Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, warned China that the European Union could penalize cheap imports from high carbon-emitting countries to defend EU companies obliged to meet strict environmental standards.
 |
In a speech to students at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Mr Sarkozy urged China to shoulder its environmental responsibilities as a global economic power. “We cannot have one response from Europe and one from Asia, one from the north and one from the south,” he said. “China can and must play its full part.”
But he said the EU, which sees itself as the world’s pace-setter in fighting climate change, would not indefinitely let its companies bear the brunt of this campaign if countries that mass-produced cheaper goods delayed adopting similar standards.
“I will defend the principle of a carbon compensation mechanism at the EU’s borders with regard to countries that don’t put in place rules for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr Sarkozy said.
Disagreement exists within the Union on the idea of such a mechanism, with the EU leaning towards voluntary global and industry-wide agreements or giving concessions to domestic heavy emitters.
Beijing opposes including binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions in a post-Kyoto pact. It has long insisted that rich nations must take the lead in combating global warming.
This message was driven home by an article in a Communist party newspaper that said 95 percent of CO2 emissions from the era of the Industrial Revolution through to the 1950s came from today’s developed countries.
“When it comes to the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it goes without saying who bears the heavier responsibility,” the newspaper said.
Maybe give us a hint?
Google’s ‘404’ error on coal
Online search behemoth Google plans to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The scheme, called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE < C), will focus on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and what Google called “other potential breakthrough technologies.”
 |
Google plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns. Near term, Google said it plans to spend tens of millions of dollars in 2008 on research and development and related renewable energy investments.
“We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers,” said Larry Page, Google’s co-founder. “We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale and produce it cheaper than from coal.”
Google’s initial goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. “We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades,” said Page.
Honest and Green
Geothermal technology will heat and cool the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site in Springfield, Ill. The pipes and wells for the geothermal system in Oaklawn Cemetery will be buried on the south side of the tomb, which is the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary and three of his four sons: Eddie, William and Thomas. Once the infrastructure is installed, the grass will be replaced and visitors will have the same view of the Lincoln Tomb as they have had since the structure was built in 1874.
 |
The current heating and air conditioning system is a water source heat pump system last upgraded in the early 1990s. The existing cooling tower, located within a fenced enclosure northwest of the tomb, will be removed once the geothermal system is installed.
The system should be ready for the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial. And what might Honest Abe make of the new-fangled technology? Perhaps this benign endorsement: “For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.”