Bitcoin alternatives could provide a green solution to energy-guzzling cryptocurrencies

24K-Production/Shutterstock

July 12, 2021 

The cryptocurrency bitcoin now uses up more electricity a year than the whole of Argentina, according to recent estimates from the University of Cambridge. That’s because the creation of a bitcoin, in a process called mining, is achieved by powerful computers that work night and day to decode and solve complex mathematical problems.

The energy these computers consume is unusually high. Police in the UK recently raided what they believed to be an extensive indoor marijuana-growing operation, only to discover that the huge electricity usage that had aroused their suspicions was actually coming from a bitcoin-mining setup.

Thousands of similar setups, around 70% of which are currently based in China, continue to demand more and more energy to mine bitcoins. This has understandably prompted environmental concerns, with Elon Musk tweeting in May 2021 that Tesla would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for its vehicles on account of its poor green credentials.

But there are thousands of other forms of cryptocurrency, collectively termed “altcoins”, which are far greener than bitcoin – and to which investors are now turning. Many of them are attempting to use less environmentally damaging technology to produce each coin, which may ultimately herald a greener future for cryptocurrencies.

Altcoins

Of the thousands of “altcoins” in the market, ethereum, solarcoin, cardano, and litecoin have shown promising potential as greener alternatives to bitcoin. Let us take the example of litecoin as an example of how they’re doing it.

Litecoins are very similar to bitcoins, except that they reportedly only require a quarter of the time to produce. Where sophisticated and powerful hardware with a colossal energy demand is needed to mine bitcoins, litecoins can be mined with standard computer hardware which requires far less electricity to run.

Other alternatives, such as solarcoin, aim to encourage real-world green behaviours. One solarcoin is allocated for every megawatt hour that’s generated from solar technology, rewarding those who’ve invested in renewable energy.

Different cryptocurrencies also use different processes to complete transactions. Bitcoin uses what’s called a “proof-of-work” protocol to validate transactions, which requires a network of miners to compete to solve mathematical problems (the “work”). The winner – and the person who mints a new bitcoin – is usually the competitor with the most computing power.

While proof-of-work is credited for being relatively secure, making it difficult and costly to attack and destabilise, it’s incredibly power-hungry. The way it forces bitcoin miners to compete with an ever-expanding arsenal of high-tech computers means it has inevitably come to demand more and more electrical power.

But there are alternatives to this form of mining. Ethereum, which is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, now uses a different protocol, called “proof-of-stake”. This protocol was specifically designed to address environmental concerns about the proof-of-work system, and it does this by eliminating competition between miners. Without the competition, there’s no computing power arms race for miners to participate in.

Given the increasing environmental scrutiny that cryptocurrency is now facing, it’s likely that any new altcoins will adopt ethereum’s system over bitcoin’s. Investors will likewise look to the green credentials of altcoins when deciding which cryptocurrency they’ll convert their bitcoin into.Bitcoin can be traded for any of the thousands of altcoins in the cryptocurrency market. lucadp/Shutterstock

Still the future of finance?

Despite the criticisms levelled against bitcoin for its shocking energy inefficiencies, the traditional financial system is far from green itself.

In the five years since the Paris Agreement on climate change, for instance, it’s reported that 60 of the world’s biggest banks have provided $3.8 trillion (£2.7 trillion) to fossil fuel companies – not very planet-friendly. One report found that 49% of financial institutions don’t conduct any analysis of how their portfolio impacts the climate.

Then there’s the sector’s electricity use. Where cryptocurrencies have the potential to run without the oversight of large financial institutions, the banking sector is built upon a huge amount of infrastructure which naturally burns through a great deal of electricity.

Banks themselves use plenty of computers and servers, as well as thousands of air-conditioned offices and fuel-guzzling vehicles. It’s difficult to estimate exactly how much energy is required to support all this activity, but one recent report found that the banking system consumes more than twice the electricity that bitcoin does.

So while bitcoin is rightly getting a battering for its outrageous energy consumption, there’s ultimately a need for all our financial systems to be green and sustainable. Banks can do this by reconsidering their portfolios and working towards net zero carbon emissions. But cryptocurrencies offer a different path to greener finance – and the altcoins that concentrate on their environmental credentials may well clean up the technology’s reputation for excessive energy use.

Authors

Sankar Sivarajah

Head of School of Management and Professor of Technology Management and Circular Economy, University of Bradford

Kamran Mahroof

Assistant Professor, Supply Chain Analytics, University of Bradford
Disclosure statement

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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University of Bradford provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

Qaqqaq, NDP corner Liberals on mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples

Call for criminal investigation could lead to progress on reconciliation

Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq holds a photo Thursday morning of French Oblate priest Joannis Rivoire, who is accused of sexually assaulting Inuit children who attended residential schools in Nunavut communities in the 1960s. The NDP is calling on the government to investigate Rivoire and other alleged perpetrators within the residential school system. (Screen grab courtesy of CPAC)

Nunatsiaq News | Newspaper of record for Nunavut, and the Nunavik territory of Quebec.
EDITORIALS   JUL 10, 2021 

By Corey Larocque

With one deft move, Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq advanced the fight for justice over Canada’s mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples and, at the same time, painted the federal Liberal government into a corner on one of the country’s most pressing issues.

Qaqqaq and NDP counterpart Charlie Angus, an Ontario MP, called on Liberal Justice Minister David Lametti on Thursday to appoint what they called a “special prosecutor” to conduct a government-funded investigation into crimes committed against Indigenous Peoples, particularly at residential schools but also at other government-run institutions, such as sanatoriums for treating tuberculosis.

The government dismissed the NDP’s call, saying the justice minister doesn’t direct police investigations. Investigating crimes is the exclusive jurisdiction of the police. That’s an appropriate response from Lametti’s office. Law enforcement and the justice system do need to operate independently from politics to eliminate the prospect of politicians using their office to prosecute their opponents.

But what Canada is learning about the scope of the mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples suggests it’s much bigger than any police department can handle as part of its routine policing. Most residential schools are in sparsely populated, remote communities where the local police detachment might be just a few officers.

Qaqqaq is right that these circumstances require a unique mechanism to look into who did what to residential school children, whether their treatment was criminal and whether it’s possible to prosecute any offenders.

It makes sense to create an independent body to investigate crimes committed against Indigenous Peoples. It would be messy for the RCMP or provincial police forces to probe governments, politicians and churches. Certainly, police have effectively investigated these entities in the past, but never on the scale that might be required to get to the bottom of this situation.

Canada doesn’t have much experience in the kind of investigation the NDP described — an independent body with the power to investigate the government and to lay charges.

Whether it’s a special prosecutor, a public inquiry or a Royal commission, what’s needed is a commitment to get to the bottom of who did what, and whether they can be held criminally responsible.

The abuse of children at residential schools has been well known for a long, long time. But now, after many Canadians learned there are hundreds — maybe thousands — of unmarked graves near the school sites there is more than reasonable grounds to suspect that some of those dead children were victims of very serious crimes.

The same day Qaqqaq and Angus called for the criminal investigation, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said during a news conference that, for most Canadians, there was no cemetery attached to the schools they attended.

The fact that there are gravesites at residential schools is a sign, Singh said, that administrators knew that children would die.

While there’s no doubting that Qaqqaq is motivated by genuine anger over the mistreatment of residential school children specifically, and Indigenous Peoples generally, her call for a special probe was also a shrewd political move. In a bizarre twist of fate, Qaqqaq has done some of her strongest work as an MP since announcing last month she won’t be running for re-election.

With a federal election on the horizon, the NDP has created an issue with which they can beat the Liberals up on a key file that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds close to his heart.

Whenever Liberal candidates talk about Crown-Indigenous relations, their New Democrat opponents will repeat their party’s demand that the government create a special probe to look into crimes against Indigenous Peoples. New Democrats will point to Liberal inaction as proof the party doesn’t care. And if the Liberals do come around to creating a special inquiry, the NDP will take credit for making them do it. Politically, it’s a win-win for the NDP.

The sooner the Liberals act on Qaqqaq’s and the NDP’s recommendation, the better for them.

It would also be better for Indigenous Peoples – and help honour the memories of the children lying in unmarked graves outside residential schools.

NDP calls for criminal probe into residential schools

‘The map of Canada is covered in crime scenes,’ Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq says

By Sarah Rogers JUSTICE  JUL 8, 2021 – 

The federal New Democrats are calling on Ottawa to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate potential crimes committed against Indigenous people at residential schools, and their alleged perpetrators.

Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq and her fellow NDP MP Charlie Angus held a press conference on Parliament Hill Thursday to ask federal Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti to reach out to the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into a system they said “represents a crime against humanity.”

“The map of Canada is covered in crime scenes,” Qaqqaq said.

“We need a full and independent investigation that has the power to shine a light on every facet of this national crime, and has the power to bring perpetrators to justice,” Qaqqaq said.

“We have been saying this for generations, and it’s time for Canada to face the truth.”

The NDP’s demand comes after weeks of revelations about unmarked graves at residential schools in Kamloops, B.C., Cowessess, Sask., and other sites throughout the country.

The NDP is also asking for “a serious increase” in funding to do proper forensic investigations at former school sites, so bodies can be exhumed and returned to their families.

A spokesperson for the Minister of Justice told Nunatsiaq News that Lametti does not have the authority to launch such a criminal investigation, saying that would be up to the police.

“Minister [Lametti] has held frank and productive discussions with Indigenous leaders about the next steps the government needs to take to support Indigenous communities, particularly survivors and their families, following the horrific discovery of graves in Kamloops and Marieval,” said Chantalle Aubertin, press secretary to Lametti, in an email.

“We will consider all options that will allow the survivors, their communities and the country to move forward on the path to healing and reconciliation.”

But Qaqqaq insists the justice minister does indeed have the authority to appoint a special prosecutor but chooses not to exercise it.

Qaqqaq said an investigation should extend beyond just residential schools to examine any institution that Indigenous people were forced to attend, providing the example of southern sanatoriums Inuit were sent to between the 1940s and 1960s to recover from tuberculosis.

“There are possibly hundreds, if not thousands, of Inuit [buried] outside of sanatoriums across the country,” she said.

During the press conference, Qaqqaq held the image of French Oblate priest Joannis Rivoire, who is accused of sexually assaulting Inuit children who attended residential schools in Nunavut communities in the 1960s.

In 1997, Rivoire was charged with sexual interference and sexual assault in connection with incidents alleged to have occurred in Naujaat and Arviat between 1968 and 1970.

The RCMP issued a warrant for his arrest in 1998, but CBC reported in 2019 that warrant had been stayed. It’s unclear if the government ever sought to have Rivoire extradited from France.

“Instead of facing justice for his crimes, Rivoire is living a luxurious life in a home for priests in Strasbourg, France, and the federal government is doing nothing about it,” Qaqqaq said.

“The abuse at his hands has caused generations of trauma,” she said. “The federal government and the church are responsible for the fact that people like Rivoire destroyed childhoods. And continues to destroy childhoods today.”

The NDP said Rivoire is just one of potentially thousands of perpetrators who abused Indigenous children through the residential school system, and any investigation must come with full access to documents and names.

Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked the Catholic church to disclose documents related to potential crimes and unmarked burial sites at its residential schools, a demand religious orders in some provinces have agreed to.

Trudeau has also expressed a willingness to launch an investigation into residential schools but said Indigenous communities should lead that process.

Arctic Bay elder Qapik Attagutsiak, who turned 101 on June 11, is one of 12 Indigenous Canadians nominated for an Indspire lifetime achievement award this year. “Qapik’s lifework has embodied both Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and Inuit societal values. Her longevity and her legacy represent a shining example for young Inuit to follow,” says the backgrounder on her nomination. The Indspire award ceremony will be broadcast on APTN and CBC on June 22. (File photo courtesy of Parks Canada

Photo | Nunatsiaq News | Newspaper of record for Nunavut, and the Nunavik territory of Quebec.

 COMING OF AGE IN THE NORTH

Arviat’s six-year-old Brody Panigoniak is seen after hunting his first seal on Tuesday evening. After catching the animal, a bright smile spread across his face, said his mother, Hilda Panigoniak. “My son was so happy.” She said he asked to go boating for the first time, so she, her boyfriend and her sister got ready and set off on the water after work. To celebrate Brody’s catch, they held a game for the community and gave out some change, goodies, and one lucky winner got $100 cash. (Photo courtesy of Hilda Panigoniak)

Photo | Nunatsiaq News | Newspaper of record for Nunavut, and the Nunavik territory of Quebec.

NO MENTION OF AIRSHIPS

New food strategy calls for major government investment, Inuit leadership

‘It means empowering Inuit to feed our own communities,’ Inuit leader Aluki Kotierk says

A crowd of people in Iqaluit gather around to welcome a local walrus harvest in October 2020. A new ITK report notes that Inuit Nunangat is home to a rich bounty of local food, although harvesting of wildlife, or country food remains inaccessible to many families who don’t have the tools or transportation to hunt. (File photo by Dustin Patar)

By  Sarah Rogers  NEWS  JUL 12, 2021 – 

Canada’s national Inuit organization has unveiled a new plan to tackle hunger across the North that calls for major government investment and strengthened Inuit control over their food systems.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami released the Inuit Nunangat Food Security Strategy Monday morning, revealing that three-quarters of Inuit adults have unreliable access to affordable, nutritious food.

The strategy documents what drives that problem, including poverty, a major transportation infrastructure deficit across the North — which limits how food reaches Inuit communities — as well as a lack of focus on locally produced foods.

In response, the strategy lays out a series of solutions, from serious investments in marine, air and harvesting infrastructure to cost-of-living subsidies and more Inuit-led food programs.

In a letter included in the opening pages of the strategy, ITK president Natan Obed calls Inuit food insecurity “a shameful human rights violation.”

“Governments have stood by for far too long, prioritizing incremental actions and investments that do not remedy the root causes of food insecurity,” he states.

“Grassroots movements in Inuit Nunangat … have succeeded in focusing national attention on this issue. However, not enough has changed as a result of these efforts and too many of our people continue to struggle.

“This reality is unacceptable and must be changed.”

The report points to poverty as the biggest factor in the access to food. The median annual income for Inuit adults is $23,483, compared to $92,011 for non-Indigenous people living in Inuit Nunangat, and $34,604 for Canadians as a whole.

Inuit spend a disproportionately large share of their income on food and meals compared with other Canadians, according to the new report. A Northern Food Basket — what it costs to feed a family of four for one week — can cost upwards of 30 per cent of a Northern Inuit household income, compared to just 14 per cent of a southern Canadian income.

The vast majority of the foods Inuit consume are shipped thousands of kilometres from southern retailers, which is responsible for the high cost of groceries across the North.

The report highlights the extent to which Inuit communities rely on both air and marine transport to access food, but that its “aging and inadequate” infrastructure only creates more barriers to food shipping.

Most communities have very basic marine infrastructure, if anything at all, the report found, meaning resupply ships must rely on smaller vessels to transfer goods to land. Local harvesters must anchor their boats in open water, which puts them at risk at being damaged.

But despite Inuit communities’ reliance on southern-shipped foods, the report notes that Inuit Nunangat is in fact home to a rich bounty of local food.

Harvesting of wildlife, or country food, however, remains inaccessible to many families who don’t have the tools or transportation to hunt.

And much of that commercially harvested wildlife leaves the North — shrimp, turbot and char make up the Canadian Arctic’s biggest exports — which the report says brought in $18 billion in revenues over the last 30 years.

The Inuit Nunangat Food Security Strategy offers 33 recommendations and action items, largely targeted at the federal, provincial and territorial governments that oversee the country’s 53 Inuit communities. Among them:

•  government-funded cost-of-living subsidies to help offset the high cost of food, much like the Quebec-funded Kativik Regional Government-led subsidy program in Nunavik
• designate air travel as an essential service across Inuit Nunangat, which would guarantee subsidies for airlines and aviation infrastructure
• ensure all Inuit have the opportunity to acquire harvesting skills
• ensure that all food harvested and produced across Inuit Nunangat is accessible to Inuit
• reform the federal Nutrition North Canada program into an evidence-based and regularly audited food security program

The strategy also calls on Inuit to be at the forefront of developing any food policies and programs in their own regions.

“For Nunavut Inuit, harvesting, processing and consumption of country foods is deeply linked to community ethics and Inuit identity,” Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Aluki Kotierk said, reacting to the new strategy in a news release.

“We must make a shift from thinking about food security to food sovereignty,” she said. “It means empowering Inuit to feed our own communities.”

The strategy was developed by ITK along with its member organizations: Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, Makivik Corporation and the Nunatsiavut Government, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, as well as the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, and the National Inuit Youth Council.

ITK said the strategy’s implementation will be led by the Inuit Crown Partnership Committee.

The strategy can be found here.

A new report by ITK revealed that food insecurity is highest in Nunavut and Nunavik, at 77 per cent, and slightly lower at 68 per cent in Nunatsiavut and the Inuvialuit Settlement region. There is currently no Inuit Nunangat-wide data about the prevalence of food insecurity among Inuit children under 15 years of age, although the 2007-2008 Inuit Health Service suggested they are particular vulnerable. (Graph courtesy of ITK)

Arctic seabirds vulnerable to rising temperatures: study

‘It’s also an early warning system to climate change,’ says McGill biologist Emily Choy

McGill University biologist Emily Choy is seen on Coats Island in 2019. (Photo by Douglas Noblet)

By  Sarah Rogers

ENVIRONMENT  JUL 12, 2021 – 8:30 AM EDT

A thick-billed murre feeding its young on Coats Island. (Photo by Douglas Noblet)

Thick-billed murres are feeling the heat from climate change — more so than other Arctic species, new research has found.

The black-plumed Arctic seabirds nest for hours on exposed cliffs, making them particularly vulnerable to sun and warming temperatures, according to Emily Choy, a McGill University biologist.

Choy’s research focused on a colony of murres on Coats Island in Hudson Bay, located about 100 kilometres southeast of Coral Harbour.

In the summer months, female and male murres each take 12-hour nesting shifts along narrow cliffs on the island, exposing them to direct sunlight for long stretches of time.

To stay cool, they pant and flap their wings.

Choy’s research found that with temperatures even as low as 21 C, the birds had to increase their water loss to remain cool.

“We discovered that murres have the lowest cooling efficiency ever reported in birds, which means they have an extremely poor ability to dissipate, or lose, heat,” said Choy, the study’s lead author and a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University.

“They have a very high resting metabolic rate, an adaption to stay warm,” she said, referring to the amount of energy the animals expend. “But obviously, under warm temperatures, that’s a disadvantage.”

Choy and her fellow researchers exposed the murres to increasing temperatures in a controlled chamber, and then measured their breathing rates and water loss.

They found larger birds were more sensitive to heat than smaller birds.

The average high temperature for July in that region of Hudson Bay sits at about 14 C, though it’s not uncommon for temperatures to push above 20 C in the summer months, particularly as the Arctic is warming at roughly twice the global rate.

The Coats Island murre population is healthy and stable right now, but Choy said the stress the birds may be feeling from rising temperatures could have longer-term impacts on their behaviour, reproduction and ultimately, the birds’ survival.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, is the first to examine heat stress in large Arctic seabirds.

Next, Choy hopes to be able to study the impact of heat on murres directly in their climate, or nests, to determine the impact of rising temperatures.

“There really hasn’t been a lot of study of heat stress on Arctic wildlife,” she said.

“It’s also an early warning system to climate change.”

She said she hopes her research will prompt conservation efforts to better protect the birds’ habitat from other stresses, like shipping or oil and gas exploration.

You can read the full study here.

NASA moves ahead with plan to support private space stations


NASA has issued a final request for proposals for privately funded space stations as the agency plans for the eventual retiring of the International Space Station, pictured. Photo courtesy of NASA


ORLANDO, Fla., July 12 (UPI) -- NASA is moving ahead with plans to help fund a new generation of private space stations in an effort to ensure replacements are ready when the International Space Station shuts down in as little as seven years.

The space agency on Monday released a final request for proposals for new space stations. Those proposals are due Aug. 26.


NASA intends to retire the 20-year-old ISS in 2028 because its oldest sections are designed for a 30-year lifespan, though the agency may seek an extension to 2030. All such decisions must be approved by space station partners including Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency.

NASA hopes to fund at least two private company efforts to build new orbiting habitats, and up to four, Angela Hart, manager of the agency's commercial low-Earth orbit (LEO) program, said in an interview.



NASA plans to fund the research and development of such planned space stations for up to $400 million over the next several years, Hart said. She's confident the agency's budget requests for that level of funding will be met.

"We want to support as many folks in the commercial sector that are interested in commercialization of LEO as possible," Hart said.

Plans to privatize the role of the space station in the future are part of NASA's goal to focus on deep space exploration -- namely the moon and Mars.

The space agency has built a case for more commercial use of laboratories in orbit, where such industries as 3D-printed manufacturing and pharmaceutical production can take advantage of microgravity.

Besides the scientific benefits, companies like Houston-based Axiom believe the market for space tourism in orbit is growing. Axiom plans to send three wealthy businessmen to the International Space Station in January.

When NASA held a meeting to gauge interest from the private sector in March, dozens of the biggest names in the space industry attended, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

NASA also plans to support private efforts to build space stations with expertise and the potential for future NASA business, without direct funding of development.

Nevada-based Sierra Space, a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation, plans to build a new space station regardless of NASA support, John Roth, vice president of business development at Sierra Space, said in an interview.

"Our vision is not limited to NASA's plan, and we don't want to be limited by that," Roth said.

He explained that he believes NASA should move faster -- the agency currently requires companies to submit a preliminary design by 2025.

"That just seems like a pretty slow schedule for us," Roth said. "We're concerned about the U.S. not having access to low-Earth orbit if the space station is retired. We think getting something in orbit by 2026 or 2027 would be ideal."

NASA, SpaceX complete historic first mission to space station

Support teams work around the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft shortly after it landed with NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Victor Glover and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi aboard in the Gulf of Mexico off Panama City, Fla., on Sunday. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA | License Photo

Carbon Positive or Carbon Negative? 

Net-Zero or Carbon Neutral? 

I'm Confused.
It's time to have a big virtual convention and agree on some basic terms.

By Lloyd Alter
Published July 9, 2021 
TREEHUGGER
Fact checked by
Haley Mast


Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Treehugger Voices

I have never understood exactly what net-zero means. I don't even know how to type it: does it have a hyphen or not? I have mentioned this before, usually attracting comments like this: "What a bunch of nonsense. By definition 'net' means the positive and the negative together when added up becomes zero. This is unsubstantiated drivel." Our fact-checking and definitions team has their take:


What is Net-Zero

Net-zero is a scenario in which human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are reduced as much as possible, with those that remain being balanced out by the removal of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere.

So some people are pretty sure they know what it means, yet reading the recent report—"Net-zero buildings: Where do we stand?"—published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), it was clear that they weren't quite sure either.

WCABC

In fact, it is one of the key actions for decarbonization: to "define net-zero buildings." They worry about the lack of information and definitions for all the terms we are throwing around.

"There is a lack of global consensus on methodological assumptions and definitions of net-zero proportionate to required GHG emissions reductions, removals, offsetting, and established explicit targets to support this. These barriers need to be addressed rapidly at scale if we are to have the impact we need."


My colleague Sami Grover is confused as well, writing "Multinational Insurer Aims for Net-Zero, But What Does Net-Zero Really Mean?," noting that "net zero is becoming increasingly hard to pin down."

Grover writes:

"Ultimately, those of us who care about climate are going to have to do much better than net-zero. And we’ll have to keep an eye on whether the term itself is helping us, or hindering us, in that pursuit."

We need a convention.

Sanford Fleming demonstrating time zones. Canada Archives

I am not going to try and come up with a definition, if the WBCSD and Grover can't, then whatever I write will be, as my commenter noted, a bunch of drivel. Instead, in the manner of the Convention du Mètre of 1875 where 17 nations agreed to standardize and use the metric system, or the General Time Convention of 1883 in Chicago, which determined that "the sun will be requested to rise and set by railroad time," I am calling for a grand, memorable meeting.1


Put everyone together in one room or on one big Zoom call and figure this one out. And while they are at it, there is a long list of terms that should be clarified and resolved. I have used Google N-gram to try and see which is most popular; it is hard because the Y-axis changes all the time and there are so many zeros, but you can see what's trending and what's not.

Carbon Negative

Google N-gram

Usually defined as going beyond net-zero. In a building, it would mean removing more carbon dioxide from the air than were generated in upfront carbon emissions and operating emissions. Don't ask me why it isn't hyphenated.


When passive house designer Andrew Michler showed me his new project that was built of wood and straw and covered with solar panels, I suggested that it might well be carbon negative. He admonished me: "No it isn't, there isn't a carbon negative building in the world today, you will never know until it has finished its useful life and you know where the wood went, was it reused or burned or landfilled? Solar panels only last 25 years, and have a huge amount of embodied carbon. We will all be dead before we know if it is carbon negative."

Carbon Positive

Google Ngram

This is a term I first heard when writing about an Australian project; it means the same thing as carbon negative, but is, well, not so negative, positive sounds so much better. It appears that Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030 has picked it up, writing a recent article titled "CarbonPositive: Accelerating the 2030 Challenge to 2021." I like positivity better than negativity; if I am at the convention I will vote for this.

Carbon Neutral

Google Ngram

I don't know where this came from, but it smells like net-zero to me. The diplomats at the European Parliament, who probably like neutrality better than zero, try to define it:


"Carbon neutrality means having a balance between emitting carbon and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere in carbon sinks. Removing carbon oxide from the atmosphere and then storing it is known as carbon sequestration. In order to achieve net zero emissions, all worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will have to be counterbalanced by carbon sequestration."


Yup, it's net-zero—without the hyphen. And it's not going anywhere.

Climate Positive

This sounds like advertising jargon to me. In fact, Fast Company attributes it to a Swedish burger chain in "If you’re going to eat meat, try this “climate positive” burger." They define it as "an activity goes beyond achieving net zero carbon emissions to actually create an environmental benefit by removing additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere." I think we can ignore it.

Embodied Carbon

This is a particular bête noir of mine, I think it is a terrible name, It's not embodied, it's in the air already, As Elrond Burrell notes, it is burped, vomited, spiked, it's gone. That's why I wrote "Let's Rename 'Embodied Carbon' to 'Upfront Carbon Emissions'" in 2019.

WBCSD

That discussion with Burrell was fruitful, and I believe the start of a larger discussion: Upfront carbon is now an accepted term for those emissions in green, making the products and constructing the building. The World Green Building Council uses it this way as well. I do not know if it is universal, but it should be.

Let's get together and figure this out.

Passivhaus Conference in Vienna. Passive House Institute

Conferences are fun; I am in that crowd cycling around Vienna after a Passivhaus conference a few years ago. Flying is a problem, and so is Covid-19 right now, so perhaps it has to be virtual or powered by all that green hydrogen everyone is talking about.


But we need to come to some common definitions of all these terms, starting with net-zero.

Miracles and mirages: The double-faced perspectives of just energy transition in India
SARTHAK SHUKLA

Getty

GREEN ENERGY
JUST TRANSITION
NET ZERO

Recently, the Indian oil refining giant of Reliance Industries announced its mega plan to invest US $10.1 billion in green energy over the next three years to achieve the net-zero target of carbon-neutrality.

This has further pushed forward the debate around efforts to address climate change by transforming our energy systems from being fossil-dependent to ones based on renewable sources of energy. However, there are certain undercurrents and latent developments which hinder the prospects of a clean energy transition. A pattern which is emerging and is widely claimed to be a welcome step, is announcements of going green by prominent state-owned players of the fossil fuel regime.

These include the National Thermal Power Corporation, the Government of India’s thermal power company, which announced a renewed target of installing 60 gigawatts (GW) renewable energy by 2032, up by almost 50 percent from the previous 32 GW target set in October 2020. The second company is the state-owned coal mining company, the Coal India Limited, which announced two wholly owned subsidiaries recently to venture into renewable energy projects. This comes after its earlier announcement to invest INR 56.50 billion by March 2024 to develop solar power for powering its own mining operations.

Apart from these recent announcements, various corporates, financial institutions, asset managers, state governments, and philanthropic organisations have committed to reduce their carbon footprint by pulling out money from “dirty coal” into “clean and green energy”.

What remains a rather risky proposition is expecting complete transparency in the flow of money and credibility of the means of achieving the ambitious net-zero targets by different entities. This forms the first layer of uncertainty in the way energy transition is being powered through financial divestments and net-zero targets.


What remains a rather risky proposition is expecting complete transparency in the flow of money and credibility of the means of achieving the ambitious net-zero targets by different entities. This forms the first layer of uncertainty in the way energy transition is being powered through financial divestments and net-zero targets.

The next layer of uncertainty comes from the way the government is preaching and practicing contrasting developments with respect to energy transition. The high priests of policymaking in India are vociferously advocating and popularising the clean energy targets of 450 GW by 2030, which has attracted global eyeballs and praise. However, at the same time, though in silent ways, there have been developments that further the fossil fuel sector too.

Take the coal sector for example. The trends suggest that coal production in India has been continuously rising in this decade, crossing the figure of 730 million metric tonnes (MT) in 2019–20. However, even the rising production is unable to meet the rising coal demand, and therefore, India’s import dependence has also been rising. The government’s plan is to phase out coal imports by the year 2025, which implies that if demand is not starkly reduced, increased coal production is the only way. This, in addition to the recent commercialisation of coal mines, is a signal to domestic investors to invest more in coal production.

In the oil sector, there is a similar scenario. While India has one of the world’s largest oil refining capacity, it still is the world’s second largest oil importer with over 80 percent dependence on imported crude oil to meet domestic needs. In this backdrop, the government again has planned to reduce the import dependence by 10 percent in 2022. This again gives a positive signal for oil exploration domestically and attracting investments for the same. A major policy push for this was the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy of 2016 which provided for uniform licensing, coupled with open acreage policy.

This is the state of affairs in the natural gas sector as well, where the share of natural gas in meeting India’s primary energy needs has been fixed at around 6 percent over the past few years. The Government of India plans to increase this to 10 percent by 2025.

In all these sectors of coal, oil, and natural gas, the State seems to be steering clear of any conclusive decision about the future trends of these sectors. On the one hand, we are celebrating the remarkable announcements, which as India’s Power Minister, Raj Kumar Singh himself said are mere clouds in the sky, while also striving for enhanced domestic exploration of fossil fuels and inflow of investments in the fossil sector.

This is also explained in the remarks of the International Energy Agency in its annual publication, India Energy Outlook 2021. It says that “India is characterised by the co-existence of shortage and abundance in several parts of its energy system. India possesses the world’s fifth largest reserves of coal, nonetheless, it is one of the major coal importers. India is a major centre for global oil refining, but relies overwhelmingly on imported crude.”

It goes on to mention how the choice of per capita or absolute values make a big difference by citing example of carbon emissions, which are third highest in the world in terms of absolute values but barely are in the top 100 when it comes to per capita emission.

Therefore, as long as the transition remains about numbers and statistics, it will be continued to be projected as a glamorous pursuit. It is only when one starts looking inside the numbers to indicators like the policy vision, latent motives and undercurrents, that one explores the shallowness of the glamour of energy transition.


As long as the transition remains about numbers and statistics, it will be continued to be projected as a glamorous pursuit. It is only when one starts looking inside the numbers to indicators like the policy vision, latent motives and undercurrents, that one explores the shallowness of the glamour of energy transition

Finally, the anomaly of our climate discourse being described as the one which places “climate justice” at the heart of it, there have been no concerted developments which exemplifies these announcements and translates them to ground-level changes. The coal sector, reportedly employing 12 million workers, is painted as a ‘dirty’ sector when it comes to climate conferences, yet no concrete steps have been taken either in policies or practices that establish that the State is concerned about climate justice and will adopt principles like just transition going forward.

Hence, while developments like investments in renewable energy, net-zero target announcements, and emission-reduction trajectory are important, there is a need to question these developments from the point of view of their credibility and their intent towards the welfare of people and planet.