(July 24*) Melting Arctic ice releasing banned toxins, warn scientists

• Unknown amount of trapped persistent organics pollutants poses threat to marine life and humans as temperatures rise
• 
  
• Damian Carrington
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 July 2011 18.00 BST
• Article history

Melting Arctic ice is allowing chemicals to seep out, including the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane, as well as PCBs. Photograph: AlaskaStock/Corbis

The warming of the Arctic is releasing a new wave of toxic chemicals that had been trapped in the ice and cold water, scientists have discovered.

The researchers warn that the amount of the poisons stockpiled in the polar region is unknown and their release could "undermine global efforts to reduce environmental and human exposure to them".

The chemicals seeping out as temperatures rise include the pesticides DDT, lindane and chlordane, made infamous in Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, as well as the industrial chemicals PCBs and the fungicide hexachlorobenzene (HCB).

All of these are know as persistent organics pollutants (Pops), and are banned under the 2004 Stockholm convention.

Pops can cause cancers and birth defects and take a very long time to degrade, meaning they can be transported for long distances and accumulate over time. Over past decades, the low temperatures in the Arctic trapped volatile Pops in ice and cold water.

But scientists in Canada and Norway have discovered that global warming is freeing the Pops once again. They examined measurements of Pops in the air between 1993 and 2009 at the Zeppelin research station in Svalbaard and Alert weather station in northern Canada.

After allowing for the decline in global emissions of Pops, the team showed that the toxic chemicals are being remobilised by rising temperatures and the retreat of the sea ice, which exposes more water to the sun. For example, air concentrations of PCBs and HCBs have shown a rising trend from about 2004 onwards. The scientists' work is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Hayley Hung, at the air quality research division of Environment Canada and one of the team, said their work provided the first evidence of the remobilisation of Pops in the Arctic. "But this is the beginning of a story," she said. "The next step is to find out how much is in the Arctic, how much will leak out and how quickly."

Hung said, with the exception of lindane, there was little existing knowledge of the scale of the Pops stored in high latitude regions.

The fate of the frozen Pops depends on the speed of warming in the Arctic – it is currently heating up much more quickly than lower latitudes – as well as how the chemicals interact with snow and rain.

Pops accumulate in fats and are therefore concentrated up the food chain, but Hung cautions that food chains themselves in the Arctic may be altered by climate change.

Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/melting-arctic-ice-banned-toxins-pops?CMP=twt_fd

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(Dec 11, 2010*) Cancun paves way for global climate treaty

Dec 11, 2010 - 18:28

by Jessica Dacey in Cancun, swissinfo.ch

Switzerland has welcomed a new United Nations deal thrashed out in Cancun, saying it heralds the birth of an international treaty on climate change.

Over 190 nations meeting in the Mexican resort adopted the two-part climate agreement on Saturday.

The deal, brokered by Mexico, includes the creation of a Green Climate Fund and steps to help share clean technologies such as wind and solar power, protect tropical forests and assist poor nations to adapt to impacts such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

The final result offers a “solid basis for development” on issues in the coming years and primarily, for next year’s climate summit in South Africa, Switzerland’s top negotiator Bruno Oberle told swissinfo.ch in Cancun.

A “fairly impressive” list of promises by developed and developing countries had been incorporated in the deal, said Oberle, who heads the Swiss Federal Environment Office.

The current climate treaty is now 20 years old, and no longer reflects today’s global emissions situation, he said. It was time to find a way of bringing developed and developing countries together to take responsibility for their share in the bigger climate picture.

Cancun has taken a step in that direction with a document that “provides one overarching framework for all countries".

The same sentiment was expressed by the president of conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa, who announced the conclusion of the agreement saying the “historic” deal signaled “a new era in international cooperation in climate change”.

The European Union's climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, also commented that Cancun “proved that multilateralism can create results".

“Step backwards”

Draft texts were formally endorsed at a final session at 4am local time, after non-stop negotiations among delegations through Thursday and Friday. It passed despite solitary opposition from Bolivia.

The South American nation said it was opposed to the deal as it represented a “step backwards” and would result in a “weaker, less demanding, regime for developed countries which are responsible for global warming”.

Mexico said Bolivia’s objections were “duly reflected in the conference records”.

Bolivia was criticised during the week for its hardline approach, the toughest of any nation at the talks, demanding that rich nations halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2017 from 1990 levels - far beyond the demands of other nations.

A new fund

The Cancun agreement was the first time in three years that the 193-nation conference had adopted any climate action, restoring faith in the UN process after failed talks in Copenhagen in 2009.

The deal integrates the pledges for action made in the Copenhagen Accord into the UN climate process. But it does not require developed countries to adopt binding cuts beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012.

Delegates put off the Kyoto issue until next year’s conference in South Africa, but states party to the protocol will be obliged to intensify their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.(Switzerland’s commitment for a second Kyoto period from 2013- 2020 is currently before the Swiss parliament.)

In creating a new climate fund, richer nations have promised to contribute $100 billion a year by 2020, but the Cancun decision does not identify specific sources of financing. The fund will be used to help developing nations obtain clean technology and adapt to climate change.

Switzerland noted that it helped push through with the climate fund with a proposal on how it should be organised, and through its staging of the Geneva Dialogue on Climate Finance earlier this year.

Great challenge

Oberle said Cancun also helped answer a key question about the climate issue, namely, “who is responsible for what in the field of mitigation” of the effects of environmental changes.

He was referring to the planned framework of measures aimed at helping in particular the very vulnerable developing countries to adapt to climate change and to mitigate its impact on them. (See Cancun deal highlights).

The deal also takes a position on climate change, saying it is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and calling for a paradigm shift to enable the development of a climate-friendly economy and society.

Outside the plenary session, Patrick Hofstetter, spokesman for the Swiss Climate Alliance, told swissinfo.ch he was satisfied with the outcome, but noted it was “just one important step”.

On a positive note, no issues were left out of the Cancun agreement, but the deal was problematic as most of the processes decided had no clear end date nor was it obvious how they would evolve, he said.

“So it’s very open whether we will have something in one, three or five years. This is a big problem so it needs a lot of work next year in order to finalise everything in South Africa.”

Observing the Cancun summit from Switzerland, Oberle’s predecessor, Philippe Roch, now an environmental consultant, noted that trust between nations had been restored during the negotiations, which was in itself a “very positive factor”.

“After Copenhagen there were huge doubts about whether countries could work together. Trust is necessary,” he said, cautioning however that “we have not yet reached a paradigm shift in our consumer behaviour or attitudes about carbon usage.”

Jessica Dacey in Cancun, swissinfo.ch

Retrieved from http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/climate_change/news/Cancun_paves_way_for_global_climate_treaty.html?cid=29005802

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(June 24*) Uncertainty hinders Kyoto successor

June 24, 2011 - 14:16

by Pierre-François Besson, swissinfo.ch

With no agreement on a new time frame, a gap is looming after the end of the first commitment period (2008-2012) to reduce emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto risks collapse due to lack of support beyond 2012 from rich nations, which are meant to take the lead in fighting climate change.

"This process is dead in the water," said Yvo de Boer, the former head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.

"It's not going anywhere," he said during the United Nations June 6-17 talks in Bonn, which yet again failed to resolve disputes between rich and poor about extending the Kyoto Protocol.

On one side Japan, Russia and Canada say they will not sign up for deeper cuts in emissions under Kyoto beyond 2012, arguing that a global deal, backed by all big emitters including China and India, is a fair next step.

But developing nations say Kyoto is a test of developed countries' past promises to lead in slowing global warming, which is set to cause more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels that are likely to hit the poorest hardest.

Another preparatory meeting is expected to be scheduled before the next big Conference of Parties (COP) meeting in Durban, South Africa five months away.

Added to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol legally obliges a minority of states, known as Annex I countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 per cent from the 1990 level. One year before the end of the first commitment period these states have failed to deliver, some falling far short of their reduction target.

The Annex I countries were deemed “industrialised” when Kyoto was initially adopted in 1997. However, they produce a small share of the global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Jorge E. Viñuales, chair of international environmental law at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

“At the time the industrialisation of China had not been foreseen and the vision of the future was still marked by the Cold War,” Viñuales said. “Kyoto does not tie the United States [which has signed but not ratified] or China or the emerging economies who produce most of the emissions.”

Kyoto’s value

“The actual contribution of Kyoto to the reduction of emissions is very limited. The value of the protocol is in having been a first experience in how to make a treaty limiting emissions,” said Viñuales.

Judged strictly on its climate impact, Kyoto performs poorly. The emissions reductions to which the states are committed are minimal, according to Viñuales.

“And even if we arrived at zero emission, that would not be enough. The average temperature will increase anyway by two degrees or more by the end of the century. The stock of greenhouse gases in the troposphere is already too high. Which is why geo-engineering is so important [reforestation, injection of particules into the atmosphere etc].”

Kyoto does have some merit both as a negotiation instrument and for the impetus it creates. Its very existence has encouraged the private sector to be more efficient and it can be used by governments to justify unpopular decisions.

The Protocol is also a diplomatic instrument. China and the emerging economies support it to push the industrialised countries to commit before asking the same effort of them. And Canada and the European Union (with Switzerland) refuse to be tied and to unilaterally reduce their competitiveness if the big emitters do not commit. That largely explains the current impasse.

No clear signal

The legal void expected after 2012 will mean the absence of a clear signal allowing the business world to make good energy and industrial investment choices.

For Viñuales this absence of international commitment will spur companies to “deploy every possible lobbying effort to limit as much as possible the weight of the national regulation on emission reduction”.

Annex I countries whose emissions exceed 1990 levels by the end of next year will in theory breach their commitments. But Kyoto has built-in flexibility mechanisms. The best known is the trading of emission rights. It allows countries to buy emission credits from countries which emit less than their quotas.

This mechanism – like other instruments set up by the protocol – will survive thanks to the well-established European trading system, Viñuales predicts. The Geneva professor already envisages three post-Kyoto scenarios without Kyoto II in place.

Three scenarios

“The first, quite likely, scenario is a return to the framework convention, where the non-binding obligations would be set by the COP. That would give a substantial, non-obligatory framework, which would send a strong, international and largely harmonised signal to the private sector.”

Another possibility would be to go down the human rights route, in other words employing the mechanisms and instruments in this domain to obtain damages and compensation from the big emitters. This route is currently being explored by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, according to Viñuales.

The third scenario is that of atomisation: “A mosaic of national regulations without coordination of common obligations”. Viñuales can also easily imagine a combination of the three. The Durban meeting could make things clearer.

Pierre-François Besson, swissinfo.ch
(Adapted from French by Clare O'Dea)

Retrieved from http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/climate_change/news/Uncertainty_hinders_Kyoto_successor_.html?cid=30540042

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(July 20*) Greenpeace takes aim at Hudak

More Images »

Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada,spoke with The Star's editorial board Tuesday, July 19, 2011.

Photograph by: NICK BRANCACCIO, The Windsor Star

By Kristie Pearce, The Windsor Star July 20, 2011

With a provincial election looming, Greenpeace is questioning Tory Leader Tim Hudak's commitment to renewable energy.

"Hudak has said he's pro green energy," Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace, told a meeting of The Star's editorial board Tuesday. "We would like to see how he would actually get green energy built."

Greenpeace supports the Liberal government's feedin-tariff program introduced in 2009, but Stewart said some of the projected costs of their renewable energy programs are too high.

"NDP and Conservatives say they like green energy, they just don't like the way we're doing it," Stewart said, adding Greenpeace would like to see the opposition strategies in investing in renewable energy.

The Conservatives have made rising electricity bills a major theme this election, blaming the increases on green energy. However, Stewart said the price increases came from long neglect of the province's power infrastructure.

"The primary thing driving the price increase right now is a need to rebuild the system because we went for a decade without investing in it," he said.

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Retrieved from http://www.windsorstar.com/technology/Greenpeace+takes+Hudak/5129184/story.html

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(July 21*) Suzuki warns Tory scheme to cancel green energy plans is ‘absolute insanity’

Published On Thu Jul 21 2011

David Suzuki and Premier Dalton McGuinty take a stroll in Vancouver's Stanley Park on Wednesday. Suzuki is urging Ontarians to re-elect McGuinty this fall to save the Liberals' “groundbreaking” green energy policies.

CHRISTINE MCAVOY/FOR THE TORONTO STAR

David Suzuki, Canada’s most famous environmentalist, is urging Ontarians to re-elect Premier Dalton McGuinty this fall to save the Liberals’ “groundbreaking” green energy policies.

In an exclusive interview with the Star, Suzuki made a rare foray into partisan politics, warning it is “absolute insanity” for Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak to want to scrap wind and solar power initiatives that the Tories claim are too expensive.

“I don’t get it, because it’s a job creator — I would have thought that the Conservatives would be banging away at the need to create jobs,” the host of CBC’s The Nature of Things said during a stroll with McGuinty in Stanley Park on Wednesday.

“Ontario right now is a leader in North America. Why would anybody come in and throw that out the window? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Suzuki expressed concern at Hudak’s pledge to kill the “feed-in tariff” subsidy program that promotes green electricity generation by enabling farmers and other producers to sell hydro, wind, and solar power to the grid.

The Tories, who lead in public-opinion polls, blame McGuinty’s Green Energy Act and the 13 per cent harmonized sales tax for rising hydro bills.

If they win the Oct. 6 election, they would also scrap the 25-year, $437-million deal with Samsung that should see the South Korean firm invest $7 billion in Ontario.

“I don’t know what Mr. Hudak’s idea is, but energy costs are going to rise in the future,” Suzuki said, noting demand is only increasing with new household electronics and, eventually, widespread use of electric cars.

“I’m offering an endorsement of what Mr. McGuinty has done, absolutely. This is a great plan. Any party would be foolish to talk about abandoning it,” he said, noting the David Suzuki Foundation works closely with the government on promoting energy conservation.

Suzuki also hailed McGuinty for enacting a pesticide ban and for his work on protecting the boreal forest, though he chided the premier for continuing Ontario’s reliance on nuclear power and for refusing to implement a carbon tax.

The premier, for his part, said he was “really honoured” by Suzuki’s endorsement on the eve of the Council of the Federation meeting of provincial and territorial leaders here.

“This has been a challenge for us in some parts of Ontario so when David lends his support to our initiatives it’s very meaningful,” he said.

“Just as we’re the number one auto producer in North America, I’ve got this vision for us to be a powerful player in the North American economy. You want wind turbines? Nobody makes them better than we do in Ontario. You want solar panels? We’ve got the expertise, we’ve got the manufacturing capacity.”

The Liberals hope to create 50,000 green energy jobs by the end of next year. So far, about 13,000 jobs are up and running.

While Suzuki, who grew up in London, Ont., lives in British Columbia, he took a break from his summer vacation to come back to Vancouver to meet with McGuinty.

“I’m very, very admiring of what he’s done,” said the man who finished fifth in CBC’s 2004 nationwide search for The Greatest Canadian, behind Tommy Douglas, Terry Fox, Pierre Trudeau and Sir Frederick Banting.

“I live about half my time in Ontario and I still think of myself as an Ontario guy.”

That’s why he felt it was important to inject himself into an election that will be closely fought by McGuinty, Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

“The big thing to me is the Green Energy Act,” said Suzuki.

“It has created jobs. For me it says we’ve got a future that’s bright with job creation and we can drop our dependence on fossil fuels.”

Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1028008--suzuki-warns-tory-scheme-to-cancel-green-energy-plans-is-absolute-insanity

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(July 15*) Tories seen as threat to green energy firms

Tamsin McMahon Jul 15, 2011 – 8:01 AM ET

Richard Monk has learned a lot about Ontario politics since he joined a Spanish solar panel manufacturer lured by the Liberal government’s lucrative green energy program to open a factory in Windsor.

Having just opened in May, Siliken Group announced last week it was planning to lay off most of its 120 workers, citing a sales slump the company blamed on a Tory promise to kill the province’s subsidized green energy program if the party takes power Oct. 6, as polls suggest it is poised to do.

“They have affected sales, they have frightened new customers as well as existing customers, they have confused the public and they seem to be anti-environmental,” said Mr. Monk, Siliken’s production manager in Windsor.

Down the road from where Siliken had set up shop in a former auto parts factory, solar panel retailer Certified Solar was experiencing an entirely different fallout from the Conservatives’ pre-election promise: A surge in sales, as customers look to lock in to 20-year solar contracts at generous rates before the Tories can kill the program.

“That’s the big incentive. Whenever there is a sense of urgency, sales tend to increase,” manager Craig O’Brien said. “People wanted to get involved before the program ends.”

The province’s green energy sector is shaping up to be ground zero in the fall election, as both parties stake their reputation on the success or failure of the program, known as feed-in-tariff because it pays above-market rates to feed wind, solar and other renewable energy into the electrical grid.

The most recent poll has the Conservatives 11 percentage points ahead of the Liberals, and few are willing to bet the program will survive, and that is wreaking havoc within the industry.

The Liberal government is pushing the program as a way to kickstart Ontario’s struggling manufacturing sector with what energy minister Brad Duguid said is $20-billion in new investment and 13,000 new jobs since it was introduced two years ago — although the government’s goal was 50,000 jobs.

“We’re very happy and proud of the program; our opponents are going to get rid of it and that’s going to be a major distinction” during the election, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan told the National Post.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are attacking the feedin-tariff program as a costly job-killer that drives up electricity rates through long-term price guarantees that in some cases promise more than 10 times the market price for electricity.

“They’ve created a gold rush that everyone wants to get rich on,” said John Yakabuski, the Conservative energy critic as he stood in front of a lemonade stand the party had set up on the lawn of Queen’s Park to hand out cheap lemonade he said was made from subsidized lemons. “If they announce tomorrow that they’re going to pay $7 a dozen for eggs, I suspect a lot of people are going to be investing in laying hens. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be good for the people buying eggs in the supermarket.”

Green energy has become so politicized that the Canadian Solar Industry Association set up a booth at the recent Ontario PC convention in Toronto in hopes of wooing some Tories.

“We received a lot of positive comments. A lot of people were very knowledgeable about solar,” said association president Elizabeth McDonald. “I believe that’s the reality of the situation. But this is not a platform that’s based on renewable energy and solar. This is a platform based on critical pocketbook issues.”

Launched in 2009, the feed-in-tariff program offers largescale wind farms and solar power generators as much as 71.3¢ per kilowatt hour (enough power to light a 100-watt bulb for 10 hours), well above the going rate of 6.5¢ per kilowatt hour on Ontario’s energy market. Most contracts are guaranteed for 20 years.

The costs are buried in a premium on monthly hydro bills that makes up the difference between the market price for electricity and the rates promised through long-term contracts with generators. The cost of those contracts has risen sharply in recent years, from $654-million in 2005 to $3.8-billion last year, although much of the increase has come from contracts with nuclear, natural gas and other major power producers.

But with only a fraction of the nearly 8,000 proposed feed-in-tariff projects up and running, with most set to begin two to three years from now, critics say the costs could quickly escalate.

A separate microFIT program for small generators, such as homeowners with rooftop solar panels, offers rates as high as 80.2¢ per kilowatt hour. Killing the program will end up hurting consumers by shutting out homeowners, churches, schools and community groups that hope to make some money off generating their own power, said Kristopher Stevens, executive director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association.

The Conservatives say the program is not benefitting struggling homeowners, but instead attracting profit-seeking businesses such as a company advertising free barns to farmers in exchange for the rights to install solar panels on the roof and sell the power.

“You might want to check where these panels are,” Mr. Yakabuski said. “They’re not on the struggling senior homeowners home.”

The renewable energy industry itself has been openly talking about sweeping changes to the program, including a price reduction. “Everybody knows that the program could use improvement and everybody knew that it couldn’t keep on pumping out contracts at the same volume and the same pricing forever,” said Dan Gormley, who leads the green energy practice at Toronto law firm Goodmans LLP. “It was always going to have to evolve over time. But I don’t really understand why the Tories have simply come out and said it’s got to be killed altogether.”

The program is set for a price review this year, although Mr. Duncan said in an interview that the government has no plans to lower prices ahead of the October election. “Over time those rates will come down,” he said. “It’s something we’ll watch and we want to make sure the policy achieves its goals.”

Retrieved from http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/15/tories-seen-as-threat-to-green-energy-firms/

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(July 2011*) Global Investments in Green Energy Up Nearly a Third to US$211 billion

China, developing countries are now biggest investors in large-scale renewables while Germany surges ahead on rooftop solar;

Positive trend in government research and development in renewables spotlighted-up over 120 per cent to well over US$5 billion;

UNEP and Frankfurt School launch Collaborating Centre

for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance

Wind farms in China and small-scale solar panels on rooftops in Europe were largely responsible for last year's 32% rise in green energy investments worldwide according to the latest annual report on renewable energy investment trends issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Last year, investors pumped a record US$211 billion into renewables - about one-third more than the US$160 billion invested in 2009, and a 540% rise since 2004.

For the first time, developing economies overtook developed ones in terms of "financial new investment"-spending on utility-scale renewable energy projects and provision of equity capital for renewable energy companies.

On this measure, US$72 billion was invested in developing countries vs. US$70 billion in developed economies, which contrasts with 2004, when financial new investments in developing countries were about one quarter of those in developed countries.

The report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011, has been prepared for UNEP by London-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

It was launched today by UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and Udo Steffens, President and CEO of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management as it was also announced that a new UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance is being inaugurated at the Frankfurt School.

China, with US$48.9 billion in financial new investment in renewables (up 28%), was the world leader in 2010. However, other parts of the emerging world also showed strong growth:

South and Central America: up 39% to US$13.1 billion;

Middle East and Africa: up 104% to US$5 billion;

India: up 25% to US$3.8 billion, and

Asian developing countries excluding China and India: up 31% to US$4 billion.

Another positive development, highlighted in the report with implications for long-term clean energy developments, was government research and development. That category of investment climbed over 120 per cent to well over US$5 billion.

Mr. Steiner said: "The continuing growth in this core segment of the Green Economy is not happening by chance. The combination of government target-setting, policy support and stimulus funds is underpinning the renewable industry's rise and bringing the much needed transformation of our global energy system within reach.''

"The UN climate convention meeting in Durban later in the year, followed by the Rio+20 summit in Brazil in 2012, offer key opportunities to accelerate and scale-up this positive transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication," he added.

"The finance industry is still recovering from the recent financial crisis," adds Udo Steffens, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. "The fact that the industry remains heavily committed to renewables demonstrates its strong belief in the prospects of sustainable energy investments. "

"The investment activity in the developing world is not only leading to innovations in renewable energy technologies. Further more, it will open up new markets as first mover investors are facilitating a range of new business models and support entrepreneurship in the developing world", explains Udo Steffens.

The report points out that not all areas enjoyed positive growth in 2010: there was a decline of 22% to US$35.2 billion in new financial investment in large-scale renewable energy in Europe in 2010. But this was more than made up for by a surge in small-scale project installation, predominantly rooftop solar.

Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: "Europe's small-scale solar energy boom owed much to feed-in tariffs, particularly in Germany, combined with a sharp fall in the cost of photovoltaic (PV) modules."

Investments in Germany in "small distributed capacity" rose 132% to US$34 billion, in Italy they rose 59% to US$5.5 billion, France up 150% to US$2.7 billion, and the Czech Republic up 163% to US$2.3 billion.

The price of PV modules per megawatt has fallen 60% since mid-2008, making solar power far more competitive in a number of sunny countries.

By the end of 2010, many countries were rushing to make their PV tariffs less generous. Indeed, Spain and the Czech Republic both moving to make retroactive cuts in feed-in tariff levels for already-operating projects "damaged investor confidence," the report says. "Other governments, such as those of Germany and Italy, announced reductions in tariffs for new projects - logical steps to reflect sharp falls in technology costs."

Nevertheless the small-scale solar market is likely to stay strong in 2011, the report suggests.

Further drops in costs for solar, wind and other technologies lie ahead, the report says, posing a growing threat to the dominance of fossil-fuel generation sources in the next few years.

Throughout the last decade, wind was the most mature renewable energy technology and enjoyed an apparently unassailable lead over its rival power sources.

Wind turbine prices have fallen 18% per megawatt in the last two years, reflecting, as with solar, fierce competition in the supply chain.

In 2010, wind continued to dominate in terms of financial new investment in large scale renewables, with US$94.7 billion (up 30% from 2009). However, when investments in small scale projects are added in solar is catching up, with US$86 billion in 2010, up 52% on the previous year. With US$11 billion invested, biomass and waste-to-energy come in third in front of biofuels, which boomed at US$20.4 billion in 2006, but fell off dramatically - to US$5.5 billion last year.

The sharpest percentage jumps in overall investment were seen in small-scale projects - up 91% year-on-year at US$60 billion, and in government-funded research and development, up 121% at US$5.3 billion, as more of the "green stimulus" funds promised after the financial crisis arrived in the sector.

Two areas of investment showed a fall in 2010 compared to 2009: corporate research, development and deployment (down 12% at US$3.3 billion, as companies retrenched in the face of economic hard times) and provision of expansion capital for renewable energy companies by private equity funds (down 1% to US$3.1 billion).

Clean energy share prices fell in 2010, with the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX) down 14.6%, under-performing wider stock market indices by more than 20%. This showing reflected investor concerns about industry over-capacity, cutbacks in subsidy programs and competition from power stations burning cheap natural gas.

Acquisition activity in renewable energy, representing money changing hands rather than new investment, fell from US$66 billion in 2009 to US$58 billion in 2010. The two largest categories of M&A - corporate takeovers and acquisitions of wind farms and other assets - both fell by around 10%.

The low price of natural gas-which was between US$3 and US$5 per million BTU for almost all of 2010- hurt the growth of renewables, the report says. The price of natural gas was far less than it was in much of the mid-2000s, before it peaked at US$13 in 2008.

"This gave generators in the US, but also in Europe and elsewhere, an incentive to build more gas-fired power stations and depressed the terms of power purchasing agreements available to renewable energy projects," says the report.

Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and UNEP launch new Collaborating Centre

The report launch marks the beginning of the new UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Its goal is to develop cost-effective ways to reduce energy-related carbon emissions by mobilizing sustainable energy investments and strengthening their associated markets.

This is achieved by working with financial institutions to develop technical know-how, innovative financing approaches and new forms of entrepreneurial and end-user finance.

The Centre's approach combines project implementation on the ground with research, think tank activities, training and education.

One of Europe's leading business schools, the Frankfurt School also builds and strengthens financial sector capacities in emerging markets and developing countries through consulting and training projects. Through its "Sustainable Energy Finance" centre, the Frankfurt School has implemented energy efficiency and renewable energy projects worldwide.

"At the Frankfurt School we look back on profound experience with international advisory in all fields of development finance," says the school's President and CEO Udo Steffens. "The UNEP Collaborating Centre allows us to apply this expertise and knowledge to climate and sustainable energy finance, covering research, advisory and education."

Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=2647&ArticleID=8805&l=en&t=long

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