(Photo: The Adopt a Negotiator Project) The Kyoto Protocol (KP) still sits in troubled waters, as three of its signatory countries threaten to jump ship on its continuation beyond 2012.

Governments just finished another round of negotiations in Bonn, Germany under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If the international climate talks are a ship, the last two weeks’ voyage saw equal parts clear sailing, stormy seas, and listless drifting, as nations advanced toward agreements on addressing ocean carbon storage and clean technology transfer, fought over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, and wasted nearly three days just trying to agree on the agenda for parts of the meeting.

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Imagine if all these cars were charged with electricity from wind!

Governments on both sides of the Atlantic must make their transport sectors cleaner and more sustainable in order to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With 1,590 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year emitted in the United States, 145 million tons in Germany, and 5,470 million tons worldwide, transportation is one of the major contributors to global warming. In relative numbers, cars, trucks, buses, planes, trains etc. generate a third of the United States’, 17 percent of Germany’s and 23 percent of the world’s total CO₂ emissions.

There are multiple ways to reduce the sector’s emissions, such as encouraging people to use public transportation, convincing industry to switch from road to rail, or by making current transportation technologies and fuels less polluting. Regarding the latter, the efficiency of petroleum-based engines in cars has improved considerably, particularly in periods of high oil prices such as 1975-1987 and the last few years. However, in the future it is a new technology, electric vehicles, that is seen as the route to a low-carbon transportation system. If charged with electricity from renewable energy, these cars have the potential to make individual transportation almost carbon-free.

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United States and China lead climate negotiators Todd Stern (left) and Xie Zhenhua sparred in separate public appearances following the Tianjin negotiations

Representatives of 194 governments met earlier this month in Tianjin, China, for another round of United Nations climate negotiations, followed in short order by several other meetings that will affect progress toward climate solutions. While the intense debate wasn’t quite at the scale of a Hollywood blockbuster, it made clear that countries must fight several key policy and political battles before they can agree to a new international climate treaty. Still, since the comparison of climate negotiations with movies has some tradition, let’s try to make some sense of what happened using film analogies.

The United States took a beating from China for its lack of progress on greenhouse gas pollution reductions, even as China came under fire only days later for currency policies that, in part, artificially lower the price of its renewable energy exports. The following week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading body of global climate scientists, had its turn in the spotlight, as it proposed new standards to avoid future embarrassing allegations of errors in its work, while moving forward with synthesizing humanity’s current knowledge of the threat of climate change.

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Last month, we reported on France’s new climate legislation, the Grenelle de l’Environnement. Today, the focus is on solar power. The French Ministry of Environment has just announced, for the second time this year, that the nation’s feed-in tariffs for solar photovoltaic (PV) will be modified, much to the displeasure of the solar industry.

Sarkozy's government cuts solar FIT by 12% - Flickr Creative Commons / Mike Baker

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) are a financial tool that guarantees producers of renewable energy a specified price for every megawatt-hour of power fed into the grid. They were introduced in France in 2000, and prices during the most recent phase were set by a 2006 resolution.

This year, Sarkozy’s government already has decided to reform the solar FIT twice. First, a resolution was introduced on January 12 establishing new categories and tariffs for three PV applications: built-in rooftop solar panels (58 EUR cents/kilowatt-hour in mainland France except Corsica), rooftop solar panels (42 EUR cents/kWh), and ground-based solar panels (31.4 EUR cents/kWh for those generating less than 250 kilowatt-peak). This new resolution led to a general decrease in tariffs, especially for solar industry professionals, since many of them could no longer benefit from the highest tariff. The government introduced the resolution following a dramatic increase in the number of PV projects and to keep up with decreasing production costs. The FITs were supposed to be enforced until 2012 and then phased out gradually starting in 2013 as the industry gained in competitiveness.

But the government did not settle for these new tariffs and announced on August 23 that a general cut of the tariffs by 12 percent would take effect on September 1. Only individual installations generating less than 3 kWp will still be granted the 58 EUR cents/kWh tariff, in order to “preserve employment growth in this sector,” the Ministry of Environment and the Department of the Treasury said.

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By Camille Serre and Alexander Ochs

In the first part of this blog, we reported on Portugual’s excellent results in the development of renewable energy and provided insight into supportive policies that have been implemented over the last decade. Now let’s look at Portugal’s ambitious goals for the coming years.

Prime Minister Jose Socrates set ambitious renewables targets in the National Energy Strategy 2020 - Wikimedia Commons / José Goulão

It’s important to note that Portugal isn’t “going it alone.” The European Commission plays a decisive role in setting targets for each Member State via its 2009 Renewable Energy Directive. Portugal is expected to reach a 31-percent share of renewable energy in its gross final energy consumption by 2020. Also, the European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) encourages participating countries to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases and therefore move from fossil fuels to renewables, by requiring energy producers and energy-intensive companies to meet strict carbon dioxide emissions targets and to purchase additional permits for overshooting them.

New York Times contributor Elisabeth Rosenthal, citing International Energy Agency (IEA) figures, notes that “last year, for the first time, [Portugal] became a net power exporter, sending small amounts of electricity to Spain.” Inspired by these good results, Portugal set more ambitious targets in its National Energy Strategy (ENE 2020), adopted by the Council of Ministers on April 15, 2010. The country now aims to reach a 45 percent renewables share in its electricity production by the end of the year, and a 60 percent share by 2020.

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By Camille Serre and Alexander Ochs

After having shed some light on French climate and energy legislation, let’s proceed with our review of European progress toward clean energy economies. Typically, the Scandinavian countries and Germany have set the example in the European renewables field. Yet lately, a Southern country—Portugal—has attracted media attention after delivering its National Renewable Energy Action Plan to the European Commission this June.

Portugal has made dramatic changes in its energy policy over the last five years under the government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates. The country’s installed renewable energy capacity more than tripled between 2004 and 2009, from 1,220 megawatts (MW) to 4,307 MW, and renewables now represent roughly 36 percent of electricity consumed. Thanks to this performance, Portugal currently ranks 4th in Europe in energy production from renewables. Socrates seems to know what he is doing, and it looks like his previous experience has paid off. Like Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, Socrates was Minister of the Environment before becoming head of his country’s government. The environment seems to be a springboard for European politicians’ careers.

In 2009, Portugal ranked 3rd in Europe in wind power capacity per capita - Flickr Creative Commons / Mafalda Moreira Santos

Of course, Portugal benefits from favorable conditions for renewables as well: a strong wind resource, great hydropower, good tidal waves potential, and a high sunshine rate. After the country removed several dams in recent years, Socrates’ government has focused instead on wind power development, under most conditions the cheapest renewable energy source after hydropower. With spectacular growth in wind energy production of over 600 percent between 2004 and 2009, Portugal now ranks 6th in Europe in total installed capacity and 3rd in capacity per capita, behind only Denmark and Spain. Some even expect Portugal to overtake its neighbor Spain in per capita wind energy production as early as this year.

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Camille Serre and Alexander Ochs

In Part 1 of this blog, we described the climate and energy measures that France plans to pursue as part of its new environmental law, Grenelle 2. This set of policies suggests that France may in fact be paving the way toward a low-carbon economy. Unfortunately, the picture is tarnished by an ongoing controversy about renewable energy development in the country.

Windmills in French Brittany - Flickr Creative Commons / Nicolas Grout

Grenelle 2 certainly contains some positive measures in the renewables sector. For instance, it sets a goal that 23 percent of France’s energy use must come from a mix of renewable energy sources by 2020—most likely from hydropower (the nation’s largest renewables source so far), wind power, and biomass. The law calls for regional climate and energy mapping to assess climate-related risks within the country as well as to determine domestic energy needs, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, adaptation strategies and monitoring instruments will be developed. In addition, local and regional authorities that are responsible for 50,000 inhabitants or more, as well as companies with over 500 employees, will be required to conduct emissions assessments.

The law also promotes electricity produced by renewable sources through the enhancement of various supporting tools. France’s largest utility company, EdF, is already required to purchase electricity produced by certain renewable energy generators. Under Grenelle 2, local governments can also benefit from this purchase guarantee if they produce electricity from renewable sources. Moreover, any individual can now install photovoltaic panels at home and benefit from a “feed-in tariff” that guarantees producers of renewable energy a specified price for every megawatt-hour of power fed into the grid. To improve conditions for renewables, the electricity grid will be strengthened and enhanced in the coming years.

While all of these measures are helpful, particularly for solar technologies, Grenelle 2 imposes several barriers for the expansion of wind power, despite the creation of regional wind energy development schemes.

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Camille Serre and Alexander Ochs

While the United States is unlikely to pass a climate bill in the near future, there may be greater hope from one of the country’s closest allies: France. A few months ago, France passed a major bill that will deeply transform the country’s environmental law, including its approach to climate change. But while the outcomes of the measure are promising, a variety of criticisms remain.

Bike at Le Louvre, Paris. © Camille Serre

After an exhausting legislative process, the “Grenelle de l’Environnement” ended with the adoption of the “Grenelle 2” bill this May. Enacted on July 13, three years after the process was launched by then-newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy, the new legislation covers environmental topics such as climate and energy, biodiversity protection, public health, sustainable agriculture, waste management, and the governance of sustainable development. In addition to being a comprehensive environmental bill, Grenelle 2 implicitly defines the French sustainable development strategy for years to come.

Grenelle de l’environnement was named after the so-called “negotiations of Grenelle” on wages that took place in 1968, when France was paralyzed by a general strike. Back then, the primary negotiators were the government, unions, and employers. The Grenelle de l’environnement, launched in 2007, extended the consultation to five main stakeholder groups—the State, employers, unions, environmental NGOs, and local governments—to bring it more in line with the participatory nature of sustainable development.

On the climate front, France is likely to meet its current emissions reduction goals.

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High-tech equipment, precision instruments, and miles of electrical wiring at the Siemens production facility in Krefeld, Germany, might fool you into thinking that what’s being manufactured here is an airplane, or perhaps even a space shuttle. But the roughly 2,000 employees are producing a high-speed train, the so-called Velaro D, which is to go into service in Germany at the end of 2011.

Siemens Pressebild, www.siemens.com/press/de/pressebilder/?press=/de/pressebilder/bilder-photonews/2010/pn201006/pn201006-06.htm.

At a length of 200 meters, an eight-wagon Velaro trainset seats about 450 people—comparable to some variants of the Boeing 747. The Velaro’s top speed of 400 kilometers per hour doesn’t match that of a long-range plane. But for distances of up to 650 kilometers, and perhaps even as far as 900 kilometers, high-speed trains can be a faster option than air travel, given that the latter involves trips to often remotely located airports, checking and retrieving luggage, cumbersome security measures, etc. Of course, ticket costs and other factors matter as well, but fast trains have drawn passengers away from air travel in a growing number of places, on routes including Tokyo-Osaka in Japan, or Madrid-Barcelona in Spain.

Another advantage of trains is their lower environmental impact. Siemens claims that the Velaro uses as little as 0.33 liters of gasoline-equivalent per seat per 100 kilometers. (That translates into a stunning 713 miles per gallon per seat.) The Velaro’s greenhouse gas emissions per passenger-kilometer would thus be 90 percent lower than those associated with typical air travel.

In growing numbers of countries, there is palpable excitement about high-speed trains, in line with an overall growth in rail investments. According to German consulting firm SCI Verkehr, worldwide operations and capital budgets for all types of rail (passenger and freight) amounted to a combined $590 billion in 2008. The annual market for rail-related goods and services worldwide runs to about $170 billion, up a fifth from 2006.  It is expected to reach $214 billion by 2016.

In 2009, high-speed rail lines totaling 10,700 kilometers were operational worldwide, including more than 2,000 kilometers in Japan—the pioneer in this field—and about 5,800 kilometers in the European Union. (In the EU, high-speed rail travel accounted for a quarter of all train travel, and rose to almost 100 billion passenger-kilometers in 2008; see Figure.) China is on track to build the longest network by far, planned to reach 25,000 kilometers. Relative to territory, Spain’s goal of 10,000 kilometers by 2020 is even more impressive. If China were to match Spain’s effort relative to land size, it would have to build 190,000 kilometers of lines; in proportion to population, it would have to be 290,000 kilometers.

More and more countries are jumping into the fray. Listed in order of their track-building ambitions between now and 2025, in addition to China and Spain they include France, Turkey, Japan, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India, Iran, and some others. The United States, too, is eager to join the high-speed league.

Variants of the Velaro are being sold to Spain, Russia, and China. But Siemens is facing intense competition from other manufacturers. Among them is Bombardier, a Canadian company with extensive European manufacturing activities. It has been involved in producing some of the most famous high-speed trains in the world, including the TGV in France, AVE in Spain, ICE in Germany, ETR in Italy, and CRH 1 in China. And along with France’s Alstom, it built Amtrak’s Acela Express—the closest that the United States has to date come to fast intercity rail travel. Spain’s Talgo and CAF are becoming growing competitors. Meanwhile, Kawasaki and other Japanese companies had long focused on their domestic market but are now increasingly pursuing export markets—already successfully in Taiwan, China, India, and the United Kingdom, and competing for contracts in Brazil, Vietnam, and the United States.

And now, Chinese companies—China Northern Locomotive and Rolling Stock (CNR) and China Southern Locomotive and Rolling Stock (CSR)—are increasingly challenging the established producers. The leading foreign manufacturers were lured by the potentially vast market in China. But they could set up shop in China only under stiff local-content requirements and technology transfer agreements.

Without question, the high-speed rail race is heating up—both in terms of building new lines and deciding who manufactures the trains. It’s a critical part of greening the economy.

Dan Reicher, Nigel Jollands, Chris Flavin, Christian Kjaer, and Kelly Sims Gallagher at the Worldwatch side event at COP15 in Copenhagen.

As Worldwatch Senior Researcher Janet Sawin and William Moomaw of Tufts University lay out in Worldwatch’s latest report, Renewable Revolution: Low-Carbon Energy by 2030, technologies available today can go a long way to addressing climate change, and we don’t need to replace fossil fuels unit by unit in order to reach a low-carbon energy future. In fact, we waste an enormous amount of energy today through the conversion of fossil fuels to energy services like light, heat, and mobility. Instead, we can bypass the losses that result from fossil fuel combustion through the use of renewable resources and energy efficiency opportunities, thus meeting the same level of energy services with far less and cleaner primary energy. And pairing energy efficiency with renewable energy creates four key synergies:

• Efficiency improvements enable us to enjoy energy services, and to expand those services, without encouraging skyrocketing demands for energy. This also makes it easier, cheaper and faster for renewables to achieve a large share of total energy production and for society to reduce energy-related emissions.
• Thermal processes like combustion, used in fossil fuel power generation and conventional cars, have inherent inefficiencies due to physics (e.g. Carnot cycle) which can be avoided through renewable energy processes.
• Many renewable technologies, including solar PV, are well-suited for distributed generation. Distributed generation, which produces power close to the point of demand, can minimize the amount of electricity lost in the transmission of power from power plant to user.
• Directly using energy from the sun through passive heating and lighting allows us to bypass the entire conversion of fuel to power or heat, and reduces the overall amount of energy needed for the services desired.

Furthering the discussion on renewable energy and efficiency, Worldwatch convened a gathering of energy efficiency and renewable energy experts at an official side event at the climate negotiations in Copenhagen last month, launching the Renewable Revolution report, made possible through the generous support of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP).

Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin framed the discussion with the need for a transformation of the current global energy system from one that is heavily reliant on fossil fuels to one that more fully utilizes the renewable resources and efficiency opportunities available now and in the near-term. In order to face the climate challenge head-on, we must put in place policies that encourage this evolution of the energy system on a global scale.

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