[For an uncorrected transcript of the piece, see below at the end of this post].

He claims that Iran is going to use their engineering to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a major artery of oil transport from the Middle East to the world.

Iran is sitting on Natural Gas – a lot of Natural Gas. And a lot of it is at sea. There have been marine seismic surveys for sub-sea Natural Gas in the Persian Gulf over the last few years, and it seems, other countries have been spying on the Iranian offshore activities.

Clearly, with Iran’s intent to exploit its marine gas, there have been and will be construction ships and construction going on in the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz, especially the islands of Kish and Qeshm. This should not be mistaken as a risk to oil shipping. It should not be claimed as indications of Iran seeking to close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for economic sanctions.

What is at stake here is no less than Iran’s energy sovereignty – its sovereign right to enjoy the wealth from exploiting its own energy resources.

The international pressure for an end to fossil fuel subsidies would hurt Iranian internal economic development (much like it’s hurting Nigeria, currently), and it would be forced to export oil and Natural Gas – no doubt at low market prices. Iran may end up no better off for trading.

The Iranians bought myths about nuclear power hook, line and sinker, and they believe they have a right to develop civilian atomic energy. Other countries, the United States of America in particular, keep pushing this button and claiming that Iran is heading for developing nuclear weapon capability. This is the most unbelievable accusation since…oh, I don’t know, since the USA accused Iran of a plot for a used car salesman and a Mexican, or something, to kill a Saudi ambassador, which was unadulterated nonsense.

America’s insistence that Iran is a threat because they claim that Iran is working towards constructing nuclear weapons, is so ridiculous, that few seem to have realised it is “deflection” – a propaganda technique to divert you from the real source of tension between the USA and Iran.

What America really doesn’t seem to like is countries like Iran (and Venezuela) making autonomous energy decisions, and creating their own wealth by using their own energy resources in their own way.

Maybe the American war hawks think “Why cannot Iran be more like Iraq, with western oil and Natural Gas companies with discount contracts, crawling over new resources and selling it all abroad ?”

Anyway, what is clear is that the spat between Iran and the USA has nothing to do with nuclear power or idle brinkmanship about controlling the flow of oil as a retaliation against economic sanctions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83880880/

Bloomberg : 9 January 2012 : Lara Setrakian reports on the outlook for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz as Europe prepares to follow tougher U. S. sanctions on the country over its nuclear program and the status of a pipeline that would allow oil from the United Arab Emirates to bypass the waterway. The pipeline has been delayed because of construction difficulties, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Setrakian speaks with Linzie Janis on Bloomberg Television’s “Countdown.”

[Ticker tape reads "AHMADINEJAD TURNS TO CHAVEZ FOR SUPPORT"]

[Linzie Janis] “The Persian Gulf could be closed off to ships altogether, that’s if tensions continue to escalate between Iran and the West. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to meet with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez later on today as part of a tour of Latin America. He is seeking s”upport” as Iran faces tighter U. S. sanctions over its nuclear program.

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in translation] We will discuss the intentions of the arrogant system interfering and having a military presence in other countries. We shall coordinate with our friends in Latin America to address this matter.

[Linzie Janis] Well with the very latest Lara Setrakian joins us with from Dubai

Lara itell it looks like the U. S. and Iran could be on a – - collision course here.

[Lara Setrakian] Well moving closer towards it, as Iran inches towards what the U. S. has called “two red lines” – advanced nuclear enrichment at the underground Fordow facility, and shutting the Strait of Hormuz – something that Iran told the A. P. [Associated Press] they’ll do if the E. U. oil embargo goes through later this month. The highest level U. S. assessment to date – that Iran could shut the Strait that would effectively trigger a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf.

General Martin Dempsey, American Department of Defense, United States Army Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman] They’ve invested in capabilities that could [scratches nose - a classic sign of lying] in fact for a period of time block the Straits of Hormuz. We’ve invested in capabilities [rocking body slightly from side to side - a classic sign of swagger] to ensure that if that happens [giving a hard, fixed stare] we can, er, defeat that. [Looks down briefly - meaning that this information was a significant reveal] And so, the simple answer [shrugs shoulders to dimiss the concept] is yes, they can block it. Er… [ Looks down and to his right, our left, indicating a recall of something] And of course that is as well…[blinks to conceal the fact that he's cut something out] we’ve described that as an intolerable act [shrugs shoulders as if to say, those Iranians have got it coming to them] and it’s not just intolerable for us [shakes head from side to side] it’s intolerable to the world [rubs one hand over another, which is a sign of nervousness]. But we would take action and re-open the Straits [shuts lips in beefburger bun clench and nodding as a sign that no more useful information will be forthcoming].

[ Ticker Tape reads : THREATS TO STRAIT OF HORMUZ SHIPPING ]

[Lara Setrakian] Meanwhile it could disrupt the biggest sea lane for the world’s shipped oil, what one analyst called “the ultimate fear in the oil market – it would spike prices”.

[Linzie Janis] So what kind of preparation are you seeing to counter that risk ?

[Lara Setrakian] Well, one of the biggest contigency plans so far has floundered – a pipeline here in the U. A. E. that would run from Abu Dhabi to the Port of Fujairah. It would avoid the Strait. It’s a $3.3 billion dollar project but it’s been delayed – not ready until April at the soonest. And it’s meant to move 1.5 million barrels per day, most of Abu Dhabi’s output, say two days at sea, but the pipeline has been delayed repeatedly by construction issues – one energy analyst Robin Mills pointing also to a pipeline in Saudi Arabia that’s meant to be another backup system [ Ticker Tape reads "FURTHER CONTINGENCY PIPELINES PLANNED"] that could take oil to the Red Sea after 5 million barrels of oil a day capacity and it could be expanded – again, all contigency planning – to keep oil free from any Iranian chokehold in the Persian Gulf.

Linzie.

[Linzie Janis] Lara, thank you very much.

Stop-go-stop policies on renewable energy are inefficient and ineffective.

Britain needs an energy engineering revival – to manufacture and deploy low carbon technology – anywhere and everywhere.

Someone in the solar electric industry sent me these comments today by e-mail :-

“OK – the FIT money was running out and the price of solar in the UK is reducing faster than any one ever dreamed of. On the other hand, premature cuts by the Government have prevented thousands of social houses, schools and communities from getting clean renewable energy this spring and have ruined the careful plans of solar companies preparing to install in the run up to April 2012. Clearly the budget for the FIT needs to be increased. The argument for not expanding the FIT is that it will raise the cost of electricity for consumers. The counter argument is that doing nothing will mean that energy prices rise even faster as we increasingly rely on dwindling fossil fuels from unstable regions. Invest in new energy now… a stitch in time, saves nine!”

“PS I think that sometime this year the cost of electricity from solar will become cheaper than buying from the grid. The only problem is that the cost of solar is all upfront compared to cheap start-up costs for fossil fuels and continuing (and increasing) running costs for the latter.”

Yesterday evening, I decided to catch up on exactly how out of control atmospheric methane concentrations are in the region around the Arctic :-

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov

When reviewing the charts, the secondmost important thing to see is the high point measurements, the peaks, rising over time.

Much of this methane explosion can probably be blamed on global warming from excessive carbon dioxide emissions – which showed signs of coming under control between 1990 and 2000, but after that lifted off once more.

People dispute why carbon dioxide emissions have risen consistently and sharply since the turn of the millenium – but one of the answers is to be found in the rapid deployment of coal-burning for power generation. Stronger environmental controls on air quality have reduced the health impacts of coal-burning, but mean that the net effect is stronger global warming.

So much could be done to alleviate the strong warming of the Arctic, and prevent dangerous instabilities. It is time to say it – and keep on saying it – and not relent – every measure to keep the Arctic cool is urgent.

Stop Biomassacre Subsidies from You and I Films on Vimeo.

They are even considering setting up a generous subsidy, the kind of subsidy that would encourage massive imports of biomass and bioliquids.

Most people probably think burning wood, wood waste and plant-derived fuels to make power sounds like a good energy idea – stop burning coal and start burning trees – has to be better for the planet, surely ?

There are a number of really deep problems with this agenda. Almuth Ernsting of Biofuelwatch told me this weekend that burning biomass for electricity generation is incredibly inefficient.

She said the UK Government has apparently heard concerns about the burning of bioliquids such as the biofuel bioethanol for power generation, and it shouldn’t be included in the subsidy arrangement.

However, biomass-fired power generation is still set to receive support – although it is still being depicted as making use of agroforestry residues, and all sourced within the country – judging by a recent permission for a biomass burning plant in Yorkshire.

Generous subsidies for burning biofuels to generate electricity will encourage the combustion of food-quality oils, imported from across the world, exacerbating the existing problems with the destruction of tropical rainforest for commercial gain.

Offering significant subsidies for burning biomass for power generation will most probably trigger further logging of virgin rainforest, as it would be cheap to produce and export to Britain.

Even if biomass were sourced in the United Kingdom – with restrictions on imports from areas of the world where there is extensive land grabbing and deforestation occurring – the subsidy would encourage the burning of wood products for generating power instead of being used in the most efficient way – to heat homes.

Almuth Ernsting said, “the big energy companies are going to burn that much wood, small heat providers won’t be able to compete.” The same would be true of street-scale biomass combined heat and power (CHP) proposals.

Almuth Ernsting and others have pointed out that the UK Government public consultation on the subsidy ends on 12th January 2012, but that even after that date, people are being encouraged to write to their Member of Parliament to express views.

Another group, nope, is also calling for citizen action :-

http://nope.org.uk/

In an e-mail to joabbess.com, Almuth Ernsting offered extra resources :-

“All the materials related to our campaign against subsidies for biomass and biofuel electricity can be found here :-”

http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/uk-campaign/rocs_overview/”

“A briefing about the impacts of ROCs for biomass, biofuels and waste incineration :-”
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2011/rocs_impacts/

“A briefing to hand or send to MPs :-”
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2011/rocs_mps/

“A guide to lobbying MPs on this :-” http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2011/mp_guidance_rocs/

“We have got two email alerts on one page just now (http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2011/rocs-alerts/), though we will take down the one to respond to the DECC Consultation when that closes next Thursday, while keeping the one to MPs. However, we very much encourage people to write personal letters or, even better, visit their MPs, which will have much more impact than taking part in a standard email alert.”

UN = United Nations
UNFCCC = United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

What chance a climate deal in Durban ?

Representatives of over a hundred nations meeting in Durban at the end of the month will “seek to advance the implementation of the (UNFCCC) Convention and the Kyoto Protocol” in the words of the organisers of the UN’s seventeenth annual climate change meeting.

Kyoto was adopted in 1997, came into force in 2005 and will expire next year with dangerous emissions growing faster than ever. At this rate of advance we are at grave risk of being overcome by uncontrollable climate change. Many senior climate scientists think it could already be too late.

As long ago as 2007, the UK Government’s Committee on Climate Change said that it is not now possible to ensure with high likelihood that a temperature rise of more than 2°C is avoided. It then assigned a less than even chance of success to its statutory emissions reduction plan in the Climate Act.

Since those calculations were made there have been developments in the science that give even greater cause for concern, with some government scientists saying there is now little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature increase at or below 2°C.

A fresh approach is now required. We probably have no more than four years to effect a downturn in global emissions. That change in direction must initiate a fullterm global emissions reduction path to a point where a safe and stable temperature level is achieved.

The question is where do we start ? The voluntary national reduction plans emerging from the Cancun negotiations are completely inadequate. The notion that they can be advanced over time to a realistic global target will result in too little too late.

But behind the headlines, negotiating postures have shifted significantly since Kyoto. They have moved beyond the complete stand-off between developed and developing countries. By agreeing to set voluntary national emissions targets, developing countries have recognised that they too must participate in a global action plan from the start if the two degree limit is to be met.

This places the delicate issue of historical responsibility as a second order consideration and opens the door to negotiation within agreed global targets.

Even more encouraging is the wide recognition of the principle of equal per capita entitlements to emit, with the accompanying right to trade those entitlements. This principle is at the core of the climate mitigation policy framework proposed at the UN by the Global Commons Institute based in London and which has many supporters in the UN process.

The Contraction & Convergence (C&C) policy framework was first negotiated at the UNFCCC in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, when Developing Countries led by the Africa Group, India and China, proposed C&C as part of the Kyoto Protocol.

Contraction & Convergence (C&C) is an approach to meeting the objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) : to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a value that is both safe and stable.

Contraction refers to the global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that is needed to prevent dangerous climate change. Within this contraction, the world’s nations would converge on an equal per capita sharing of that carbon contraction budget. With contraction we obviously get convergence, the only question arising is how to organise it.

The atmosphere is a global commons and everyone has an equal right to emit greenhouse gases into it. If you don’t stand for that, you have to defend inequality which the majority will clearly reject. Climate change is an issue of survival and equity is the price of that survival.

In July 2009, fully five months before COP15 in Copenhagen, the Chinese Government publicly accepted the C&C principle for UNFCCC negotiations, and stated a willingness to negotiate rates of C&C based on immediate convergence to per capita equality of emissions entitlements worldwide.

They stressed the difference between actual per capita emissions and emissions ‘entitlements’ and pointed out that international emissions trading can absorb the difference between the two.

The C&C principle is embedded in the UK Climate Act of 2008. However, the rate of convergence is prescribed to complete only by 2050, within an overall 100 year contraction of emissions. The UK was part of a group of developed country Governments that prescribed these rates of C&C to the rest of the world in Copenhagen.

Since overall this prescription gave Developed Countries on average twice the per capita entitlements of the Developing Countries while 80% of the budget was consumed by 2050, the entire thing was unsurprisingly rejected by those countries – China memorably amongst them – as prescriptive and unfair to them. The UK publicly and naively denounced China for ‘wrecking the negotiations’.

The US had supported C&C earlier in the UN process, but continues to reject any renewal of the ‘one-sided’ Kyoto Protocol, because it logically refuses a way forward that excludes Developing Countries from emissions control. They, on the other hand, continue to reject prescriptions from Developed Countries that they regard as unfair.

The way to break this deadlock is clear: the UK should stop prescribing and become willing to broker negotiation of an agreement at the UNFCCC based on the C&C principle but at a faster rate of convergence to equal per capita emissions entitlements globally.

This way all nations or regions become part of an agreement that will be rational, consensual and fair. We can get on with achieving UNFCCC-compliance at rates that retain some chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.

On sight of a letter to this effect sent to Ban Ki Moon (another C&C supporter), the Chinese Government again showed interest. Why don’t we ?

Aubrey Meyer, Global Commons Institute

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