Save our cities
Countries that have taken action
The Maldives
The Maldives are a group of islands in the northern Indian Ocean. Almost 400,000 people live in the Maldives. The countries greatest source of wealth is from tourism. The Maldives are the lowest country on the planet and its highest point is seven feet above sea level. Climate change and sea level rise pose a great threat to this small nation. So it is going green, in fact, in the next ten years, the Maldives will be carbon neutral.
The president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, will today unveil a plan to make his country carbon-neutral within a decade. The announcement comes only days after scientists issued stark new warnings that rising seas caused by climate change could engulf the Maldives and other low-lying nations this century.
The president will formally announce the scheme - and make a plea for other countries to follow the Maldives' lead - this evening, following the world premiere of The Age of Stupid, a major new climate change film in which a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055 looks at old footage from 2008 and asks why people didn't stop climate change when they had the chance.
Nasheed approached British climate change experts Chris Goodall and Mark Lynas to help develop the radical carbon-neutrality plan. The pair worked on a package of measures that could virtually eliminate fossil fuel use on the Maldive archipelago by 2020.
The plan includes a new renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure with 155 large wind turbines, half a square kilometre of rooftop solar panels, and a biomass plant burning coconut husks. Battery banks would provide back-up storage for when neither wind nor solar energy is available.
The clean electricity would power not only homes and businesses, but also vehicles. Cars and boats with petrol and diesel engines would be gradually replaced by electric versions.
Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, led the development of the clean-energy package. He said: "The Maldives could just give up. Its people could declare themselves climate change refugees and ask for sanctuary elsewhere. But the new government is taking a stand and asked us to give them a plan for a near zero-carbon economy.
"We don't want to pretend that this plan is going to be easy to implement. There will be hiccups, and electricity supply will occasionally be disrupted. But we think that building a near-zero-carbon Maldives is a realistic challenge. Get it right and we will show the apathetic developed world that action is possible, and at reasonable cost."
The Maldives is one of the world's lowest-lying countries, with 385,000 people living mainly on land less than two meters above sea level. The country would be rendered almost entirely uninhabitable by a rise in sea levels of one meter.
Lynas said: "The Maldives is in the front line of climate change. It is perhaps the most vulnerable country in the world. If nothing is done to cut global carbon emissions, the country will sink beneath rising seas this century. It is a poor country, but here we have a government that is throwing down the gauntlet to the rich, highly polluting countries."
The Maldives plan is not the first national carbon-neutrality target. Norway is aiming to be zero-carbon by 2030. However, the Maldives scheme is more ambitious - not just in terms of its 10-year timetable, but also because it aims to totally decarbonise the local economy. By contrast, the Norwegian scheme allows a large slice of domestic emissions to be offset by investments in forestry schemes overseas.
The cost for the package of low-carbon measures is estimated to be about $110m a year for 10 years. The scheme should pay for itself quite quickly, because the Maldives will no longer need to import oil products for electricity generation, transport and other functions. If the oil price were to rise to $100 per barrel, the payback period would be as short as 11 years. At current prices, it would take roughly twice as long to break even.
Nasheed said: "Climate change is a global emergency. The world is in danger of going into cardiac arrest, yet we behave as if we've caught a common cold. Today, the Maldives has announced plans to become the world's most eco-friendly country. I can only hope other nations follow suit
The president will formally announce the scheme - and make a plea for other countries to follow the Maldives' lead - this evening, following the world premiere of The Age of Stupid, a major new climate change film in which a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055 looks at old footage from 2008 and asks why people didn't stop climate change when they had the chance.
Nasheed approached British climate change experts Chris Goodall and Mark Lynas to help develop the radical carbon-neutrality plan. The pair worked on a package of measures that could virtually eliminate fossil fuel use on the Maldive archipelago by 2020.
The plan includes a new renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure with 155 large wind turbines, half a square kilometre of rooftop solar panels, and a biomass plant burning coconut husks. Battery banks would provide back-up storage for when neither wind nor solar energy is available.
The clean electricity would power not only homes and businesses, but also vehicles. Cars and boats with petrol and diesel engines would be gradually replaced by electric versions.
Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, led the development of the clean-energy package. He said: "The Maldives could just give up. Its people could declare themselves climate change refugees and ask for sanctuary elsewhere. But the new government is taking a stand and asked us to give them a plan for a near zero-carbon economy.
"We don't want to pretend that this plan is going to be easy to implement. There will be hiccups, and electricity supply will occasionally be disrupted. But we think that building a near-zero-carbon Maldives is a realistic challenge. Get it right and we will show the apathetic developed world that action is possible, and at reasonable cost."
The Maldives is one of the world's lowest-lying countries, with 385,000 people living mainly on land less than two meters above sea level. The country would be rendered almost entirely uninhabitable by a rise in sea levels of one meter.
Lynas said: "The Maldives is in the front line of climate change. It is perhaps the most vulnerable country in the world. If nothing is done to cut global carbon emissions, the country will sink beneath rising seas this century. It is a poor country, but here we have a government that is throwing down the gauntlet to the rich, highly polluting countries."
The Maldives plan is not the first national carbon-neutrality target. Norway is aiming to be zero-carbon by 2030. However, the Maldives scheme is more ambitious - not just in terms of its 10-year timetable, but also because it aims to totally decarbonise the local economy. By contrast, the Norwegian scheme allows a large slice of domestic emissions to be offset by investments in forestry schemes overseas.
The cost for the package of low-carbon measures is estimated to be about $110m a year for 10 years. The scheme should pay for itself quite quickly, because the Maldives will no longer need to import oil products for electricity generation, transport and other functions. If the oil price were to rise to $100 per barrel, the payback period would be as short as 11 years. At current prices, it would take roughly twice as long to break even.
Nasheed said: "Climate change is a global emergency. The world is in danger of going into cardiac arrest, yet we behave as if we've caught a common cold. Today, the Maldives has announced plans to become the world's most eco-friendly country. I can only hope other nations follow suit
Iceland
Iceland only depends on fossil fuels for 4.7% of its total energy demands, it gets 73% of its power demands from installed, hydroelectric plants and 22.3% of its power demands from geothermal turbines. Iceland is over a geothermal hotspot and the government has taken advantage of it. Iceland is a world leader in green technologies, in fact, the Icelandic government's only tie to fossil fuels is transportation, and they are solving themselves out of even that dilemma.
It looks much like any other filling station: Shell-branded gasoline pumps lined up before a brightly lit convenience store on the shoulder of a busy highway. But this is the hub of one of Iceland’s most ambitious projects, an obligatory stop for visiting foreign dignitaries that offers a glimpse of what might be the future of human transportation.
This is no ordinary Shell station. Just to one side, where you might expect to find diesel pumps, stands the world’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station. Pull up in your hydrogen-powered car, swipe your credit card, attach the pump fixture, and in five minutes you’ll be back on the road, your tank full of emissions-free fuel produced right at the filling station from water and sustainably generated electricity.
“It’s a completely green car, with only water coming out of the tailpipe,” says Jon Bjorn Skulason, general manager of Icelandic New Energy, who drives one of the city’s 14 hydrogen-fueled vehicles. “If we complete our plans, we will be a zero-emissions society. We would not have to import fuel from foreign sources, and we would be 100 percent sustainable, which must be the true future of the world.”
While many countries talk about sustainable energy and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, Iceland is committed to weaning itself off fossil fuels altogether by the middle of the century. Instead of importing oil to power its cars and fishing vessels, this remote island nation of 300,000 plans to power them like everything else here: with electricity from hydroelectric and geothermal plants.
In recent decades, Icelanders have harnessed meltwater from massive ice sheets and the steam that pours from its volcano-dotted landscape, which together generate virtually all the island’s heat and electricity. In the dead of winter, Icelanders use geothermal heat to grow bananas in frost-covered greenhouses, and to warm the streets and sidewalks of central Reykjavík.
“Our power plants are essentially processing water,” says Eirikur Hjalmarsson, spokesman for Reykjavík Energy. Its geothermal power plants have become tourist attractions. “Since we’re generating electricity from renewable sources, it may make sense to use it to power vehicles.”
The government’s plan, announced in 1998, is to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen. Together with Daimler AG, Shell, Norsk Hydro, and local utilities and research institutions, they created Icelandic New Energy, the company charged with spearheading the effort. The Shell station opened in 2003, serving the needs of three experimental hydrogen fuel-cell buses that plied the streets of Reykjavík for four years without incident. Hydrogen-fueled cars followed in late 2007, and were joined by a fuel cell-equipped passenger vessel last year.
“We haven’t found any major problems with the operation of a hydrogen economy with buses, cars, or ships,” says Icelandic New Energy’s Mr. Skulason. “If somebody were to say to me today, ‘I’ll bring 20,000 hydrogen cars to Iceland every year for the next five years at the same cost as a conventional car,’ it would not be a problem for us.”
But the project, which aimed to convert the country to hydrogen by 2040, is several years behind schedule, due to delays in automobile manufacturers’ roll-out of the next generation of hydrogen vehicles, which the global recession will only make worse. Iceland’s own financial collapse has not only delayed the building of additional fueling stations, Skulason says, but has also underscored the need to develop domestic fuel supplies.
The idea is to use electricity generated by geothermal (steam) and hydro plants to power cars. While plug-in electric cars might be sensible for Reykjavík commuters, long-distance travelers, fishermen, and aircraft pilots have power and range requirements that can’t be practically served by battery storage alone, says Bragi Arnason, the University of Iceland chemist who first conceived Iceland’s “hydrogen experiment.”
“You will use electricity wherever you can, but batteries do not have a sufficient range – maybe 200 or 300 kilometers [124 to 186 miles],” he says, requiring that the electricity be stored in another, more intensive form. “Most experts agree that hydrogen is candidate fuel No. 1, because it’s the cheapest and easiest to make.”
At the Shell station, an electrolyzer strips hydrogen from H20 molecules, which are later consumed in the engines of specially-modified internal-combustion Toyota Priuses. The hydrogen can also be turned into electricity in the fuel cells of Daimler A-Class electric cars. (Drivers here say the latter approach delivers far more torque and power.)
Critics say this entire approach is illogical. “If you have renewable electricity, why would you buy an expensive electrolyzer to throw away some of that electricity making hydrogen, buy an expensive tank to store it, and put it in a vehicle just to make it into electricity again?” asks Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress in Washington, author of “The Hype About Hydrogen.” “If Iceland hasn’t figured out that electricity is their future, they will soon.”
Standing on the deck of the fuel-cell-equipped whale-watching vessel Elding, mechanical engineer Hallmar Halldors disagrees.
Mr. Halldors, founder of Icelandic Hydrogen, is Reykjavík’s main hydrogen mechanic, servicing fuel-cell vehicles and designing a network of a dozen small hydrogen filling stations that would one day provide full coverage across the country.
“You just don’t get the range with batteries, and you could never use them for fishing vessels,” he says, noting that the latter are out at sea for weeks at a time. “The fuel-cell vehicles have proven very reliable and people really accept them.”
The system has received coast guard certification and the Elding’s customers – many of them British tourists – haven’t expressed concern with having hydrogen on board. Its only waste product is steam, which Captain Sigursveinsson would like to harness to make cappuccinos. “It’s technically possible,” Halldors notes with a smile, “but the safety certifiers are very cautious.”
Switching the country to hydrogen will be a long process, says Professor Arnason, who has been advocating the move since the oil shocks of the 1970s. “”If you look back in history, every change from one type of energy to another – wood to coal, coal to oil – it always takes 50 years,” he says. “I will only see the first steps, but when my grandchildren are grown, I am sure we will have this new economy.”
This is no ordinary Shell station. Just to one side, where you might expect to find diesel pumps, stands the world’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station. Pull up in your hydrogen-powered car, swipe your credit card, attach the pump fixture, and in five minutes you’ll be back on the road, your tank full of emissions-free fuel produced right at the filling station from water and sustainably generated electricity.
“It’s a completely green car, with only water coming out of the tailpipe,” says Jon Bjorn Skulason, general manager of Icelandic New Energy, who drives one of the city’s 14 hydrogen-fueled vehicles. “If we complete our plans, we will be a zero-emissions society. We would not have to import fuel from foreign sources, and we would be 100 percent sustainable, which must be the true future of the world.”
While many countries talk about sustainable energy and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, Iceland is committed to weaning itself off fossil fuels altogether by the middle of the century. Instead of importing oil to power its cars and fishing vessels, this remote island nation of 300,000 plans to power them like everything else here: with electricity from hydroelectric and geothermal plants.
In recent decades, Icelanders have harnessed meltwater from massive ice sheets and the steam that pours from its volcano-dotted landscape, which together generate virtually all the island’s heat and electricity. In the dead of winter, Icelanders use geothermal heat to grow bananas in frost-covered greenhouses, and to warm the streets and sidewalks of central Reykjavík.
“Our power plants are essentially processing water,” says Eirikur Hjalmarsson, spokesman for Reykjavík Energy. Its geothermal power plants have become tourist attractions. “Since we’re generating electricity from renewable sources, it may make sense to use it to power vehicles.”
The government’s plan, announced in 1998, is to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen. Together with Daimler AG, Shell, Norsk Hydro, and local utilities and research institutions, they created Icelandic New Energy, the company charged with spearheading the effort. The Shell station opened in 2003, serving the needs of three experimental hydrogen fuel-cell buses that plied the streets of Reykjavík for four years without incident. Hydrogen-fueled cars followed in late 2007, and were joined by a fuel cell-equipped passenger vessel last year.
“We haven’t found any major problems with the operation of a hydrogen economy with buses, cars, or ships,” says Icelandic New Energy’s Mr. Skulason. “If somebody were to say to me today, ‘I’ll bring 20,000 hydrogen cars to Iceland every year for the next five years at the same cost as a conventional car,’ it would not be a problem for us.”
But the project, which aimed to convert the country to hydrogen by 2040, is several years behind schedule, due to delays in automobile manufacturers’ roll-out of the next generation of hydrogen vehicles, which the global recession will only make worse. Iceland’s own financial collapse has not only delayed the building of additional fueling stations, Skulason says, but has also underscored the need to develop domestic fuel supplies.
The idea is to use electricity generated by geothermal (steam) and hydro plants to power cars. While plug-in electric cars might be sensible for Reykjavík commuters, long-distance travelers, fishermen, and aircraft pilots have power and range requirements that can’t be practically served by battery storage alone, says Bragi Arnason, the University of Iceland chemist who first conceived Iceland’s “hydrogen experiment.”
“You will use electricity wherever you can, but batteries do not have a sufficient range – maybe 200 or 300 kilometers [124 to 186 miles],” he says, requiring that the electricity be stored in another, more intensive form. “Most experts agree that hydrogen is candidate fuel No. 1, because it’s the cheapest and easiest to make.”
At the Shell station, an electrolyzer strips hydrogen from H20 molecules, which are later consumed in the engines of specially-modified internal-combustion Toyota Priuses. The hydrogen can also be turned into electricity in the fuel cells of Daimler A-Class electric cars. (Drivers here say the latter approach delivers far more torque and power.)
Critics say this entire approach is illogical. “If you have renewable electricity, why would you buy an expensive electrolyzer to throw away some of that electricity making hydrogen, buy an expensive tank to store it, and put it in a vehicle just to make it into electricity again?” asks Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress in Washington, author of “The Hype About Hydrogen.” “If Iceland hasn’t figured out that electricity is their future, they will soon.”
Standing on the deck of the fuel-cell-equipped whale-watching vessel Elding, mechanical engineer Hallmar Halldors disagrees.
Mr. Halldors, founder of Icelandic Hydrogen, is Reykjavík’s main hydrogen mechanic, servicing fuel-cell vehicles and designing a network of a dozen small hydrogen filling stations that would one day provide full coverage across the country.
“You just don’t get the range with batteries, and you could never use them for fishing vessels,” he says, noting that the latter are out at sea for weeks at a time. “The fuel-cell vehicles have proven very reliable and people really accept them.”
The system has received coast guard certification and the Elding’s customers – many of them British tourists – haven’t expressed concern with having hydrogen on board. Its only waste product is steam, which Captain Sigursveinsson would like to harness to make cappuccinos. “It’s technically possible,” Halldors notes with a smile, “but the safety certifiers are very cautious.”
Switching the country to hydrogen will be a long process, says Professor Arnason, who has been advocating the move since the oil shocks of the 1970s. “”If you look back in history, every change from one type of energy to another – wood to coal, coal to oil – it always takes 50 years,” he says. “I will only see the first steps, but when my grandchildren are grown, I am sure we will have this new economy.”