The EU Ecolabel

As some major Asian economies settle comfortably in their polluted air and water and argue why their industries cannot be so eco-friendly, Europe has pulled ahead with initiative after initiative.

Few in Malaysia would have heard of the EU Eco-label, the flower logo above that is affixed to products that have been verified by independent bodies as complying with strict ecological and performance criteria.

Their website lists 11 product categories under this system - Bedding, Gardening, Electronic equipment, Footwear, Household Appliances, Textiles, DIY, Cleaning, Paper, Services and Lubricants.

For example, the compliance requirements for bedding manufacturers look like this:


This is not just a commercial branding stunt but a carefully administered plan by the European Eco-labelling Board (EUEB) and receives the support of the European Commission, all Member States of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA).

According to their website, the Eco-labelling Board includes representatives such as industry, environment protection groups and consumer organisations.

Read their FAQ here about the whats and whys of the EU eco-label. The EUROPA website also has a good backgrounder on this.

My question is with Asia's notoriously booming population, will their governments have the will to adopt anything like this soon? How about anytime this century?

Why our storms are getting fiercer

Storms and flooding are hitting us with a vengeance this year. For the first time in my life I was nearly blown off my feet by super strong winds and rain that was unleashed in PJ last Friday evening.

This freaky weather phenomena looks set to be a long term if not permanent feature of our weather system if this report is true. Scientists now say pollution from Asia is helping generate stronger storms. These come in the form of tiny particles generated from coal burning in China and India which had been going on for decades.

The terrible air pollution in China is no fairy tale as I found out recently when I went there.


Above was the sight that greeted me on the approach to Guangzhou airport. The clouds sit in a reddish brown soup caused by emissions from coal fired plants.


And this is the view of Guangzhou airport as we drove on the highway. The haze is a permanent feature that just hangs in the air day and night. Even rain won't clear it.

While Malaysia is quite far away from the North Pacific area mentioned in the report, I don't think we are ever free from the climactic effects of pollution from the greater Asian continent. We experience this first hand every August & September when haze from Indonesian forest fires envelop us.

Whether forest fire or dirty coal-fired plants, tons of carbon particles are ejected into the air where they stay suspended and add to the grim load already carried by the atmosphere.

"The Pacific storm track, they noted, plays a critical role in global atmospheric circulation, and altering this weather pattern could have a significant impact on the climate," says the report.

Is nuclear power carbon-free?

Not according to Dr Uwe Fritsche, a researcher at the Öko Institut in Darmstadt, Germany, who says there's no such thing as carbon-free power.

A big 1,250 megawatt plant produces the equivalent of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year during its life, he says. Its does better than coal- and gas-fired turbines but in reality, a lot of Co2 is produced in setting up the plant, mining the uranium ore it requires and in operating it.

So it seems that when its life-cycle cost of reducing Co2 emissions is compared with other energy alternatives, nuclear power may not fare as well in the global warming equation. There are suggestions that improving a nation's energy efficiency would produce far less Co2 than a new nuclear plant.


Source: Öko Institut

Link: Here

Global warming FAQ

There are many excellent FAQs on global warming available on the Internet so I won't reinvent the wheel. At the bottom of this post I've presented a few FAQ links that I think are good.

But before that, here's my own piece on the fundamentals of global warming.

Since I started this blog, the first bunch of posts have dwelled on the topic of carbon dioxide or Co2 emissions. There's a reason for that.

Amongst the various types of heat-trapping greenhouse gases present in our atmostphere, Co2 is by far the largest in volume.

The rash of carbon-themed posts was to emphasize its role in this little mess we're in and to point out that we are as guilty as everyone else in producing carbon. Yes everyone pollutes but we should care enough to know what portion of the problem has our fingerprints on it so we can start thinking about how to neutralize it.

While Co2 has been around long before man appeared, its volume began to accelerate rapidly when he appeared. Man's appetite for energy compels him to burn fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil, as is his desire to clear land cheaply by burning forests and blanketing entire regions with thick haze. These just a couple of examples of actions that release carbon into the atmosphere.

The planet has natural carbon sinks like ocean and forests, places that absorb carbon and sometimes produce oxygen in return. However there's a problem. We are producing much more carbon than the carbon sinks can take. Indiscriminate deforestation only serves to shrink the remaining carbon sinks even further.

As the level of unabsorbed airborne carbon rises, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere and global temperatures begin to rise. Glaciers melt, sea water level rises, the climate shows unusual patterns, the food chain goes out of whack, food supply drops and man's existence eventually comes into question.

Great emotional debates have raged on whether global warming is natural or man-made and whether the recommendations of the scientific community will actually work. Regardless of who is right or wrong, responsible countries have started to act.

Since the ozone layer panic of the 80's, international accords like the UN-backed Kyoto protocol have been launched. These initiatives set county-level targets for greenhouse gas emissions and provide financial incentives for doing so.

To measure who's dirtiest and cleanest and who's doing the most and the least, these communities have adopted carbon weight and volume as the basic unit of measurement to define pollution severity in the global warming context. Carbon is a word we'll be hearing a lot of in the coming years, from carbon offsets to carbon footprints to carbon trading, so lets start getting used to it.

Below are just a few FAQS I found useful. You can google up a lot more.

Links:
A beginner's guide to understanding the issue of global warming
Goddard Space Flight Center's Global Warming FAQ
About.com's Global Warming FAQ
UCSUSA's Global Warming FAQ
NCDC's Global Warming FAQ


Image source: NASA

Environmentally friendly Malaysians?

The facilities are great.


But the mentality? Here's paper thrown in a bin marked 'plastic.'


And plastic stuffed in a bin marked 'paper.'


These pictures were taken on Friday noon at Ikano Power Center at Kota Damansara KL, a happening place frequented by the educated and the rich.


Apathy clearly cuts across social lines.

I commend Ikano and Ikea for encouraging public awareness of recycling by walking the talk. I think they deserve an award.

Top 20 Co2 emitters

Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2-emissions.html


These are 1990-1996 figures. What mystified me was the fact that Saudi Arabia recorded the second highest growth of carbon emissions at +51.2%, led only by South Korea at +69.2%.

I can understand South Korea at the top, it being a major global manufacturer and all but Saudi Arabia?

CO2 emissions of Malaysia

Here's where we stand according to Earthtrends:


(Source: EarthTrends Country Profiles)

And this is what the graph tells us.

1. We overtook the world average in Co2 emission per capita sometime before 1998.

2. Our Co2 emissions more than tripled since 1975 (105 million metric tons in 1999).

3. By 1999, electricity generation, transportation and manufacturing & construction contributed nearly 80% of the total Co2 emission of the country.

It should be a relief to us that Malaysia is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol (2002), UNFCCC (1994) and the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer (1989).

Bear in mind that these statistics are 8 years old. If anyone knows where to find newer data, please let me know.

CO2 emissions by country

Here's an interesting table of carbon dioxide emissions by country from UNFCCC.


Are you surprised at the top country at the rightmost column? I was.

Read this report to understand how much CO2 emission is too much.