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CLIMATE SCIENCE
Landfills: The climate threat in trash
By Joshua MELVIN
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 11, 2015


Xi, Obama demand 'ambitious' global climate deal
Beijing (AFP) Dec 11, 2015 - Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama threw their collective weight behind an "ambitious climate agreement" Friday, as marathon global talks reached a crescendo in Paris.

The leaders of the world's two biggest economies, and its two biggest polluters, discussed the crunch talks by telephone, according to officials in Beijing and Washington.

The White House said both leaders agreed the negotiations presented a "crucial opportunity to galvanize global efforts to meet the climate change challenge."

"They committed that their negotiating teams in Paris would continue to work closely together and with others to realize the vision of an ambitious climate agreement," said the White House.

Xi and Obama both attended the UN summit's opening ceremony on November 30.

China's foreign ministry said that Xi had pressed for the two governments to "strengthen coordination with all parties" and "make joint efforts to ensure the Paris climate summit reaches an accord as scheduled."

Xi was said to add that a deal would be beneficial to the international community.

A deal has yet to be reached at the gathering, but sleep-starved envoys tasked with stymying catastrophic climate change aim to wrap up a historic accord on Saturday after a second all-night session of talks.

China and the US are the world's two largest carbon emitters, though China is estimated to have released nearly twice as much as the United States and around two and a half times the European Union.

The Asian giant pledged last year to peak carbon dioxide output by "around 2030" -- suggesting at least another decade of growing emissions.

"We still have some distance to cover before reaching our final deal, and some key issues remain unresolved," said foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying Friday.

"Developed countries should play the leading role and make greater efforts," she said, while calling upon all participant countries to "show their flexibility" and "narrow differences."

burs-arb/sg

While efforts to avert disastrous climate change zoom in on cars, industry and power plants belching harmful gases into the air, a potent source of global warming is stealthily stewing underground: rotting trash.

Landfills packed with decomposing dinner leftovers and grass clippings are among the world's top sources of methane -- one of the most powerful heat-trapping gases contributing to the Earth's warming.

The worst dumping grounds "are places where climate change is being caused on a very great scale," David Newman, who heads the International Solid Waste Association, said on the sidelines of the UN conference in Paris where a climate rescue pact is edging towards possible agreement.

Curbing emissions, mainly from burning oil, coal and gas, is a key thrust of the 195-nation talks billed as the last chance to avert worst-case-scenario global warming.

But scientists estimate that dumps produce at least 10 percent of man-made methane, making it the world's third biggest source of the gas after energy production and agriculture.

Methane has a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the most abundant greenhouse gas -- but traps about 20 times more per unit of the heat radiated from Earth's surface.

Rotting garbage in landfills emits the gas because it is buried and therefore decomposes without oxygen -- anaerobically. A backyard compost pile exposed to air would generally not produce large quantities of the gas.

Experts warn the methane is seeping out of landfills around the world despite efforts to boost recycling and cut waste.

In the European Union, more than 100 million tonnes of trash are dumped every year, though the 28-nation bloc has issued a directive to limit the volumes sent to landfills by 2025.

The United States, China, India and many other nations send millions more tonnes of their waste to the dump annually for burial.

Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate science expert at University of California, San Diego, said tackling methane is key to limiting global warming to the UN ceiling of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

"You can't do it with (cutting) CO2 alone, we have lost that luxury," he said. "It's too late -- you need to bring in these other pollutants."

- 'Uncontrolled methane' -

How to deal with landfill gas -- up to 60 percent methane -- has long been a problem for dump operators.

Gas has been known to escape from dumps, leak into homes and explode, notably in Britain and Denmark.

Many landfills now collect the gas, burn it off or use it to make electricity.

For example, gas from Shanghai's Laogang landfill, one of China's largest, will provide enough electricity per year for 100,000 families, said Gary Crawford, a vice president of international affairs at water, waste and energy giant Veolia.

"The project contributes to significant greenhouse gas emission reductions, over 700,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2014," he said.

Those emissions are on par with the pollution emitted by 147,300 cars in a year.

However, environmentalists have been critical of using landfill gas as an energy source. American advocacy group Sierra Club issued a report in 2010 saying burning methane results in a net increase in pollution.

Sierra Club said it is better to keep organic waste out of landfills "so that uncontrolled methane is not generated in the first instance".

The benefits of generating electricity in this way, it said, are outweighed by methane escaping into the air.

Ramanathan stressed that methane emissions can be largely averted.

"CO2 is an inescapable consequence of burning fossil fuels," he said, but for methane, "there are ways to avoid" it.

jm/mlr/djw/kjl/as

VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT


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