A low carbon economy the way out of the EU employment crisis

The current crisis is taking its toll on EU labor markets, reversing most of the employment growth achieved since 2000. If we want EU to fully recover and get back on a growth train again, though, we must focus our employment policies on preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The invitation is included in the latest Employment in Europe Report just released by the European Union.

Men, young people, the low-skilled and workers on temporary contracts have borne the brunt of the employment contraction. Employment in the EU has shrunk by over 4 million jobs since the start of the crisis, although the effect has been somewhat mitigated thanks to the use of shorter working hours and other schemes. But these short term measures, however important, are not in themselves sufficient to ensure a successful exit from the crisis.

Vladimír Špidla, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities said: “This report shows how important it is to reconcile our short-term response to the crisis with our longer-term structural reforms. These reforms are essential for the EU economy and labour markets to emerge from the current downturn well prepared for future challenges, in particular the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

With this challenge in mind, the 21 st annual edition of the Employment in Europe report takes a deeper look at two key issues for future EU labour market policy: movements to, from and between jobs and the implications of climate change for the job market.

EU labour markets are more dynamic than often believed, but long-term unemployment remains a serious threat

European labour markets have shown considerable dynamism in recent years, as every year, around 22% of European workers change jobs. Such dynamism is not just limited to countries usually seen as ‘flexible’, such as the UK or Denmark, but concerns all EU countries, although the figures range from 14% of workers in Greece and 16% in Sweden to over 25% in the UK, Finland, Spain and Denmark. This appears to be part of a more sustained rise, since the late 1990s, in transitions from inactivity and unemployment towards employment in the EU, suggesting a fundamental structural improvement in our labour markets.

However, not all workers have benefited equally from this positive trend. Although the number of long-term unemployed has declined since the 1990s, this problem remains a serious challenge. In recent years, close to 45% of all unemployment spells lasted longer than a year in the EU, compared with only about 10% in the US. Tackling this issue has become even more urgent since the start of the crisis. Policies aimed at supporting workers’ transitions toward employment in line with the principles of flexicurity are key to lowering long-term unemployment and preserving employability.

Low-carbon policies will significantly change EU employment structures

The EU’s moves towards a competitive low-carbon economy will become important driving forces from a labour market perspective. Although the total net job creation effects may not be very large – as creation of new ‘green’ jobs and greening of existing jobs will partly be offset by loss of some existing jobs – the underlying structural changes will involve re-allocation of workers across economic sectors and skill types.

Climate change and related policy measures will therefore have an important impact on the future demand for skills. The new competencies required by the low-carbon economy will, at least initially, favour high-skilled workers. However, with market deployment of new technologies, lower-skilled workers should also be able to fill the new jobs – provided they receive adequate training. Hence, policy focus on skills – to ease transitions towards new jobs and to limit emergence of skills gaps and shortages – together with adequate social dialogue are the main ingredients needed to facilitate the shift to low-carbon economy.

EU Environment Council confirms goals for Copenhagen

The European Union Environment Council confirms EU’s overall goals for the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen on 7–18 December. The environment ministers confirmed the EU’s position and the mandate for negotiation that was established at the Environment Council in October and then endorsed by the heads of state and government at the European Council. Many Member States stressed the important of upholding the goal of 30 per cent emissions reductions as a lever to get others to make sufficient offers and put money on the table, both immediately after Copenhagen and in the long term. The EU has also set the long-term goal of reducing emissions by 80–95 per cent by 2050.

“The EU is united and well prepared to make Copenhagen a success. For the EU, Copenhagen is not ‘a step’, it is the step, it is the milestone in the work on climate change. The EU will push for a comprehensive agreement involving all countries”, says Minister for the Environment Andreas Carlgren.

“All parties must present sufficient offers on emissions reductions and financing. This applies to both industrialised countries such as the USA and rapidly growing economies such as China. Copenhagen must also be the starting point for rapid measures against deforestation, and money for this must be made available immediately.”

The European Union is working for an ambitious, comprehensive and legally binding global climate agreement that will prevent global warming reaching dangerous levels, that is, more than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, as researchers have projected for this century.

The EU has independently committed itself to reducing its emissions by at least 20 per cent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, and is now implementing this reduction with the help of a legislation package that entered into force earlier this year, along with a comprehensive programme for increased energy efficiency.

The EU has also committed to reduce emissions by 30 per cent, on the condition that other industrialised countries collectively agree to make comparable reductions and that developing countries with rapid economic development contribute to a global agreement to the extent that they are able.

So long EU

Bureaucrats win over Democracy

Sorry but I am really and deeply disappointed by the choice. Mr van Rompuy is the perfect representative of Brussel’s bureaucracy and bureaucrats: just what it takes to enlarge the gap between EU and its institutions, on one side, and its citizens.I had been hoping in a sudden turn toward more democracy by the Eu, the appointment of the first President seemed to me like THE chance to to invert the route and retrieve the citizens’ support.

All Eurostat researches, and the decades long trend of EU Parliament elections are clear evidence of the distance between EU and its citizens. A dramatic turn was needed. The appointment of a “son of EU bureaucracy” does but kill even the slightest of hopes.

Frankly speaking, I am not confident in the European Union future, I see in a not distant future the toy breaking apart, with citizens and EU institutions going different way. EURO, political agreements, non-democratic behavior, carelessness of voters’ will (non participating to elections is a clear indication) will but build an unfavorable environment. The example of Soviet Union and its empire should be a clear lesson from the past: no matter what you do, if you do not take people into consideration and dismiss their instances, sooner or later the pressure will grow high enough to sweep you off.

US lagging behind on climate change

The U.S. Senate will postpone until next year its debate on energy and climate legislation, along with its controversial plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions.

Key Senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), said that the climate and energy bill will have to wait while the Senate tackles bills aimed at reforming the nation’s health insurance system and financial market regulation. The delay follows the harshly criticized, recent pact between Washington and Beijing for a non-binding agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen.

The proposed cap-and-trade legislation has drawn harsh opposition from Republican lawmakers and industry groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute on the ground that it will increase energy costs and harm the economy.

In June, the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which includes a cap-and-trade system aimed at cutting the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020.

A corresponding Senate bill from John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), which would seek to cut those emissions by 20 percent by 2020, was passed by the Senate environment panel earlier this month.

Republicans have asked for more support for nuclear power and offshore oil drilling in any legislation. Earlier this week, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) proposed a bill, the Clean Energy Act of 2009, that would offer about $20 billion over the next decades, much of it to support nuclear power.

News of a delay until next year leaves the Obama Administration bereft of legislation it hoped to present in December at a United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen to craft an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The Environmental Protection Agency has moved on its own to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, but has yet to formulate standards for enforcement. The EPA program is expected to cover 70 percent of the nation’s total emissions, including power plants, refineries, and cement production facilities that emit at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year.

But the EPA may well face years of legal battles over regulating greenhouse gases, which could lead the agency to look to Congress to pass a bill, Eric Olbeter, analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said in a Tuesday note.

In the meantime, questions remain over the competing renewable electricity standards contained in the House and Senate energy and climate bills, Olbeter said. The Senate bill would require 9 percent of the nation’s power to come from renewable resources and 6 percent from efficiency gains by 2021.

But Olbeter said it’s likely the Senate will move to adopt the more aggressive measures in the House bill, which calls for 12 percent of the nation’s power to come from renewables and 8 percent from efficiency by 2020.

These renewable energy mandates, as well as provisions in the House energy and climate bill to give new federal authority to site transmission lines, could be taken up separately from cap-and-trade rules, some observers have noted (see Green Light post).

Olbeter predicted that an energy bill without cap-and-trade could pass by May 2010, but questioned the likelihood of greenhouse gas limits being put into law during an election year.

Any energy efficiency provisions passed into law could well benefit energy services companies such as Honeywell and Johnson Controls, Olbeter said.

But he said solar and wind power “are likely to be left empty handed by a hollow renewable electricity standard.”

EU environment ministers meet with an eye on Copenhagen

EU environment ministers will meet in Brussels on Monday, 23 November for an extra Council meeting. The ministers will conduct a final joint review of the positions and strategies just a couple of weeks ahead of the climate conference in Copenhagen in December. Minister for the Environment Andreas Carlgren will head the meeting with his colleagues now and in Copenhagen.

“The EU will work to achieve a result in Copenhagen that is a comprehensive, ambitious and binding agreement, with clear commitments for all the world’s countries. There must also be a clear timetable and guidelines for putting the legally binding regulatory framework in place,” says Mr Carlgren.

In their October meeting, the EU environment ministers established a clear mandate for negotiation that was later confirmed by heads of state and government at the European Council. It contains a 30 per cent emissions reduction as a lever to get others to make sufficient offers, as well as money on the table, both immediately after Copenhagen and in the long term. The EU has also set the long-term goal of reducing emissions by 80–95 per cent by 2050.

“The most important task of the EU now is outreach. The USA and China must put adequate bids on the table. The EU is being proactive and we will continue our leading role. The EU environment ministers are the driving force of the negotiation process. We must be coordinated so we can take up the baton directly from senior officials’ negotiations and complete the task before the heads of state and government arrive in Copenhagen.”

Energy from wastewater

If you ever thought – and you most likely have – wastewater is but a useless by-product, something dirty and foul smelling to enclose in ditches and pipes not to let its stinks reach our noses, well you were wrong. Wastewater can actually be a source of valuable raw materials and energy. In other words, a source of wealth for families, communities and cities, too.

A brand new perspective on wastewater, presented by Prof. Jules van Lier at the Dutch TU Delft’s inaugural address. Developing countries, in particular, can benefit from this new perspective.

“Remember – Prof. van Lier said in his speech – that 2.6 billion people in the world still have no proper sanitation, resulting in 200 deaths per hour, with the highest number among children under five.”

Wastewater is usually seen as a dangerous by-product, which is collected in pipes and gutters and flows into ‘a dump-hole somewhere in the ground’. However, in recent decades, the treatment technologies for removing the harmful components from wastewater have become increasingly effective. And as Professor Jules van Lier points out in his inaugural speech, “on closer examination, wastewater is actually a mixed stream of valuable raw materials from previous economic and/or domestic activities.”

Wastewater treatment plants will eventually become reprocessing plants that produce water suitable for reuse. That will lead to the closing of process water cycles in industries, short cuts in the urban water cycle, the recovery of fertiliser, particularly phosphates, from domestic wastewater, and the converting of organic pollution into usable energy. According to Van Lier, this will lend an entirely new impetus to the process that could lead to the application of new reprocessing technologies, especially in areas where waste water treatment is still seen as a ‘Western luxury’.

“Take domestic wastewater in the Developing World, for example. If we assume a 50 percent recovery of chemical energy, the potential power you can generate from human excreta would be 200 Wh per person per day. Not too much, but this would be enough to light the slums of Africa all night long.”

A decentralised sewage treatment plant could also be of great value to agricultural ferti-irrigation in dry regions. “A city with 1 million inhabitants with an average water consumption of 100 litres a day can theoretically irrigate and fertilise between 1500 and 2000 hectares of farmland. In this way, nutrients from wastewater are put to good use and the farmland also serves as a sand filter to purify the water.”

“We still have a lot of hurdles to jump before we get to this stage, of course. But we mustn’t forget that the current situation has led to ten million hectares of farmland worldwide being irrigated with untreated or barely treated wastewater. More than ten percent of the world’s population eats products that are irrigated with wastewater!”

EU to enforce energy standards for public buildings

Standards will also be extended to cover all new homes and offices from 2020

The EU is reportedly close to introducing new laws that would impose energy efficiency standards on all public sector buildings from 2018 and all new homes and commercial buildings from 2020.

Bureaucrats are expected to put the finishing touches to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive this week: the goal is significantly reduce energy use across the bloc and provide a major boost to a construction sector deep into a crisis.

The EU Parliament is said to have proposed that all new buildings are made to qualify as zero carbon from the end of 2018. But member states said the goal was unachievable and instead will set a high energy efficiency standard for public buildings, and then later all buildings.

There will also be guidance on how member states calculate building energy use to take account of heating, cooling and hot water.

The move follows the EU’s release last month of a report proposing a wide-ranging programme that would see the European Investment Bank fund energy efficiency makeovers for 15 million European buildings over the next decade.

“Many energy efficiency improvements pay for themselves in energy savings, make our industry more competitive and our citizens richer,” said the European Commission report.

The Commission estimated the initiative could create an extra 300,000 direct jobs a year and around 1.1 million indirect jobs, particularly for builders, roofers, glaziers and other small businesses.

Taken together, the Commission estimates the new funding and standards could reduce the EU’s expenditure on gas imports – mainly used to heat buildings – by over €100bn.

The proposals also mirror plans in the US where energy efficiency standards are included in the Boxer-Kerry bill currently working its way through the Senate.

Revolutionizing the world of energy in Europe

Great challenges require interlinked solutions organized at a large scale: and advancing the necessary energy revolution in Europe represents such a challenge. The “European Sustainable Energy Innovation Alliance” (ESEIA) at Graz University of Technology is born to gather the resources needed to face that challenge. And win it.

The chief objectives of the initiative include creating innovations for sustainable technologies, establishing an interdisciplinary panel of experts, and strengthening measures for further and continuing education.

If you want to ensure the quality of life of future generations on Earth, you have to be aware of your responsibilities today and act accordingly. “If you want to bring something about successfully, all the available knowledge of new energy technologies and concepts must be bundled, expanded and directed, and an entrepreneurial approach to the topic of sustainability promoted”, explains Hans Sünkel, Rector of Graz University of Technology, who has been nominated for the presidency of ESEIA.

A total of 70 innovation partners from 23 nations are participating in the launch phase. Value has been placed on a range of various disciplines. Not only engineers but also political scientists and business schools are represented, as are manufacturers of large wind turbines. Participation to the network is though still open, for scientific and economical partners alike.

“Through ESEIA, we want to take on an exemplary pioneer role in the field of sustainable energy in Europe – in teaching, research and industry”, says initiator Brigitte Hasewend.

By means of ESEIA, a Europe-wide network for sustainable forms of energy and the prevention of the consequences of climate change will develop in the scientific location in Styria. If the “European Institute of Innovation and Technology” (EIT) of the European Commission makes a corresponding decision by the end of the year, ESEIA will be integrated as a strategic partner in the “eCANDO” large-scale project – at the end of August Graz University of Technology applied for a competence centre at European level together with top class international partners from science and industry. The aim of “eCANDO” is to promote an entrepreneurial approach to sustainable energy, to bundle and expand, and to intentionally optimise the flow of knowledge where jobs and economic growth are created in harmony with nature.

Water wells a link to the largest ever mass poisoning

For thirty years now scientists, world health agencies and the Bangladeshi government have been puzzled by a strange phenomen, apparently without a clear scientific explanation: drinking water contaminated with arsenic. Researchers in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering now believe they have pinpointed the current pattern of arsenic concentration underground: outcomes of their research suggest that human alteration to the landscape, the construction of villages with ponds, and the adoption of irrigated agriculture might be to blame. The findings also indicate that drinking-water wells drilled to a greater depth would likely provide clean water.

Tens of millions of Bangladeshi citizens have been exposed to arsenic in their water over the past several decades. As many as 3,000 die from arsenic-induced cancer each year and it is estimated approximately 2 million people in this country – the world’s seventh most populous – live with arsenic poisoning, which manifests as skin lesions and neurological disorders, and causes cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases and cancer. Allan H. Smith a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, calls it “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history.”

This pervasive incidence of arsenic poisoning and its link to drinking water were first identified in the early 1980s, shortly after the population began switching from surface water sources like rivers to groundwater from tube wells. The shift was part of a national program to decrease the incidence of bacterial illnesses caused by contaminated drinking water. The timely coincidence spurred the interests of the many scientists investigating the issue. It was understood that most of these tube wells have been drilled to less than 100 feet (30 meters): as a result, they draw water directly from the arsenic-contaminated shallower aquifer. The point scientists have been struggling to understand is how the arsenic, which is naturally occurring in the underground sediment of the Ganges Delta, is getting into the groundwater.

By 2002, a research team led by Charles Harvey, the Doherty Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, had determined that microbial metabolism of organic carbon was mobilizing the arsenic off the soils and sediments, and that crop irrigation was almost certainly playing a role in the process. But the exact sources of the contaminated water have remained elusive, until now.

In a paper appearing online in Nature Geoscience Nov. 15, Harvey, former graduate students Rebecca Neumann and Khandaker Ashfaque and co-authors explain that ponds are the source of the organic carbon that presently mobilizes the arsenic in their 6-square-mile test site. The carbon settles to the bottom of the ponds, then seeps underground where microbes metabolize it. This creates the chemical conditions that cause arsenic to dissolve off the sediments and soils and into the groundwater.

“Our research shows that water from the ponds carries degradable organic carbon into the shallow aquifer. Groundwater flow, drawn by irrigation pumping, transports that pond water to the depth where dissolved arsenic concentrations are greatest and where it is then pumped up into the irrigation and drinking wells,” says Harvey, whose research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. “The other interesting thing we found in our test area is that the rice fields are a sink of arsenic — more arsenic goes in with the irrigation water than comes out in the groundwater.”

Scott Fendorf, a professor at Stanford University who studies arsenic content in soils and sediments along the Mekong River in Cambodia, says Harvey’s previous research, published in 2002, “transformed the scientific community’s outlook on the problem.” The current work, he adds, has two big ramifications: “It shows that human modifications are impacting the arsenic content in the groundwater; and that while the rice cropping system appears to be buffering the arsenic, the ponds excavated to provide fill to build up the villages are having a negative impact on the release of arsenic.”

Ashfaque and Neumann did extensive fieldwork in Bangladesh over a seven-year period, studying the hydrologic behavior and chemical nature of rice fields and ponds and developing an understanding of the surface and underground water flow patterns and creating a 3-D model to track rice field and pond water as it traveled into and through the subsurface.

“When we compared the chemical signatures of the different water sources in our study area to the signatures of the aquifer water, we saw that water with high arsenic content originates from the human-built ponds, and water with lower arsenic content originates from the rice fields,” says Neumann. “It’s likely that these same processes are occurring at other sites, and it suggests that the problem could be alleviated by digging deeper drinking water wells below the influence of the ponds or by locating shallow drinking wells under rice fields.” The researchers suggest that irrigation wells remain at the shallow level.

Harvey is making plans for a multi-year study that would provide deep wells— deeper than 450 feet — for two villages in Bangladesh whose inhabitants suffer from arsenic poisoning. There they would combine continual testing of the well water and hydrogeological modeling of the groundwater system with a study of how the clean water effects the villagers’ health, placing special emphasis on the neurological development of children.

“There are all sorts of studies to show how arsenic hurts people. We’re trying to turn it around and show how removal of the arsenic will help them,” says Harvey.

False alarm awakens Atlantis and ISS crews

An alarm woke the crews aboard space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station at 8:36 p.m. EST Thursday. Flight controllers in Houston, Europe and Russia quickly concluded the alarm was false. An erroneous indication of a rapid depressurization led to the automatic shutdown of ventilation fans throughout the station, which stirred up dust and led to a false smoke detection alarm in the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory.

It took about an hour to reactivate the ventilation fans and stabilize the station atmosphere following the incident. The crews have been warned to watch out for pockets where carbon dioxide has accumulated.

The initial cause for the false depressurization indication is under evaluation. Mission control Capcom Frank Lien told station Commander Frank De Winne it might have originated with the Poisk mini-research module that docked to the station earlier this month.

The space station crew will wait until ventilation is restored before going back to sleep. The shuttle crew has already been given the “go” from teams on the ground to go back to sleep. To make up for the sleep they lost reacting to the alarm, the sleep period has been extended by 30 minutes. The new wake up time will be 4:28 a.m. EST.