The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a UK-based climate-sceptic think-tank founded in November 2009 by Lord Lawson. Within two years of its launch, a survey of scepticism in the global media by Oxford University’s RISJ had added a final chapter showing the GWPF had gained success in “inserting itself into the (UK) national discourse” and that its founder and its director had become “the two most quoted sceptics by far” within the UK national press.

The GWPF believes it has made a difference, saying of itself “The key to the success of the GWPF is the trust and credibility that we have earned in the eyes of a growing number of policy makers, journalists and the interested public.” Yet the GWPF has also been criticised for being secretive, misinformed, wrong and perverse.

Here a series of posts will examine the GWPF and some of its publications to discover what GWPF really stands for. Are they a company of virtuous paragons ? Are they a pack of unprincipled scoundrels ? In this first post, we’ll explore the background of this climate denial “think” tank.

WHAT IS THE GWPF ?

The GWPF is a UK-registered charity and as such its work is defined as “an all party and non-party think tank and educational charity. Its main purpose is to advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken in response to such warming.”
Nigel Lawson (Baron Lawson of Blaby) was encouraged to found the GWPF through the “surprising” success of his book in which he espoused global warming scepticism. Lawson takes the role of Chairman of the Board of Trustees, a body comprising six members of the British peerage, a knight of the realm, an anti-gay bishop and a French economist. The GWPF’s Director, Dr Benny Peiser, was a lecturer (Sport and Exercise Sciences) with interests in Near-Earth Objects and the founder of CCNet, (which the GWPF calls the “worlds leading climate policy network”) concerned with NEOs and the doomsday scaremongering about climate change.

To assist the GWPF in its work, it has recruited a 26-strong Academic Advisory Council. Chaired by Prof David Henderson, a “prominent global warming sceptic,” this Council included Professors Robert Carter, Richard Linzden & Ross McKitrick and many other lesser known sceptics.

With a roll-call such as this, anybody would be forgiven for dismissing the GWPF as an organisation unabashed in its mission to spread sceptical disinformation. But anybody would be wrong !

NOT UNABASHED SCEPTICS

The GWPF describes itself as “unique”. It is funded solely by individuals and charitable trusts. To emphasise its “complete independence”, it refuses money from those with significant interests in energy companies. It also has a set of principles that GWPF says “set us apart from most other stakeholders in the climate debates.”

[DeSmogBlog Editorial Note: See DeSmogBlog’s coverage of the appeal by UK journalist Brendan Montague to compel the release of information about the GWPF's seed funder.]

These principles tell us that the GWPF does not have an official view on the science of global warming (except that “this issue is not settled yet”). Its members and supporters “cover a broad range of different views, from the IPCC position through agnosticism to outright scepticism” and that the GWPF’s “main focus is to analyse global warming policies and their economic and other implications.”

Their fourth principle is a rather strange piece of philosophy for a body that holds no official view on the science – “We regard observational evidence and understanding the present as more important and more reliable than computer modelling or predicting the distant future.”

In a final addition, they emphasise their role as informing the media, politicians and public “on the subject in general and on the misinformation to which they are all too frequently being subjected at the present time.”

This then is what the GWPF purports to be about. And don’t worry if you think this appears all a bit too complicated. It is.

SECRET DONORS, FEW MEMBERS

The GWPF accounts to July 2010 show donations of £494,625 and membership fees of £8,186. GWPF has been asked to name its “secret” donors. No information has been forthcoming despite Lawson suggesting to a parliamentary inquiry that some donors may be willing to forego their anonymity and would be asked to do so.

This absence was perhaps explained by Lawson in the Chairman’s 2010 statement, saying that in the GWPF’s area of operation “anyone who puts their head above the parapet has to be prepared to endure a degree of public vilification.”

Public vilification ? This seems an extremely odd statement to make if GWPF does truly encompass that broad range of views on climate, as their very principles dictate they should, or indeed an organisation that considers it has earned “trust and credibility.”

The accounts presented at that meeting also demonstrate that GWPF has little direct public support. With a minimum fee of £100, £8,186 in membership fees must represent less than 82 members. For a high-profile organisation with Directors, Treasurer, Trustees, Advisers and employees numbering 41, many of whom may be themselves members, such a minuscule membership makes clear that GWPF is but a clique comprising many prominent sceptics and octogenarians. But surely, they will conduct themselves in a true and noble fashion, won’t they ?

TRUE & NOBLE CONDUCT ?

Given its guiding principles, we would expect the GWPF to be:-

(1) Mainly focused on “global warming policies and their economic and other implications.”

(2) Nurturing support from a broad range of viewpoints.

(3) Nailing all that horrid misinformation which we are “all too frequently” subjected to.

(4) Also we may see pronouncements on the differing climate outcomes that are forecast within the science as such outcomes would drive policy decision-making.

All this, of course, would also involve communicating “to advance the public understanding of global warming.” Prominent among the means of achieving this is the GWPF website that they say “is subjecting climate policies and claims by governments and campaigners to dispassionate analysis based on hard evidence and economic rigour.” Sounds good. But let us dig a little deeper than the GWPF statement of its History & Mission.

With all these assertions the GWPF makes about itself, one area of concern must be how it handles that broad range of views on climate change, so as to conform to its guiding principles. What of those supporters who hold the IPCC‘s views on global warming ? Is there evidence for such supporters ?

It is plain IPCC supporters need thick skins at the GWPF website. The site does feature an IPCC Corner but this is not for them. It is for items on what’s wrong with the IPCC and IPCC blunders.

Searching the GWPF website for the term “IPCC” (& ignoring the content of IPCC Corner) returns 49 items. They are an interesting collection. 39 items involve criticism of the IPCC, 25 of them strongly enough to constitute an attack. The remaining 10 items make simple reference to or mention of the IPCC without criticism or praise.

These 49 items also overwhelmingly present an outright sceptical viewpoint with no item overtly accepting the need to tackle human emissions of greenhouse gases as the IPCC demonstrate is necessary. There is no evidence here that the GWPF pays the slightest heed to the merits of the IPCC or those who agree with it.

There is also very little climate change policy discussed in these items. They are more concerned with that climate science which the GWPF holds no view on (24 items) or with the criticism of scientists and the scientific process (23 items). The coverage is too general in nature to be considered as work identifying that horrid misinformation. Indeed, it is all very difficult to square the GWPF website content with even just a single one of those guiding principles that the GWPF has set itself.

What is perhaps most difficult to accept is that the vast majority of these 49 items (42 items) are re-posted from elsewhere. They thus represent not the output of GWPF researchers but a simple trawl of the internet. Why then is the outcome of such a trawl so skewed towards a sceptical viewpoint when the GWPF supporters allegedly hold a broad set of viewpoints, including that of the IPCC ? The fine principles with which the GWPF tries to dress itself appear here to count for naught.

BLIND CLIMATE SCIENCE

The prominence of the GWPF has resulted in Lawson often featuring in the UK media. One instance of this was a head-to-head BBC Radio debate between Lawson and Prof Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester. The BBC’s Radio 2 (originally called the Light Programme) is a reasonably low-brow forum for debate. (Listeners to the 23-minute recording linked above will note there was originally a musical interlude – appropriately Mad World by Tears For Fears.)

Even so, Lawson makes pronouncements on climate science and not once is it mentioned that these are his personal views and not the views of the GWPF. For all intent and purpose Lawson, twice described as the Chairman of the GWPF, is blindly presenting the GWPF view on climate science, something that the GWPF says does not exist !

What Lawson says in this interview is also riven with inaccuracy. Even by the standards of a low-brow forum like Radio 2, Lawson was given a very easy time by Anderson who is probably not that used to confronting such foolishness.

IMPENDING “BANKRUPTCY” ?

It is not just with his contributions on BBC Radio that Lawson has been criticised for misinformation. Even a UK government minister has berated GWPF and Lawson’s inaccurate messages, calling them misinformed, wrong and the GWPF’s policy advice “perverse.”

Such is the level of misinformation emanating from the GWPF that it has been suggested they are in breach of the Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity. Charities may peddle controversial and “emotive material” but crucially “Such material must be factually accurate and have a well-founded evidence base.” This requirement appears to be something the GWPF seem to ignore while they continue to enjoy the tax exemptions afforded to true charities.

When concluding their statement of History & Mission, the GWPF say “For us, public trust is our most important asset.”

In such terms, the cost of their website and media behaviour must be excessive and could soon render the GWPF bankrupt of public trust. Yet this may be a premature conclusion as our examination of the GWPF has yet to run its course. In the next post we will turn to a different outlet for GWPF messages and examine one of their Briefing Papers.

The Climate Change talks that have just taken place in Durban, South Africa, were exemplary of a peculiar kind of collective madness that has resulted from trying to navigate and massage endless special interests, national jostling, brinkmanship, unworkable and inappropriate proposals from economists, communications failures and corporate interference in governance.

The right people with real decisionmaking powers are not at the negotiating table. The organisations with most to contribute are still acting in opposition – that’s the energy industry, to be explicit. And the individual national governments are still not concerned enough about climate change, even though it impacts strongly on the things they do consider to be priorities – economic health, trade and political superiority.

Over 20 years ago, the debate on what to do to tackle global warming and still maintain good international relations was already won, by the commonsense approach of Contraction and Convergence – fair shares for all. Each country should count on their fair share of carbon emissions based on their population – and we would get there by starting from where we are now and agreeing mutual cuts. The big emitters would agree to steeper cuts than the lower emitters – and after some time, everybody in the world would have the same, safe emissions rights.

What has prevented this logical approach from being implemented ? Well, we have had the so-called “flexible mechanisms” pushed on us – such as the Clean Development Mechanism which essentially boils down to the idea that the richer high-emitting countries can offset their carbon by paying for poorer low emissions countries to cut their carbon instead. Some have been attempting to make the CDM carbon credits into a commercial product for the Carbon Trading market. Some may contest it, but the CDM and carbon trading haven’t really been working very well, and anyway, the CDM doesn’t aim for emissions reductions, just offsets.

Other carbon trade has been implemented, such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which doesn’t appear to have caused high emissions industries to diversify out of carbon, or created a viable price for carbon dioxide, so its usefulness is questionable.

Many people have put forward the idea of straight carbon pricing, mostly by taxation. The trouble with this idea should be obvious, but rarely is. Over four-fifths of the world’s energy is fossil fuel based. Taxing carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels would just make everything, everywhere, more expensive. It wouldn’t necessarily create new lower carbon energy resources, as the taxes would probably be put into a giant climate change adaptation fund – a financial institution proposed by several people including Oliver Tickell and Nicholas Stern, although in Stern’s case, he is calling for direct grants from countries to keep the fund topped up.

On the policy front, there has been a continuing, futile attempt to force the historially high-emitting countries to accept very radical carbon cuts, as a sign of accountability. This “grandfathering” of emissions responsibilities is something that no sane person in government in the richer nations could ever agree with, not even when being smothered with ethical guilt. One of the forms of this proposal is “Greenhouse Development Rights“, essentially allowing countries like China to continue growing their emissions in order to grow their economies to guarantee development. The emissions cuts required by countries like the United States of America would be impossible to achieve, not even if their economy completely toppled.

Sadly, a number of charities, aid and development agencies and other non-governmental organisations with concern for the world’s poor, have signed up to Greenhouse Development Rights not realising it is completely untenable.

The only approach that can work, that both high- and low-emitting countries can ever possibly be made to agree on, is a system of population-proportional shares of the global carbon pie. And the way to get there has to be based on relative current emissions, ignoring the emissions of the past – your cuts should be larger if your current emissions are large. And it should be based on the relative size of the population, and their individual emissions rates, rather than taking a country as a whole. Yes, there will be room for a little carbon trade between nations, to enable the transfer of low carbon technologies from wealthy nations to un-resourced nations. Yes, there will be space for enterprise, as corporations have to face regulation to cut emissions, and will need innovation in technology to divest themselves of fossil fuel production and consumption.

This is Contraction and Convergence – and you ignore it at our peril.

A few suggestions for further reading :-

“Contraction and Convergence The Global Solution to Climate Change” by Aubrey Meyer. Schumacher Briefings, Green Books, December 2000. ISBN-13: 978-1870098946

The Greenhouse Effect : Science and Policy” by Professor Stephen H. Schneider, Science, Volume 243, Issue 4892, Pages 771 – 781, DOI: 10.1126/science.243.4892.771, 10 February 1989.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/243/4892/771.abstract
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/Publications.html

“Climate Change : Science and Policy“, edited by Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz, Michael D. Mastrandea and Kristin Kuntz-Duriseti. Island Press, 10 February 2010. ISBN-13: 978-1597265669

“The Greenhouse Effect : Negotiating Targets” by Professor Michael Grubb, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London, 1990.

“Equity, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Global Common Resources” by Paul Baer, Chapter 15 in “Climate Change Policy : A Survey” by Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz and John O. Niles, Island Press, 2002. ISBN-10: 1-55963-881-8 (Paper), ISBN-13: 978-1-55963-881-4 (Paper)

“Kyoto 2 : How to Manage the Global Greenhouse” by Oliver Tickell, ISBN-13: 978-1848130258, Zed Books Ltd, 25 July 2008
http://www.kyoto2.org/
http://www.kyoto2.org/docs/the_land_1.pdf

Image Credit : University of California at Berkeley

The second human brain is a relativistic engine, constantly comparing, reflecting, analysing. We are concerned about other peoples’ emotional response, wondering what other people think about us, responding to peer group pressure.

Personally, I don’t listen to my second brain very often. As a social animal, I hope I’m tolerant, and my priorities in interpersonal engagement are mutual empowerment, transparent collaboration and inclusion. In my public projection, I’m not trying to vaunt myself over others, or massage my image for approval, or put up a fake facade. You get me, you get direct.

But I can’t avoid the second human brain entirely – as it is the reason for a lot of fuzziness in our view of the world around us. It’s too easy to stir doubt, falsehoods and bad ideas into the collective cake mix of society, where it fizzes into a bubbling mess. In matters of climate change science and energy engineering, there are no grey areas for me. But for a number of people I know, these are subjects of much confusion, denial and disinformation.

People hold on to the totem of what other people think. And so you have even very intelligent social commentators reciting from paid-for public relations by companies and business pressure groups. Journalists often do not appear to understand the difference between pseudo-science and real live science. There are too many people selling unrealistic, unworkable technological “solutions”, particularly in energy, so it’s hard to know what to accept and what to dismiss.

Yet it is critical to know what rock, what branch to keep a hold of in the flood of information that could sweep us away. The social construction of climate change is an important edifice, a safe house in an information world at war with itself. What high wind can sweep away the grubby pages of non-science from the Daily Mail ? What rising sea can cleanse the Daily Telegraph of its climate change denial columnists ? What can stop the so-called Global Warming Policy Foundation from infecting the Internet with their contrarian position ? What can make us accept the reality and urgency of global warming ? How can we learn to click with climate change ?

Three significant academic thinkers on the social significance of climate change are launching new works at the British Library in London, on 16th January 2012. The British Sociological Association have invited Mike Hulme, John Urry and Gordon Walker to discuss chapters from their recent books which address the question – where next for society and climate change ?

In the words of Chris Shaw at the University of Sussex, “they pull no punches in their analyses, and their approach is based on years of research into the social dimensions of the climate change debate. This is an essential opportunity for all those interested in bringing climate change into the democratic sphere, to help understand the issues involved in such a transition. It is also a chance to discuss the ideas with the authors and other delegates.”

For more information, see here and here.

This state of affairs is disgraceful, and allows mendacious narratives to persist in the mainstream media.

The key problem is not the cost to energy bill payers from direct subsidies such as the solar photovoltaic feed in tariff. The contribution from this is minor. The largest effect on energy bills is likely to come from two sources – the Energy Company Obligation and the plans for Carbon Pricing and other measures in the Electricity Market Reform.

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Image Credit : Debbie Portwood

Here’s how it goes : the Daily Mail, to take just one example, raises the outrage level, and repeats arguments that have little substance. People act on the basis of what they read in the papers and see on TV, and they develop poor reasoning, and do things like sign an ePetition. The thing gets publicly debated, partly in the media of course. And then finally the democratic representatives, the Members of Parliament, have to make a choice to stand with the stirred-up outrage or instead, vote with sanity.

A vote on Europe would be a disaster. The wording would be over-simplistic and hide the true agenda. It would be too easy to sway people to vote for the worst option.

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Disappointingly, this has come from John Craven, whose accuracy is renowned.

However, on this occasion, he has allowed a blooper meme to consolidate in the public mind.

[ Countryfile, BBC One, 16 October 2011, 18:25. Part way through recording, starting at approximately 20 minutes 32 seconds. ]

[ Ellie Harrison ] Earlier in the programme we were looking at the expected huge rise in wind power across the UK. But in the race to create more of our energy this way, who will win and who is set to lose out ? Here’s John again.

[ John Craven ] Earlier, I discovered how the plan to put wind power at the heart of our future energy supply is creating a building boom in wind farms, both on land and out at sea. With billions being poured into wind power, and with it being at the centre of the Government’s strategy on renewables, the future seems certain. So who will the losers and winners be in this wind revolution ? The most obvious winner is the environment as less fossil fuels are burnt. But who else benefits ? Well, another clear winner is big business. Companies building the wind farms get a generous price for the electricity they produce. [...]

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I certainly did. So I dug deep down in my appallingly scratchy notes and typed up a paraphrase of what Mark Curtis had said – the first speaker on the panel.

Warning – it’s not verbatim – it is interpolated from my illegible handwriting.

“War and the Media” : Panel Discussion : Rebellious Media Conference
8 – 9 October 2011 : Mark Curtis, Greg Philo, John Pilger
[Comments from Mark Curtis roughly reconstructed from jotted notes]

[...Tests the audience's general knowledge about the world's longest serving dictators...] It’s “Our Man in Oman”, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said.

We don’t hear much about Oman. Why is that ? Let’s make two assumptions, first, that journalists can read, and second that they are following government sources.

For the UK Government, foreign policy is increasingly about oil. UK has been developing relationships with the Gulf States. There is a policy of deepening support for the most undemocratic states in the region.

Britain continues to project military power. You can see this in a hundred years of UK foreign policy – just read a few speeches.

This is not what we are being told in the media. Was this a war for oil ? Is the Pope a Catholic ?

In the media, the view [expressed] is that Britain is about supporting democracy in the Middle East.

This country has two special relationships. The special relationship with the United States [of America] is about consumerism and investment.

The other special relationship is much less [publicly] known [communicated]. Saudi Arabia since 1973 [...]

A problem – Saudi Arabia is funding radical Islam.

And when Cameron [...] in Bahrain…I wonder what they were talking about ?

When Britain provides arms, the media reports that it contradicts our policy of promoting democracy – to maintain them in power. We don’t have a policy of upholding democracy. They are our allies. We don’t want them to fall.

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