Environment, Europe, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines

ENVIRONMENT: Clean Profits Are in the Air

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Nov 8 2004 (IPS) - A new alliance between Britain and Germany to contain global warming is looking to joint ventures around the world to clean up the air.

The alliance is emerging as the beginning of an Anglo-German environment- friendly powerhouse that will seek to take a big chunk of a rapidly growing market.

The new alliance formed at the British embassy in Berlin last week declared it will ”exploit a window of opportunity” opening up by way of new environment-friendly power plants and energy systems.

The alliance declared that about 16 trillion dollars are due to be invested in energy over the coming years (a trillion is a million million). ”The delegates agreed that Britain and Germany should work to exploit this current window of opportunity to lead a cost effective fight against climate change.”

Britain and Germany are between them responsible for 97 percent of emissions reductions in the European Union (EU), the alliance claims. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal lead to emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. These are believed to lead to global warming that disrupts natural climate patterns.

The alliance declared that it was vital that new investment is ”directed to more energy efficient forms of generation including cleaner coal, combined head and power plants and renewables such as wind, wave and solar power.”

Germany has highly developed wind and solar power technology and Britain has made a breakthrough in using waves to generate power. The two countries will now work together to export clean technology around the world.

The alliance pits the two countries directly against France which has almost completely shunned wind, solar and wave technology. For France renewable energy means nuclear power, and the French claim to green energy technology is to export its nuclear knowhow.

The Anglo-German alliance will seek to build technology for relatively smaller local power needs but which could add up to a huge market.

Leading industrialists, scientists and businessmen from both countries are being brought into the alliance, which was formally launched by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. The launch by the Queen was symbolic; British royalty has a strong German ancestry.

Britain’s chief scientific advisor Sir David King announced the need for a new alliance. He said in a press statement that ”2004 has been an extraordinary year. We have had some of the worst weather-related natural disasters on record, and we have also had the positive outcome of the Kyoto protocol with Russians ratifying. This conference takes these issues forward and forges a new agenda for climate action that will help lead us to a more stable and secure future in both the developed and the developing world.”

This ‘window of opportunity’ will open up also to a system of ”climate- friendly finance”, the alliance said in a statement Thursday. ”Germany and Britain, both with key financial centres such as the City of London (the financial district of London) and Frankfurt, could play a pivotal role in bringing European and global pension funds, actuaries and insurers on board.”

Both countries have already pledged a reduction in emissions that go far ahead of the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, agreed in Kyoto in Japan in 1997. Under the protocol industrialised countries would be bound to reduce emission of greenhouse gases by at least 5 percent related to 1990 levels in the first action period 2008-2012. Ratification by Russia has meant that the protocol now comes into force for signatory countries.

Britain has proposed a 60 percent reduction by 2050 and Germany 40 percent reduction by 2020.

The alliance will seek to sell knowhow arising from present practices. London and Berlin cities will share experiences and plans to fight global warming ”which may become blueprints for cities and local authorities elsewhere,” the alliance statement says.

Berlin claims to have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent since 1990 and plans to cut back by a further 40 percent. London plans to reduce emissions 20 percent by 2010. Under the agreement the two cities will exchange notes on meeting these targets.

The two countries plan to launch a Europe-wide awareness campaign on clean energy. The campaign will seek to raise awareness, and no doubt also to bring in new business.