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.
jockw Climate Change, Environment, Science & Technology ccs, chichester, oxford, shell oil, sir david king, smith school of enterprise and environment
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.
jockw Carbon Trading chp, combined heat and power, tesco, zero-carbon
Every year at the end of January, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) organizes the UK-wide “Big Garden Birdwatch.”. Today, with the kind permission of U.S. Ambassador Susman, a group from the RSPB was able to do the birdwatch on the expansive grounds of Winfield House, the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador.
I am not a birdwatcher, but I learned a lot about birds today, and saw long-tailed tits, crows, and a wood pigeon, plus some other birds I couldn’t identify. I also heard a woodpecker at work. The gardening staff at Winfield House works hard to make the grounds environmentally friendly and full of good habitat, as well as beautiful.
More pictures are on our Flickr page!
Updated 9th Feb: RSPB’s Director of Conservation Dr. Mark Avery commented on the event on his blog.
Who is that guy with the tripod anyway?
jockw Environment, Science & Technology, Science bird, rspb, watching, winfield house
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in London for conferences on Yemen and Afghanistan, two huge international meetings. Events like these put big burdens on an Embassy. For instance, I was called away from my regular work on climate change and environment to be a notetaker (and report writer) for Secretary Clinton’s bilateral meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
jockw Administrative afghanistan, hillary clinton, yemen
The January 12 earthquake in Haiti brought catastrophic devastation and tragic loss of life. The international community responded immediately and dramatically to the disaster, led by a large-scale response by the United States.
I was heartened to see our comprehensive response that called on many parts of the U.S. Government, as well as volunteers from state and local governments and from private organizations. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton formed the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund to accept private donations.
The State Department has a Haiti Earthquake page with full information about conditions in Haiti, and about assistance from the United States and other countries. Take a look at the briefings and fact sheets there. The U.S. Government has also published a scientific article on the Haiti earthquake that explains why the Haiti earthquake was so devastating.
jockw Environment, Science & Technology aid, earthquake, haiti
Today, I met with a representative of a uniquely British institution: the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate is a for-profit company that manages the real estate holdings of the Monarchy (the Royal Family). These holdings include Regent Street in London, a considerable amount of rural land, and interestingly for offshore wind, the sea bed out to the closer of the UK’s marine boundary or the UK’s continental shelf edge.
This is where the UK’s offshore wind turbines will be put, and the Crown Estate is the landlord that will lease the seabed areas. The involvement of the Crown Estate matters hugely to the development of offshore wind because you now have a single lessor that is astute, well-financed and highly professional, that has long time horizons, and that wants to develop offshore wind.
jockw Climate Change crown estate, wind energy, windfarm
I came to Copenhagen ten days ago to be part of the U.S. Delegation to COP-15, the fifteenth Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). My role, assisting with VIP visitors, has given me a front-row seat to what is shaping up to be an historical event.
This is my first COP, and the sheer magnitude of it is daunting. There are formal plenary meetings, working group meetings, country-to-country “bilaterals,” press briefings, public outreach events at places like our U.S. Center, “side-events” organized by a wide range of organizations, and lots of activists demonstrating both outside and inside the Bella Center, where the COP is taking place. Prime Minister Brown is here, and most of the world’s Heads of State are on the way. The exhausted negotiators will now step aside for discussions at the ministerial and head-of-state level. We are all working hard for another two days to get a strong climate agreement.
The website of the U.S. Delegation to COP-15 is at www.cop15.state.gov
You can see what the Press area of the Bella Center looks like in Jock’s video report.
jockw Climate Change, Environment, Science & Technology Climate Change, cop-15, cop15, copenhagen
Coming to us from the Bella Center, the conference venue for COP15 in Copenhagen, this behind-the-scenes video report from Jock Whittlesey reporting on the COP-15 climate summit. Go to www.state.gov/video for text transcript and more video or to www.cop15.state.gov for the U.S. delegation’s press center.
For readers who are seeing this for the first time, Jock Whittlesey is the Environment Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in London.
science Climate Change, Environment, Science & Technology cop-15, cop15, copenhagen
During a personal visit to Great Yarmouth, I came across two interesting environmental sites: an offshore wind farm and, located close by, a protected nesting area at North Denes for little terns. Without the good work of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) for more than 20 years, there is no doubt that this precious scrap of nesting area at North Denes for little terns would long ago have been lost to recreational use by people, pushing this rare and lovely bird a large step closer to being gone forever. As you may have heard, “nature doesn’t do bail-outs.”.
The wind-farm off the beach, operated by E.On, has 30 windmills of 2 megawatts capacity each. The well-informed gentlemen at the visitor center told me that the windmills operate at about 28 percent of their theoretical capacity, that is, the actual power they produce through the year is 28 percent of what they could produce operating at maximum output 24 hours a day.
The RSPB warden at the little tern site said that E.On had carefully studied the nesting area before building the wind farm. The RSPB warden did not feel that the windfarm had had a negative effect on the little terns, who zoomed and soared while the nearby windmills spun.
jockw Environment, Science & Technology, Renewable Energy birds, energy, eon, rspb, wind, windmill, yarmouth
I attended a speech at Royal Festival Hall today by Dr. Buzz Aldrin, the NASA astronaut who followed Neil Armstrong out of the “Eagle” spacecraft and down onto the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969. Dr. Aldrin spoke to a packed house of 2,000 people about his time on the moon, and his efforts to come to grips with the personal and professional effects of that experience. He tells his story in his recent book Magnificent Desolation.
jockw Environment, Science & Technology, Spaceflight aldrin, buzz, nasa
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