Vehicle ownership in India is projected to hit 400 million by 2040 from the current 170 million, which could prompt a five-fold increase in poisonous gases emitted by cars and trucks. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Feb 25 2015 (IPS)

Like many others of her age, 15-year-old Aastha Sharma, a Class 10 student at a private school in India’s capital, New Delhi, loves being outdoors, going for walks with her friends and enjoying an occasional ice-cream. But the young girl can’t indulge in any of these activities.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a lung disorder likely caused by Delhi’s heavily polluted air, has severely cramped the girl’s lifestyle, confining her mostly to her home.

An estimated 1.5 million people die annually in India due to indoor and outdoor air pollution.
For the past three years, Sharma’s life has been a whirligig of doctors’ prescriptions, missed social outings and a restricted diet that does not include most of her favourite foods. Along with books and a lunchbox, she also packs a nebulizer in her satchel daily to ward off the wheezing attacks that she has now come to dread.

“I’m sick of the endless do’s and don’ts I have to follow. When will I be able to lead a free life?” the teen wonders.

Many other youngsters in Delhi are asking the very same question as they grapple with the effects of rampant air pollution in this city of 18 million, believed to be world’s most polluted.

Particulate matter: a deadly matter

Greenpeace India, an environmental NGO, recently released findings of its air quality monitoring survey highlighting how poor the air was inside five prominent schools in the capital.

“Air pollution levels inside Delhi’s schools are alarmingly high and children are consistently breathing bad air. The new government needs to acknowledge the severity of air pollution in the city,” said Aishwarya Madineni, a campaigner with Greenpeace.

Another study conducted in 2014, which monitored 11,628 school-going children from 36 schools in Delhi in different seasons, found that every third child in the city had reduced lung function because of particulate pollution.

In a report submitted last year to the Supreme Court, the country’s Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority urged the apex court to order all schools in Delhi to shut down on days when air pollution levels posed a threat to public health.

Studies by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) point out that when children are exposed to particulate matter – a complex mixture of acids (nitrates and sulfates), organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles – of 2.5 micrometers, it can trigger a raft of deadly respiratory illnesses.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified particulate matter pollution as carcinogenic to humans in 2013 and designated it as a “leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.”

“Apart from mucous membranes and nasal cavities, air pollution also severely irritates eyes and skin. Exposure to high levels of pollution can lead to serious health [issues] in the long run,” warns Dr. Abha Sood, a senior consultant oncologist at the New Delhi-based Max Hospital.

Mothers’ exposure to pollution for prolonged periods, adds the specialist, can lead to malformation of organs in newborns.

“[Particulate Matter] of less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM 10) is particularly insidious as it gets lodged deep inside the lungs and penetrates the bloodstream, heightening a person’s vulnerability to cancer and heart disease,” she explains.

A national crisis

India’s high levels of air pollution, ranked by the WHO as being among the worst in the world, are adversely impacting the life spans of its citizens, reducing most Indian lives by over three years, says a study by economists from the Universities of Chicago, Harvard and Yale.

Over half of India’s population – roughly 660 million people – live in areas where fine particulate matter pollution is above India’s standards for what is considered safe, said the study.

If India reverses this trend to meet its air standards, this demographic would gain about 3.2 years in their expected life spans, according to the study. In other words, cleaner air would save 2.1 billion life-years, it said.

Furthermore, India has the distinction of recording the world’s highest death rate from chronic respiratory diseases, and more deaths from asthma than any other nation, according to the WHO. The health organisation also claims that India is home to 13 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities.

An estimated 1.5 million people die annually in India due to indoor and outdoor air pollution, which also contributes to both chronic and acute heart disease, the leading cause of death in the country.

In a report submitted to the Supreme Court in December 2014, the country’s Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority called for increasing the tax on diesel cars, and banning all private vehicles on high air pollution days.

The report also advised that cars older than 15 years be taken off the city’s roads and air purifiers installed at crowded markets; it also called for a crackdown on the burning of trash.

However, the implementation of these measures has been patchy at best, say health activists. Worse, vehicle ownership in India is projected to hit 400 million by 2040 from the current 170 million, says a joint study by the Energy and Resources Institute at the University of California, San Diego, and the California Air Resources Board.

This could result in a health crisis – a three-fold increase in PM 2.5 levels and a five-fold increase in poisonous, highly reactive gases emitted by cars and trucks, the study predicted.

The economic cost of pollution is already proving to be a heavy burden for Asia’s third largest economy. A 2013 World Bank Report highlighted how pollution and other environmental challenges costs India 80 billion dollars a year, nearly six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

About 23 percent of child mortality and 2.5 percent of all adult deaths in the country can be attributed to environmental degradation, the study further stated.

Coal-based power: adding fuel to the fire

Air pollution is now the fifth-leading cause of death in India. Between 2000 and 2010, the annual number of premature deaths linked to air pollution across India shot up six-fold to 620,000, according to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an advocacy group in New Delhi.

Another CSE study out this week has sounded alarm bells over air pollution, particularly from coal-based power plants. The two-year comprehensive environmental audit, conducted on 47 thermal power plants owned by the Centre, state governments and private players, has found that Indian thermal power plants were among the most inefficient in the world, on an average operating at 60 to 70 percent of their installed capacity.

The coal-based power plants were also found to have carbon dioxide emissions that were 14 percent higher than similar plants in China. Also, 76 percent of the plants were unable to meet the targets for ulitisation of ‘fly ash‘, imposed by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

With the government showing little interest in formulating a cohesive action plan – involving all stakeholders – for tackling the many-headed hydra of air pollution, it looks like Sharma and her nebulizer will be inseparable for a while.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Residents of West Point, Liberia, hope that one day they will be relocated from the beach as the continuous environmental degradation has resulted in most of the land eroding into the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Wade C. L. Williams/IPS

By Wade C. L. Williams
MONROVIA, Jun 25 2014 (IPS)

Mary B owned a shop in West Point, Monrovia’s densely-populated slum community, where she sold liquor just a few yards away from the sea. But last month, the ocean left her homeless and without a business because the devastating erosion of the coastline has resulted in most of the land eroding into the Atlantic Ocean with thousands of homes being washed away by the encroaching sea.

“While a human being or your landlord will tell you ‘I give you notice at a particular time’ then you will pack your things and look for another place, the sea can’t give you notice,” the young woman who preferred to be called Mary B told IPS.

Situated between the Mesurado and St. Paul Rivers on a peninsula projecting out of the Atlantic Ocean, the township of West Point is home to about 75,000 people living in shacks that are predominantly made out of zinc.

Mary B said she had bought the piece of land from the commissioner of the township for 11,500 Liberian dollars, about 130 U.S. dollars, and built her shop on it.

According to the Township Commissioner’s office, residents in the area are primarily squatters, with no legal rights to the land, though it is possible to obtain a Squatters Permit from the administrative office, which grants a certain level of legitimacy to the dwellers.

But for sometime now, residents of West Point have been hoping that one day they will be relocated because of the continuous environmental degradation on the shoreline here.

A report on the threat to the environment in Liberia released by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2008 states that erosion in this West African country is causing the shoreline to recede in some cities, including Buchanan, Greenville, Harper and Robertsport. Beach mining is also said to be the main contributing factor.

Mohamed Carew Alias Kaddafi, 43, is physically challenged and a father of six. A carpenter by trade, he ran a small grocery shop in West Point, which was washed away in the storm.

“We were in the shop, the water came with force and blasted the whole place,” he told IPS, adding that this is not the first time he has lost his business to the sea.

“It happened before in 2007 and I lost my house.”

He may be eager to move elsewhere, but the government has not committed to a relocation plan.

West Point is home to many of Monrovia’s disadvantaged people and many cannot afford the city’s huge rents, which are fixed in U.S. dollars — 150 for a modest two bedroom apartment. To make matters worse the government does not have public housing available.

People in the area have always talked about plans by the government to relocate them, but the Public Works Ministry says the government has no such plans to move over 75,000 people.

However, the government agency responsible for monitoring environmental conditions, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says the erosion in West Point and other communities is something the government is concerned about.

“In Liberia, climate change is causing serious coastal erosion and degrading of coastal environment,” Stephen Neufville, acting head of the EPA, told IPS.

West Point and other coastal communities in Monrovia are expected to benefit from the second phase of the Coastal Defence Project otherwise known as Enhancing Resilience of Vulnerable Coastal Areas to Climate Change Risks in Liberia.

But the EPA says that the start of the next phase of the project, which includes Monrovia, where West Point is situated, “depends on when we get the next funding.” The previous funding, they say, was used for the first phase that is currently ongoing in Buchanan.

This project, launched by the United Nations Development Programme and the government of Liberia, is set to help coastal communities in three counties develop defensive mechanism against the effects of climate change that cause sea erosion. The Coastal Defence Project involves building breakwaters to stop waves from eating up the coastline.

But many residents fear that this may be happening too slowly and if nothing is done to relocate them from the area, the sea will continue to cause destruction to their lives and properties.

“For us in West Point, we call the sea the original landlord,” Mary B said.

The new U.S. effort to reduce carbon emissions sends a powerful signal to the business and energy sectors that the country is moving away from coal and embracing energy efficiency and renewables, says the WWF’s Samantha Smith. Credit: Rennett Stowe/CC by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 3 2014 (IPS)

New efforts by the U.S. to reduce its carbon emissions are being welcomed around the world. On Monday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants 25 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

This “is the strongest action ever taken by the U.S. government to fight climate change,” said Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s Climate Action Commissioner.

Hedegaard said it’s an important step for “a president really investing politically in fighting climate change.”

“We’ve been waiting a long time to see who will be the first through the climate action doorway,” said the Seychelles Islands Ambassador Ronald Jumeau, who is a spokesperson for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). The very existence of many of these low-lying islands is threatened by sea level rise from a warming climate.

As the largest carbon emitter historically it’s important for the U.S. to take the lead, Jumeau told IPS.

“Now its time for other major carbon-emitting countries to step up,” he said. This is especially true for Japan, Canada and Australia, as well as China and India. “Small islands states are moving quickly to reduce our emissions and we cheer anyone who joins in.”

Several Pacific island countries hope to have their electricity from 100 percent renewable energy by 2020. Just last year the tiny country of Palau near New Zealand became the first nation to achieve this.

Other countries have also stepped up. China recently increased its renewable energy target and has banned new coal power plants in many urban regions. Just two weeks ago, Mexico increased its ambitious renewable energy target from 15 to 25 percent by 2018.
The U.S. announcement is one of a series of recent steps by a few countries to reduce emissions, said Samantha Smith, the leader of the WWF Climate and Energy Initiative.

“This is very encouraging and ought to inspire others to act,” Smith told IPS in an interview from Oslo.

In taking a strong public stance on emissions, the U.S. is sending a powerful signal to the business and energy sectors that the country is moving away from coal and embracing energy efficiency and renewables, Smith said.

“There are already more jobs and better jobs in the U.S. solar industry than in coal,” she added.

A recent study found that employing energy efficiency alone would create more than 600,000 skilled jobs, cut air pollution, fight climate change and result in 17 billion dollars in energy savings.

Jumeau said many countries will closely watch to see if the EPA can actually deliver on its promise given the contentious politics in the U.S.

The coal industry and its supporters in the Republican party will try to block the EPA, but they’re unlikely to be successful, said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC.

While the EPA action on power plants is a positive sign by the U.S., it’s not ambitious enough to prevent global warming from rising well beyond 2 degrees C, Meyer told IPS.

New and larger commitments to cut carbon are what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wants leaders to bring the Climate Summit 2014 in New York City in September.

“Ban Ki-moon has made it clear he wants commitments not speeches in New York. But it’s not clear what will happen,” said Meyer.

The European Union is the leader in cutting emissions – but it could and needs to do far more, said Smith.

“The EU has already reached its 2020 target but is unwilling to go further, when it could do more on renewables and energy efficiency,” she said.

She hopes the U.S. announcement will encourage the EU to be more ambitious in the run-up to the new global climate treaty to be finalised in Paris in 2015. Short-term reduction targets like 2020 are very important from an energy investment perspective, since they spell out where a country or region is going, she said.

Equally important is the scientific reality that carbon emissions must peak before 2020 to have a reasonable chance of staying below 2 degree C of global warming.

Jumeau says his colleagues at AOSIS are cautiously optimistic. They sense a change in the wind regarding public concern about global warming.

“Everyone around the world is suffering and its getting worse. The public is beginning to notice and see the impacts support scientists’ warnings.”

Power plants are the single largest sources of carbon pollution in the United States. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON , Jun 2 2014 (IPS)

U.S. power plants would be required to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions by almost a third in coming decades, under a landmark proposal that constitutes President Barack Obama’s most significant attempt to counter climate change.

While the federal government has long regulated a spectrum of airborne pollutants from power plants, the rule marks the first time that carbon would be added to this list. That’s particularly important given carbon-dioxide’s outsized role in fuelling climate change, and the fact that the U.S. power sector is responsible for some 40 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Indeed, carbon alone accounts for more than four-fifths of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to government estimates.

“In that we’ve never had carbon pollution standards, this proposal is revolutionary,” Nikki Silvestri, executive director of Green For All, an advocacy group, told IPS. “If we can really make this rule work, and if it is enforced well, it could have the potential to phase in a clean-energy economy – and that’s really what we’re going for.”

The new proposal, unveiled Monday and known as the Clean Power Plan, would seek to bring down carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent (below 2005 levels) by 2030. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which proposed the rule, that’s equivalent to half of the emissions produced from powering every home in the United States for a year.

The plan does not necessitate action from the U.S. Congress, which has refused to touch any climate-related legislation since early on in Obama’s tenure. The administration has already tightened emissions regulations for future power plants as well as automobiles and transport trucks, though Monday’s announcement has received by far the most intense anticipation from both environmentalists and industry.

The 645-page proposal is twofold, laying out broad carbon-reduction goals but also leaving it up to each state to figure out how to meet those goals. As such, states would have available a variety of options, including bolstering efficiency, investing in renewable energies, fashioning a tax on carbon, building up so-called carbon-trading schemes, or phasing out older or coal-fired power plants.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 39 percent of the U.S. energy mix last year, while hydropower and other renewables accounted for just 13 percent.

“The EPA’s proposal to limit carbon pollution from power plants for the first time ever is a giant leap forward in protecting the health of all Americans and future generations,” Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a prominent watchdog group, said Monday.

“It sets fair targets for each state and empowers the states with the flexibility to craft the best local solutions, using an array of compliance tools. And if states embrace the huge energy efficiency opportunities, consumers will save on their electric bills and see hundreds of thousands of jobs created across the country.”

Still, the new rule would not actually bring U.S. emissions below levels urged by the United Nations.

“The targets aren’t ambitious enough for real emissions reduction,” Janet Redman, director of the Climate Policy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank, told IPS. “But they are a piece of the puzzle, and it would be a real win if this rule restricts emissions from coal-fired power plants.”

Environmental justice

While the global ramifications of Monday’s announcement will become clearer in coming months, the Obama administration has thus far sought to highlight the proposed rule’s domestic impact, especially in terms of public health.

Achieving the carbon-reduction goal by 2030 would also cut smog-producing pollution by a quarter, the government says. And those benefits would likely be felt in particular by African-American, Hispanic and low-income communities.

“This is about environmental justice, too, because lower income families and communities of colour are hardest hit,” Gina McCarthy, the head of the EPA, said Monday in unveiling the rule’s details.

“Rising temperatures bring more smog, more asthma, and longer allergy seasons … The first year that these standards go into effect, we’ll avoid up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks – and those numbers go up from there.”

McCarthy said that by reducing soot and smog, the administration’s plan will create climate and health-related benefits worth some 90 billion dollars in 2030, versus costs of around eight billion dollars a year. “For every dollar we invest in the plan, families will see seven dollars in health benefits,” she noted.

During a conference call hosted by public health groups on Monday, Obama noted that African-Americans are four times as likely as others to die of asthma, while Latinos are 30 percent more likely to be hospitalised for related problems. And according to Green For All’s Silvestri, some 68 percent of African-Americans live within 30 miles of a coal plant.

“Thus far, people really aren’t connecting these health issues to pollution and to climate change – they just know that each of their kids has asthma,” she says. “So we really need to connect these dots for people, to focus on these things that are already affecting our communities every day and then explain how climate change is contributing.”

Some worry that such an effort could be undercut if the new EPA rule pushes states towards carbon-trading schemes, under which emissions permits can be bought and sold. While such systems do allow policymakers to establish overall caps on emissions, critics say carbon trading can actually help dirty industries resist change.

“While the idea is that such a programme makes it more economical for polluters to clean up their act, those that are the hardest to clean up can simply pay to continue polluting,” the Institute for Policy Studies’ Redman says.

“That’s a major problem for those living next to power plants – people of colour, poor communities and others who are already feeling the effects of this pollution.”

Following four months of public comment and what will certainly be extensive legal challenges, the EPA is slated to finalise the new carbon-emissions rule by June 2015. Thereafter, states would have until mid-2016 to finalise their own plans on compliance, though that deadline could be extended by another two years if requested.

Use of Roundup Ready crops has been so widespread in the United States over the past decade and a half that farmers have increasingly found themselves battling weeds that have evolved resistance to the herbicide’s key ingredient, glyphosate. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, May 2 2014 (IPS)

Two key federal agencies here are in the final stages of approving a new herbicide-resistant crop “system” that would constitute the second phase of genetically engineered agriculture, following an announcement this week.

To date, the only herbicide-resistant plants approved in the United States have been related to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready system. This system uses six crops genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide Roundup, also produced by Monsanto, a U.S.-based company.“It’s advertised as a solution to the problem of glyphosate-resistant weeds, but in fact the weeds will rapidly evolve resistance and become more difficult to control – leading to what we call the pesticide treadmill." -- Bill Freese

Yet use of Roundup Ready crops has been so widespread in the United States over the past decade and a half that farmers have increasingly found themselves battling weeds that have evolved resistance to the herbicide’s key ingredient, glyphosate.

According to an industry survey released last year, the amount of U.S. farmland infested with glyphosate-resistant weeds has almost doubled since 2010, to more than 61 million acres, with half of U.S. farmers reporting glyphosate-resistant weeds in their fields in 2012.

In response, Dow AgroSciences, another U.S. company, has produced a new set of crops that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to both glyphosate and another chemical, 2,4-D, known most notoriously as half of the infamous Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange. The company says approval could bring in a billion dollars in revenues.

“The Dow proposal would be the first major product of the next generation of genetically engineered crops,” Bill Freese, a senior policy analyst with the Centre for Food Safety, a watchdog group here, told IPS.

“It’s advertised as a solution to the problem of glyphosate-resistant weeds, but in fact the weeds will rapidly evolve resistance and become more difficult to control – leading to what we call the pesticide treadmill. As we’ve seen with Roundup Ready, these systems are extremely good at fostering resistant weeds.”

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened a 30-day public comment period on Dow’s application, specifically on its specialised use of 2,4-D. The other agency in charge of deciding on the application, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has already given its provisional approval for the new cops, which include a corn plant and two types of soybean.

In announcing the start of this final phase of the regulatory process, the EPA was clear in the rationale behind Dow’s product, which is known as Enlist Duo. (An EPA fact sheet is available here.)

“Weeds are becoming increasingly resistant to glyphosate-based herbicides and are posing a problem for farmers,” the agency said in a statement. “If finalized, EPA’s action provides an additional tool to reduce the spread of glyphosate resistant weeds.”

Indeed, it appears that additional tools may soon abound. According to the Center for Food Safety’s Freese, nine of the 14 applications for genetically engineered crops currently pending before U.S. regulators are for herbicide-resistant varieties.

Sixfold increase

Critics are warning of a spectrum of concerns around Dow’s application, particularly regarding the impacts of increased use of 2,4-D. This compound is already in use, with U.S. farmers currently using around 26 million pounds per year.

Yet according to the USDA’s own estimates, this usage would likely jump by more than sixfold following the approval of Enlist Duo, perhaps resulting in some 176 million pounds used per year. That would constitute higher U.S. use than any pesticide other than glyphosate.

Even at the comparably low usage of 2,4-D of recent years, worrying health effects are already being seen. According to public health advocates, 2,4-D has been linked to increases in non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease, as well as heightened risk of birth defects among the children of farm workers who apply 2,4-D.

“The herbicide itself is in various ways more toxic than glyphosate, leading to cancer, lower sperm counts, liver disease and other problems. And it’s still contaminated with dioxins,” Paul Achitoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, a legal advocacy group, told IPS.

“Remarkably, you have government regulators openly admitting that, due to previous deregulations, you already have 60 million acres of glyphosate resistance, and now they want to address this by increasing the use of a toxic chemical. And so far, Congress has just yawned!”

Impact could also be significant for both nearby agriculture and environmental systems. 2,4-D has been shown to be highly volatile, tending to drift easily on the wind or to enter groundwater via runoff.

Given that the compound is specifically designed to be lethal to any broad-leafed plant, the impact of a sixfold increase in the use of 2,4-D would likely be significant. The EPA and the National Marine Fisheries Service have both found that the even relatively low use of 2,4-D of recent years is likely already having a negative impact on endangered species.

Agricultural crossroads

In a public letter released earlier this year, 144 “farm, food, health, public interest, consumer, fisheries, and environmental organizations” called on the federal government to reject the Dow proposal, warning that U.S. agriculture is at a “crossroads”.

“One path leads to more intensive use of old and toxic pesticides, litigious disputes in farm country over drift-related crop injury, still less crop diversity, increasingly intractable weeds, and sharply rising farmer production costs,” the letter stated. “This is the path American agriculture will take with approval of Dow’s 2,4-D corn, soybeans and the host of other new herbicide-resistant crops in the pipeline.”

Yet the implications of the biotechnology revolution in agriculture go well beyond the United States. Although genetically engineered crops first took root in the U.S., this approach has since spread across the globe, in developing and developed countries alike – though the U.S. regulatory system continues to be more lax on the issue than in other countries.

At times these new technologies are contextualised as an important opportunity to increase yields, particularly in adverse environments, and thus to combat hunger and strengthen food security. But the Center for Food Safety’s Freese says this is whitewash.

“The rhetoric is about biotech feeding the world, but really it has no place in developing countries. Most poor farmers can’t afford this type of product in the first place,” he notes.

“Biotech is not a humanitarian endeavour. It’s about promoting pesticide use by industrial farmers in developed countries.”

Freese says his office will likely push the EPA to extend its public comment period for Enlist Duo, given what he dubs the significance of the regulator’s decision. Dow is currently hoping to have its new crops in the ground by next year.

At its Balzac Fresh Food Distribution Centre, Walmart uses infrared scanning technology to identify areas where energy can be lost to the environment and uses the information to improve the insulation performance of building penetrations, door seas, dock plates and air curtains. Credit: Walmart/cc by 2.0

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 2 2014 (IPS)

The U.S. could create more than 600,000 skilled jobs, cut air pollution and fight climate change while its citizens reap 17 billion dollars in energy savings by doing one simple thing: Boost energy efficiency.

Employing existing energy-savings technology could reduce electricity demand by 25 percent. That’s like shutting down 494 power plants by 2030, according to a new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).Programmes aimed at helping customers save energy cost utilities only about three cents per kilowatt hour, while generating the same amount of electricity from burning coal or natural gas can cost two to three times more.

“Americans’ energy bills will be lower and that will boost local economic growth,” said the study’s lead author, Sara Hayes.

“The CO2 emissions reduction would be massive – 600 million tonnes a year by 2030,” Hayes told IPS.

That’s nearly as much as Canada’s annual emissions, which are among the highest in the world.

“We were very conservative in our study. The benefits could be far greater,” she said.

The health and environmental cost savings from reducing air pollution were not part of the study.

“Those savings would blow the other savings right out of the water,” Hayes added.

What will it take to bring all this about at no net cost? Strong public support for a regulatory standard under the U.S. Clean Air Act to set a CO2 emission limit on existing power plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently preparing a draft regulation that will be made public Jun. 1.

States would enforce the new CO2 reduction target for existing power plants and it is important that the EPA ensure that energy efficiency is a way to meet it, said Hayes.

The study, Change is in the Air, shows how the EPA could use four common energy efficiency policies to allow states flexibility to meet the reduction targets.

These include setting a state energy savings target of 1.5 percent per year, implementing updated national model building codes, constructing economically attractive combined heat and power facilities, and adopting standards for five appliances.

These policies have been thoroughly tested and many states already take advantage of some end-use energy efficiency programmes and policies. All states have vast untapped reserves of this resource, the study found.

The U.S. leads the world in wasting energy, other studies have also shown. This is costly, amounting to an estimated 130 billion dollars per year, according to the Alliance to Save Energy.

In one small community programme in the state of Massachusetts, families saved more than 10 million dollars in electric and gas bills in 2012. All it took was information on household energy use, neighbourhood benchmarks and advice about how to use less energy.

“The EPA has a huge opportunity to grow the economy,” says Richard Caperton, director of national policy at Opower, an energy efficiency software company based in Arlington, Virginia.

By providing households with daily reports on their energy use and what the average is for their area along with ways to reduce it, Opower will help the U.S. save as much electricity as the Hoover Dam generates this year, Caperton told IPS.

“We started out eight years ago with two people and now more than 500 work at Opower,” he said.

The “Change is in the Air” study estimates that the gradual energy efficiency roll-out would create 611,000 jobs in 2030. This number includes those directly employed in energy efficiency jobs like home contractors and construction, and people like small business owners and their employees who benefit as money saved is spent back into the local economy.

However, EPA’s CO2 reduction target is virtually certain to face fierce opposition from powerful vested interests in the fossil fuel and power generation sector. Moreover, many electric utilities operate on a growth model, profiting from building new power plants and selling more electricity, not less, Hayes said.

Utilities’ business model can be restructured to recover the costs of efficiency while still profiting from selling less electricity. Another recent report by ACEEE also found that energy efficiency is the lowest-cost electricity resource for utilities.

Programmes aimed at helping customers save energy cost utilities only about three cents per kilowatt hour, while generating the same amount of electricity from burning coal or natural gas can cost two to three times more.

The U.S. is not alone in failing to prioritise energy efficiency.

An 2012 international study showed that despite the potential for huge cost and emission reductions, governments put nearly all their energy research efforts into new sources of energy like new power plants rather than helping to develop energy-efficient cars, buildings and appliances.

It found that improving energy efficiency provides by far the best bang-for-the-buck for energy security, improved air quality, reduced environmental and social impacts and carbon emission reductions. The study was published Oct. 26, 2012 in the science journal Nature Climate Change.

Energy efficiency is the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions causing climate change, co-author of the study Charlie Wilson previously told IPS.

Getting governments to fully commit to energy efficiency won’t be easy. By far the world’s biggest corporations are the fossil fuel energy and power producers, and they wield enormous political influence, said Wilson, a scientist with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria.

The global drawdown in the use of leaded fuel has resulted in benefits of some 2.5 trillion dollars a year. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Apr 22 2014 (IPS)

Consumer advocates, public health workers and environmental groups here are calling on the federal government to take a formal step towards regulating the use of lead in aviation gasoline, despite a failure to do so for nearly two decades.

The United States is one of the few countries that continue to allow the use of lead in aviation gasoline, known as “avgas” and used in more than 150,000 small planes and helicopters at around 20,000 U.S. airports. Avgas is now the country’s largest source of lead in air emissions, with significant, universally acknowledged ramifications for the natural environment and, particularly, for human health."The EPA has the evidence it needs, the science is clear, so we really feel that there’s no need to wait any longer.” -- Kathy Attar

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the lead regulator on such issues, ordered the removal of lead from the gasoline used in motor vehicles a decade and a half ago. Yet despite what proponents of new regulations say are clear scientific findings and a straightforward conversion process, the EPA has yet to weigh in on the matter.

“We already know there’s no safe threshold for lead exposure, and we also know that lead is toxic and a possible carcinogen even at low levels, leading to brain damage and learning disabilities,” Kathy Attar, toxics programme manager with Physicians for Social Responsibility, a consumer protection group, told IPS.

“These effects are particularly dangerous for children. The EPA has the evidence it needs, the science is clear, so we really feel that there’s no need to wait any longer.”

Few other countries continue to use leaded avgas, though Algeria, Iraq and Yemen did still do so as of late last year. The United States is not only the world’s most prominent laggard in this regard, but also by far avgas’s largest user.

Smaller aircraft tend to fly much lower to the ground than jet airliners, and hence their emissions can have a much more pronounced, immediate effect on human health (jet fuel is already lead-free). Further, lead stays in the environment for a long time, leading to a  “legacy lead” already left over from decades’ of use of leaded gasoline and paint.

Meanwhile, the global drawdown in the use of leaded fuel has resulted in benefits of some 2.5 trillion dollars a year, according to United Nations estimates from 2011. That study found that the economic benefits of this phase-out, primarily in terms of public health, outweighed the costs by 10 times.

New evidence

Physicians for Social Responsibility is one of three advocacy groups now calling on the EPA to make what is known as an endangerment finding over the lead in aviation gas. This initial step would recognise that avgas lead causes pollution and that this pollution poses a threat to human health.

Such a finding would constitute a necessary first step towards eventually creating a new regulation on the issue. Yet some say that past EPA determinations on these issues already satisfies the requirements for a formal endangerment determination.

“The only showing required for a finding of endangerment is that lead emissions from aircraft engines fuelled by leaded aviation gasoline cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” the new petition, filed with the EPA on Monday, states.

“In this case, both prongs of that test have been met … There is no need for further study. EPA has all of the evidence it needs to make an endangerment finding.”

The EPA was unable to comment for this story by deadline.

Another green group, Friends of the Earth U.S., has pushed this line with the EPA in the past, and been turned down. Indeed, the current petition is actually a request for reconsideration of a similar petition filed with the regulator in 2006, while two years ago a court refused to force the agency to take further action.

In 2010, the EPA did take initial steps to start drafting a rule, but that didn’t include the endangerment finding and the agency has since stated that it needs to undertake more analysis. In mid-2012 it responded to the original Friends of the Earth petition, however, and has said it could decide on future action by the end of 2015.

It didn’t commit to that date, however. And advocates say new evidence has emerged that wasn’t taken into account during the legal proceedings and past agency decisions.

“We’ve seen the EPA issue the results of a lead-monitoring study at 17 airports, including findings of lead levels higher than federal standards,” Marcie Keever, legal director at Friends of the Earth, which took part in Monday’s petition, told IPS.

“In addition, in 2011 a study from Duke University reported on the severe negative impacts of lead from aircraft, finding elevated levels of lead in the blood of those living within 500 meters of airports.”

The EPA’s powers have become intensely politicised in recent years, due both to the agency’s positioning as the prime regulator on greenhouse gas emissions and the perception that its rules often increase companies’ operating costs.

Keever acknowledges that the agency needs to be careful about its rationale for action, but also suggests that the issues surrounding leaded avgas are relatively straightforward.

“Because of the pressures the EPA faces whenever it moves forward with regulation, they want to be very thorough,” she says. “But we think this issue is much easier than, for instance, greenhouse gases – the science is extremely clear.”

Alternatives available

In the past, members of Congress have pushed the EPA to go slow on the avgas issue. Particularly vocal have been lawmakers from the large northern state of Alaska, where small aircraft are especially important for reaching otherwise inaccessible communities.

“While we understand and share your desire to remove lead from avgas … we also need to ensure the EPA does not ban lead used in avgas until we have a safe, viable, readily available, and cost-efficient alternative,” 27 U.S. senators wrote to the EPA in 2011.

Now that situation could be changing. In December, Shell became the first major oil company to unveil a “lead-free alternative” avgas, and last year the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration formally noted that such alternatives exist.

Further, the economic burdens involved in such a transition could be relatively low. Currently, unleaded gasoline used in automobiles is actually cheaper than leaded avgas.

And while some new infrastructure would be required at airports, most aircraft would require no updating whatsoever. According to Friends of the Earth, some 75 percent of the current U.S. fleet could start using unleaded fuel with no retrofitting whatsoever.