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ENERGY INTERNATIONAL
February/March 2012 www.esb.ie/em
Climate change agreement reached in Durban
Photo: Courtesy of UNFCCC.
TO THOSE WHO have been following the international negotiations on global warming and climate change over the last 20 years, it may come as a surprise that the normally indecisive group of countries who participate in the annual negotiations, known as the Conference of Parties (COP), actually came to a political agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol into a second commitment period (2013-20).
The agreement, reached in December 2011 and known as ‘the Durban Platform’, also made a formal decision to negotiate the terms of a new legal agreement that would bind all countries, both developed and developing, to emissions reduction targets for the period after 2020. This marks the first time that all major emitters, including China, the USA and India, have agreed to a common framework for reduction targets. The deal also reaffirms the long-term importance of carbon offset credits generated by clean energy projects under the clean development mechanism (CDM), as part of a global strategy to address global warming and now includes carbon capture and storage (CCS) within the CDM.
The agreement also sets the framework for the establishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which is designed to channel as much as US $100 billion per year to help developing countries mitigate and/or adapt to climate change.
For ESB and other European utilities, this deal creates more long-term regulatory certainty and reinforces our strategy to reduce the carbon intensity of our business activities through renewable energy project development, improved efficiency of our existing operations and our participation in CDM projects.
Carbon Solutions team members Afra Ronayne, Edward Weinberg and Shaw Chamunorwa took time off from their negotiations with South African wind and biomass project developers to participate in the event.
ESB ATHLETIC CLUB UPDATE
Olympic countdown started
Health & Habitat, page 32
Second WestWave Associate Partner workshop a major success
ESB OCEAN ENERGY hosted the second workshop for associate partners of WestWave, the 5MW pilot wave farm project, in Dublin on Monday November 21st. The WestWave Associate Partner group welcomes participants from all sectors with an interest in wave energy and promotes a collaborative approach to the development of the WestWave project.
The meeting was attended by many representives of government agencies, including SEAI, GSI, Marine Institute and Údarás na Gaeltachta, UCC, UCD, NUI Maynooth, port and harbour representatives, Mayo and Donegal County Councils, engineering companies Alstom and Siemens, technology partners Aquamarine Power, Pelamis Wave Power, Ocean Energy and Wavebob, the Marine Renewable Industry Association (MRIA) and other supply chain companies. Participants from the UK and elsewhere joined the meeting via Webex.
Attendees were given presentations including a WestWave project progress update and a wave technologies update, as well as the outcome of a recent supply chain study that highlights the requirements needed to deliver the WestWave project in Ireland by 2015. Guest speaker from Eoin Sweeney from Sustainable Energy Association Ireland (provided an overview of ocean energy policy and frameworks in Ireland.
ESB Ocean Energy representatives included Colm de Búrca, John Fitzgerald, Cera Slevin, Brendan Barry and James Tedd, all of whom presented at the meeting.
A copy of the presentations and the supply chain study report can be downloaded from the WestWave website www.westwave.ie.
Remembering Lynda
Finance staff present cheques to Enable Ireland and Special Olympics Ireland
FINANCE STAFF in Generation Operations and Generation’s Assets & Trading held a charity event in memory of their colleague, Lynda O’Brien, who died tragically in February 2011.
A sponsored walk in Wicklow, coffee mornings in Head Office and Generating Stations across the country, together with a raffle for a Manchester United jersey were organised by the staff. The proceeds of these events were shared between Enable Ireland and Special Olympics Ireland, both of which were close to Lynda’s heart.
Thanks to the outstanding generosity of the staff, €9,300 was raised and this was matched by a contribution from ESB. A presentation of the cheques to the charities took place in late 2011 with members of Lynda’s family and representatives of Enable Ireland and Special Olympics Ireland in attendance.
Lynda’s first anniversary was on 3rd February 2012 and she is greatly missed by her many friends in ESB. Lynda’s anniversary was commemorated on the day at the First Friday Mass in the Oratory in Head Office.
