Basically, a family from Kermt (a small village in the Belgian province Limburg) has solar panels on their roof and got themselves a Tesla powerwall (translated from Dutch):

For 42 days since the beginning of September, a family from Limburg has already been using the energy they generate themselves via the home battery.  By storing the energy from the solar panels, it can be used when the owners see fit. “ So our house runs on its own power,” says Tom Nijsen (39). 

At first glance, it sounds really nice.  A Tesla powerwall was installed, storing the energy produced by their solar panels and therefor making it possible to use that solar energy, even when the sun doesn’t shine.  Reducing their dependence on the grid and for some periods even being self sufficient.  What is not to like? 

The reason why initially my attention was drawn to this article was because three statements in the title and summary were demonstrably false.  You just had to read the article carefully to notice it. 

Like this:

It was not my intention to look deeper into the COP21 conference, but I couldn’t resist.  The thing that got this started was an info graphic I saw in a news paper.  It depicted the pledges of the largest emitters and amongst them the pledge of Russia.  To me, that pledge stood out like a sore thumb.  My initial reaction at that time was:

No way! 

25-30% emission reduction, that is incredibly nice of Mr. Putin, but I thought there was something fishy with this message.  Russia is not exactly the country that bought into the global warming scare.  They have been very skeptical and probably will have more advantages than disadvantages from a warming climate.  They also clearly said that they wouldn’t sacrifice their economy in order to cut emissions.  So reading that they are actually willing to cut their emissions by 25 to 30% by 2030 sounds unbelievable to me. 

As with so many things concerning climate policies reporting, the devil is in the detail.  The detail here is “compared to what”.  That “what” being the emissions in 1990:

Aha!  Now it makes a lot more sense.  I know where that comes from, I have seen such construction before.  When I looked at the emission reductions of the developing countries, emission data showed that Russia and Ukraine were responsible for 95% of the (relatively small) decrease in emissions of the developing countries.  So the increasing share of alternative power sources couldn’t be the cause of that decrease, because that share was/is almost non-existing in both countries. 

The reason why the Russia’s emissions of Russia dropped from 1989 was the collapse of the Soviet Union and many energy inefficient factories and heavy industry that closed their doors.  Taking the emissions of 1990 as a base would have rather interesting results. 

I had still some recent data of emissions on my hard drive, so I went for a very quick back-on-the-envelop look.  This is how the emissions trend is for Russia, just look at the quickly dropping numbers starting from 1989 and its slow recovery at the end of last century:

A rough look learns us that a 25% reduction from 1990 would mean that they are already almost at their target, so that reduction by 2030 turns out to be quite meaningless.  By the way, 25-30% of 1990 levels was exactly what they also agreed to do by 2020. 

It didn’t stop there.  There still was that intriguing statement that “Russia’s massive forests absorb around 500m tonnes of CO2 each year”.  Was this included in the pledge?  When looking for more information I found the Russian INDC submission (Intended Nationally Determined Contribution).  This explains that they want the contribution of the Russian forests taken fully into account in their pledge.  This indeed seemed to be estimated to 500 Mt CO2 per year (since 2000).  So let me add to the graph above what the Russians think their emissions actually are and how that relates to their target:

That trend is upwards and only interrupted by the 2008 financial crisis.  They were serious when saying they don’t want to sacrifice their economy. 

Just continuing looking at it on a rough scale, they dropped about 500 Mt in the 14 years from 1990 until 2013, being already more or less on their target right now.  But because of their creative accounting, they still have a spare 500 Mt (from absorption of CO2 by their forests), which means that they can continue as they do now without even missing their target. 

25-30% emission reduction sounds really nice, but the contrary seems to be true.  In stead of willing to decrease their emissions by 25%, they actually have even room for a INcrease of 25% to get their “target” by 2030.  Even if they continue to increase their emissions at the same rate as it is increasing since 1999, they would probably still reach their target.  Clever guys, these Russians. 

I was surprised that this was only skin-deep.  Just scratching at the surface will show it.  If the pledge of Russia looks so very promising from the outside, but worthless when you look deeper, what about the submissions of the other countries?  Just look at what India pledged: a decrease of 33-35% reduction in emission, ahem, “intensity”…

This act of creative accounting by the Russians could well be the tip of the iceberg. 

Like this:

It was something I didn’t realized until a couple hours ago, but it is Earth Hour this evening.  From 20:30 until 21:30 we were asked by WWF to switch off our lights as a token that we are committed to save the world.  They asked us to organize low-energy parties and they want to keep it really cozy.  According to their Earth Hour website they marketed an Earth Hour package to keep us entertained during that hour in the dark.  Beside some candles they added some other stuff (translated from Dutch):

We have thought of everything!  The package also includes an Earth hour game that will provide the necessary entertainment.  Fun for the whole family or the entire group because WWF has developed a game that you can play with both 2 and 99 people of all ages.  Expects ‘Trivial Pursuit’ meets ‘Times Up’ meets ‘The Smartest Man’ meets ‘Hints …’.  And laced with essential facts about climate and energy, ensuring great fun! 

I know it is just a feel-good action and doesn’t have any impact whatsoever on our climate, but WWF sees this a bit different.  They lost themselves in hyperbole (translated from Dutch):