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Monday, August 07, 2023

The EPA's ambitious plan to cut auto emissions to slow climate change runs into skepticism

by Tom Krisher

AUGUST 7, 2023

The EPA's ambitious plan to cut auto emissions to slow climate change runs into skepticism — *Traffic moves along the 110 Freeway in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022. If the auto*

The U.S. government's most ambitious plan ever to slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles faces skepticism both about how realistic it is and whether it goes far enough.

The Environmental Protection Agency in April announced new strict emissions limits that the agency says are vital to slowing climate change as people around the globe endure record-high temperatures, raging wildfires and intense storms.

The EPA says the industry could meet the limits if 67% of new-vehicle sales are electric by 2032, a pace the auto industry calls unrealistic. However, the new rule would not require automakers to boost electric vehicle sales directly. Instead, it sets emissions limits and allows automakers to choose how to meet them.

Even if the industry boosts EV sales to the level the EPA recommends, any reduction in pollution could prove more modest than the agency expects. The Associated Press has estimated that nearly 80% of vehicles being driven in the U.S.—more than 200 million—would still run on gasoline or diesel fuel.

ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SAY IT'S NOT ENOUGH

Pointing to surging temperatures and smoke from Canadian wildfires that fouled the air over parts of the U.S. this summer, Dan Becker, director of the safe climate transport campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, said, "We need to do a hell of a lot more."

He wants the EPA to slash emissions even further.

Carbon dioxide and methane levels in the atmosphere keep rising. Scientists say July will end up being the hottest month on record and likely the warmest human civilization has seen. The Earth is only a few tenths of a degree from the goal set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.

Though a panel of United Nations scientists said in March that there was still time to prevent the worst harm from climate change, the scientists said the world would need to quickly cut nearly two-thirds of carbon emissions by 2035 to avoid weather that is even more extreme.

Peter Slowik, a senior EV researcher with the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, has calculated that to cut emissions enough to reach Paris Agreement goals, the proportion of new electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles sold would have to reach 67% by 2030. The EPA has projected 60% by then.

"The EPA proposal is a really great start to putting us on a Paris-compatible path," said Slowik, whose group provides research and analysis to environmental regulators. "But no, it isn't enough to comply with the Paris accord."

The council has calculated that carbon dioxide pollution from passenger vehicles would have to drop to 57 grams per mile by 2030 to reach the Paris goals. The EPA's preferred regulation would cut those emissions to 102 grams per mile by 2030 and to 82 by 2032.

In addition, Slowik cautioned, carbon emissions from new gasoline vehicles would have to drop 3.5% each year from 2027 to 2032. The EPA's preferred regulation doesn't set reductions for gas vehicles. But fuel economy standards recently proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could.

WHAT DOES THE EPA SAY?

The EPA contends its proposal will significantly reduce pollution. It estimates that passenger-vehicle carbon dioxide emissions would fall 47% by 2055, when the agency expects most gas-powered vehicles to be gone.

As the biggest source of pollution in the United States, transportation generates roughly 29% of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA. Passenger vehicles are by far the worst transportation polluters, spewing 58% of that sector's greenhouse gas pollution.

The EPA also is proposing big reductions from other sources, including heavy trucks, electric power plants and the oil and gas industry.

Using sales projections from the EPA and industry analysts from 2022 through model year 2032, the AP calculated that Americans will likely buy roughly 60 million EVs. With 284 million passenger vehicles on U.S. roads today, at that pace only about 22% of them would be electric in nine years. Two million are already in use, and vehicles now stay on the road for an average of 12.5 years.

Dave Cooke, a senior vehicles analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that even with slow vehicle turnover, studies show the EPA's proposal would be an important step toward a zero-carbon transportation system by 2050. In addition, power plants that fuel EVs, he noted, will be converted to renewable energy such as wind and solar.

"We know that EVs provide a compounding benefit as we dramatically cut (electric power) grid emissions," Cooke said.

His group is among those pushing the EPA for more stringent standards than the agency is pursuing.

The EPA will consider such comments before adopting a final regulation in March 2024.

THE AUTO INDUSTRY SAYS THE LIMITS CAN'T BE MET

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group that represents companies such as General Motors, Ford and Toyota that make most new vehicles sold in the United States, argues the EPA standards are "neither reasonable nor achievable in the time frame covered."

The alliance says the agency is underestimating the cost and difficulty of making EV batteries, including short supplies of critical minerals that also are used in laptops, cellphones and other items. Sizable gaps in the charging network for long-distance travel and for people living in apartments pose another obstacle.

Though automakers continue to downsize engines and produce more efficient transmissions, the alliance says they need to use their limited resources more on producing EVs than on developing more fuel-efficient technology for gas-powered engines.

ARE ELECTRIC VEHICLES REALLY CLEANER?

Studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show that shifting to electric vehicles delivers a 30% to 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over combustion vehicles, depending on how the electricity is derived.

Jessika Trancik, an MIT professor of energy systems, said electric vehicles are cleaner over their lifetimes, even after taking into account the pollution caused by the mining of metals for batteries. The university has a website that lists auto emissions by vehicle.

Trancik believes that once EV sales accelerate, more people will want them, and the percentages could actually exceed EPA predictions. Sales of EVs, she noted, are growing far faster in many other countries.

"You often see exponential growth," she said.

Stiff EPA emission limits to boost US electric vehicle sales

4 new offshore wind power projects proposed for New Jersey Shore; 2 would be far out to sea

by Wayne Parry

New offshore wind power project proposed for New Jersey Shore, but this one's far out to sea — *Land-based windmills in Atlantic City turn on July 20, 2023. On Aug. 4, a*

Wind power developers proposed four new projects off the New Jersey Shore on Friday, a surge that would more than double the number of wind farms built off its coast if they are approved by regulators.

At least two of them are more than twice as far out to sea than others that have drawn the ire of residents who don't want to see windmills on the horizon. These two would not be visible from the beach, the companies proposing them say.

They would join three wind farms already approved by New Jersey regulators as the state races to become the East Coast capital of the fast-growing offshore wind industry.

In the first project to be made public Friday by the companies proposing it, Essen, Germany-based RWE and New York-based National Grid applied for permission to build a wind farm in the waters off Long Beach Island. Their joint venture is called Community Offshore Wind, and it aims to generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes.

Unlike other projects that have drawn intense opposition from homeowners in part because they are close enough to the Atlantic City and Ocean City shorelines to be seen by beachgoers, this project would be built 37 miles (59 kilometers) offshore and would not be visible from the shore, said Doug Perkins, president and project director of Community Offshore Wind.

He said the project has "the potential to transform New Jersey into a nation-leading clean energy development, training and manufacturing hub." He said his company is the second-largest wind power developer globally, following Danish wind developer Orsted.

Community Offshore said it has not yet determined how many wind turbines would be built as part of the project.

The second bid was submitted by Chicago-based Invenergy and New York-based energyRE for a project 40 miles (64 kilometers) off Long Beach Island called Leading Light Wind. It would consist of up to 100 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes.

The company is playing up its American ownership as the foreign ownership of key players in New Jersey's offshore wind industry has generated opposition in some quarters.

"Leading Light Wind is ready to build out a world-leading domestic offshore wind industry with American-led ingenuity and expertise," said Ryan Brown, energyRE's chief operating officer.

And the two companies that received approval to build the Atlantic Shores wind farm—Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America—submitted a bid to build a second as yet unnamed project 10 to 20 miles (16 to 32 kilometers) offshore. The companies have lease areas in the large expanse of ocean between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light on the northern tip of Long Beach Island, but they did not specify exactly where the second project would be built.

They also did not say how many turbines it would include or how many homes its electricity could power.

Friday night, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities said a fourth application had also been received, but would not release any information about it. The company or companies proposing it had not come forward publicly to discuss their plans.

Community Offshore and Leading Light said that while they plan to take advantage of existing federal tax credits, they will not seek the same sort of tax break that New Jersey recently approved for Orsted, which is being challenged in a lawsuit brought by opponents of offshore wind.

Atlantic Shores, which earlier this year indicated it wanted similar tax relief to that given Orsted, said Friday it is not asking for anything specific from state government but is in talks with the governor's office, the utilities board and the Legislature about what might be possible.

The proposals unveiled Friday come in addition to the three projects already approved by New Jersey regulators. Orsted is building two wind farms, called Ocean Wind I and II. And Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America are partnering on the Atlantic Shores project.

First U.S. auction of Gulf of Mexico tracts for wind power set for Aug. 29

Study explores the impact of climate change on the supply and demand of wind and solar energy

by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Over the past few decades, sustainable energy solutions that rely on renewable sources, particularly the sun and wind, have become increasingly advanced and widespread. Many countries worldwide have committed to drastically lowering carbon emissions in the next decade or so, and these technologies will prove crucial in achieving this.

Estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggest that by 2050 wind and solar energy technologies could contribute to the generation of approximately 62% of the world's energy. Recent studies showed that the supply and demand of both wind and solar energy could be adversely impacted by climate change, however.

In terms of supply, most wind and solar energy solutions are highly dependent on the weather, therefore unexpected meteorological events can adversely impact their ability to generate energy. In terms of demand, global warming can increase the need for cooling equipment and reduce the need for heating, and extreme peaks in temperature (e.g., heat waves or very cold weather) can prompt sudden surges in the global energy demand.

Researchers at Peking University, Brown University and other institutes worldwide recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding how climate change can affect the planning of supply and demand for wind and solar energy. Their paper, published in Nature Energy, highlights the need for the energy sector to devise interventions that could address potential issues that could arise as a result of climate change.

"Inspired by China's carbon-neutrality goal, we stepped into the field of energy research," Laibao Liu, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore. "So, we start our energy research with focusing on China's wind and solar energy. Then, we look further into the whole globe and aim to evaluate the climate change risk on global wind and energy systems."

As part of their study, Liu and his colleagues analyzed the daily outputs of climate simulations based on 12 state-of-the-art global climate models (GCMs). These are models that predict climatic processes, representing them on a 3D grid placed over a map of the world.

The 12 models used by the researchers were developed as part of a research endeavor known as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The team considered the present climate, in the form of climate simulations spanning from 1985 to 2014, as well as predictions of the future climate (from 2041 to 2100).

Overall, the results of their analyses suggest that by the end of this century energy systems with varying dependence on wind and solar energy could experience significant reductions in the supply–demand match due to climate change. The smaller or more variable supply of renewable energy could particularly affect this match at middle to high latitudes.

Interestingly, the team also found that in some regions, reduced demands for heating as a result of global warming could alleviate or reverse these effects. At lower latitudes, on the other hand, although the supply of solar energy could be greater, cooling demands could increase drastically due to unbearably high temperatures, adversely affecting the matching between supply and demand.

"We utilized future climate information projected by state-of-the-art global climate models and build a new framework in the assessment," Liu explained. "Based on our results, we suggest for energy system planners to take future climate change information into account, otherwise, they might experience power outages due to unprecedented climate risk."

The recent study by Liu and his colleagues offers some general estimates of the possible effects that climate change could have on the wind and solar energy sector in the future, particularly on the relationship between the supply and demand of energy. These findings could serve as a warning for energy suppliers and researchers, encouraging them to devise new viable solutions to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and unpredictable weather on the supply–demand of renewable energy.

"In our next studies, we might also focus on periods when the energy deficit occurred," Mengxi Wu, another researcher involved in the study, added.

More information: Laibao Liu et al, Climate change impacts on planned supply–demand match in global wind and solar energy systems, Nature Energy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-023-01304-w

Journal information: Nature Energy

'Limitless' energy: How floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hot spots

by Andrew Blakers and David Firnando Silalahi, The Conversation

Vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa.

Our new research shows offshore solar in Indonesia alone could generate about 35,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar energy a year, which is similar to current global electricity production (30,000TWh per year).

And while most of the world's oceans experience storms, some regions at the Equator are relatively still and peaceful. So relatively inexpensive engineering structures could suffice to protect offshore floating solar panels.

Our high-resolution global heat maps show the Indonesian archipelago and equatorial West Africa near Nigeria have the greatest potential for offshore floating solar arrays.

Solar power rules by mid-century

On current trends, the global economy will be largely decarbonized and electrified by 2050, supported by vast amounts of solar and wind energy.

About 70 square kilometers of solar panels can provide all the energy requirements of a million affluent people in a zero-carbon economy. The panels can be placed on rooftops, in arid areas, co-located with agriculture, or floated on water bodies.

But countries with high population densities, such as Nigeria and Indonesia, will have limited space for solar energy harvesting.

Their tropical location in the so-called "doldrum" latitudes also means wind resources are poor. Fortunately, these countries—and their neighbors—can harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm equatorial seas.

Floating solar panels can also be placed on inland lakes and reservoirs. Inland floating solar has large potential and is already growing rapidly.

Our recently released paper surveys the global oceans to find regions that didn't experience large waves or strong winds over the past 40 years. Floating solar panels in such regions do not require strong and expensive engineering defenses.

Regions that don't experience waves larger than 6 meters nor winds stronger than 15m per second could generate up to one million TWh per year. That's about five times more annual energy than is needed for a fully decarbonized global economy supporting 10 billion affluent people.

Most of the good sites are close to the Equator, in and around Indonesia and equatorial west Africa. These are regions of high population growth and high environmental values. Marine floating solar panels could help resolve land use conflict.

Indonesia has vast solar energy potential

Indonesia is a densely populated country, particularly on the islands of Java, Bali and Sumatra. By mid-century, Indonesia's population may exceed 315 million people.

Fortunately, Indonesia has vast solar energy potential and also vast pumped hydro energy storage potential to store the solar energy overnight.

About 25,000 square km of solar panels would be required to support an affluent Indonesia after full decarbonization of the economy using solar power.

Indonesia has the option of floating vast numbers of solar panels on its calm inland seas. The region has about 140,000 square km of seascape that has not experienced waves larger than 4m—nor winds stronger than 10m per second—in the past 40 years.

Indonesia's maritime area of 6.4 million square km is 200 times larger than required if Indonesia's entire future energy needs were met from offshore floating solar panels.

The future for offshore floating solar

Most of the global seascape experiences waves larger than 10m and winds stronger than 20m per second. Several companies are working to develop engineering defenses so offshore floating panels can tolerate storms. In contrast, benign maritime environments along the equator require much less robust and expensive defenses.

We have found the most suitable regions cluster within 5–12 degrees of latitude of the Equator, principally in and around the Indonesian archipelago and in the Gulf of Guinea near Nigeria. These regions have low potential for wind generation, high population density, rapid growth (in both population and energy consumption) and substantial intact ecosystems that should not be cleared for solar farms. Tropical storms rarely impact equatorial regions.

The offshore floating solar industry is in its infancy. Offshore solar panels do have downsides compared with onshore panels, including salt corrosion and marine fouling. Shallow seas are preferred for anchoring the panels to the seabed. And careful attention must be paid to minimizing damage to the marine environment and fishing. Global warming may also alter wind and wave patterns.

Despite these challenges, we believe offshore floating panels will provide a large component of the energy mix for countries with access to calm equatorial seas. By mid-century, about a billion people in these countries will rely mostly on solar energy, which is causing the fastest energy change in history.

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The benefits of floatovoltaics: Putting solar panels on reservoirs

Dungeons & Dragons tells illustrators to stop using AI to generate artwork for fantasy franchise

by Matt O'brien

The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game franchise says it won't allow artists to use artificial intelligence technology to draw its cast of sorcerers, druids and other characters and scenery.

D&D art is supposed to be fanciful. But at least one ax-wielding giant seemed too weird for some fans, leading them to take to social media to question if it was human-made.

Hasbro-owned D&D Beyond, which makes online tools and other companion content for the franchise, said it didn't know until Saturday that an illustrator it has worked with for nearly a decade used AI to create commissioned artwork for an upcoming book. The franchise, run by the Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, said in a statement that it has talked to that artist and is clarifying its rules.

"He will not use AI for Wizards' work moving forward," said a post from D&D Beyond's account on X, formerly Twitter. "We are revising our process and updating our artist guidelines to make clear that artists must refrain from using AI art generation as part of their art creation process for developing D&D."

Today's AI-generated art often shows telltale glitches, such as distorted limbs, which is what caught the eye of skeptical D&D fans.

Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast didn't respond to requests for further comment Sunday. Hasbro bought D&D Beyond for $146.3 million last year. The Rhode Island-based toy giant has owned Wizards of the Coast for more than two decades.

The art in question is in a soon-to-be-released hardcover book of monster descriptions and lore called "Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants." The digital and physical version of the package is selling for $59.95 on the D&D website and due for an Aug. 15 release.

The use of AI tools to assist in creative work has raised copyright and labor concerns in a number of industries, helping to fuel the Hollywood strike, causing the music industry's Recording Academy to revise its Grammy Awards protocols and leading some visual artists to sue AI companies for ingesting their work without their consent to build image-generators that anyone can use.

Hasbro rival Mattel used AI-generated images to help come up with ideas for new Hot Wheels toy cars, though it hasn't said if that was more than an experiment.

Deezer to detect AI-generated music clones

Europe’s message to workers: Retrain or fall behind

The bloc aims to retrain its workforce in response to technological and industrial innovations.

Illustration by Anthony Gerace for POLITICO

BY PIETER HAECK
AUGUST 6, 2023

If Europe wants to have a competitive workforce, it has to teach its citizens a lesson: School is never out.

For years, a person’s educational pathway was simple. They learned at school when they were young, under teachers’ supervision. They earned a degree or did vocational training, and used those skills in the workforce until retirement. Retraining was — and is — a rarity. Now, though, technological advancements and changing industry needs risk exposing a European labor force lacking in relevant, timely skills. It could cost the EU dearly — and just when it has bold green and digital plans.

In last year’s State of the Union, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen asserted that future European competitiveness hinged on “a workforce with the right skills.”

The recent emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, which can generate new content based on a prompt, at breathtaking speed puts further pressure on the bloc to retrain its workers. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT’s maker OpenAI, testified to the United States Congress that the chatbot would "entirely automate away some jobs" — while also creating new jobs "that we believe will be much better."

The race is now on to equip people with the skills they need to successfully navigate this emerging workplace frontier.

Adapt or die

To meet this challenge, the Commission kicked off the so-called European Year of Skills in early May. New skills are as important later on in life — when people are already in the workforce — as they are in the classroom, Jobs Commissioner Nicolas Schmit told POLITICO in an interview when the skills-focused year kicked off.

"We have to have a very open system of skilling and reskilling. We cannot say, ‘Well, now you're skilled, that's it.’ We have to say, ‘Well, skills is part now of the normal working life.’ We have to adapt our capacities, our skills permanently," the 69-year-old Luxembourg Socialist said.

Digital competence is one area in which Brussels has tried to flex its funding and policymaking muscle to retrain people, in order to bridge the existing gaps in the workforce.

The EU wants to have 20 million ICT professionals by 2030; there are currently only 9 million. To turn the tide, the Commission came up with a plan in April to bridge the digital skills gap, with one action point focused on retraining employees during working hours. Last year, one of the EU's innovation vehicles also set the goal of training 1 million people in the more advanced, research-heavy fields of technology.

The bulk of the work to achieve these milestones, though, will fall on others’ shoulders.

The EU is counting on offerings from a wide coalition of companies, universities and other educational institutions to underpin the skills pledge. One of the key elements of the EU's broader skills package is the Pact for Skills, which relies on approximately 1,500 members across the bloc. Equally, the tech-talent plan got real only when companies like Intel pledged to contribute tailor-made training programs.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that future European competitiveness hinged on “a workforce with the right skills”

| Francois Lo Presti/AFP via Getty Images

Just having these educational options is only the first step when it comes to reskilling people long after they’ve left formal education.

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in Europe’s reskilling pledge is, well, people’s willingness to get reskilled at all. Schmit acknowledged this “mindset issue,” adding, "You don't reskill people easily if there's a ... hostile or negative mindset. [When] people say, ‘Well, why should I be reskilled?’"

Employers, on the front lines of the reskilling challenge, could motivate their own workers to engage in ongoing learning. "As you have invested in new technology, you have to invest in new human capital," Schmit has told employers. The EU pitched its member countries to set up individual learning accounts, which would provide adults with a training budget.

Instilling motivation

Skills-focused organizations in Brussels — the Commission’s own backyard — have been tackling the motivation challenge for a while now.

The Brussels-based Debateville offers after-school workshops to teenagers to improve their debating and presentation skills. While Debateville often gives presentations about its work in schools, the participating children learn outside the classroom — even during camps this summer in other Belgian cities, like Ghent and Antwerp.

The organization faces the dual challenge of motivating teenagers to learn outside of school hours and hooking them to join up in the first place, which could instill the mindset that will encourage these students to continue learning after they reach adulthood and finish formal education.

"In Belgium, we score extremely low on lifelong learning. A big part of that is related to the fact that we put a lot of emphasis on formal learning," said Nora Sleiderink, research manager at Debateville. It often gives people the feeling that they're "done" when they finish university or vocational training, she added.

"A lot of what we do is, is exciting [the teens], motivating them intrinsically to learn. Much more than working on skills, at that age, [we're] working on attitude, on being curious," Sleiderink said. Key to that motivation is to have a learning experience outside the school environment and to attract a diverse audience, she argues.

It’s one thing to be an information sponge when you’re young. It’s a different experience when you’re perhaps halfway through your career and are overwhelmed by feeling out of your depth when it comes to expertise. But there are ways to make reskilling less of a burden, experts say.

Three Belgian universities — in Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp — have set up the Nova Academy, which bundles a range of initiatives to foster lifelong learning. Among what’s on offer are short courses — known as micro-credentials — out of the universities' regular undergraduate or graduate programs (on average around 10 credits) that are opened up for a wider cohort. It's a way to get a taste of a new field, without investing too much time in it.

"It's another way to look at a university or a college. Earlier on, people thought, OK, I will obtain a bachelor's or a [master’s], then I have access to a good job and then I have a strong position. With micro-credentials, you can keep on developing yourself, or you can reskill yourself," Kathrin Spyckerelle, project officer at the University Association Brussels who worked on some of the micro-credential offerings, said.

One example of an area for further education is the intersection of law and technology, with a micro-credential course on data protection and the ethical aspects of AI.

If Europe wants to have a competitive workforce, it has to frequently retrain its citizens

| Hatim Kaghat/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images

As people learn new skills, whether on the work floor or by their own initiative, the final hurdle to clear is logging those skills — and convincing employers that you've acquired them. The Netherlands is working on a "skills passport," Dutch Labor Minister Karien van Gennip told POLITICO in March. "The first step therein is that we speak a common language," she said — adding that not all skills are referred to the same way across the country.

The need for additional skills casts a broad net: The EU's jobs chief Schmit himself admitted there were areas where he needed extra training, calling his digital skills "at the lower limit."

This article is part of the Bridging the Skills Divide special report, presented by Cisco. The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.

Italy yearns to breathe polluted air

Conditions in the country’s north make it impossible to meet tighter air quality guidelines, Rome insists.

The industry and the Commission have wildly different estimates for the cost of tightening the rules on pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides |

Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images

BY ANTONIA ZIMMERMANN
AUGUST 6, 2023 7:09 AM CET

The EU's pollution problem child is throwing a tantrum.

Italy, one of the bloc's most polluted countries, has repeatedly failed to meet the EU's air quality guidelines, prompting the European Commission to take it to court more than once.

Now Rome is lobbying hard to stop Brussels from tightening those guidelines further, arguing that specific geographic and climate conditions — particularly in its northern, industrial regions — prevent it from meeting existing targets.

That's an argument being pushed by Lombardy, one of the country's wealthiest and most industrialized regions — and home to one of the cities with the worst air quality in Europe.

Meeting tighter guidelines could cause GDP in Lombardy and other wealthy northern regions to drop significantly, according to Giorgio Maione, Lombardy's minister for environment and climate.

“There is only one consequence for all of this, which is poverty,” he warned.

The region has found a friendly ear in Rome, and is rallying a coalition of northern Italian as well as Dutch, Austrian and Spanish provinces to help push for less stringent overall targets — and potential regional derogations — as countries debate their position on the file.

“I do not think that it is realistic to have levels which are much more stringent than those which we have at present,” Italy's Environment and Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin told a meeting of environment ministers in Brussels in June.

The Commission’s proposed new guidelines would lower the EU’s current maximum limits for key air pollutants such as fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide by as much as half by 2030. Some lawmakers in the Parliament want to go even further, saying the EU should fully align with the most recent recommendations of the World Health Organization by 2030.

But any effort to significantly tighten the EU's pollution standards needs to be flexible enough to account for "unique" conditions in some regions to ensure the rules, Fratin stressed to fellow ministers.
Special treatment

Italy's Po Valley — marked by strong industrialization and intensive farming and bordered on three sides by the Alps and the Apennines — is notorious for its poor air quality.

National and regional authorities blame the severe pollution on the geographical conditions that trap air over the region — something scientists acknowledge worsens its air quality.

Italy's Po Valley is notorious for its poor air quality | Pierpaolo Ferreri/EFE via EPA

In April, the European Environment Agency ranked Cremona in Lombardy as one of the cities with the worst air quality in Europe, followed closely by Padova and Vincenza in the Veneto region.

In the entire country, over 52,000 premature deaths were attributable to fine particulate matter pollution in 2020, according to the latest estimates from the European Environment Agency. The Commission's infringement procedures repeatedly condemn pollution limit breaches in the country's north.

According to Lombardy, fixing that would come at too steep a price. It says meeting the Commission’s proposed new guidelines would require removing 75 percent of vehicles and replacing the remaining 25 percent with zero emission vehicles, as well as ending three-quarters of industrial activities and all biomass heating systems.

In its new guidelines, the Commission should "take into account the territorial peculiarities, the geographical, orographical situation of the regions and at the same time, the efforts that are carried out to reach the targets," said Lombardy's Maione.

He also argued that rather than tightening air pollution guidelines, more should be done at EU level to tackle air pollution at source from sectors like transport and industry. But Italy's position on such files in EU negotiations has been to resist tighter measures; Rome is part of a push against new EU vehicle pollutant standards and has been against tighter legislation on industrial emissions.

Environmentalists and scientists say Lombardy is using local conditions as a pretext to drag its feet.

“Regions are arguing that Italy’s economy needs to be protected first, deliberately ignoring the fact that the cost of inaction is much higher than the one of action to reduce air pollution,” said Margherita Tolotto, senior policy officer for air quality at the European Environmental Bureau, an NGO, raising doubts over the accuracy of the data cited by the Lombardy region. The local government rejected that assertion.

Given the specific challenges they face, regional authorities should be looking at how to “do more, not less,” she argued. She also placed the blame on Rome, saying it has "neglected" the issue in the past and is still failing to adequately address it.

Authorities tend to shy away from taking steps to tackle air pollution — doing things like imposing a ban on wood stoves or tackling emissions from farming, for example — because it involves "very unpopular policies," said Valentina Bosetti, a professor of environmental and climate change economics at the University of Bocconi.

Regional alliances

Lombardy's arguments are catching on in other regions and countries worried about stricter EU-wide air quality targets.

At June's ministerial meeting, countries including Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, France and Finland stressed that specific regional conditions should be taken into account in the final legislation.

While negotiations in the Council are still at an early stage, skeptical regions in the European Committee of the Regions — a body that advises EU institutions — last month managed to press for less ambition in a report that will feed into negotiations on the file.

Skeptical regions in the European Committee of the Regions managed to press for less ambition in a report that will feed into negotiations on the file

| Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

Una Power, the author of the committee's opinion report, had initially recommended air quality targets should align with WHO recommendations by 2030, but backed down when faced with opposition from northern Italy and other regions. The report now recommends alignment by 2035.

Power called on regions and cities to step up their game, rather than resist tighter guidelines.

“Where there are cities that have geographical concerns," she said, "the answer shouldn't be to not do something, the answer should be to do more."

Some regions are now distancing themselves from Lombardy’s arguments. The German regional state of Baden-Württemberg argued that more ambitious EU air quality standards can help spur regional growth, even in places where they may be difficult to meet.

Its transport ministry told POLITICO in an emailed statement that the EU’s current limit values “served as a catalyst to modernize and electrify the car fleet, improve environmentally friendly modes of transport and reduce traffic at hotspots.”

Aitor Hernández-Morales contributed reporting.

https://files.libcom.org/files/Amadeo%20Bordiga-%20Murder%20of%20the%20Dead.pdf

Amadeo Bordiga Murder of the Dead - Libcom.org

The basis of marxist economic analysis is the distinction between dead and living labour. We do not define capitalism as the ownership of heaps of past, ...

The Junta in Niger asked for Help from "Wagner", France supports an African Military Intervention

August 6, 2023, Sunday //

The military that overthrew the legal authority in Niger has requested help from the Russian private military company "Wagner" on the eve of an expected West African military intervention to restore constitutional order, writes "Associated Press".

The information appears at a time when the ultimatum set by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore power to the ousted Nigerian president, Mohamed Bazoum, expires. ECOWAS announced yesterday that the plan for the intervention was ready, although an obstacle to its implementation appeared during the course of the day.

The information of the "Associated Press", after a conversation with a journalist and researcher from the Soufan Center, rests on the statements of three Malian sources and a French diplomat, according to whom the military gen. who visited Mali yesterday. Salifu Modi - one of the most important figures after the coup - has established contact with a Wagner representative in Bamako. The first message about the meeting came from "France 24" TV, and the "New York Times" also wrote about the risks associated with "Wagner".

The Mali junta has openly worked with Wagner, whose fighters have replaced the French military in the fight against jihadist groups, with no more success than in Paris. Two days after the ECOWAS ultimatum, the militaries of Mali and Burkina Faso, which have each staged two coups in the past three years, stood behind the junta in Niger and warned that any military intervention against Niger would be considered by them a declaration of war.

The AP also quoted Modi as saying on Niger's state television that his country would do everything it could to avoid becoming a "new Libya" - a reference to the country's destruction in a web of conflict and chaos that engulfed the country when Muammar Gaddafi was toppled. in 2011

A Western military official told The Associated Press that he had also heard information about a request for support from Wagner. It comes after an alleged statement by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared over the weekend in which he welcomed the coup. In addition to Mali, Wagner is active in a number of African countries, from Burkina Faso, Libya and Sudan to the Central African Republic and Mozambique. So far, channels associated with "Wagner" on "Telegram" such as Gray Zone do not comment on the topic.

Yesterday Bazoum warned the Washington Post about the risks of Africa falling into the hands of Russia and Wagner if the international community does not intervene.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said during a meeting with Niger's Prime Minister in Paris that the country strongly supports ECOWAS' efforts to "defeat this attempted coup". This comes a day after the junta announced it was terminating a military cooperation agreement with Paris and asked the French military to leave, a decision France does not recognize as it considers the junta illegitimate.

"France 24" clarifies that it is not clear from Colonna's comments whether France is ready to provide support with soldiers on the ground; there are over 1,000 French troops in Niger, which Paris has no plans to withdraw at the moment.

“The fate of Niger and the stability of the entire region are at stake,” said Catherine Colonna, Foreign Minister of France.

Niger's neighbors such as Algeria have warned that they are against any military intervention and are calling for dialogue. In front of the Algerian media, PresidentAbdelmadjid Tebboune explained that his country fully defends the constitution, but also wants a peaceful solution. Another neighboring country, Chad, has distanced itself through the words of its foreign minister from any possible intervention. Neither Algeria nor Chad are members of ECOWAS.

This position is also shared by part of the political elite in Nigeria, the leading power in ECOWAS. There, a local publication wrote that the senate has so far rejected President Bola Tinubu's request to authorize military intervention. Instead, lawmakers urged him to "continue to promote dialogue." This position is important as Nigeria, the country with the largest army in ECOWAS, the largest population and economic weight, is currently the rotating chairman.

According to an adviser to the ousted Bazoum, however, military intervention is still very likely today. Al Arabiya TV quoted him in an interview with Sputnik in which he explained: "The last warning is today, Saturday."

In an analysis, the Hudson Institute notes another danger: the formation of a popular militia, after the junta has already urged the population to be on the lookout for spies, and self-organized defense groups are mobilizing to guard the capital. Such a militia will make it difficult for ECOWAS, the institute believes.

According to Al Jazeera, the coup mastermind announced changes to the army leadership, appointing a new chief of staff and a new deputy and did the same with the ground forces.

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