Four onboard, 188 to go

February 21, 2008 9:13 AM

Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and Costa Ricaand four cities in other countries have made the pledge to aim for being carbon neutral. New Zealand and Costa Rica had earlier decleared this ambitious goal, but now Iceland and Norway have joined in. Way to go! Of the 192 nations on this planet, there are now only 188 to go.
posted by nucleus (20 comments total)

Does Costa Rica have geothermal?
posted by Artw at 9:17 AM on February 21, 2008

They have volcanoes. That's even better.
posted by smackfu at 9:18 AM on February 21, 2008

Which, if you have the brilliance of the Icelanders, can be used to generate carbon neutral energy.
posted by nucleus at 9:21 AM on February 21, 2008

I know when I was in NZ in 2000, in some small town in the South Island they where already talking about a plan to cut wast by something like 75% and attempting to phase out landfills. So, yeah this doesn't surprise me, seems like they have the right idea.
posted by edgeways at 9:48 AM on February 21, 2008

Costa Rica is not stopping but even perhaps encouraging the building of high rises and high-density developments including golf courses in the (already dry) coast of Guanacaste, leaving locals with a shrinking supply of drinking water. At least 2 major resorts have been repeatedly denounced for polluting the nearby public beaches and wetlands with human waste. Other mega-hotel projects are in the works in Osa, in the South Pacific, and there plenty of projects to install marinas all over the country regardless of what the local population have to say, and with no plans for water treatment and supply.

One of the hidro-electric plants is going to be built using the Pacuare river. A consultation with the local community in 2005 had already ruled that out because it basically means the destruction of all natural and cultural heritage for them.

So yeah, Carbon Neutral, way to go.
posted by papalotl at 9:58 AM on February 21, 2008

So Norway sucks a bunch of oil and gas out of the north sea, and they'll buy carbon credits from other countries. meh.
posted by Eekacat at 10:29 AM on February 21, 2008

The Icelandic state, while mostly alright on the environment, is also building a gigantic hydro-electric dam in the middle of the country, which has already destroyed a unique natural habitat high on the central black sand plain of Iceland (the center of Iceland is, incidentally, the largest desert in Europe). The purpose of this dam is to provide power to a aluminum smelting factory. The ecological footprint of Iceland is mostly related to hydropower, so going carbon neutral is low cost. That said, I'm glad that the current, fairly new government, is better at ecological issues than the old government (even though it's a coalition government with more than half the same crew as before). So, way to go us for doing something positive on the environment.
posted by Kattullus at 10:38 AM on February 21, 2008

Since I'm talking about that dam already, there was a fairly interesting story in Time last year about Chinese workers on the project. Excerpt:

"According to the Chinese, this is not cooked," says Gianni Porta, a manager for Impregilo, the contractor in charge of the job. He pokes a finger at his plate of rice and meat in the work camp's cafeteria. "According to the Pakistanis," Porta continues, "this is overcooked."

posted by Kattullus at 10:40 AM on February 21, 2008

"made the pledge to aim for being carbon neutral."

is a lot different than "pledge to be carbon neutral". Also, what's a pledge?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:26 AM on February 21, 2008

So yeah, Carbon Neutral, way to go.

Indeed. And Iceland has no industry. Pretty easy to become carbon neutral when you don't make anything except black licorice.
posted by fusinski at 12:57 PM on February 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

They do a lot of stuff where you need a lot of energy, like Aluminium and server farms.
posted by Artw at 1:09 PM on February 21, 2008

And Norway has an abundance of hydroelectric power. I don't think they have any problems going carbon-neutral.
posted by Catfry at 1:18 PM on February 21, 2008

And of course the poor old US has none of these resources.
posted by Artw at 1:19 PM on February 21, 2008

Relatively speaking, no, the US has nothing like the natural ressources at hand, per capita.
posted by Catfry at 1:24 PM on February 21, 2008

I know when I was in NZ in 2000, in some small town in the South Island they where already talking about a plan to cut wast by something like 75% and attempting to phase out landfills. So, yeah this doesn't surprise me, seems like they have the right idea.

We have very good intentions, but our record on following through on them isn't particularly great, so far. I suppose it's better to aspire to something worthwhile than not, but there has to be some sort of action to back it up.

Here's a very recent State of the Environment report, which shows some progress, and some back-sliding. Controversially, the conclusions chapter (which placed a lot of blame for our environmental problems on farming) was removed, but the draft version is available.
posted by Infinite Jest at 2:12 PM on February 21, 2008

Norway is buying (and are pplanning to buy) so many carbon credits that we could increase our carbon footprint and still be considered neutral on paper.

I know, boo on us. Sanctimonious assholes, we are.
posted by flippant at 2:27 PM on February 21, 2008

It’s a worthwhile goal. And once a goal like that is set concrete actions can begin. That depends on how seriously the goal is taken and how strongly people within a country are committed to change.

The first step in solving a problem is recognizing a problem exists. Someone who is 200 lbs overweight might want to cut back on the snacks, but until they commit themselves to a goal, not much is going to happen. It’s nice to see a start.
posted by HVAC Guerilla at 2:41 PM on February 21, 2008

Norway kicks ass. You just need to clean up Oslo and it'll be a perfect country.
posted by fraxil at 3:34 PM on February 21, 2008

So New Zealand has figured out a way to force its sheep into methane-free carbon neutrality?
posted by A-Train at 6:44 PM on February 21, 2008

And of course the poor old US has none of these resources.
posted by Artw

Power distribution is *significantly* less than perfectly efficient. Transmission of power over long distances drastically increases this inefficiency. There are vast, *populated* areas of the United States where hydro, geo, tidal, and even wind would not be sufficient to meet current needs - nevermind our sharply increased needs by 2050 - for various climactic/geological reasons.

Europe has it easier not only because of size, but also shape. Its irregular shape significantly limits the distance any one point in Europe is from a coast, where the interface between land/sea/air allows for relatively easy clean power extraction. This irregular shape results in reduced transmission distance, so that clean power can be distributed with reasonable efficiency. In addition, Europe's "demographic crisis" means that their needs are increasing more slowly than ours.

The US does not share these advantages, and even worse has coastal population density levels shared by . . . England, which isn't pledging carbon neutrality anytime soon. Why is coastal population a big deal? Because it reduces the amount of land available for extracting power from natural sources in an absolute sense while simultaneously requiring power extraction to occur at greater distances from population centers.

Even if the US had the political will (it doesn't), and didn't have massive investment in fossil fuel energy production by those steering its economy (it does), the basic lay of the land forces it to contend with some extremely thorny issues that Europe doesn't share.

Fission power could be used as a stopgap for some of the US's nastier areas, but uranium mining and spent fuel-rod storage are anything but 'clean', even if we didn't have public perception to contend with, which we do.

In short, we're kind of fucked until fusion becomes a viable option. Barring a major breakthrough by a third party, the ITER project probably won't demonstrate commercial viability until ~2035, and the level of refinement necessary for widespread rollout until ~2050.

Big smiles, everyone.
posted by Ryvar at 10:41 AM on February 22, 2008