Environment, Science & Technology

Tackling climate change is ultimately going to require a two-part strategy: using less energy, both through changing our own behaviors and changing the buildings, transportation, and products in our lives – and switching to cleaner sources for the energy we do have to use.  Both strategies are critical, but many experts (see for example this McKinsey analysis) tell us that the first strategy will get us the largest reductions in carbon emissions for the least cost, and can be implemented right away.  Energy efficiency improvements do require up-front investment, which is why the entire world hasn’t already seized these money-saving opportunities. But if we’re looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint, using technologies that ultimately save money certainly seems like the place to start.  One critical area is our buildings – both the construction of buildings and the ongoing heat and energy to use them represent a big chunk of the world’s emissions.

The U.S. Department of State, through its Greening Diplomacy Initiative, is committed to making those up-front investments to reduce our carbon emissions and lighten our environmental footprint.  The designs for the new U.S. Embassy London, released earlier this year, incorporate top-of-the-line features in building sustainability, including:

-           Rooftop solar panels as well as a crystal-like structure that will cover the south, west, and east walls, intended to simultaneously collect solar energy, insulate the building, and shade the interior while admitting daylight

-          Design that optimizes daylight and reduces the need for artificial lighting

-          Rainwater collection and on-site water treatment for reuse within the building

-          Combined biomass-powered heating and power systems that will also help serve the neighborhood’s energy needs

And the design plans earned the highest possible ratings under the LEED and BREEAM systems for rating a building’s environmental sustainability.  Not bad for one of the U.S.’s biggest embassies!

Farewell.  This is my final blog posting from Embassy London, since I depart soon for my next assignment.  I wish I had been able to do more blogging because there is so much work going on in environment and climate change.  It is important for me to communicate to you what the U.S. Government is doing to protect the environment, and how we work closely with our colleagues in the United Kingdom.  It has been a pleasure and an honor (honour, for our good friends here) to live and work in your wonderful country.

Farewell.

Jock Whittlesey
Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor
U.S. Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization
U.S. Embassy London

The first “Earth Day” in the United States was April 22, 1970, and marked a major step in environmentalism in the United States and around the world.

To celebrate the 40^th Earth Day, which was April 22, 2010, Embassy staff visited schools and talked to people around the UK about the work of the United States on environmental protection and natural conservation.  Environment Officer Sonia Laul visited Kew Gardens to talk with Michael Way about Kew’s “Millennium Seedbank Project,” a massive effort to store seeds from around the world to protect and restore biodiversity.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been a major partner in the Seedbank project.  Learn more in our Youtube video: U.S. Contributes to Global Millennium Seed Bank Project

The oil spill from the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico is of great concern to everyone.  President Obama has ordered the responding U.S. agencies, including the Coast Guard, Department of Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to do “everything possible to respond to this incident.”

Here is a transcript of the April 29 White House press briefing about the incident: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-bp-oil-spill-gulf-coast

Today, Environment Officer Sonia Laul visited Kingsford Community School in Newham to talk about Earth Day, which is on April 22.  She met a wonderful group of students aged 12 and 13 to talk about Earth Day, the new energy efficient U.S. Embassy to be built in London, and why it is important to care for the environment.  Sonia and the kids planted seeds in the school’s memorial garden, and the kids asked questions about recycling and preventing pollution.  The Embassy donated books to the school library about plant biodiversity and technology development.  Here is what one of the students said:

“I’ve learnt that in order to save the planet everyone has to take part by just doing a few small things like planting seeds in your garden, using solar panels and not littering.  I’m going to respect the planet more by making sure that I’m not wasting electricity, not littering, planting seeds and being environmentally friendly. I believe if everyone does this the world will be a better place.”

Here are some pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassylondon

On Thursday, April 15, President Obama traveled to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to outline his strategy for human spaceflight.   Embassy Science Officer Michael Konialian told me that the President’s strategy is a sequence of deep-space missions, with a goal of putting astronauts on Mars.  See President’s remarks on space exploration.    The President announced an increase in the NASA budget by $6 billion over the next five years, which will allow NASA to do more robotic exploration, run “scouting missions” to Mars, build a new space telescope, and design a new “heavy lift” rocket. President Obama also announced that in the future, NASA will buy “space transportation services” from private firms rather than rely completely on NASA technology and personnel.

With air travel around the global disrupted by ash from a volcano in Iceland, many people are concerned about the health effects of volcanic ash.  In brief, the effects are almost always mild and temporary, but irritating.  Please see  this guide from the International Volcano Health Hazard Network, of which the U.S. Geological Survey is a member, for definitive and detailed information.  ( http://www.ivhhn.org/images/pamphlets/Health_Guidelines_English_WEB.pdf ).

Volcanic ash is much more of a problem for jet engines; see the following article from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/apr/15/volcanic-ash-bad-for-planes

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern spoke at the Center for American Progress on February 9 to give his views on the Copenhagen climate change meeting (COP-15) in December 2009, the Copenhagen Accord, and U.S. climate change policy in 2010.  The video of the speech is at http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2010/02/stern.html

I’ve listed the time line below, with summaries of the various questions as mileposts.

08:10     Stern begins speech

26:40     speech ends, Q&A begins

First question: What is the process for climate negotiations in 2010?

30:15     What is the effect of the lack of U.S. climate legislation on international negotiations?

33:00     What is the role of heads of state in climate negotiations in 2010?

33:40     Do we need a new forum for climate negotiations?

35:50     Can we reach a binding climate agreement in 2010?

37:56     What has been the impact on international negotiations and on U.S. domestic legislation by attacks on the credibility of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the scientific panel)?

41:00     What are China’s preferences between the Copenhagen Accord, the Kyoto Protocol track under UNFCCC, and the Long-Term Cooperative Actions track under UNFCCC?

44:00     END Q&A.  Begin panel discussion that does not include Todd Stern.

1:22:00  End of video

I have spent a lot of time today on trains, first going to Oxford to talk to Professor Sir David King, the Director of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.  Then it was back to London for a roundtable with a cosmopolitan mix of folks from Shell Oil.  I was at the Embassy briefly, then went to Victoria Station for a train to Chichester, where I talked to the local United Nations Association.  In each case, I found serious, well-informed folks who were all trying in their own ways to stop climate change.

Shell Oil has been very active and progressive in the climate change discussion.  Shell is engaged in multiple projects on Capture Capture and Storage (CCS), a key technology if we want to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants.  In Chichester, I talked about the desire of the United States to work with other countries under the Copenhagen Accord.  I understand that fifty-five countries have signed up.  That’s a good start.

I am on the train back from Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, where I visited the first “zero carbon” Tesco supermarket.  A lot of care and thought has clearly gone into making the store not only zero net carbon emissions (over the course of a year) but with an overall low environmental impact as well.  For example, they send no waste to landfill, and they capture rainwater from the roof and parking lot to flush the toilets and wash cars.  There are big sky lights.  They used lots of wood in place of steel.  They use on-site combined heat and power (CHP) from biodiesel as an energy source.  And a big surprise for me – they use CO2 as a refrigerant, instead of using manufactured chemicals that can hurt the atmosphere.