills alone that contaminated water. And they found those instances despite industry obstruction, and despite not looking in places where community complaints and EPA’s own investigations suggested such pollution was occurring.”

Big Bank Says It’s Going To Cost A Lot To Do Nothing On Global Warming

by

Climate

by

CREDIT: Courtesy Citibank

A new report from Citibank found that acting on climate change by investing in low-carbon energy would save the world $1.8 trillion through 2040, as compared to a business-as-usual scenario. In addition, not acting will cost an additional $44 trillion by 2060 from the “negative effects” of climate change.

The report, titled Energy Darwinism, looked at the predicted cost of energy over the coming decades, the costs of developing low carbon energy sources, and the implications of global energy choices.

“What we’re trying to do is to take an objective view at the economics of this situation and actually look at what the costs of not acting are, if the scientists are right,” Jason Channell, Global Head of Alternative Energy and Cleantech Research at Citi, told CNBC. “There is a cost to not doing this, and although there is a cost to acting, what we’re trying to do is to actually weigh up the different costs here.”

The report includes analysis of the cost of stranded assets – the idea that in order to prevent 2ºC of warming, a third of the world’s oil reserves, half of its gas reserves, and more than 80 percent of its coal reserves need to stay in the ground.

“Overall, we find that the incremental costs of action are limited (and indeed ultimately lead to savings), offer reasonable returns on investment, and should not have too detrimental an effect on global growth,” the report’s authors write. In fact, they found that the necessary investment, such as adding renewable energy sources and improving efficiency, might actually boost the global economy.

“We believe that that solution does exist,” the report states. “The incremental costs of following a low carbon path are in context limited and seem affordable, the ‘return’ on that investment is acceptable and moreover the likely avoided liabilities are enormous. Given that all things being equal cleaner air has to be preferable to pollution, a very strong ‘Why would you not?’ argument begins to develop.”

Indeed, Citibank is not the first organization to call attention to the fact that inaction on climate change comes with a big price tag.

The Obama administration has repeatedly recognized this. A report released earlier this summer by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers found that the longer the United States waits, the more expensive mitigation will be. In his first speech as the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Shaun Donovan emphasized the budgetary importance of climate action.

“From where I sit, climate action is a must do; climate inaction is a can’t do; and climate denial scores – and I don’t mean scoring points on the board,” Donovan said. “I mean that it scores in the budget. Climate denial will cost us billions of dollars.”

Climate change has been tied to increased severe weather, such as droughts and floods. This extreme weather can be extremely expensive. Superstorm Sandy, for instance, caused $65 billion in damage.

It’s a common trope that environmental action – whether it’s reducing carbon, protecting water, or curbing smog – costs too much.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, finalized earlier this month, is one example of the false debate between economic benefits and addressing climate change. The EPA estimated that the plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent will result in $25 to 45 billion in climate and health benefits by 2030.

But several republicans said that the plan would be an economic disaster. “We’ll all be left to suffer while the President scrambles to carve out a legacy for himself, leaving a ruined economy in his wake,” said John Tidwell, director of the Oklahoma chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded action group. Even presidential contenders got in on the action, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), saying the plan “will cause Americans’ electricity costs to skyrocket at a time when we can least afford it.”

The Citi report was released in advance of December’s meeting of the United Nations Climate Conference on Climate Change in Paris. The conference is “the first real opportunity to reach a legally binding agreement to tackle emissions,” according to the report.

Climate Change has Become Something All Religions Agree On

by

Pope Francis acknowledged, first of all, that climate change is real. He also said that technology alone would not solve the problem and human behaviour must change to ensure that the world’s poor don’t suffer due to the consumption of the rich. The Islamic Climate Declaration recognises the scientific consensus on climate change is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere so that global warming does not exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The declaration is clear that a 1.5 degree Celsius warming would be preferable. It calls on people and leaders of all nations to aim to phase out greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and commit themselves to 100% renewable energy at the earliest possible.

In a recent interview to American science magazine Popular Science, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe explained why religion is backing the fight against climate change. “Science can tell us why climate change is happening, and what might happen next,” she said. “But what we should do about it isn’t a science question. It’s a question of values.”

The Holy See and Islamic leaders have not been the first moral authorities to caution against climate change. Ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014, the World Council of Churches and Religions for Peace, both prominent interfaith organisations, held their own summit to push for progress at the negotiations in Lima that December and after. In previous years Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh leaders have declared their war on climate change.

Hindu Declaration on Climate Change

Issued at the Parliament of World Religions in Australia in 2009, the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change drew on the Hindu tradition that links man to nature through physical, psychological and spiritual bonds. “The nations of the world have yet to agree upon a plan to ameliorate man’s contribution to this complex change,” the declaration stated. “This is largely due to powerful forces in some nations which oppose any such attempt, challenging the very concept that unnatural climate change is occurring. Hindus everywhere should work toward an international consensus.” Issued just as the Copenhagen round of the Conference of Parties was beginning, the declaration had little impact on the talks that ended with a weak agreement and little binding action.

Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change

In 2009, the Dalai Lama was the first person to sign the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change that endorsed the catastrophic tipping points of global warming. NASA climatologists had predicted that the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350 parts per million, a line that has already been breached. In May this year, atmospheric carbon crossed 400 ppm for the first time.

“We are challenged not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to remove large quantities of carbon gas already present in the atmosphere,” the Buddhist declaration said. It also emphasised the need to change the priorities of the world economies. “The key to happiness is contentment rather than an ever-increasing abundance of goods. The compulsion to consume more and more is an expression of craving, the very thing the Buddha pinpointed as the root cause of suffering.”

The Dalai Lama has gone even further to say that the focus in Tibet, which is stuck in a losing battle for independence, should be climate change and not politics.

Sikh Statement on Climate Change

“Our Mother Earth, Mata Dharat, has gone through undeniable changes at the hands of humans. It is abundantly clear that our action has caused great damage to the atmosphere and is projected to cause even more damage if left unhandled,” said a statement released by a group called EcoSikh in September 2014. Calling on Sikhs to be the frontrunners of change and inviting the tenet of selfless service, the group asked Sikhs to reduce their carbon footprints, recycle, invest in renewable technologies and also put pressure on governments to take action to mitigate carbon emissions.

Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Baha’I and Jewish leaders have, in their turn, accepted the science of climate change and called on the faithful to save the earth. What the Pope and Islamic leaders have added is the influence of over 1.2 billion Roman Catholics and 1.6 million Muslims worldwide, which is almost half the world’s population. For now, climate change seems to be the one science that world religions don’t seem to have a problem with, whether it will make a difference or not at the “make-or-break” Paris negotiations in December.

When Pope Francis chose to champion the battle against climate change via papal encyclical in June this year, the act was lauded as the one that could galvanise the world community far more than 30 years of pleading by climate scientists. Now Muslim leaders across the world have echoed the moral call against climate change with their Islamic Climate Declaration issued last week calling for a fossil-fuel phase-out.

Hurricane Katrina proved that if black lives matter, so must climate justice

by

Those of us from low-income communities of color are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. US cities and towns that are predominantly made up of people of color are also home to a disproportionate share of the environmental burdens that are fueling the climate crisis and shortening our lives. One has only to recall the gut-wrenching images of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath to confirm this.

At a time when police abuse is more visible than ever thanks to technology, and our communities continue to get hit time and time again by climate catastrophe, we can’t afford to choose between a Black Lives Matter protest and a climate justice forum, because our survival depends on both of them.

As a young woman, I started organizing against racial violence and police misconduct. For the last 20 years, I have been struggling for environmental and climate justice. As descendants of slavery and colonization, our communities have lived and continue to live at the intersection of all these challenges. Both have a long history rooted in the extraction and abuse of our labor and later the extraction and abuse of our resources. Both involve people who are the descendants of historical trauma and are now faced with the catastrophe of a changing climate.

Over the years, as we were fighting for housing, jobs and better schools, decisions were being made to site some of the most toxic industries in communities with a large proportion of people of color: power plants, waste transfer stations, landfills, refineries and incinerators. As a result, communities of color have become cancer clusters and have the highest rates of asthma. In response, we in the environmental justice movement have said there is not anything more fundamental than the right to breathe – and that includes the right to clean air.

The environmental justice and Black Lives Matter movements are complementary. Black lives matter in the Gulf, where most of the fatalities resulting from Hurricane Katrina were black people, and which was home to the largest marine oil spill in history five years later. Black lives matter in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where hundreds of black families waited for weeks for electricity, heat and in some cases, running water, to be turned back on after Superstorm Sandy. Black lives matter in Richmond, California, home to the largest oil refinery on the West Coast. Black lives matter in Detroit, home to the largest solid waste incinerator in the US. The list goes on of cities and towns that are predominantly made up of people of color and are also home to a disproportionate share of this nation’s environmental burdens.

We as people of color people now face the effects of a changing climate neither our ancestors nor we are responsible for creating. Climate change demands another rhythm. The current dig, burn and dump economy is no longer acceptable. Similarly, a climate movement led by people of traditional power and privilege will not relieve the crises we face. Our communities know another way. As people of African and Indigenous ancestry, we come from societies and ways of life that protect and nurture Mother Earth. Now is the time to reconnect with our old ways. The knowledge is there – it is in our historical memory, and we are doing this work. Environmental and climate justice activists are working at the grassroots level to develop indigenous leadership around local climate solutions.

This redefines the face of the climate movement and provides a just and necessary alternative to the racial and ecological structures that have led us to where we are. It will be through this process of living and working and struggling with one another that we guarantee our children and grandchildren the right to breathe free.

Costa Rica Is Shutting Down All Zoos And Freeing Every Animal In Captivity

by

Costa Rica has announced that it will be the first country in the world to shut down its zoos and free the captive animals they hold. Costa Rica is an especially biodiverse country, holding about 4% of the world’s known species. Sadly, the country is contractually obligated to keep two of its zoos open for another decade. Still, after that, they plan to shut it down in favor of a cage-free habitat for the animals to live in.

Treehugger reports that the nation, which also recently banned hunting for sport, will close the last two zoos in the next 10 years and give the animals a more natural habitat in which to exist. They want to convey to the world that they respect and care for wild animals.

Environmental Minister René Castro says, “We are getting rid of the cages and reinforcing the idea of interacting with biodiversity in botanical parks in a natural way.”

We don’t want animals in captivity or enclosed in any way unless it is to rescue or save them.”

Any animals currently in captivity that would not survive in the wild will be cared for in rescue centers and wildlife sanctuaries. No new zoos will be opened.

U.S. Navy Invests in World’s Largest Solar Farm

by

The U.S. Navy is investing in what will be the largest solar farm in the world in order to provide power for 14 of its bases.

The climate of Arizona, where the two earlier phases of the Mesquite solar farm are already up and running, provides 300 days of sunshine a year. And the Navy’s deal to extend the farm is the largest purchase of renewable energy ever made by a U.S. federal government agency.

The solar farm project is one of a growing number being installed across what is known as the American Sun Belt-the southern states of America, which have expanding populations, plenty of sunshine but also large areas of arid and unproductive land.

Solar Prices Fall Farm

The price of solar panels has now fallen so far worldwide that, in sunny climes, they can compete on cost with any other form of energy generation. This new generation of huge solar farms produces as much power as a large coal-fired plant.

China and India are also building similarly massive installations, taking advantage of their own sun belts and desert regions. It is doubtful that Mesquite 3, huge as it is, will manage to remain the world’s largest for long.

Barren Land

In the same week that the U.S. Navy disclosed its plans, the central Indian state of Madya Pradesh announced it was to construct a 750 MW plant (one megawatt is roughly enough to supply 1,000 typical British homes) on barren, government-owned land in the country’s Rewa district.

It is claimed that it would be the world’s largest solar plant and the state’s energy minister, Rajendra Shukla, says the plan is to have the plant up and running by March 2017.

A number of other giant projects are also in the pipeline in India, as part of government plans for a dramatic expansion of the industry, although they have yet to be constructed.

REPO Calidornia US Nacy Invests Solar InfoGraphic

Mesquite 3, which will be sited 60 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, will provide the Navy with 210 MW of direct power. This means the installation of more than 650,000 extra solar panels, which will move to track the sun as it crosses the sky, to get the maximum value from the intense desert sunshine. The Navy says it will save $90 million in power costs over the 25-year lifetime of the contract.

Some solar power plants in India have caused controversy because they need teams of people to wash off the layer of dust and particles from air pollution to keep the panels efficient. This uses a lot of scarce water.

However, in the cleaner desert air of Arizona, this is not a problem. The Navy boasts that Mesquite 3 will require no water, so saving “this precious resource for other needs.”

The building of the plant will require 300 construction workers but it will create only 12 long-term jobs. The plant also avoids controversy because it is sited on “previously disturbed land” and so is not damaging a pristine environment. It is also near existing power plants and transmission lines, so the plant will not need additional infrastructure.

Reduced Emissions

The Navy estimates that the station will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 190,000 tons annually—the equivalent of taking 33,000 cars off the road.

Ray Mabus, the Secretary of State for the Navy, who opened the project, has been pushing hard for renewables to be used for military power generation.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense was instructed by Congress to get 25 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2025 but Mabus accelerated that goal and directed thatone gigawatt (1,000 MW) should be procured by the end of 2015.

The new contract adds to a 17 MW installation at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and another of 42 MW at Kings Bay, Georgia. The Navy says that, in total, its renewable energy procurement will be 1.2 GW by the end of 2015, which is well ahead of target.

It will use the power for Navy and Marine Corps shore installations in California and surrounding states.

Opening the project at one of the installations, the Naval Air Station North Island, in California, Mabus said the project was “a triumph of problem solving” and would help increase the Department of the Navy’s energy security by diversifying the supply.

Internet Connection In Amazon Will Connect Villagers to Environmentalists

by

The Valhalla Movement takes very seriously the sensitivity involved in “charity” and make a large effort to detect an organization’s altruism before participating. We have personally been introduced to ACT, a team that partners with indigenous folks to protect the Amazon Rainforest. Their members are effective change-makers in line with our mission and we vouch for them.

In August 2015, a groundbreaking event took place in the village of Ulupuene in the Brazilian Amazon: internet connectivity arrived.

Through a collaborative partnership between the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), Associação Indígena Ulupuene (AIU), and the nonprofit Synbio Consultoria em Meio Ambiente, the Waurá indigenous people of Ulupuene now have access to the web and can reach like-minded communities and organizations around the world to enlist support for the protection of the community’s rainforests and ancestral lands. The project was fully funded by ACT.

Though installation planning commenced in 2013, the village’s remote location in the Xingu Indigenous Reserve protracted the process, with coordination of logistics with outside actors constituting the greatest source of delay.

Waurá of Ulupuene Xingu ACT Amazon Internet

Numerous providers were consulted, including those offering radio transmission-prohibitive because of the necessity of building a 60-meter radio tower-and government-provided service, for which a very lengthy waiting list exists. Ultimately, satellite-mediated internet was deemed most viable.

Because configuration and registration required preexisting phone and internet connections, the equipment was set up in the neighboring town of Canarana. After technical adjustments, the satellite antenna travelled 250 miles in Synbio’s truck to Ulupuene where the Waurá, in anticipation, had already built a traditional communal “office”. Several community members already owned tablets and smartphones and were eager to receive news from beyond the reserve.

Kumehin is now able to access the internet via her tablet.

Fittingly, upon inauguration, ACT co-founder Liliana Madrigal congratulated village chief Eleokar Waurá via the web, sending her best wishes to the community and emphasizing the many ways that the technology can be used for the benefit of the village and the protection of the forest. Eleokar thanked the partner institutions and expressed how the arrival of this tool had inspired his community.

Showerhead Utilizing Aerospace Technology Uses 70% Less Water

by

The average person in the U.S. uses between 80 and 100 gallons of water per day, with the largest uses of household water occurring in the toilet and the shower. Even though showers are one of the highest wasters of water, however, they are probably one of the personal experiences people would be willing to make the least compromises with. Nebia is a company that promises to not only improve your showering experience, but also help you use 70 percent less water.

After raising more than $2.5 million on Kickstarter, 17 days before the end of the campaign, the team is ready to start manufacturing, with the first showerheads expected to ship in May, 2016.

 

The six-person team behind Nebia, which includes several thermal fluid experts, has spent the last five years doing research, solving equations, and building prototypes in order to arrive at a new type of nozzle that, according to them, brings the first innovation in the industry in over 50 years. Meanwhile, the company has attracted investments from Tim Cook of Apple and Eric Schmidt of Alphabet.

The result is impressive. On average, Americans take about eight minutes to shower, which results in using 20 gallons of water. With Nebia, for the same amount of time, one will use up only six gallons, or 70 percent less water. With an initial price of $299, for the average U.S. home, Nebia pays for itself in less than two years.

CEO and co-founder Philip Winter told TechCrunch that “If everyone in California were to switch over to this showerhead, we think we could reduce the state water’s use by 1.5 percent.” In the future, the company also wants to make the technology cheaper and available to developing countries where water is scarce.

“The last half century of nozzle technology has completely changed what we can do with droplet size and distribution, however this technology has only been applied to very specialized fields, like rocket engines and medical devices. We used these same tools and technology to develop Nebia. What we do is atomize streams of water into millions of tiny droplets. By doing this we can achieve 10 times the surface area of water compared to a regular shower and use a fraction of the volume,” says co-founder and CTO Gabriel Parisi-Amon.

According to the creators, Nebia is easy to install – users simply unscrew their existing shower and screw on Nebia with a wrench, plumbers tape, and an included adhesive, without the need to break tiles or call the plumber. The showerhead can slide up and down, pivot at an angle, and includes a portable wand.

India Built The World’s First Solar-Powered Airport

by

The southern Indian city of Kochi is now the proud home of the world’s first solar-powered airport.

On Aug. 18, the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL)-India’s fourth largest international airport in terms of passenger traffic-commissioned a 12 mega watt (MW) solar power project. The airport already had a 1MW solar power plant, which can produce 4,000 units of electricity daily.

With its new solar plant, the airport can now produce 60,000 units of electricity every day, which is more than enough to meet its daily requirement.

“We initiated a pilot project in February 2013 as part of our plan to shift to renewable energy by setting up a 100 kilo watt unit,” VJ Kurian, managing director of CIAL told Quartz in a telephone interview. “When we found that feasible, we set up a 1MW unit in November 2013.”

“We did not want to be identified as just another airport and be confined to it,” Kurian added.

CIAL Airport Solar Kerala India World Largest Solar Airport

After the airport found the 1MW project financially viable, it invited tenders to set up a 12MW project within the airport complex. “Work on the 12MW project started in February 2015 and was completed in less than six months” Kurian said.

Spread across 45 acres of land-equivalent to 25 football fields-the project was built by German engineering company Bosch for Rs62 crore ($9.5 million). The area for the solar unit was earlier designated for setting up a cargo handling facility.

Since the airport expects to produce more than what it is likely to consume, CIAL is planning to feed some of the power into the state grid.

“Over the next 25 years, this green power project will avoid carbon dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants by more than 3 lakh metric tons, which is equivalent to planting 3 million trees or not driving 750 miles,” CIAL said in a statement.

Meanwhile, close on the heels of Kochi, another Indian airport has also laid out plans to focus on solar. On Aug.18, Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, said that it plans to set up a 15 MW solar power plant on 60 acres of land.

India is currently in the midst of ramping up its solar power generation. The Narendra Modi government has plans to increase the country’s solar power capacity from the existing 4GW (gigawatt) to 100GW (gigawatt)by 2022.

To fund such an ambitious expansion, the government expects an investment of $100 billion in the sector in the next seven years. Some of Asia’s biggest billionaires-including SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, Gautam Adani and Anil Ambani-have already promised massive investments in the sector.

Alongside, smaller establishments like Kochi’s airport are also joining the party.

This Ingenious $20 Lamp Gets All Its Energy From Gravity

by

The ingenious GravityLight-a light that gets all its energy from its own weight-first appeared about three years ago. We wrote about it as it was launching on Indiegogo and went on to raise $399,590.

It provides free light (after you’ve bought it). It’s cheap. And it has none of the environmental or health side-effects as do other light alternatives in the developing world. But even all those things aren’t necessarily enough if it’s to reach its potential. If the company and foundation behind the device are to make it a success, they need a reliable product; they need to distribute it in places where distribution can be difficult; and, more fundamentally, they need to explain why someone should buy a GravityLight when there’s plenty of good, cheap solar on the market today.

Thankfully the company seems to have most of the questions answered, as least so far.

The light has a gear-train and DC generator. As a heavy object pulls down on one side, it creates a force that’s converted into electricity. The lamp can last for hours on a single lift to one side, and, of course, that lift is renewable: When one side drops to balance, you just hoist it up again. With a string of mini-lights attached, it can illuminate a small room. And, importantly, without the problems that come with kerosene lamps (fumes, fire), which are still widely used in off-grid places.

After the first campaign, GravityLight sent the device to organizations and individuals in 26 countries. They tested it and reported back about what they liked and didn’t-feedback that’s now been incorporated into a version two. Children apparently liked swinging on it, meaning it could break, and some families complained that lifting 22 pounds was too much for them. The new version, which launches next spring, has a stronger plastic housing, and a new pulley system that effectively reduces the weight by three-quarters. It also comes with auxiliary mini-lights, or “SatLights,” that can be extended in series.

“The SatLights have really revolutionized the experience,” says commercial director Caroline Angus. “Now someone can be reading while someone else is cooking, rather than there just being this one light on that one person, or a narrow part of the room.”

This story is part of our series, How’s That Working Out For You, where we check in on projects we’ve covered in the past to see if they’ve come to fruition, or turned out to just be vaporware.

With the proceeds from a second Indiegogo campaign, GravityLight is now setting up an assembly line in Kenya. The lamp will cost $20 and be distributed through door-to-door ( Avon Lady-type) networks, farmer groups, and more traditional market stalls.

Angus sees a wide range of people buying the product, from families who currently use kerosene lamps, to people who have have grid power but are afraid of blackouts. “It’s everyone from people on $2 a day to the slightly more affluent who are just conscious of the next power cut because maybe they haven’t already charged a solar light,” she says. The GravityLight is more dependable than a solar lamp, she says. It’s on-demand, whereas solar power is dependent on the weather, or your foresight in charging up a battery ahead of time.

It certainly sounds like GravityLight has answers to the big questions. But, it’s still early days, and we won’t know for sure until the new product hits the streets next year.

Humans Are Set To Wipe An India-Sized Chunk Of Forest Off The Earth By 2050

by
(CREDIT: AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

By 2050, an area of forests the size of India is set to be wiped off the planet if humans continue on their current path of deforestation, according to a new report. That’s bad news for the creatures that depend on these forest ecosystems for survival, but it’s also bad news for the climate, as the loss of these forests will release more than 100 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The report, published Monday by the Center for Global Development (CGD), found that, without new policies aimed at cutting back on deforestation, 289 million hectares (about 1,115,840 square miles) of tropical forests will be cleared away. That’s a chunk, the report states, that’s equal to one-seventh of what the Earth’s total tropical forest area was in 2000. And, according to the report, the 169 gigatons of carbon dioxide that this deforestation will unleash is equal to one-sixth of the carbon budget that humans can emit if they want to keep warming below 2°C – the level that’s generally viewed as the maximum warming Earth can endure while still avoiding the most dangerous climate impacts (and even 2°C is seen by many experts as too high).

The study, unlike other recent studies on deforestation, projects that in a business-as-usual scenario, in which the world doesn’t make any effort to reduce deforestation, tropical deforestation will increase, rather than decrease. According to the study, tropical deforestation rates in such a scenario will likely climb steadily in the 2020s and 2030s and then speed up around 2040, “as areas of high forest cover in Latin America that are currently experiencing little deforestation come under greater threat.”

The study does point to one change in policy that would cut deforestation rates and help alleviate climate change: a price on carbon. According to the report, a price of $20 per ton of carbon would keep 41 gigatons of carbon dioxide from being emitted between 2016 and 2050, and a price of $50 per ton would keep 77 gigatons from being emitted.

“Our analysis corroborates the conclusions of previous studies that reducing tropical deforestation is a sizable and low-cost option for mitigating climate change,” the study’s authors write. “In contrast to previous studies, we project that the amount of emissions that can be avoided at low-cost by reducing tropical deforestation will increase rather than decrease in future decades.”

The study also noted that, if all tropical countries put in place anti-deforestation laws that were “as effective as those in the Brazilian Amazon post-2004,” then 60 gigatons of carbon dioxide would be kept out of the atmosphere. Brazil took action against deforestation in 2004 and 2008, and deforestation rates in the country have fallen from 27,000 square kilometers (about 10,424 square miles) in 2004 to 7,000 square kilometers (about 2,700 square miles) in 2010. According to the Climate Policy Initiative, this slowdown in deforestation rates helped keep about 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide in these forests and out of the atmosphere.

Forests can act as major carbon sinks, but for some forests, that role may be changing. A study from this year published in Nature documented the “long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink,” which the study says could be occurring due to changes in climate. The study also points to increasing tree mortality rate – via deforestation – as another factor in the forests’ decreasing ability to store carbon.

Monday’s study noted that decreasing emissions from deforestation is a relatively cheap way for countries to reduce their overall emissions. If countries implemented a system in which wealthy countries paid tropical countries to keep their forests intact, those payments by wealthy countries would constitute a cheaper way to fight climate change than some alternatives.

“Conserving tropical forests is a bargain,” CGD research fellow and report co-author Jonah Busch said in a statement. “Reducing emissions from tropical deforestation costs about a fifth as much as reducing emissions in the European Union.”

Other studies have warned of the danger the world is in if countries don’t curb rates of deforestation and forest degradation. A study published this week in Science warned that, without policy changes, the world’s forests will become increasingly broken into unconnected patches – a fragmentation that will endanger the species that live in the forests.

“I fear a global simplification of the world’s most complex forests,” Simon Lewis, lead author of the study and tropical forest expert at the University of Leeds said in a statement. “Deforestation, logging and road building all create fragmented patches of forest. However, as the climate rapidly changes the plants and animals living in the rainforest will need to move to continue to live within their ecological tolerances. How will they move? This is a recipe for the mass extinction of tropical forest species this century.”

+ More