Sixty percent of farmers surveyed in England say that they have already been affected by climate change - more than half expect to be affected in the next 10 years. To survive, farmers must now diversify - apricots, peaches, grapes, pecans, pomegranates and even olives can all now be found growing in the British countryside. Yet a warmer climate is not the only concern; when choosing fruit trees, farmers must pick late-flowering varieties to prevent blossoms being hit by frosts. Hardy olives must be selected from Tuscany and Catalonia that are used to rain, frost and even snow.
Farmers across Britain are taking advantage of rising temperatures, earlier springs and longer growing seasons to grow crops that previously would have been left to Mediterranean countries to produce. In Norfolk, farmers are growing lavender a product previously associated with the south of France. In the southeast, edamame (soya bean) until now grown in China and imported frozen, is being produced for local supermarkets. An unpredictable climate trends famers to a crop “portfolio” – they must manage risk in order to achieve the highest return possible.
Sea levels around the UK are already about 10cm (4in) higher than they were in 1900 and are predicted to rise by up to 80cm (32in) in some parts of England by the 2080s. The worst-hit area is likely to be East Anglia, where 37 percent of England’s outdoor vegetables are grown. Some experts estimate that 86 percent of the fens might become unviable for arable farming and rising temperatures will also make life tough for farm animals. The UK will experience average temperature increases of 4% by 2080 and some 12% in the south east – suggesting that the south coast will have a climate similar to that of the French Riviera today. Every part of the UK is likely to be wetter in winter and drier in summer, according to projections. Summer rainfall could decrease by about 20% in the south of England and in Yorkshire and Humberside by the middle of the century.
The average annual energy bill in the UK has increased by some 125% in the last five years; yet the energy companies argue that bills are not based solely on the price of oil. "The amount of gas and electricity a customer uses can form as little as half their annual bill," said Garry Felgate from the Energy Retail Association "The remainder includes other costs, such as transporting gas and power around the country and meeting the Government's carbon emissions reductions targets. All these costs have risen sharply in recent years."
Global climate change is now a very local problem.
Any solution to this problem will require bold, inconvenient and costly measures, most of which will necessitate rigorous testing to resolve shortcomings. The use of renewable energy has not been a priority in the UK in the same way as it has Europe, because demand for electricity has been met easily through existing supplies of coal, gas and nuclear energy. In Denmark, the wind industry alone employs 15,000 people in both generation and manufacturing. The World Wildlife Fund has praised Spain's rapid move into renewable energies. In February 2009, renewables provided 31% of the total electricity supply; together with a fall in demand over the past year, that meant a 38% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with 2008. "This shows that Spain's commitment to renewable energies is paying off," said Heikki Willstedt of the WWF. "This advance has been possible thanks to both the legislative and financial support received." Germany has the World's first major renewable-energy economy. The share of electricity from renewable energy in Germany has increased from 6.3 percent in 2000 to about 15 percent in 2008. More than 9 billion euros (US$11.31 billion) was invested in new renewable energy installations in 2006 alone, employing some 214,000 people, especially in small and medium-sized companies.
Many believe that alternative energy could supply thousands of sustainable jobs and business worth billions of pounds to the UK economy, if the Government is willing to back green technologies with financial assistance. The UK is in an excellent position to exploit such technology, with its ideal climatic conditions and the existing fabrication facilities capable of building large generators. The risk now, is that without investment, the UK could be forced to import the costly technology at a premium, when such advancement becomes a necessity.
The Government’s new Renewable Energy Strategy (RES) cements 2020 targets for renewable and low-carbon energy, setting a goal of generating 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity from renewables and a further 10 percent from low carbon sources such as nuclear and clean coal plants. As well as a major boost for the wind energy industry, the new strategy unveiled a shortlist of five options for the proposed Severn Estuary tidal power project and plans for a new smart grid policy backed by an additional £6m ($US9.9 million) in research and development cash. It also reiterated the commitment to roll out smart meters to every home and business by 2020 as part of a major energy efficiency drive. The RES estimates that by 2020, more than 1.2 million people will be in “green” jobs and that 7 million homes will have benefited from whole-house makeovers – another 1.5 million will be supported to produce their own clean energy.
The recently published Code for Sustainable Homes provides a comprehensive measure of the sustainability of new homes, ensuring that sustainable homes deliver real improvements in key areas such as carbon dioxide emissions and water use. The Government’s ambition for the Code is that it becomes the single national standard for the design and construction of sustainable homes and that it drives improvements in home building practice. Since May 2008, all new homes are required to be built to the standards laid down by the Code and are required to have a Code rating in their Home Information Pack.
It is envisaged, that by 2050, 30% of the housing stock in the UK will be Code compliant. In order to raise this yet further, compliance with the Code for existing homes (i.e. built pre 2008) will become incentivised. In order to meet the 2020 15% renewable energy target, the Government will set up of a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). It is expected that the incentive will apply to generation of renewable heat at all scales, whether it is in households, communities or at industrial scale. The incentive should also cover a wide range of technologies including biomass, solar hot water, air- and ground-source heat pumps, biomass CHP, biogas produced from anaerobic digestion, and biomethane injected into the gas grid. The incentive payments will be funded by a levy on suppliers of fossil fuels for heat. These are mainly licensed gas suppliers – but could also include suppliers of coal, heating oil and LPG.
Solar Photovoltaic (PV) cells are small energy conversion systems that convert the sun’s energy directly into electricity; most are roof mounted – modern cells can be integrated into tiles – but can also be integrated into glass, replacing windows. A typical 2kWp system will deliver one third of a households electricity needs, without any noise and little maintenance.
Heat flows naturally from a higher to a lower temperature. Heat pumps reverse this natural flow, taking heat energy from a cool source like the ground or the air and forcing it into a hot system, like a building’s heating system. The principle is used in every home in the UK in reverse – in a domestic refrigerator; a heat pump uses a refrigerant to extract heat from a range of sources (ground, water or air) and uses this to heat your home and hot water.
Air source heat pumps absorb solar heat from the air. A fan captures air from outside and expels used air - this air is passed on to refrigerant inside the heat pump. The refrigerant boils and, now a vapour, is drawn into a scroll compressor and then into the condenser heat exchanger, passing on heat to the heating system. The refrigerant then condenses back in to a liquid like steam on a window and the cycle starts again. Energy supplied to the moving parts of the pump can be obtained from a solar (PV) cell, making the system 100% self-sustaining.
Anglo Dutch Services is a Doncaster-based business, installing renewable energy systems in homes and businesses across the UK. Ernst Van Den Berg, Chief Executive, said: “Worldwide, over 1.3 million renewable energy systems have already been installed. Fifty percent of all new homes in Sweden have them installed as standard and Germany is rapidly catching up. The installation of such renewable energy systems in the UK will add to the value of the home, given the future impact of the Government’s RHI and Code for Sustainable Homes. Over 80% of the average UK home’s annual energy bill derives from the heating of water and of the space in the home. Such savings, both monetary and in CO2 emissions cannot be dismissed.”
The UN Climate Change Conference will convene this December in Copenhagen. Whilst the talks may not yield a new global climate treaty, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer hopes the conference will reach agreements on four political essentials. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases? How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to limit the growth of their emissions? How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed? How is that money going to be managed? “If Copenhagen can deliver on those four points I’d be happy,” says Yvo de Boer.
Any new climate treaty will replace the Kyoto Protocol which was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. The Kyoto Protocol which sets binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, has been signed and ratified by 184 parties of the UN Climate Convention. One notable exception is the United States, yet new President Barack Obama has now engaged domestically in the process, with the safe, albeit tight, passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act through the House of Representatives recently.
“My big lesson from the Kyoto era is that it's really important that the Government delegation that represents the United States is in close touch with the Senate. I think that a major shortcoming of Kyoto was that the official delegation came back with a treaty they knew was never going to make it through the Senate.” says de Boer
Copenhagen will be a whole different scenario, and de Boer feels confident that President Barack Obama can successfully engage China and India and convince them to sign the next treaty. “I think that Secretary of State Clinton's visit to Beijing was a really important and encouraging step to get us moving on that road,” says Yvo de Boer.
“I get the impression talking to business people that they want clarity from Copenhagen. If you're making investments now, for example in the energy sector, in power plants that are going to be around for the next 30 to 50 years, you can't really afford to keep waiting and waiting and waiting for Governments to say where they're going to go on this issue.”