Climate Progress: An insider's view of climate science, politics, and solutions

Germany to Help Develop Moroccan Solar-Thermal Energy Projects

Germany plans to help Morocco develop a water-desalination plant and electricity generators using solar power as part of a larger program to expand the use of renewable energy in the North African nation.

Funding and specifics of the solar accord will be discussed at talks next week in Rabat between the two governments, Sabine Brickenkamp, a spokeswoman for the German economic cooperation and development ministry, said in an interview.

Morocco, the only country in the region with a power cable to Europe, imports 97 percent of its energy. The nation is vying with Algeria, Tunisia and Libya for 400 billion euros ($596 billion) of investments in solar-energy systems over the coming decades as the EU seeks to trim emissions from coal and natural gas power plants by importing clean power from the Sahara.

The nation of 36 million people this week announced a plan to invest $9 billion to install 2,000 megawatts of solar power through 2020, the equivalent of about two nuclear power plants and about 20 percent of Morocco’s electricity consumption.

German companies including Munich Re, Siemens AG and RWE AG in July announced a plan called Desertec to probe the potential to generate electricity in North Africa using solar-thermal systems to pipe power in cables under the Mediterranean Sea to provide 15 percent of Europe’s electrical needs by mid-century.

Solar-thermal systems heat a fluid by concentrating the sun’s rays on a tube. The liquid produces steam that turns turbines. The world’s largest solar-thermal system is in California’s Mojave Desert, operated by a group of U.S. companies.

Details of the desalination plant, which will use energy from the sun to extract salt from sea water, will be worked out next week, Brickenkamp said.

Clinton calls Copenhagen ’steppingstone,’ outlines U.S. priorities

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Cost of extra year’s climate inaction $500 billion: IEA

The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

At United Nations climate talks in Barcelona last week negotiators from developed countries said the world would need an extra six to 12 months to agree a legally binding, global deal to cut carbon emissions beyond a planned December deadline.

The IEA, energy adviser to 28 industrialized countries, said the world must act urgently to put greenhouse gases on a track to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.

Every year’s delay beyond 2010 would add another $500 billion to the extra investment of $10,500 billion needed from 2010-2030 to curb carbon emissions, for example to improve energy efficiency and boost low-carbon renewable energy.

“Much more needs to be done to get anywhere near an emissions path consistent with … limiting the rise in global temperature to 2 degrees,” said the IEA’s 2009 World Energy Outlook. “Countries attending the U.N. climate conference must not lose sight of this.”

What needs to be done?  See “Must-read IEA report explains what must be done to avoid 6°C warming” and “IEA report, Part 2: Climate Progress has the 450-ppm solution about right.”

Here’s more from today’s story:

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Geothermal energy is a core climate solution (as discussed here).  The U.S. currently has 3 gigaWatts (3000 megaWatts) of geothermal, one third of the world’s capacity, generating $1.8 billion electricity sales.  The US Geological Survey estimates the US could generate 150,000 megawatts of geothermal.  A major 2007 study by MIT on Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) found that it could be a provider of substantial baseload (24/7) power.  MIT’s panel concluded that “with a combined public/private investment of about $800 million to $1 billion over a 15-year period” — “less than the cost of a single, new-generation, clean-coal power plant” — “EGS technology could be deployed commercially on a timescale that would produce more than 100,000 MWe or 100 GWe of new capacity by 2050.”

The Philippines has almost 2,000 MW of geothermal and are looking to harness another 620 MW.   Above is a view of the National Power Corp.’s Makiling-Banahaw Geothermal plant in Laguna province south of the capital Manila.

Philippines targets $2.5 billion geothermal development

The Philippine government aims to approve contracts to explore and develop the country’s massive geothermal energy resources, which could attract more than $2.5 billion in private investment, an official said.

The Philippines, the world’s second-largest developer of geothermal energy, plans to approve 19 deals in the next five months to allow foreign and domestic companies access to geothermal projects, the division chief for geothermal energy at the Philippine Energy Department, Alejandro Oanes, told Reuters.

Philippine power producer Energy Development Corp and Envent, a unit of Geysir Green Energy, one of Iceland’s biggest geothermal energy companies, were among groups vying for contracts to tap the country’s geothermal resources, he said.

“Incentives for renewable projects are giving (the country’s) geothermal development a much needed boost,” said Oanes in a telephone interview from Manila.

Tax holidays and tariff exemptions for renewable energy projects are boosting investment in clean energy in the Philippines, with the government recently awarding 87 contracts to develop alternative energy sources.

Geothermal power accounted for 17 percent of the country’s total power mix at the end of 2008, with installed capacity close to 2,000 megawatts, energy department data showed.

The government was issuing tenders for the development of 10 geothermal sites and negotiating nine more deals directly with various companies, Oanes said. Combined, the deals could harness more than 620 megawatts of geothermal energy.

Geothermal sites covered in the deals include Mount Isarog, in Camarines Sur province, where about 70 MW of geothermal power could be developed. The government is also looking at resources in Mount Labo, Camarines Norte with a potential capacity of 65 MW.

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China Sets Its Sights on Green Cars

The parent of SAIC Motor, the biggest automaker in China, plans to invest 6 billion yuan to develop and manufacture clean-energy vehicles over the next couple of years, Xinhua, the official news agency, has reported.

Of the investment, which will be equivalent to about $880 million, one-third will go to research and development of green cars and the rest will be invested equally in green vehicle and component manufacturing, Xinhua quoted Hu Maoyuan, the SAIC chairman, as saying late on Tuesday.

SAIC, the Chinese partner of General Motors and Volkswagen, will introduce its self-developed hybrid Roewe sedans next year and electric cars by 2012, the state-run Shanghai Securities News reported Wednesday, quoting an unidentified company executive.

The automaker, which is based in Shanghai, may outsource batteries for its green cars and is in discussion with potential partners including BYD, the newspaper said.

BYD, a Chinese automaker 10 percent owned by a unit of Berkshire Hathaway, rolled out its plug-in hybrid car, F3DM, in China late last year. Chery Automobile, another Chinese automaker, rolled out its first electric car, S18, in February.

Beijing announced a plan earlier this year to subsidize the purchase of clean-energy vehicles for public transportation fleets in 13 cities to help its automobile industry develop green technology. The plan is to promote the use of electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles by public transport operators, taxi companies and postal and sanitary services in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Subsidies will be based on the gap in prices between energy-efficient vehicles and those with traditional engines, with subsidies running as high as 600,000 yuan for a large commercial bus powered by a fuel cell.

New business group backs climate-change bill

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Coal plants are being converted to biomass as fast as … “fast-growing, bio-engineered cottonwood trees” (see “Another coal plant to be replaced by a ‘plant’ plant!” and “Southern Company embraces the only practical and affordable way to ‘capture’ emissions at a coal plant today — run it on biomass“).  Another one bites the dust:

PSCW Approves Application for Largest Biomass Plant in Midwest

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) has unanimously approved Xcel Energy’ss application to install biomass gasification technology at its Bay Front Power Plant in Ashland, Wis. When completed, the project will convert the plant’s remaining coal-fired unit to biomass gasification technology, allowing it to use 100 percent biomass in all three boilers and making it the largest biomass plant in the Midwest. Currently, two of the three operating units at Bay Front use biomass as their primary fuel to generate electricity.

The project, estimated at $58.1 million, will require additional biomass receiving and handling facilities at the plant, an external gasifier, minor modifications to the plant`s remaining coal-fired boiler and an enhanced air quality control system. The total generation output of the plant is not expected to change significantly as a result of the project.

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Report slams low-carbon tar sand “myth”

Capturing and storing some of the carbon that would be released in the processing of Canada’s tar sands may not clean the industry up. To turn the vast but dirty resource into useable oil, Canada will have to spew vast amounts of greenhouse gases.

That’s the conclusion of a new study on the potential of so-called carbon capture and storage technology to reduce carbon emissions from tar sands operations.

The Athabasca tar sands of north-eastern Alberta, Canada, hold more than 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil, second only to Saudi Arabia’s reserves. However, the oil is in the form of tarry bitumen that requires a great deal of energy to extract and turn into usable oil – some three to five times as much as conventional crude. The greenhouse gases released during the processing of tar sands make it an environmentally disastrous proposition.

No wonder, then, that the government of Alberta is putting much emphasis, and billions of research and development dollars, into carbon-capture technologies that aim to remove carbon dioxide released by the tar sands industry and store it safely underground.

But a new analysis (PDF) published this week by a UK consumer cooperative and the UK branch of environmental group WWF suggests that carbon capture will be too little, too late. Using the oil industry’s own best-case estimate – that 30 per cent of carbon emissions could be captured by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050 – the analysts note that this falls far short of the reduction needed to make tar sands oil compare favourably with conventional crude.

Kudos to New Scientist for calling the “biggest global warming crime ever seen” by their real name, “tar sands” — see Memo to Obama: CCS won’t make tar sands clean. Memo to all: They ain’t “oil sands”.  See also Canadian bishop challenges the “moral legitimacy” of tar sands production.  For more on the report, see here.

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Southeast U.S. exposed to climate change impact: Oxfam

Poverty and climate hazards make the southeast United States the country’s most vulnerable area to climate change impact, Oxfam America said on Wednesday.

A report released by the relief organization identified high-risk “hotspots” across 13 southeast states from Arkansas to Virginia where poverty factors combined with high risk of drought, flooding, hurricanes and sea-level rise.

“Social factors like income and race do not determine who will be hit by a natural disaster, but they do determine a population’s ability to prepare, respond, and recover when disaster does strike,” Oxfam America President Raymond Offenheiser said in a statement accompanying the report.

“As climate change increases and intensifies floods, storms, and heat waves, many of the world’s poorest communities, from Biloxi (Mississippi) to Bangladesh, will experience unprecedented stress,” Offenheiser added.

Oxfam said the study, using a method developed by experts from the University of South Carolina’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute, for the first time overlaid risk of climate hazards with social variables….

The Oxfam report, available at www.oxfamamerica.org/adapt, includes layered maps that depict different levels of social and climate change-related hazard vulnerability in the U.S. southeast, which accounts for roughly 80 percent of all U.S. counties that experience persistent poverty….

For example, one identified high-risk area was Iberia Parish in Louisiana, which had some of the highest hazard exposures — 76.8 percent of land in a flood zone, 78.9 percent in the extreme drought zone, 56 percent in a sea-level rise zone, and all within a hurricane wind zone.

It also had some of the highest social vulnerability scores, due to its growing Latino population with young children, racial inequalities, and employment dependencies on industries like fishing, oil, and gas….

Poor families were among the worst affected when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in Louisiana in 2005.

Miami-Dade County in Florida — a state viewed by many as a playground for the rich — was also qualified by the report as a high-risk area,

Thinking solar power? It’s never been cheaper

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Arctic to be ice-free in summer in 20 years: scientist

Global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the summer within 20 years, raising sea levels and harming wildlife such as seals and polar bears, a leading British polar scientist said on Thursday.

Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge, said much of the melting will take place within a decade, although the winter ice will stay for hundreds of years.

The changes will mean the top of the Earth will appear blue rather than white when photographed from space and ships will have a new sea route north of Russia.

Scientists say evidence of melting Arctic ice is one of the clearest signs of global warming and it should send a warning to world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December for U.N. talks on a new climate treaty.

“The data supports the new consensus view — based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition — that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years,” Wadhams said in a statement. “Much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.”

Wadhams, one of the world’s leading experts on sea ice cover in the North Pole region, compared ice thickness measurements taken by a Royal Navy submarine in 2007 with evidence gathered by the British explorer Pen Hadow earlier this year.

Hadow and his team on the Catlin Arctic Survey drilled 1,500 holes to gather evidence during a 280-mile walk across the Arctic. They found the average thickness of ice-floes was 1.8 meters, a depth considered too thin to survive the summer’s ice melt.

Sometimes referred to as the Earth’s air-conditioner, the Arctic Sea plays a vital role in the world’s climate. As Arctic ice melts in summer, it exposes the darker-colored ocean water, which absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it, accelerating the effect of global warming.

Dr Martin Sommerkorn, from the environmental charity WWF’s Arctic program, which worked on the survey, said the predicted loss of ice could have wide-reaching effects around the world.

“The Arctic Sea ice holds a central position in our Earth’s climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world,” he said.

“This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world’s population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions …. and extreme global weather changes.”

Britain’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the research “sets out the stark realities of climate change.”

“This further strengthens the case for an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen,” he added.

For more on declining Arctic ice volume, go here.

US aims for bilateral climate change deals with China and India

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California heats up incentives for solar power

California is heating up its push for clean energy, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a new subsidy for solar power on Monday and joined forces with the federal government to fast-track renewable energy projects.

California has the most aggressive renewable energy goals in the United States, which Schwarzenegger increased last month when he ordered that the state get a third of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020.

FBR Capital Markets analyst Mehdi Hosseini said the new subsidy for solar generation could be “explosive” on top of the existing investment tax credit for installing solar systems.

“This is above and beyond the subsidies that are already in place,” Hosseini said.

Feed-in tariffs set a higher price for renewables, and in Germany, such tariffs have pushed the country to be the world’s market leader in solar power.

China, Japan, SKorea vow to make climate talks success

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The WashPost of course didn’t use my headline, since for them, every silver lining has a cloud.  Obviously Michigan has had massive job losses in the auto industry, but how exactly does that translate into a “yellow light” for green jobs, except as a too-cute play on words at the expense of the real story:  Granholm has done her best to embrace the fastest growing source of new jobs in the nation and the world — clean energy jobs.  It’s hard to hold her responsible for the incompetence and shortsightedness of the US auto industry, whose collapse has been decades in the making, but she clearly deserves a lot of the credit for making Michigan hospitable to clean energy industries.

In Michigan, A Yellow Light For Green Jobs

If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor’s pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale.

Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020….

In her effort to attract employers, the governor has taken up the latest arms in the economic arsenal — tax credits, loans, Super Bowl tickets and a willingness to travel as far as Japan for a weekend to try to persuade an auto parts company to bring more jobs to Michigan. She has won solar and wind energy, electric car batteries, and movie production jobs. About 10,800 of the new positions came from overseas companies, according to her office, the fruits of visits to seven countries.

Religious Groups Lobby for Climate Bill

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92% of Americans support solar power development, study says

The vast majority — 92% — of Americans think it’s important for the country to develop and use solar power, according to a study released today, making the alternative energy option potentially one of the most popular things since puppies or ice cream.

The sentiment was echoed almost evenly across political parties, with 89% of Republicans, 94% of Democrats and 93% of Independents agreeing that solar energy is an important aim.

The 2009 Schott Solar Barometer, conducted by independent polling firm Kelton Research, found that 77% of respondents also believe the federal government should make solar power development a national priority. Nearly half are considering solar power options for their home or business, while 70% of those hope to make the switch in the next five years. Only 3% already use the sun for energy.

If, as president of the U.S., they had to choose one energy source to fund, 43% of respondents would chose solar, followed by the 17% who picked wind, the 12% who settled on natural gas and the 10% who selected nuclear.

And yet only 12% of those polled could say that they were extremely informed about solar power while 74% said they wished they knew more about solar power options.

The study, conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8, was commissioned by German photovoltaic company Schott Solar.

A Strong Climate Treaty Could Mean More Jobs Than If We Continue Using Coal

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Here’s more proof that “The only way for the U.S. to win the clean energy race is to pass the clean energy bill“:

Europe to throw $73 billion behind energy research

Europe will this week launch a campaign to triple funding for energy research to 8 billion euros ($11.7 billion) a year in a technology race with Japan and the United States, a draft document shows.

Solar power should get 16 billion euros over the next decade and up to 30 energy-sipping “Smart Cities” should be built with the backing of around 11 billion euros, added the report by the European Union’s executive, the European Commission.

In total, at least 50 billion euros of additional funding is seen over the next 10 years to ensure a wide range of technology emerges to help the EU meet its goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050.

“We need to stimulate our best brains to push back the frontiers of science in materials, in chemistry and physics, in nanotechnology and biotechnology, to find new and better ways of producing and consuming energy,” says the draft obtained by Reuters ahead of the launch on Wednesday.

“We can not sit back and wait for such potentially game changing breakthroughs to emerge from laboratories and make the often long and arduous journey to market,” it adds.

The report looks at how much funding is needed, rather than how businesses and the EU’s 27 member countries would find the money as they emerge from the biggest downturn since the second world war.

But earlier Commission proposals for funding energy projects, such as the 4 billion euros “European Economic Recovery Plan” have made swift progress this year and are now in the later stages of debate by EU ambassadors.

Companies ranging from Germany’s E.ON to Spain’s Gamesa look set to benefit.

Wind energy research should get 6 billion euros over the next decade, nuclear research should get 7 billion euros and energy from biomass and other waste 9 billion.

There should also be 13 billion euros for innovative “carbon capture and storage” technology to trap carbon dioxide from power stations and bury it underground.

Obama orders federal government to cut emissions

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A Mad Dash for Smart-Grid Cash

By the time the late August application deadline had expired, a Department of Energy program to distribute $615 million to fund projects demonstrating smart-grid technology had attracted 140 proposals requesting a total of $2.3 billion.

“The response is very encouraging,” said Jen Stutsman, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department. “We expect some very competitive projects.”

With companies required to chip in 50 percent of the cost, the $615 million in grants will support at least $1.2 billion in smart-grid projects.

The term “smart grid” covers a number of approaches to modernizing the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure. Innovations run the gamut, from home thermostats that automatically adjust in response to overall demands on the grid, to advances in power transmission and energy storage, which will help integrate resources like wind and solar into the nation’s electrical mix.

The aim of the Energy Department program — part of the $3.9 billion in stimulus funds targeting the nation’s electrical system — is to take smart-grid technologies out of the laboratory and test their wide-scale viability and cost-effectiveness.

Toyota’s Two-Faced Stance on Climate Change

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Boxer, Kerry Set to Introduce Climate Bill in Senate

Ending some nine months of closed-door deliberations, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) will release global warming legislation Wednesday that they hope will be the vehicle for broader Senate negotiations and an eventual conference with the House.

The bill’s authors said last week that they expect to start hearings early next month on the bill, with a markup in Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee to follow soon thereafter. They also acknowledged that their legislation is just a “starting point” in a bid to win over moderate and conservative Democrats, as well as Republicans.

“I hope what we’ve done is constructive and well-received,” Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday. “I have no pretensions, and neither does Barbara, that this will be the final product. It is a starting point, a commitment, full-fledged, across party lines to do what we need to do to protect the planet for the next century.”

The Boxer-Kerry bill will build in large part off H.R. 2454 (pdf), legislation approved in June by the House following several marathon months of negotiations that involved lawmakers representing coastal and industry-heavy districts. Exactly what is the same in the two bills remains to be seen. As for differences, Senate Democratic aides say they expect the legislation to divert from the House bill’s 17 percent emissions target for 2020 and go with an even more aggressive 20 percent limit. The bill also will stay silent on exactly how the Senate should divide up emission allowances.

At least five other Senate committees are also expected to contribute to the climate debate. The Foreign Relations and Agriculture committees are preparing language without convening a markup.

Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he will hold votes on his pieces of the global warming bill. And the same goes for Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who last week told reporters that provisions on international trade and the allocation of emission allowances would be marked up provided Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says the bill is “clearly moving.”

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has already approved legislation (S. 1462 (pdf)) out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that includes a nationwide renewable electricity standard and a raft of other energy incentives, including a provision that could bring oil and gas rigs closer to Florida’s Gulf Coast. Bingaman is also planning a hearing Thursday on several competing cost estimates associated with the House-passed climate bill. The session, which was postponed once earlier this month, now gives senators an early public forum to sound off on the Boxer-Kerry bill.

Already last week, several Democratic senators working outside of the Boxer-Kerry camp said their ideas would be melded into the legislation at a later date. “It’s going to need a lot of work,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Brown said he did not expect the Boxer-Kerry bill to include language adopted in the House that tries to assist energy-intensive manufacturing industries, including steel, pulp and paper and cement.

“My understanding is they did not include the House language on manufacturing,” Brown added. “But I’ve been talking to them about it. They are very open to it. They are in no way dismissive.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said she also does not think her concerns will be addressed in the initial draft from Boxer and Kerry. That means further efforts on issues related to agriculture, offsets and energy intensive industries.

“We will have to take a look at the language and then determine it from there,” Stabenow said.

China leads way for solar energy

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India Weighing Emissions Curbs

Trying to burnish its international reputation as it prepares for a major climate conference, India is considering adoption of curbs on carbon emissions that it has long resisted.

India had thus far rejected emission cuts, declaring that they would compromise the populous nation’s economic growth, even as developed countries criticized its intransigence. But under a proposed national law, India may set limits on greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decade, focusing on energy efficiency, new building codes, clean energy and fuel economy standards.

India’s leadership hopes that by acting on its own, rather than responding to what are likely to be tough demands from other countries during the December climate conference in Copenhagen, the measures will garner more domestic support.

“We have to take up bold new responsibilities that we have evaded so far,” Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, said at a recent trade conference. “But if we want durable political consensus, then it has to be rooted in domestic legislation and not in an international agreement.”

The cuts would be a national goal; they would be neither an internationally binding commitment nor open to international verification. Still, Ramesh said he hoped that the measures would portray India as a “positive player” in climate talks.

India’s emerging economic might and global ambitions are nudging Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an Oxford-educated economist, to be more mindful of the nation’s image. His aides say he wants India to engage with the world in a way that befits its aspiration to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and have greater say in the running of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Buildings offer emission-cutting projects that pay for themselves

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Seven green jobs for every job lost in dirty energy sectors

Investment in renewables and energy efficiency would create seven times more green jobs over the next ten years than would be lost in the coal and nuclear sectors in Europe, according to a report launched today by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), and backed by trade unions.

A switch from dirty energy to renewables and energy efficiency would not just avoid over 470 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in OECD Europe, but would create 30% more jobs by 2020 than if we continue investing in fossil and nuclear fuels. If Europe chooses a clean energy pathway, 1.2 million people would be employed in the power generation sector, compared to eight hundred and fifty thousand under business as usual.  The report finds that over three hundred and eighty thousand jobs would be created in renewables and energy efficiency over the next decade, as opposed to some fifty thousand that would be lost in the coal and nuclear sectors.

“For each job lost in the coal and nuclear sectors in Europe, seven jobs would be created in renewable energy and energy efficiency over the next ten years. Green investments are an opportunity to revitalise the economy: postponing climate action is prolonging the economic recession and cheating us out of thousands of jobs. European leaders need to trigger an energy revolution and support and re-train communities affected by this technology shift,” said Frauke Thies, Greenpeace EU energy expert.

“Now is the time to put in place a ‘just transition’ to sustainably transform the jobs of today and develop the decent and green jobs of tomorrow,” added Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). “The union movement, as well as the authors of this report, believe ambitious climate action by world leaders can and must be a driver for sustainable economic growth and social progress.”

The report: Working for the Climate: Renewable Energy & The Green Job [R]evolution is based on Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution report and research from the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the Sydney University of Technology.  The report shows that by 2020, 5 million people could work for the renewable power industry globally and more than eight hundred and twenty thousand in Europe.

“There are already 450,000 people working in the renewable energy industry in Europe, representing a turnover of more than EUR 45 billion. This research proves that renewable energy is key to tackling both the climate and economic crises,” said Christine Lins, Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC).

Bill Clinton: “I still think the president should try really hard to pass climate change legislation this year, in addition to health care”

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White House plays down talk of climate delay to 2010

The White House on Wednesday played down the possible impact of putting off major U.S. climate change legislation to 2010, vowing to press for progress on the issue ahead of global talks in December.

Asked whether a delay would amount to a setback for President Barack Obama’s priorities on the issue, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters: “No, I think we can continue to make progress.”

“We’ve got to make progress and the international community’s got to make progress getting China and India and developing nations, and evolving world economies like Brazil, on board,” he said.

Gibbs spoke one day after Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid raised the prospects of putting off action on the legislation until 2010, only to have his chief spokesman say Democrats still sought action this year.

“We are going to have a busy, busy time the rest of this year,” Reid said Tuesday. “And, of course, nothing terminates at the end of this year. We still have next year to complete things if we have to.”

Asked about his comments, spokesman Jim Manley replied: “We are still committing to passing health care reform, regulatory reform and global warming legislation by the end of the year.”

The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the legislation in June, and leaders of key Senate committees are due to unveil their version later this month after agreeing to a delay of a few weeks from a mid-September target date.

India says ready to issue non-binding emissions cut

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