EV charging sites now outnumber petrol stations

June 11, 2019 Ben Yeoh

Range anxiety? EV charging sites now outnumber petrol stations | Good Energy / Zap Map
“As of yesterday, 28 May, there are 8,546 charging locations across the UK, hosting a total of 13,688 charging devices. In contrast, as of the end of April, there are currently only 8,400 petrol stations in the UK, a figure which is continuing to decline. “

Based on Zap Map, https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/

Me:The transition in the UK is underway. More EV sites than petrol stations (though there are more individual pumps as each stations has 4 to 12 pumps) according to this study. And I’m not sure if they are all in the right places.

This FT article suggests infrastrucutre still poor: https://www.ft.com/content/dfe71424-7c07-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560

https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/blog/2019/05/29/range-anxiety-ev-charging-sites-now-outnumber-petrol-stations/

Carbon Tax, an assessment

April 18, 2019 Ben Yeoh

Petition idea: Debate the merits of a wider carbon tax (or equivalent) with revenue raised being directed back to the people or to long-term innovation investment.

Taxing carbon is one of the best ways to incentivize the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

By putting a price on carbon, emitters are confronted with the environmental cost of their actions and forced to manage their carbon output. While other policy interventions are also required, putting a price on carbon is central to reducing emissions cost-effectively.

As part of the EU, the UK is involved in a form of pricing carbon via the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS).

However 58% of emissions are out of scope of the EU ETS as they originate in transport, buildings, waste management and agriculture.

If the UK leaves the EU there are scenarios where a Carbon Emissions Tax will be collected but only by UK stationary installations currently in the EU ETS.

Parliament needs to debate the introduction of a wider carbon emissions tax for all industries and sectors and in a way that is just for society.

Positives:

A carbon tax or similar is widely supported by economists (both those associated with right wing ideas as well as those associated with left wing ideas). It goes across political lines.

There is support from business and industry. Most notably many fossil fuel companies are supportive, but the support cross all business industries (for instance, Microsoft).

Much of the infrastructure is already in place to be able to collect such taxes.

Negatives:

A carbon tax is considered “regressive” as it impacts those on low-income more than higher income.

Areas of Debate and Mitigation

A “Carbon Dividend” could be committed to be given directly back to the UK people. This would mitigate the regressive impact. This could be means-tested to further help those on lower income. Adjustments to VAT could also be made. A graduated ramp up can also mitigate impacts.

Or, when, for instance, electricity prices go up by £100, the government could give a £100 dividend that lowers internet costs of a similar non-carbon intensive good/service.

The tax revenue could also be ear marked for innovation. As energy innovation is likely to be a vital part of transitioning to a lower carbon economy.

The tax revenue could also be ear marked for other positive long term investments such as healthcare or education or other investment which have broad support.

A border adjustment for carbon content of imports and exports may be needed to discourage free-riding by other nations.

Formation of a “climate club” as suggested by economist William Nordhaus should be explored.

A mix of all the above ideas is possible and deserves debate.

Conclusion

A comprehensive carbon tax plan should enable reduced emissions, predictability for business, and stimulate long-term investments.

There is strong support from multiple stakeholders across the socio-political divides for a more comprehensive carbon tax. This support is further strengthened by economic and academic work and popular opinion. Negative economics can be mitigated leading to an overall positive for society.

This needs proper parliamentary debate.

Selected but not-comprehensive sources

(will be updated periodically - message me if you have good sources)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carbon-emmisions-tax/carbon-emmisions-tax

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/climate/nordhaus-carbon-tax-interview.html

http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Working-paper-212-Andersson_update_March2017.pdf

http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/How-to-make-carbon-taxes-more-acceptable.pdf

https://www.clcouncil.org/

http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/carbon-tax

Nordhaus DICE model below:

and some papers: https://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pno115.htm

https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/308/

https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/carbon-taxes-how-they-work

Comments (I will add useful comments on sources or ideas to those who message me)

A near universal benefit/dividend softens the tax impact.

Means-testing in general is expensive and prone to errors, it may be better to simply give benefits widely or at least to 80 percent of people, almost universal.

Carbon price escalators have been deemed a success because it provides visibility and graduation; allowing businesses to plan.

The proceeds must be ring-fenced by law so the Treasury doesn't raid it and then split into three elements: one, which goes to everyone except the richest, another to innovation and the remainder specifically to industries that are stranded or most severely affected by anti-competitiveness from carbon tax.

Making sure the impact does not fall on the low income is important, which is why the re-distribution element is crucial.

Extinction Rebellion, a look inside

April 13, 2019 Ben Yeoh

I have friends and friends of friends, loosely involved with Extinction Rebellion - it is a form of holocracy (self-organising).

I think a middle of the road type of person’s first instinct might dismiss this as somewhat crazy.

Borrowing from NIke’s successful ad campaign (and Cf. Thinking Bigly) it’s only crazy until you do it.

While I’m fairly uncommitted ideologically, I think supporting others in their strong views is valid.

This FT article looks at some of the prominent members of the Extinction Rebellion movement, and gives you an insight into their thinking. It’s pretty coherent, even if you disagree.

““I had this really rude awakening where I realised that my career was completely pointless — it was irrelevant, it was meaningless,” Green says. “Either I’m going to continue doing what I do and not sleeping well at night because of the crisis that we’re in, or I’m going to jump ship. How can we knowingly educate students for a future that doesn’t exist?” A friend of hers coined a phrase — “ecophany” — to describe Green’s metamorphosis. She has since resigned from her job to support Extinction Rebellion, persuading hundreds of academics and scientists to endorse its principles. “

FT Long read on extinction rebellion

https://www.ft.com/content/9bcb1bf8-5b20-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a

Jobs, Stories of energy transition

March 31, 2019 Ben Yeoh

They Grew Up Around Fossil Fuels.
Now, Their Jobs Are in Renewables. / NY times

“Chris Riley comes from a coal town and a coal family, but he founded a company that could hasten coal’s decline. Lee Van Horn, whose father worked underground in the mines, spends some days more than 300 feet in the air atop a wind turbine. They, and the other people in this story, represent a shift, not just in power generation but in generations of workers as well.

They come from places where fossil fuels like coal provided lifelong employment for their parents, grandparents and neighbors. They found a different path, but not necessarily out of a deep environmental commitment. In America today there is more employment in wind and solar power than in mining and burning coal. And a job’s a job....”

Me: fascinating accounts of how the economics of wind and solar and the direction of energy markets is convincing a new generation to work in wind and solar over coal and oil

link here:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/26/climate/wind-solar-energy-workers.html

Recent Carbon Trends, IEA

March 28, 2019 Ben Yeoh

“Driven by higher energy demand in 2018, global energy-related CO2 emissions rose 1.7% to a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2. While emissions from all fossil fuels increased, the power sector accounted for nearly two-thirds of emissions growth. Coal use in power alone surpassed 10 Gt CO2, mostly in Asia. China, India, and the United States accounted for 85% of the net increase in emissions, while emissions declined for Germany, Japan, Mexico, France and the United Kingdom.” IEA

Global energy-related CO2 emissions grew 1.7% in 2018 to reach a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2. It was the highest rate of growth since 2013, and 70% higher than the average increase since 2010. Last year's growth of 560 Mt was equivalent to the total emissions from international aviation.

The increase in emissions was driven by higher energy consumption resulting from a robust global economy, as well as from weather conditions in some parts of the world that led to increased energy demand for heating and cooling.

CO2 emissions stagnated between 2014 and 2016, even as the global economy continued to expand. This decoupling was primarily the result of strong energy efficiency improvements and low-carbon technology deployment, leading to a decline in coal demand. But the dynamics changed in 2017 and 2018. Higher economic growth was not met by higher energy productivity, lower-carbon options did not scale fast enough to meet the rise in demand.

The result was that CO2 emissions increased by nearly 0.5% for every 1% gain in global economic output compared with an increase of 0.3% on average since 2010. Renewables and nuclear energy have nonetheless made an impact, with emissions growing 25% slower than energy demand in 2018.

For the first time, the IEA assessed the impact of fossil fuel use on global temperature increases. It found that CO2 emitted from coal combustion was responsible for over 0.3°C of the 1°C increase in global average annual surface temperatures above pre-industrial levels. This makes coal the single largest source of global temperature increase.

The global average annual concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere averaged 407.4 ppm in 2018, up 2.4 ppm since 2017. This is a major increase from pre-industrial levels, which ranged between 180 and 280 ppm.

IEA report (2018) here.

Significant Major cross-discipline EAT-Lancet Commission paper on Sustainable Food

February 19, 2019 Ben Yeoh

Major cross-discipline EAT-Lancet Commission on Sustainable Food has published its findings (Jan 2019). I give a summary review. With a fairly broad scientific consensus, the report establishes 3 significant items.

The major items the paper establishes are

A healthy reference diet

This diet is considered to sustainably feed likely world populations from 2050 and beyond, and give a broadly correct amount of nutrition. The paper evidences that there would like be

Health benefits from this diet

In rich nations, this would be from better nutrition helping obesity and cardiovascular disease and the second order benefits of this. And in poorer nations, this would be from decreasing malnutrition.

The diet mainly due to a extremely large pivot away from red meat also establishes

a sustainable agriculture supports this diet

Where the environmental impacts of such a proposed diet are kept within likely carbon budgets and other planetary considerations.

While the report mentions several cultures that eat within the reference diet, in my view, a major weakness is little acknowledgment of the scale of socio-cultural change this diet suggests. To me, a cross-disciplinary socio-anthropologist or cultural philosopher would have made a great addition as a major component of why we eat what we eat is conditioned by social and cultural value.

-The reference diet is high in vegetables and low in red meat, sugar, potatoes and processed foods.

This healthy reference diet largely consists of:

vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and unsaturated oils,
includes a low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry,
includes no or a low quantity of red meat, processed meat, added sugar, refined grains, and starchy vegetables.

Summary values are in table above.

If you look at the carbon impacts of various foods, you can see below that the move to vegetables over red meat is very positive for the environment. This is also because of the second order effects of growing grain to feed beef or other animals, which is environmentally intense both in land use and energy use. (See Fig. 4 below)

The “Business as usual” modelling shows the huge impact from animals on greenhouse gases.

There are strong second order health effects deriving from this as well - many fewer deaths - although I suspect keeping within the energy intake limit and cutting out added sugar and processed foods would achieved a fair amount of this benefit. Cutting out processed foods and added sugar and eating about the correct amount of calories is almost universally favoured in all diets (even low carb, high fat diets as fat is high satiety) Still the economic benefits of lower health costs, and a more productive workforce.

In terms of where we need to get to…There is a long way to go (See below). Rich nations eat too much red meat and potatoes. Parts of Africa are too reliant on low nutritional-value cassava (starchy vegetables).

The overall paper is a fascinating read as it takes in the intersectional nature of food and the environment and health and proposes concrete guidance that enables a growing population. As I mentioned earlier, its weakness is in not weighting the cultural change factors in a strong enough way. For instance, many Americans and Europeans know they eat too much to be healthy but there is a learnt cultural attitude and difficulty in enabling change. Still, at least a good road map has been laid out. In terms of behaviours everyone can play a part in, food waste is important no matter what diet or scenario is chosen (grpah below).

I end on the important summary messages below from the paper:

Unhealthy and unsustainably produced food poses a global risk to people and the planet. More than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume an unhealthy diet that contributes to premature death and morbidity. Moreover, global food production is the largest pressure caused by humans on Earth, threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system.

Current dietary trends, combined with projected population growth to about 10 billion by 2050, will exacerbate risks to people and planet. The global burden of non-communicable diseases is predicted to worsen and the effects of food production on greenhouse-gas emissions, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, biodiversity loss, and water and land use will reduce the stability of the Earth system.

Transformation to healthy diets from sustainable food systems is necessary to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, and scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production are needed to guide a Great Food Transformation.

Healthy diets have an appropriate caloric intake and consist of a diversity of plant-based foods, low amounts of animal source foods, unsaturated rather than saturated fats, and small amounts of refined grains, highly processed foods, and added sugars.

Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, including a greater than 50% reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar, and a greater than 100% increase in consumption of healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. However, the changes needed differ greatly by region.

Dietary changes from current diets to healthy diets are likely to substantially benefit human health, averting about 10·8–11·6 million deaths per year, a reduction of 19·0–23·6%.

With food production causing major global environmental risks, sustainable food production needs to operate within the safe operating space for food systems at all scales on Earth. Therefore, sustainable food production for about 10 billion people should use no additional land, safeguard existing biodiversity, reduce consumptive water use and manage water responsibly, substantially reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, produce zero carbon dioxide emissions, and cause no further increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Transformation to sustainable food production by 2050 will require at least a 75% reduction of yield gaps, global redistribution of nitrogen and phosphorus fertiliser use, recycling of phosphorus, radical improvements in efficiency of fertiliser and water use, rapid implementation of agricultural mitigation options to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, adoption of land management practices that shift agriculture from a carbon source to sink, and a fundamental shift in production priorities.

The scientific targets for healthy diets from sustainable food systems are intertwined with all UN Sustainable Development Goals. For example, achieving these targets will depend on providing high-quality primary health care that integrates family planning and education on healthy diets. These targets and the Sustainable Development Goals on freshwater, climate, land, oceans, and biodiversity will be achieved through strong commitment to global partnerships and actions.

Achieving healthy diets from sustainable food systems for everyone will require substantial shifts towards healthy dietary patterns, large reductions in food losses and waste, and major improvements in food production practices. This universal goal for all humans is within reach but will require adoption of scientific targets by all sectors to stimulate a range of actions from individuals and organisations working in all sectors and at all scales.

And important strategies identified:

Three lessons can be learned from other examples of societal responses to global changes. First, no single actor or breakthrough is likely to catalyse systems change. Second, science and evidence-gathering are essential for change. Third, a full range of policy levers, from soft to hard, will be needed. ...we outline five specific and implementable strategies, which are supported by a strong evidence base….These strategies are:

(1) Seek international and national commitment to shift towards healthy diets. The scientific targets set by this Commission provide guidance for the necessary shift, which consists of increasing consumption of plant-based foods and substantially reducing consumption of animal source foods. Research has shown that this shift will reduce environmental effects and improve health outcomes. This concerted commitment can be achieved by investment in public health information and sustainability education, and improved coordination between departments of health and environment.

(2) Re-orient agricultural priorities from producing high quantities of food to producing healthy food. Production should focus on a diverse range of nutritious foods from biodiversity-enhancing food production systems rather than increased volume of a few crops, most of which are used for animal production.

(3) Sustainably intensify food production to increase high-quality output. The current global food system is unsustainable and requires an agricultural revolution that is based on sustainable intensification and driven by sustainability and system innovation. This change would entail reducing yield gaps on cropland, radical improvements in the efficiency of fertiliser and water use, recycling phosphorus, redistributing global use of nitrogen and phosphorus, implementing climate mitigation options, including changes in crop and feed management, and enhancing biodiversity within agricultural systems.

(4) Strong and coordinated governance of land and oceans. Such governance includes implementing a zero-expansion policy of new agricultural land into natural ecosystems and species-rich forests, management policies aimed at restoring and re-foresting degraded land, establishing mechanisms of international land-use governance, and adopting a Half Earth strategy for biodiversity conservation to safeguard resilience and productivity in food production. The world's oceans need to be effectively managed to ensure that fisheries do not negatively affect ecosystems, fish stocks are used responsibly, and global aquaculture production is expanded sustainably given its effect on and linkage to both land and ocean ecosystems.

(5) At least halve food losses and waste, in line with global sustainable development goals. Substantially reducing the amount of food lost and wasted across the food supply chain, from production to consumption, is essential for the global food system to stay within its safe operating space. Technological solutions will need to be applied along the food supply chain and public policies implemented to achieve a 50% reduction in food loss and waste.

Link to paper here in Lancet

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext

And a summary on the EAT site.

https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/

Blog on living longer through diet: https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2018/1/6/how-to-live-longer

Germs killed 90% native americans c. 1500 causing re-forestation and mini ice age

February 5, 2019 Ben Yeoh

Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492

Germs from Europeans arriving in the Americas from 1492, caused the native American population to die in large epidemics. With the loss of 90% of the human population, much of the agriculture land turned back into forests.

These forests acted as a large carbon capture sink reduced the Earth’s temperature significantly causing a mini ice age / cold spell.

A comprehensive paper drawing on many previous papers in this area. Link here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.12.004

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas in 1492 CE marks the onset of disease epidemics resulting in the loss of the majority of indigenous people living in the Americas over the subsequent century (Berlinguer, 1993; Cook, 1998; Crosby, 1972, 1976; Nunn and Qian, 2010). Indigenous land use was widespread before European arrival, particularly in Mexico, Central America, Bolivia and the Andes where terraced fields and irrigated agriculture was practised (e.g. Abrams and Nowacki, 2008; Chepstow-Lusty and Jonsson, 2000; Heckenberger et al., 2003; Hunter and Sluyter, 2015; Whitmore and Turner, 1992), and across Amazonia where diverse pre-Columbian land uses left its traces in the composition of contemporary Amazon forests (Clement et al., 2015; Levis et al., 2017; Maezumi et al., 2018a; Watling et al., 2018). Thus the Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas (Wolf, 1982) after 1492 CE likely led to a reduction in land use. Fields and fallow areas then underwent secondary succession and in many cases increased carbon stocks as they reverted towards similar prior states – with local, regional and potentially global consequences for the Earth System.
The uptake of carbon on the abandoned anthropogenic lands after European contact may have been large enough to impact the atmospheric CO2 record (Dull et al., 2010; Faust et al., 2006; Lewis and Maslin, 2015; Nevle and Bird, 2008; Nevle et al., 2011; Ruddiman, 2005). Furthermore, at the same time high-resolution Antarctic ice-core records of atmospheric CO2 concentration show an anomalously large decline of ∼7–10 ppm (Ahn et al., 2012; MacFarling Meure et al., 2006) beginning in the 1500s with a minimum in the early 1600s (Fig. 1). Isotope analysis shows that the anomaly was driven by an increase in the terrestrial carbon sink (Fig. 1B, Bauska et al., 2015; Francey et al., 1999; Trudinger et al., 1999). Hence, the carbon uptake that is thought to have occurred following the arrival of epidemics in the Americas may have reduced atmospheric CO2 levels and led to a decline in radiative forcing that may then have contributed to the coldest part of the Little Ice Age(Faust et al., 2006; Neukom et al., 2014)

Long-term impacts of exposure to high temperatures on human capital

January 28, 2019 Ben Yeoh

Long-term impacts of exposure to high temperatures on human capital and economic productivity:

“Weather anomalies have a range of adverse contemporaneous impacts on health and socio-economic outcomes. This paper tests if temperature anomalies around the time of birth can have long-term impacts on individuals' economic productivity. Using unique data sets on historical weather and earnings, place and date of birth of all 1.5 million formal employees in Ecuador, we find that individuals who have experienced in-utero temperatures that are 1 °C above average are less educated and earn about 0.7% less as adults. Results are robust to alternative specifications and falsification tests and suggest that warming may have already caused adverse long-term economic impacts.”

Paper link here

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.10.001

Ram Fishman, Paul Carrillo, Jason Russ (2018) (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management)

Comment: the falsification test does mean that spurious patterns are a less likley explanation, there could be other causal effects as correlation is not causation, but the finding is provocative.

It chimes with a recent paper by Isen et al. (2017) finds evidence for a simila r association among 30-year individuals in the U.S. born between 1969 and 1977. (Relationship between season of birth, temperature exposure, and later life wellbeing).