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Michael Hayes

Sep 4, 2015
07:32

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Dear Michele and Michael,

Outstanding Work!

Communicating a highly complex concept covering planetary scale socioeconomic and intergovernmental policy issues, within the tight confines of the CoLab format, requires a high degree of clarity of thought, mastering of the cogent details and expert level authorship. Your proposal sets a new standard, within the overall CoLab experiment, in those regards. I would like to congratulate you on quality of your proposal and request a copy of the formula mentioned.

Further, in exploring your cited references, I found that you are being generous in providing a number of high level resources covering the most recent and germane information. 

As an example of how your work immediately benefited my current efforts; I'm attempting to master the full scope of details concerning each nation's stated pledges to UNFCCC as a possibe means of isolating, at the STEM level, the most common denominators. Your list of references led me to a wealth of knowledge as found in the form of WRI's CAIT Climate Data Explorer and linked documents such as "Compilation of information on nationally appropriate mitigation actions to be implemented by developing country Parties". Clearly such references are important tools for isolating common STEM denominators and other critical mitigation technical research efforts. 

I can now see that my China proposal should have specifically addressed how the WENN suite of technologies can help meet the stated goals of:

"[...] lower its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45% by 2020 compared to the 2005 level, increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15% by 2020 and increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares and forest stock volume by 1.3 billion cubic meters by 2020 from the 2005 levels." .

If the China WENN proposal (and any of the other related national/regional proposals) moves into the final round, this additional reference information will allow me to significantly refine the work. Thank you.

Although I'm still studying your proposal and have not read the formula, if I may, I would like to offer a few comments on how the WENN Protocol may dovetail into some aspects of your proposal. I'll simply work down your proposal and offer comments in that order. 

a) Concerning "Which plan do you select for the United States?": On the issue of the development of a "Climate Coin" (per ClimateCoin 2015), once security issues are resolved, such crytocurrency can be a strong force for engaging the small environmental investor. Yet, the current scope of the concept is limited to carbon management and the biogeochemical complexities we now face requires equal attention to a number of other physical factors. 

Achieving the  Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6 scenario is critical and does cover a relatively wide spectrum of needs and thus requires, in general, addressing 8 specific areas. As such, any 'Climate Coin' crytocurrency scenario should incorporate these 8 critical needs along with water management!

Limiting mitigation efforts simply to the global carbon management spectrum is simply not going to be good enough at this late date.

The WENN Protocol's suite of technologies can provide a comprehensive list of on-the-ground/wave production values to a universal Climate Coin concept.

b) Concerning "Unconventional Financing of Climate Change Mitigation + Adaptation": The goals of the authors are actually currently achievable through the emerging Green Bond/Grant investment matrix. In that, what is needed is not QE at the national/international level, we need QE at the Green Bond/Grant level so as to become largely independent of legislative whims and bureaucratic based economic priority restrictions.

Yet, some form of adult supervision over such a potentially vast new and profoundly important money market will be needed. 

In your proposal, you properly recognize the need for the "Acceptance by involved parties (or countries) for an international institutions in charge of monitoring and verifying the same parties' compliance with their reductions' duties, as well as the establishment of a sound enforcement system are both pre-requisites to the use of the proposed formula." to address technical compliance of the Parties. The emerging Green Bond market (and to some extent the Green Grant space) also have a structural need for such third party monitoring/enforcement systems at the economic level as stated in "Green Bond Principles 2014: Voluntary Process Guidelines for Issuing Green Bonds".

To fulfill this 'God Role', the new social benefit corporate structure (B Corp.) may be a useful tool in meeting this multiplexed supervisory role. In that, it avoids the profoundly sluggish and byzantine political complexities of establishing, navigating and governing intergovernmental treaties while:

- offering clarity to all stakeholders

- can be structured to provide direct investment opportunities for both small and institutional investors while still providing a high level of transparency to the stakeholders as well as the national/international policy makers.

- can create an internal crytocurrency based upon the 8 RCP 2.6 needs and other environmentally needed criteria. Which, used on a large enough international scale, may become a global fiat currency based upon the production and delivery of critical commodities such as carbon negative biofuels (biochar), sustainable protein/feed, organic fertilizer, proper land/water management and other essential global concerns.

- can be responsive to rapidly changing external situations in a reasonable rapid time frame.

In brief, by using existing STEM tools, non-governmental funding options and establishing governance through transparent social/profit based entities, such as the B Corp, a significant advancement towards the successful avoidance of starvation, poverty, resource wars and climate change mitigation/adaptation may be plausible within the near future.

If the old adage of "He who has the gold makes the rules." still applies to our world, a broadly supported socio/environmentally based crytocurrency, supported at both the individual and institutional investment level, may be able to "make the rules" in regards to basic environmental security and possibly more.

c) Concerning "Reforestation Olympics": Both terrestrial afforestation and marine afforestation are critical factors in any national or global mitigation regimen. Regrettably few policy makers realize that marine afforestation is a much quicker and cheaper option to terrestrial afforestation. The latter is a critical need yet takes decades to reach full benefit.

The WENN technology suite focuses upon the vast scale production of micro-algae yet it can also support vast scale macro-algae (marine afforestation) cultivation. Using the marine option for short-term realization of afforestation CO2 removal/ocean pH adjustment benefits, while waiting for the maturing of land forests, should be instituted as a common mitigation technical strategy by all actors whether they be those with marine coastal assets or they be land locked nations.

The marine commons are available to all peoples/nations.  

d) Concerning "Robotic Solar Armada": There are a number of proposals which attempt to combine known renewable energy/carbon sequestration technology within the marine space. We now have the tech to realize many of these engineering schemes. As always, however, it is the issue of profitability which limits all such efforts.

The WENN Protocol offers a centralized platform for the development of many current and future marine engineering related economic and relevant climate mitigation trends. The primary document which best illustrates the future issues in the marine commercial space can be found in "The Sustainable Shipping Initiative".

In brief, the WENN attempts to anticipates many of the future design, economic, environmental and policy needs in the marine space.

e) Concerning "Generation of Biogas energy from animal waste for use in rural areas": Regrettably, bio-gas is methane which needs to be avoided due to its high GHG rating. Fortunately, animal manure and human sewage can be converted to bio-mass (micro-algae) and thus converted into the carbon negative combination of biofuel-biochar.  

The WENN land based operations can achieve the latter.

d) I would like to encourage you to consider selecting an important technology which can provide significant benefits at both the point source emissions reduction space and the ocean pH adjustment need. Please review "Spontaneous Conversion of Power Plant CO2 to Dissolved Calcium Bicarbonate".

I'll be including the above proposal in my work soon.

To conclude, I do thank you for offering your work for others like me to review and for choosing the China: Water, Energy, Nutrient Nexus (WENN) Protocol proposal as a component within your own Global Climate Action Plan. And, I do apologize for such a lengthy introductory message.

If I can, in any way, offer substantial support for your plan, please let me know.

Best regards,

Michael  


Michele Stua

Sep 21, 2015
11:18

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Dear Michael (funny how many 'Michael' hang around climate change...),

Thank you very much the flattering words you had for our proposal. We are glad our work has offered useful hints and suggestions for your work and please feel free to accept our little support in any way that might be useful for your work.

We carefully read and really appreciated your articulate message with its comments. Here follow some additional reflection points related to them.

Concerning the denominator role of carbon we see it as the minimum point where to start to develop an inclusive and green growth in accordance to the main principles of sustainable development. We also agree that it represents the minimum set and further work must be done to include elements such as water management within its scope.

It is our opinion that setting a minimum denominator is not the end but just the beginning of a wider process of integration that will require relevant scientific and policy efforts. Yet the organisation of a sound and transparent system for emissions reductions like the one supported by our proposal may well represent the first standard to work on.

Concerning your comments c), d) and e), we believe that, within the framework that can be established by the application of our formula and its following implementation and enforcement, new radical multi-approach initiatives and technologies will be required and will find substantial windows of opportunity to develop. Under this light we believe that the whole WENN Protocol goes exactly towards this direction. Indeed there will be the need for further promoting similar initiatives within the framework and pushing for their development.

Concerning your comments a) and b), we agree with most of your words. We have been working for years in the attempt of establishing a possible roadmap towards a different approach to global finance, compatible with the main ideas of green growth, sustainable development and global justice. We elaborated a first document explaining the main aspects and innovations of this roadmap, together with its current limits and risks, in a working document published one year ago and available at the following address: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=michele-stua-paper-final.pdf&site=25

The paper, completed in August 2014, contains a first raw version of the formula discussed in our proposal, while a more developed version of the same is included in a paper currently under review at Climate Policy. We would be happy to send you a copy of the most updated version of the formula if you provide us an e-mail address.

We believe that working together with other persons who share similar perspectives on climate change who have the necessary knowledge to contribute to the evolution of new ideas, and have the willingness to collaborate for a better world, represents the only feasible solution for a real change in the international current political, socio-technical and economic landscape, therefore we strongly welcome your support and offer for possible future collaborations.

Thank you again for your words and suggestions.

Best,

Michele