Let’s see now…how’s the price of a gallon of fuel today ?
Well, the fuel duty escalator has been scrapped for the rest of this UK Parliament.
Plus, fuel duty has been decreased by 1 pence per litre.
This will gladden the hearts of many who have campaigned against the scorching taxes on fuel costs to motorists.
But Value Added Tax for fuel hasn’t been brought down – because the UK Government said it would be illegal under EU law to cut VAT specifically for fuel.
None of these measures announced in today’s UK Budget will stop the price of vehicle fuel from rising further with the markets, unfortunately, so nobody who depends on their personal vehicle should be rejoicing.
The £10 billion or so that will be extracted from the North Sea oil industry via a raise in production tax (apparently to pay for cancelling the fuel duty increase) will no doubt be charged back out to vehicle fuel customers one way or another…the price of ICE Brent Crude for forwards contracts dipped a little today, but the average has shot up over the last 3 months.
Minor adjustments to the price of vehicle fuel will not resolve the fundamentals driving crude oil price changes – and hence the price of diesel and petrol and the pump.
The major shake-up in the price of crude oil shows that suggestions to tinker with taxes or levies to try to adjust consumption for environmental reasons will be a totally failed strategy even before it begins.
So why oh why has George Osborne instituted a Carbon Price Floor for electricity emissions in the power generation sector ? The “price signal” this is supposed to give, an “incentive” to reduce high carbon generation and invest in low carbon generation, will be totally lost amongst the increasing operating costs for electricity production – not least because nuclear power is about to get much, much more expensive because of the response to safety concerns raised by the Fukushima Daiichi Japan Nuclear Accident.
It is time to admit that green taxation doesn’t change behaviour because it is always small compared to other price effects.
It is also time to recognise that proactive investment in such things as low carbon fuels, vehicle fuel efficiency and small electric vehicles, small fuel cell vehicles, more public transport, lower driving speeds, fully inflated tyres, de-centralisation of employment and re-localisation of public services are key to tackling Climate Change for the transport sector.
So…how’s the Green Investment Bank shaping up, then, George Osborne ?
US production is only a small percentage of world supplies – and this won’t increase significantly even with more homeland drilling.
Gasoline prices are going to remain vulnerable to global events, global markets and global nerves.
The oil production companies that operate in the American market are quite happy to maintain higher prices for fuels. Think about it.
If the Americans want to fill up their tanks less expensively, what’s really needed is to consume less oil – and that means using smaller, lighter cars with higher fuel efficiency.
“Draft of national climate change policy finalised : Noor Aftab : Monday, February 21, 2011 : Islamabad : The draft of National Climate Change Policy has been finalised after two years of deliberations and now the Environment Ministry would present it to the federal cabinet for final approval, the sources told The News here on Sunday. The sources said the recommendations in the draft would certainly test the government’s commitment as it has been proposed to go for alternative energy resources instead of using fossil fuel, considered one of the major reasons for environmental degradation. The sources said the draft recommendations prepared by a core group of the Environment Ministry mainly focuses on two areas including adaptation and mitigation with an aim to enable the country to cope with fast increasing environmental challenges. One of the top officials of the Environment Ministry told this correspondent that continuity of casual approach towards environmental sector has now made economic managers and policy makers feel the heat as environmental degradation has started costing five per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Pakistan…”
“Sunday, February 20, 2011 : UK to keep helping Pakistan’s flood victims: Sayeeda Warsi : LAHORE: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a British cabinet minister of Pakistani-origin, said on Saturday that the United Kingdom would continue supporting Pakistan in the post-flood operations. “Today I have been heartened to see and hear how the UK is helping millions of people in Pakistan rebuild their lives, but there is much more to do, with widespread malnutrition and the risk of disease outbreaks,” Warsi said while talking to reporters in Islamabad. The primary purpose of Warsi’s visit to Pakistan is to learn how the country is recovering, what more needs to be done, and to see how more than Rs 27.7 billion from British people is supporting the flood victims. “When I was here exactly six months ago in August at the peak of the floods with the UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell I saw scenes of devastation,” the British lawmaker recalled. She said that some areas of Sindh were still under water, adding that reconstruction of millions of houses, bridges and schools that were destroyed would take years…”
Well, Mubarak’s made an exit – and real Egyptian democracy can begin – as long as the army don’t get crowd control ideas above their station and the old elites don’t interfere with the process of free and fair elections.
But democracy is not going to solve the problem of the price of bread.
“Food Speculation : What is the problem? : Banks, hedge funds and pension funds are betting on food prices in the financial markets, causing drastic price swings in staple foods such as wheat, maize and soy…”
“By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You’re wrong. There’s more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here’s the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn’t afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level…”
“The hedge fund guy sitting beside me was asked about his next plan for global domination. He’d done houses and gold – what was the new new thing? “Food,” he said between mouthfuls of lobster. “We’re piling into food. Weather’s getting weird, so there’ll be crop failures. There won’t be enough to go around.”…”
Many blessings for your newly-born democracy, Egypt, and we hope you can win the fight to secure affordable food, too.
Ambient, sustainable energy is all around us, and sooner or
later we will find the ways to make use of it for the good of all.
The following is an appropriately edited transcript of a
conversation on the Claverton Energy Research Group
forum online, and was written by Nick Balmer, a consultant
in renewable energy.
__________________________________________________________
…The huge scale of the possible changes for all concerned is
causing all of the current Titans in the [energy] industry to deploy
the full force of the media [and their] PR [public relations] in an
attempt to manipulate the public and policy towards their own way
of thinking, or in such a way as to protect their own vested interests.
The great thing is that these issues are being aired out in the open,
and groups like [Claverton Energy Research Group forum] allow
people with knowledge of these affairs to debate these issues openly.
The big problem is that each of us has only a very detailed
understanding of some small fraction of the total issue.
Most of the public and government only has a very slight knowledge
of the total issue, and has had only limited access to ways to find out
in detail what is going on.
As Egypt is demonstrating today, everybody now has a voice and as
Wikileaks shows, sooner or later everything will come out into the
open.
All of us are struggling to come to terms with this explosion of
access to knowledge.
It is quite clear that lots of bubbles are being burst as a result of
the Global Financial implosion and the huge expansion in available
knowledge.
Just as banking and property has been shown to be an unaffordable
Ponzi scheme and to be vastly over-inflated, UK energy policy is now
coming under huge scrutiny.
We can now compare our energy systems with other countries.
Due to the huge geological accident of fate, since the 1700’s in coal,
and 1970’s in oil and gas, we have been extremely fortunate in being
able to live way beyond the lifestyle standards of most of the World.
We have not had to adapt.
Other countries that didn’t have this advantage had to change over
recent decades.
Places like Denmark, Austria, Germany [and so on] have made huge
changes because they had less energy from fossil resources.
Now we have reached the peak or crunch point, we find ourselves well
behind those countries that had to adapt earlier.
Everybody is concentrating on the Capital cost of deploying per
MW [megawatt] and overlooks the cost of fuels.
The cost of fuels over time is massively more important than the
CAPEX [capital expenditure on investment].
So even if windfarms cost 20 times per MW or GW [gigawatt] more to
build than nuclear or coal or gas, in the scheme of things,
[wind power] is always going to win, because the fuel is free and
unlimited for centuries to come.
Similarly [solar power technologies], or even more effective,
household insulation and cutting energy use.
And yet the media and government are blinded by the barrage of PR
and media from the energy vested interests who are working with
every muscle to stop this coming out into the open.
I often meet financiers in my work trying to promote and support AD
[anaerobic digestion of biological waste for the production of
renewable methane], biomass, solar and wind projects.
I am always struggling to prove to them that I have an offtake [return
on investment] and the fuel supply. This is often really hard to do
[but] I only have to do this for seven to 12 years to make my business
cases stack up.
I was really depressed at the end of one such presentation and
discussion, when one broadly sympathetic banker who had turned me
down said that he was having even worse problems with largescale
energy projects.
How do you predict the price and supply of coal forward for 25 years
or more ?
It has jumped 17% in recent months.
How do you prove that you are going to have offtake for huge power
stations in future years ?
Demand dropped 8% in 2009.
How do you raise the equity or debt for a billion [pound] project when
banks don’t want to lend more than £30 million each ? Imagine how
many banks that would take ?
We have reached a tipping point in our economy, sustainability and
future outlook.
Yes, the existing mega-power companies are fighting as hard as
Mubarak today to hold onto power, but they represent the past just
as surely as he does.
Those companies can rejuvenate themselves, unlike the Egyptian
President.
If they don’t, there are an increasingly large number of smaller and
more active players coming into the market.
The average household pays somewhere around £1,300 a year for
its heating and lighting.
The companies that come forward with a way to do that for £1,000 is
going to capture the market very quickly.
I have friends in Austria who only pay 65 Euros for services that I
pay £1,400 for.
They do this through insulation, triple glazing, solar and biomass energy.
Most [UK] households have less than £400 per year discretionary
disposable income. This prevents them making changes to their houses
they desperately want and know they need to make. This can
drop their energy demands hugely.
If somebody can unlock that Gordian Knot the benefits would be
enormous as there are something like 27 million households.
At a time when household debt is at an all-time high, incomes are
shrinking, and 40% live on ether government salaries, state
pensions or benefits.
Energy is a very high part of these households’ outgoings – if you
pay £1,300 a year and your house only brings in £11,000 to £20,000
per year.
A 50% increase in the £1,300 could bring great distress, and
possibly even civil unrest here.
The increases fossil power [companies] need to make their systems
bankable will increase energy bills. This will feed straight through into
government liabilities because 40% of us live on government payouts.
If government can drop the cost of heating and lighting quite easily
by £100 to £500 per household per year while at the same time
provide employment for hundreds of thousands of White Van men
cutting energy uses, doesn’t this make far more sense than building
unsustainable power stations that will have to be [bankrolled] by the
government, who will then have to buy back electricity at a price our
communities cannot stand ?
Project a similar calculation onto transport fuels and you get even
greater problems.
At $80 a barrel [of oil] industry is shrinking and relatively few
renewable fuel business cases work. At $100 a barrel most renewable
fuels can compete.
At $120 a barrel almost any alternative beats oil, and that is before
you start to look at issues like fuel security and the environment.
Although the battle is one of David and Goliath, or the Dinosaur and
those early mammals, between the new energy industries and the
existing vested energy industries, [it] has only one outcome.
It is only a matter of the co-lateral damage along the way.
Like Mubarak, it is clear they must go. Are they going to go
gracefully, or are they going to smash the place up first ?
The documentary evidence shows that America’s business interests often outweigh its political progress. Yet it’s perhaps more concerning that, increasingly, corporate America is at risk of damaging good environmental governance.
With all the talk of free markets in international trade, the Coalition Government in the United Kingdom has felt the pressure to open up the back door to American energy businesses, whose highly-paid sales representatives in slick suits want us to buy their dirty energy projects – just take a look at the upcoming UK Energy Bill and its proposals for Electricity Market Reform.
American companies seem poised to sweep in and take all our public non-subsidy “support” for building new nuclear power plants. Viewers of a sensitive political disposition should look away now as this is a Wikileak :-
The country that brought you the engineering industry that brought you the giant Gulf of Mexico giant oil spill now wants to bring you unsafe deepwater drilling in Britain’s Continental Shelf – and the UK’s new Energy Bill would let them do that without demonstrating any learning from the BP April 2010 fiasco :-
There’s lots of talk in the energy sector and the financial markets about the American shale gas miracle “gamechanger” and how it can be replicated in Europe and across the world, and not enough discussion about the environmental dangers :-
It’s good to talk about local environmental damage from “unconventional” gas, but what’s not being discussed so widely is that these “new” resources of Natural Gas aren’t really very green, and neither are the “traditional” resources – in some cases they’re not much better than coal :-
We know that the Americans always seek to protect the interests of American-owned businesses – and we know they do that for the best of intentions – to keep America wealthy (except it’s really only a few people in America that have any wealth, but anyway…)
Yet I think there should be a limit to how far we have to bend over backwards to accommodate their needs for economic recovery.
To export all their dirty energy technology to Europe is just not helpful, and I think we should say no, no, no.
An unidentified group has taken advantage of all the turmoil in Egypt, gone undercover, and attacked a gas pipeline, which means that supplies to politically moderate Jordan (and the more hardline Syria) will be cut off.
Who planned this ? It’s probably too early to say, but I can think of several possible answers to the question, and none of them are pretty.
“Gas pipeline to Jordan, Syria set ablaze in Egypt…Unless the pipe is repaired quickly, it could become a big problem for Jordan, a country already spending heavily in fuel subsidies, a Jordanian senior official said….”
Creating a level playing field for Renewable Energy by removing Fossil Fuel subsidies is an excellent idea, as mooted by the International Energy Agency :-
“IEA reveals fossil fuel subsidies top $550bn : Report warns kick-backs for fossil fuels are skewing energy markets and holding back renewables investment : By Andrew Donoghue 08 June 2010 : The global fossil fuel industry currently enjoys subsidies worth more than $550bn (£382bn) a year, according to a major new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that will increase pressure on world leaders to phase out fossil fuel subsidies ahead of a crucial meeting of the G20 group of nations later this month. The research, which was released at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Busan, South Korea over the weekend, reveals fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $557bn in 2008 – up from $342bn in 2007. Enormous subsidies are skewing energy markets and inhibiting the uptake of more sustainable energy sources, the IEA warned. “The IEA analysis highlights that the price signal from subsidy phase-out would provide an incentive to use energy more efficiently, and trigger switching from fossil fuels to other fuels that emit fewer GHGs,” the report said…”
“Fossil Fuel Subsidies Are 12 Times Support for Renewables, Study Shows : By Alex Morales – 29 July 2010 : Global subsidies for fossil fuels dwarf support given to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and biofuels, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. Governments last year gave $43 billion to $46 billion of support to renewable energy through tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices known as feed-in tariffs and alternative energy credits, the London-based research group said today in a statement. That compares with the $557 billion that the International Energy Agency last month said was spent to subsidize fossil fuels in 2008. “One of the reasons the clean energy sector is starved of funding is because mainstream investors worry that renewable energy only works with direct government support,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of New Energy Finance. “This analysis shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around ten times the subsidy for renewables.”…”
“G20 agrees on phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies : 25 September 2009 : The world’s largest economies agreed on Friday to phase out subsidies for oil and other carbon dioxide-spewing fossil fuels in the “medium term” as part of efforts to combat global warming. But Group of 20 leaders at a two-day summit meeting here did not advance discussions about financial aid for developing nations dealing with climate change, exacerbating concerns that U.N. talks to form a new climate pact are in peril. Some $300 billion a year is spent worldwide to subsidize fuel prices, boosting demand in many nations by keeping prices artificially low and, thus, leading to more emissions. The agreement — backed by all of the G20 including Russia, India and China — was a victory for U.S. President Barack Obama, whose credentials for fighting climate change have been marred by dimming prospects that the U.S. Senate will pass a bill to reduce emissions before the December U.N. meeting…”
Seems like it’s a done deal…apart from an issue that should never be forgotten in all global negotiations : economic development.
India, for example, has a policy to keep down the price of diesel fuel – a strategy to promote economic development. They won’t be ready to cut subsidies :-
“Diesel subsidy withdrawal unaffordable, says minister : 04 February 2011 : New Delhi: India cannot afford to withdraw the subsidy on diesel and it has to continue till poverty disappears from the country, union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said on Friday. Speaking at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit here, Abdullah said India gives a lot of subsidy on diesel and, if withdrawn, it will only increase inflation. ‘Diesel subsidy has to continue till poverty disappears from the country,’ he said while reacting to Canadian parliamentarian Stephane Dion’s appeal to phase out diesel subsidy…”
The Americans and the Europeans calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies could be interpreted as a lever to block the economic development of the Global South – as much of the price-fixing is conducted by developing nations.
It could be argued that the United States and “her allies” want to retain economic dominance – what better way than blocking economic progress in the Global South and making it appear to be a Climate Change measure ?
In addition, much of the financial support for energy projects in the Global South is indirectly awarded to the fossil fuel industry via the international aid cash coming from developed nations and the international agencies. And the fossil fuel producers and engineering companies are not going to be willing to let that source of revenue dry up.
If international aid for energy projects gets stopped, so does a lot of economic development until “technology transfer” of Renewable Energy can be ramped up :-
Before they came to power in the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party were strongly behind the proposals to stop international development loans going on dirty energy projects :-
“23 November 2009 : Andrew Mitchell: Ending Labour’s support for polluting energy projects : …we must end the use of the Export Credit Guarantee Department to promote ‘dirty’ fossil fuel power stations around the world, and instead make it a champion of green technology…”
“Lord Green told: Britain’s exports must stop harming people and planet : 24 January 2011 : New report details string of ‘dodgy deals’ at export support body : As new Trade Minister Stephen Green embarks on a national tour to promote British exports, Jubilee Debt Campaign warns that Britain’s export support body is not up to the job : A report released by the organisation today exposes a history of backing projects by large corporations in a handful of controversial sectors. The projects have led to human rights abuses, environmental destruction and corruption in the developing world, and often failed to deliver even on their stated aims. Britain’s export promotion body, the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), has also undermined Britain’s international development goals by leaving countries like Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan with £2 billion of debts from failed export deals – 96% of Third World Debt ‘owed’ to the UK today…The Coalition government has failed to act on its pledge to end fossil fuel subsidies through the ECGD, despite taking action to beef up the Department’s role…”
The key global development question remains – is cutting fossil fuel subsidies yet another (underhand) way of reducing international aid budgets ?
To deflect criticism, the spotlight will probably be turned on countries like Iran :-
“Getting the Prices Right – Cutting Subsidies Could Save Billions : 8 June 2010 : Global fossil fuel consumption subsidies in 2008 were much higher than previously estimated and totalled USD557 billion, according to IEA analysis…The IEA has undertaken an extensive survey to identify countries that offer subsidies that reduce prices of fossil fuels below levels that would prevail in an undistorted market, thus leading to higher levels of consumption than would occur in their absence. The survey identified 37 countries and it is estimated that these represent over 95% of global subsidized fossil‐fuel consumption…The IEA analysis has revealed that fossil fuel consumption subsidies amounted to $557 bn in 2008. This represents a big increase from $342 bn in 2007…Since 2008, a number of countries – including China, Russia, India and Indonesia – have made notable reforms to bring their domestic energy prices in line with world prices…The country with the highest subsidies in 2008 was Iran at $101 billion, or around a third of the country’s annual central budget. Chronic under‐pricing of domestic energy in Iran has resulted in enormous subsidies and a major burden on the economy that is forcing reliance on imports of refined products. Iran’s leadership came to agreement in 2010 on a sweeping plan for energy subsidy reform; however, steep economic, political and social hurdles will need to be overcome if Iran is to realize lasting reform…”
Obama says we have to drop fossil fuel subsidies. The next thing you know, the inaccuracies start flying :-
“Manchin claims coal “doesn’t get a penny of subsidies” : In fact, the industry gets trillions of pennies : 4 February 2011 : Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), the newest member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, claimed today that the coal industry doesn’t receive any government subsidies, unlike every other form of energy. Brad Johnson debunks this absurd claim…”
The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government in the United Kingdom have several competing interests to juggle when it comes to the electricity generation industry.
Any proposed tinkering in the electricity market will need to show it still promotes competition (even though new entrants will probably complain they can’t compete in auctions), even as it guarantees safe and stable power supplies, even as it needs to make sure consumers don’t get ripped off.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change have published a clearly-written consultation document on their proposals for an Electricity Market Reform (EMR), detailing various methods of intervening to ensure long-term objectives on carbon emissions and energy security :-
So far, my conclusion is that the net effect of these proposals will be to make the electricity generators feel secure about future earnings.
I’m not convinced that anything I’ve read so far will help energy supply companies feel willing to leap the expensive investment hurdle to ensure the UK gets new low carbon power plants.
I’m not even sure if the carbon and power pricing described will deter companies from dirty power generation and direct them towards new low carbon investment.
When I happened on the levelised cost of power in the main DECC analysis document, I came to a very pragmatic conclusion :-
Figure 2 (see top) shows that FOAK (first of a kind) new nuclear reactor plant designs (which is what we are told we will be getting in the UK) are probably going to yield similar unit electricity price values to Onshore Wind Power and Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) plant using Natural Gas feedstock.
My question is : why do we need to intervene with the electricity market to incentivise low carbon generation if the cheapest technologies are the low carbon options anyway ? (Yes, I’ve deliberately forgotten to discuss Carbon Capture and Storage).
My second question is : are the financial instruments proposed for the electricity market simply a sop to the electricity generators to leverage investment in new and efficient low carbon power stations ? Come and invest in new power generation in Great Britain and see your earnings stable (or rising) !
And my third question is this : don’t the NIMBY campaigns against Onshore Wind Power realise their success means that the overall cost of electricity to the consumers will rise significantly as wind power has to move offshore ?
My conclusion is : it would be far cheaper simply to instruct the largely publicly owned banks to make investment finance available, but only for low carbon technologies and forget about trying to maintain the facade of a free market.
Power supply is virtually a monopoly – and the State is bound to maintain supply – DECC have even got proposals on the table in their main Energy Bill to buy up any power companies that fail…yet another bailout !
As an experiment with the notion of “common values”, I recently sat in a cinema with a bunch of my fellow citizens and inhaled the film “The King’s Speech”.
They laughed with the jokes (as in fact I did, right on cue), mourned with the pain (which gave me cause for reflection, too); and gave a huge round of applause at the end.
And you know what, I could have been swept along and joined them, apart from one observation.
The triumph of the central character over his physical disability, the applause he received, both at the time and in the cinema, this was all whilst giving a message that the country was about to commence widescale violence towards another country – the declaration of war.
Everybody was cheering for war. I couldn’t join in.
It is to the good memory of David Fleming that I recommend you read his last published work, co-written with Transition Towns’ Shaun Chamberlin, “Tradable Energy Quotas : A Policy Framework for Peak Oil and Climate Change” :-
Amidst all the psycho-sociological arguments being waged by political theorists and campaigny people about changing peoples’ values, and whether that’s right/useful or not, one plain fact should emerge like a tree to clutch in a flash flood – people respond to rules.
If the rules of the game are that we should reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050, and everybody, including the energy production companies, are required to play a significant role, this fact alone establishes “common cause” and creates a framework for action.
Although the Climate Change Act is the law – a piece of legislation – it has yet to be fleshed out. Until it becomes clear what the exact policies, measures and instruments will be, agreed and implemented, there will continue to be massive amounts of flailing and flapping about, scepticism, recalcitrance, dogma and complaining.
When it becomes clear what the framework for the energy industry, big business and social provision will be, then people will knuckle down and accept the inevitable.
I’m not arguing for eco-fascism – far from it. Mistakes in policy are all too possible, and so strong engagement is required, far beyond the token democracy we are currently permitted to take part in. Taking part in a government consultation on energy and carbon emissions is about as effective as waving a placard in the direction of Downing Street, except you don’t run the risk of getting arrested for it.
The only thing the public are currently permitted to do is cut their own domestic emissions. They’re not allowed to have a say about what business or government do about emissions.
Yet despite this complete absence of public involvement, there are signs of progress. Once we have managed to fight our way through the windstorm of nonsensical technological “fixes” that are worse than useless; once we have some educated people in the Government and the Civil Service – education on matters of engineering rather than humanities; then we can start to see sense from the top.
Urgent request from the floor : please can the Government and industry please stop alienating people with calls for consumers to change their behaviour. It’s producing resistance, and that is a threat to progress on reducing emissions.
What do I think about changing values ? I don’t believe “we” should try to change values or behaviour. That amounts to manipulation in my view.
“Singing in the Rain : 26 January 2011 : In the past 2 – 3 weels I received a deluge of nasty-language messages saying that I should be fired, deported, run over, etc. Such a sudden burst of malice seems unlikely to be spontaneous.”
“Perhaps recent articles and internet stories provided stimulation, e.g., an article by Pat Michaels in the Washington Times and a statement by Richard S. Courtney on a blog. Michaels distorts the facts and uses quotes out of context. The Courtney statement […] mischaracterizes my testimony.”
“…The essence of my testimony, in both trials, was that the evidence for human-caused climate change is clear. I emphasized that the UK government, the fossil fuel industry, and the utility EON were aware of the effect of continued coal-burning on the future of young people. But instead of addressing the problem effectively, they engaged in greenwash…”
Over at MediaLens, the two (three) Davids are blanking the “every little bit helps” approach :-
Asking the general public to kindly remember to switch off their lights has had about as much impact as a light dusting of sugar. Looks pretty, but causes coughing fits when eating the cake.
I can’t wait for their comments on Climate Week :-
A few words of insider insight from you could really help me decide how much energy I can personally justify putting in to the Stop Climate Chaos activities this year. In addition, it would colour the replies I give to my colleagues […] who are asking about how much we try to get behind and support and promote Stop Climate Chaos.
The [SCC] coalition meeting audience on Wednesday was assured that if we mobilised and made demands that we, by our efforts, could make the Green Deal strong/effective, that we could “win”. But this could seem a ridiculous waste of time, as the Energy Bill is already very clear about what the Government wants in the Green Deal. What is it that we are fighting for in that case ? Nobody introducing the campaigning plan outline had produced a layman’s guide to the components of the Energy Bill for us to try to digest – no points that we were encouraged to contest.
I discussed this situation with a co-worker of mine and his expression was to call Stop Climate Chaos a “Government chihuahua”. From his analysis, Stop Climate Chaos members are not being asked to “fight” a “campaign” – we are being asked to support what the Government is already intending to do. The top political negotiators are trying to sell us the narrative of “effective campaigning”, but just as in all […] campaigns, there’s nothing to struggle for, only things to assent to. This is just the same as back in the days of Gordon Brown when a fix had already been done at the political level for Make Poverty History, and the masses were invited to come out and wave flags for it. It’s so obviously saccharine, what’s the point of being involved ? And how do I get the energy together to sell engagement to other people ?
I and my colleagues are pleased to offer polite support, and we will even come and wave flags, but where’s the chewy centre ?
As for the summer “challenge” to the energy industries, Greenpeace, as usual, will probably soak up a lot of creative and hormonal energy from those who believe they need to be assertive and proactive, and who feel angry, but again as usual, Greenpeace will be pretty much dismissed by the general public (and given a very long leash by the Government). Is it all about keeping potential troublemakers busy (like the NASA Space Program) ? Quite a number of people I come into contact with prefer to take action outside of the recognised organisations for this very reason.
The basic problem of energy has to be approached in terms of systems – holistic strategies for future low carbon energy provision. This is not going to be addressed by going after individual energy technologies as Greenpeace seem to feel they have to. Where is the generic critique of “technofixes” and the analysis of the likely failings of a number of the components of the current UK energy “plan” ? Where, for example, is Carbon Capture just now ? Is it ever likely to succeed (without the EU and national subsidies proposed) ? I don’t know if I can ask my colleagues to support a technology crucifiction without offering a positive alternative.
I guess I’m ready to stop playing the “campaigning” game. I never believed in it, as a matter of fact. It’s completely artificial, and the drawing together of large, broad consensus, such as Stop Climate Chaos, shows up the failings in the “campaign” language and the theories of social engagement in democracy. I don’t believe that people can be “mobilised” around issues, except maybe at the grassroots, local level. Oh yes, I’ve filled in my fair share of campaign postcards, signed petitions, written e-mails, joined marches, but I can no longer sell this model of political interaction since I am discovering how it’s treated with such patronising attitudes by those who actually make decisions. As long as I am considered a “campaigner” or “environmentalist”, I shall continue to be ignored. I am really neither. I am a systems engineer with a background in electronics engineering and IT.
I don’t think my “democratic” representative gives any consideration to things that truly concern me and that I try to communicate. I don’t think any of the “campaigns” have a clue about what is really needed to solve the Climate Change or Energy emergencies, and they are often dismissive about engineering and systems work that can point the way. Those in the campaign groups that have dialogue with the political system don’t have the bandwidth to really listen to those working on the ground on local issues. There’s an awful lot of listening not going on.
Really, is there any point putting any energy into Stop Climate Chaos ?
I enjoyed working with you over the weekend – thanks for your useful and enthusiastic contributions. And your observations in your email about the effectiveness or otherwise of campaigning are highly relevant to our next session(s).
I should say that my (heavy) involvement with SCC came to an end c. 2 years ago so I am not that au fait with it now. Let’s discuss this next time we meet in more detail but I would argue that it is worth maintaining membership of SCC (I can’t see that adding your organisation’s name to it can cause any harm […]) whilst carrying out some kind of ‘cost-benefit analysis’ with colleagues (as you have begun to do) so as to decide how much time and money [they want] to devote to supporting its campaigns. I do think the nature of a Coalition Government (with a leader of the opposition who genuinely cares about this stuff) does potentially provide some political leverage which well focussed and run campaigns might capitalise on – and to a large degree the Climate Change Act did come about as a result of a FoE/SCC campaign.
And is it worth [your organisation] considering [signing] up in some way with 38 Degrees and Avaaz?
It was a fun weekend, was it not ? Our group is a great crowd, and the members have these amazing social roles and incredible in-depth experience, so there’s a wide variety of skill sets and personalities. We could go far.
I do appreciate the time and energy you devoted to the block conference days, and I hope I showed you that I enjoyed the learning and exercises and and your out-there honesty and clearly genuine passion for this work.
I’ve decided that what I really don’t like in campaigning is the promise of political engagement but the complete absence of any real influence.
The way all campaigns seem to be run is that the leaders try and shake everyone’s trees to “come on down, get involved, you can take part, we can win”, but the net result is mere flag waving. We are the sheeple.
It is a lie at the core of the machine, and people back away from that cognitive dissonance even if they don’t recognise it. If it’s numbers you want, you won’t get that by selling the myth of political engagement. Only the lead political negotiators in a campaign organisation stand a chance of real dialogue with those who make the decisions. Everybody else only has the kind of access that allows flag waving.
So campaigning shouldn’t be sold as a dialogue but a tick-the-box petition, maybe. Maybe it should be made more clear that there are skilled elites, and the rest of us are just nay-sayers or yay-nodders. 38 degrees and Avaaz are great examples of just that. That’s fine as long as there’s no sales pitch that suggests otherwise.
Of course [we] are going to stay signed-up to SCC – it’s a very Japanese politeness that insists that we all publicly support each other in the campaigns movement. Solidarity can be highly important – especially over complex issues – as long as they are well-defined.
The question is : is it worth us trying to use the SCC machine to try to launch our own messaging within the channels that exist there ? Is it possible ? The [SCC] coalition “planning” meetings always feel like we are allowed to speak, but not permitted to influence what SCC come up with. It is this entirely contrived “consultation” process that really gets my mountain-roaming bearded farm animal.
Since the ConDems do have some people who care about these issues, and the Civil Service does have some people that actually care about these issues, then why does SCC need to exist ? Does the Government really need flag-waving for its plans ? I doubt it. No “mandate from the people” required. Why do we need to march and protest and demonstrate ? And more importantly, why do we waste everyone’s time asking them to march, protest and demonstrate ?
It’s so much more efficient for me to sell the simple and quick ePetitions to [our] Members. […] They don’t want to be asked to march/protest etc, although some of us do.
Come on – let’s be honest – exactly how much of the work leading up to the Climate Change Act was guided by public pressure ? The NGO political elites handled most of the conversation, and key individuals were involved in promoting public and media debates, and more importantly, there was a lot of synergy because government types had begun to read the EU briefings and could see the way the land lay.
Is it efficient to ask for public input on strategy ? If a government has good advice from real experts, why does the public need to be consulted ? The public often get things wrong technically – the classic example being the completely irrational fear over mobile phone masts, and the fabled cancer dangers of mobile phones, which Caroline Lucas erroneously attached her name to. So, if the public are wrong, why are they told they need to take part in a token form of ra-ra cheerleading democracy ?
We are at the very cusp of the edge of the verge of a swirling vortex of Climate Chaos, and all the United States of America can think about is protecting their business interests at the Cancun United Nations talks.
Yes, there can be “technology transfer” from the US to “emerging economies” (read : China), but “intellectual property rights”, as owned by private companies, must be protected.
Yes, there can be “Climate finance” from the USA to the Least Developed Countries (read : Long Dirt-poor Colonies), but the banks need to get their pound of flesh profit, so the money will be in the form of loans.
Yes, there can be “Reduced Deforestation” (what ? Not “totally reduced deforestation” ?), as long as American firms can still import a certain amount of tropical and sub-tropical wood for making toilet paper and construction beams.
Yes, there can be commitments to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions, but the paranoid Americanos want to enforce satellite verification and inspection teams for monitoring – yet more business opportunities.
China (and Russian and India and Brazil) are never going to agree all this. This is V. O. C. territory – on the Verge of Chaos.
From an exchange on the MediaLens Message Board :-
“Cancun Climate Talks : Get a grip or we are all V. O. C. K. D…You know – as in D. I. S. C. O.”
“Really, we are all seriously V. O. C. K. D. unless somehow the world’s energy companies are convinced to stop mining”
“Climate Change Igniting Deep Peatland Fires, Study Says…Climate change is causing Alaskan wildfires to burn more fiercely, liberating vast stores of soil-based carbon dioxide that will further accelerate warming, a new study has found…“There is no way these systems are serving as a net carbon sink anymore”…”
“Personally, I blame the Americans. Well, there’s got to be *someone* to blame, hasn’t there ?”
To which there was this telling reply :-
“Why do people continue to believe international talks intended to develop meaningful treaties are the appropriate response to climate change?”
And so we tip into the grip of Vortex of Utter Chaos…
Of all the macroeconomic proposals put forward over the last two decades for consideration by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the most ridiculous has to be Carbon Trading.
To imagine that a market can be created for something that the industrialised country economies are highly dependent on is an hallucination.
Carbon Dioxide emissions are in lock-step with economic growth, the creation of liquidity, if not wealth. To try to price Carbon Dioxide emissions would be to attempt to give a negative value to a positive commodity. It just won’t work. Nobody will want to buy it. And if they’re forced to buy it, they won’t want to pay much for it. And nobody can think of a way to force the developed countries to pay for their Carbon Dioxide emissions.
Even before the “serious” negotiating week of Cancun begins, the Kyoto Protocol has been pronounced dead on arrival :-
Nobody ever said the “KP” was perfect – it only committed countries to a very small level of emissions cuts. Some commitment ! Few of the countries in the KP have taken their responsibilities to cut emissions seriously. And if they have, they’ve just outsourced them to China.
But the Son-of-Kyoto Post-Kyoto Protocol Protocol could have been something, you know, if the industrialised countries admitted they needed to back down significantly from rising and large emissions profiles – if developed nations had not tried to lean on the “flexible mechanisms” that effectively legalised offsetting their emissions with emissions reductions in other peoples’ countries.
But, no.
It appears from Wikileaks that the United States of America have been scuppering the United Nations’s best efforts :-
“Secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed new details about how the United States manipulated last year’s climate talks in Copenhagen. The cables show how the United States sought dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming, how financial and other aid was used by countries to gain political backing, and how the United States mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the “Copenhagen Accord.””
If, as reports state, the United States are continuing to use any leverage they can to push countries to accept the doomed Copenhagen Accord, there can be no progress on Climate Change.
We may have just found the real Climategate.
You cannot buy or sell the atmosphere.
There is only one solution – that is to displace High Carbon Energy with Low Carbon Energy and that means goodbye to Tar Sands, Shale Oil, Tight Gas, deepwater Petroleum, dirty Petroleum, Coal, Coal-to-Liquids, anything that you can dig out of the ground and burn.
We have to stop mining for energy.
And that has serious implications for a number of international energy corporations and state energy enterprises.
Unless this basic issue is addressed, we are all heading for hell and high water.
The Climate Change talks have been window dressing for unworkable hypothetical macroeconomic policies, and continue to reduce chair people to tears :-
It’s not that developing countries and emerging economies are being picky. The problem lies with the United States of America, desperate to cling on to its geopolitical leverage :-
“U.S. Call to Preserve Copenhagen Accord Puts Climate Conference on Edge : By Stacy Feldman at SolveClimate : Mon Nov 29, 2010 : Many poor countries want to scrap the three-page Copenhagen agreement that the U.S. wants to preserve : CANCUN, MEXICO — The United States said Monday it would not back down on its plan to turn the unpopular Copenhagen Accord into a final global warming deal, setting the first day of already fragile UN climate talks in Cancun on edge. “What we’re seeking here in Cancun is a balanced package of decisions that would build on this agreement … [and] preserve the balance of the accord,” Jonathan Pershing, lead U.S. climate negotiator in Cancun, told reporters at the talks…”
“Cancún climate change summit: America plays tough : US adopts all-or-nothing position in Cancún, fuelling speculation of a walk-out if developing countries do not meet its demands : Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 : America has adopted a tough all-or-nothing position at the Cancún climate change summit, fuelling speculation of a walk-out if developing countries do not meet its demands. At the opening of the talks at Cancún, the US climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, made clear America wanted a “balanced package” from the summit. That’s diplomatic speak for a deal that would couple the core issues for the developing world – agreement on climate finance, technology, deforestation – with US demands for emissions actions from emerging economies and a verifiable system of accounting for those cuts. In a briefing with foreign journalists in Washington, the chief climate envoy, Todd Stern, was blunt. “We’re either going to see progress across the range of issues or we’re not going to see much progress,” said Stern. “We’re not going to race forward on three issues and take a first step on other important ones. We’re going to have to get them all moving at a similar pace.” In the run-up to the Cancún talks, Stern has said repeatedly that America will not budge from its insistence that fast-emerging economies such as India and China commit to reducing emissions and to an inspection process that will verify those actions. The hard line – which some in Washington have seen as ritual diplomatic posturing – has fuelled speculation that the Obama administration could be prepared to walk out of the Cancún talks…”
An “inspection process” ? Agreeing to the same use of satellite snooping and the threat of the penalties of economic sanctions as applied to the fabled Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the current pincer on Iran ?
I can’t quite see China agreeing to that.
If we’re thinking about paranoia, who should be monitoring whom ?
The Clean Development Mechanism should have been more closely monitored, but it wasn’t, and it’s collapsed in a big pile – fake credits, false accreditation, poor success rate. Where has the verification process been, there ?
New schemes for “climate finance” will essentially involve creating debt for Climate Change mitigation and adaptation projects in developing and emerging economies. Why more debt ? To prop up the ailing industrialised economies. And allow the Bank sharks to feed.
And “technology transfer” ? That’s all about intellectual property rights – America owning all the rights, and China and India and so on owning nothing, of course. What great technologies have parasitical American companies been keeping hidden away up their sleeves to sell to the Chinese under a Climate deal ? Or are they just rubbish deals, like expensive and untested Carbon Capture and Storage ?
“Deforestation” ? Virtually all proposed schemes under the REDD banner (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) include an element of emissions trading – just the kind of offsetting that large, dirty American companies want to buy to justify carrying on with Business As Usual. Protecting the rainforests ? Nah – just finding another way to make money for the Carbon Traders, and protect the Oil, Gas and Coal industries of the industrialised regions.
What is needed is for the industrialised nations to commit to domestic emissions reductions, not continued attempts to coerce other countries to make cuts that can be traded.
Nobody has learned anything in the last year. The same ridiculous non-options are on the table, and nobody’s biting.
The United Nations have gathered in Cancun, Mexico, for the annual Climate Change negotiations. It’s only the first day, but already the talk is of compromise :-
“Cancún hears call for ‘tapestry of compromise’ : By Fiona Harvey in London : November 29 2010 : Governments meeting to negotiate an agreement on global warming this week must learn to compromise, the UN’s top official on climate change said. Christiana Figueres told the opening meeting of the talks, being held in Cancún, Mexico, that only through giving up entrenched positions could countries at the talks hope to find common ground. “A tapestry with holes will not work,” she told officials from more than 180 countries. “The holes can only be filled with compromise.” … For the UN, therefore, Cancún is a test of its ability to carry forward the negotiations, which have been taking place for two decades. Officials are also hoping to make progress on vital issues – such as financial assistance for poor countries to cut their emissions and adapt to the effects of global warming – and a possible deal on preserving the world’s forests…”
Hmm. Let’s take a quick look at what these two highlighted proposals are :-
1. “…financial assistance for poor countries to cut their emissions…”
This is being worked up in a bunch of vehicles, including the initiative that David Cameron writes so emotionally about, the Capital Markets Climate Initiative :-
“Use the profit motive to fight climate change : The prime minister argues that there are huge gains to be made from a green economy : David Cameron, The Observer, Sunday 28 November 2010 : …I passionately believe that by recasting the argument for action on climate change away from the language of threats and punishments and into positive, profit-making terms, we can have a much wider impact. That’s why this government has set up the Capital Markets Climate Initiative – to help trigger a new wave of green investment in emerging economies and make the City of London the global capital of the fast-growing green investment sector…”
So, it’s not donations, or even grants or other forms of aid – it’s debt – debt that’s no longer possible to create in the Credit Crunched developed nations.
It’s probably not quite what Nicholas Stern was thinking of when he said that $100 billion needs to be made available to the Global South in the next decade for Adaptation to Climate Change.
It’s certainly not the redistribution of global wealth that the rightwingers fear from the great “eco-socialist conspiracy”.
It’s an attempt to shore up the corroding economies of the Global North by putting the Global South into further debt.
Score : 0 out of 20.
2. “…a possible deal on preserving the world’s forests…”
This is the policy proposal known as REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, which most people translate as meaning (a) cut down some of the forest for economic purposes in order to (b) protect the rest.
“Oil companies and banks will profit from UN forest protection scheme : Redd scheme designed to prevent deforestation but critics call it ‘privatisation’ of natural resources : John Vidal, environment editor, in Cancun, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 November 2010 : Some of the world’s largest oil, mining, car and gas corporations will make hundreds of millions of dollars from a UN-backed forest protection scheme, according to a new report from the Friends of the Earth International…”
Score : -40 out of a possible 20
With these kind of compromises on the table, do you think the Global South will be any more willing to sign onto any “Accord” any more than they were at Copenhagen ?
Unless and until corporate interests are removed from the United Nations Climate Change treaty, the world’s poorest, their habitats are our futures are being betrayed.
Well, it would seem the wheels have definitely come off the Climate Change sceptic-denier trolley bus, and the passengers are raving, and metaphorically drowning in their own pus-riddled intellectual bile, judging by the spluttered, splattered comments I am receiving on this web log.
Wegman is going down (the anti-science, anti-Hockey Stick Wegman Report, you understand, not the man himself) – and I mean down; down to the depths of dissmissal and reproach, and scorn mountains will be heaped, and his “strange scholarship” will be ribbed and ridiculed and his assertions and claims fobbed off for ever more, it seems, by those whose opinions really count :-
“Turns out climate skeptics’ favorite report (the Wegman Report) might not be as scientific as Congressman Joe Barton claims…”
We’re talking pit-wise plumbing here, the nether reaches of the pile of tried-and-rejected hypotheses. We’re talking dearie-dearie-me, what a mess have we got here, then ? :-
Michael Mann was right. You, dear sceptic-deniers, are wrong. Even the Daily Mail newspaper says so, and don’t retort that, of course, the Daily Maelstrom is not exactly the Source of All Validity, and testily question why I trust the Daily Maul when it agrees with me, and not otherwise :-
“Influential climate change report ‘was copied from Wikipedia’ : By DAILY MAIL REPORTER : 23rd November 2010 : Research questioning the validity of global warming was copied from Wikipedia and textbooks, it has been claimed. A report by statistician Edward Wegman criticised earlier research led by scientist Michael Mann that said global temperatures were highest in the last century than the previous 1,000 years. But according to plagiarism experts, ‘significant’ sections of the 91-page report were lifted from ‘textbooks, Wikipedia and the writings of one of the scientists criticised in the report’…”
You can take or leave your truth universe, and the Daily Mall certainly does that, but I’ll stick with the data, thanks, the hard-won, carefully-kept, un-fudged, un-compromised actual measurements…
Forget Nigel Lawson and his struggle to keep the British energy system in the privatised 1980s by denying the realities of Climate Change.
The lords (and sadly, some of the ladies) of this land want to stay rich from their shares in fossil fuels and mining. They’ll say anything to protect the value of their holdings.
But where’s your new North Sea Oil and Gas, Nigel ? Do you want to bankrupt this country by forcing us to ramp up our imports of energy as the North Sea production falls away ?
The chief executives of the “traditional” energy companies of these islands are just trying to keep themselves in a job when they decry wind power, biogas, marine energy projects.
No, Vincent de Rivaz of EdF, we don’t want expensive, inflexible and toxic Nuclear Power. No, Dorothy Thompson of Drax, we don’t want dirty coal continuing to heat up the world, poison fish and raise coughing kids. No, Rupert Soames of Aggreko, we must maintain the Renewable Energy obligations we have agreed at the European level, and raise the bar even higher, to protect the economy going into an uncertain future, by having homegrown energy.
We need an energy evolution in this country.
And so, what is needed is a social movement – involving ordinary, working people, unions, communities, academics, trained professionals from the engineering trades, local political activists and faith communities.
Some straight-talking in the New Zealand Parliament (see below). But just what does he mean by “…[a]fter 10 millennia, especially the past two centuries, it is the moment of truth” ?
Our species is not “Home Sapiens”, it is “Homo Disruptus” and we’ve been interfering with the Climate for about 10,000 years.
This speech was made by [Green] Dr Kennedy Graham in the New Zealand
Parliament within in the last few hours.
To send him some appreciation his address is: –
kennedy.graham [at] parliament.govt.nz
“As the Minister made clear recently in question time, the state of play
is the Copenhagen Accord, with voluntary commitments to national cuts.
These are demonstrably inadequate to the science-based judgment of what
is required to avert failure, but we pretend that it is a useful start
to greater things. We are told that global emissions must peak within
about 7 years, and we know that the Accord is way short of achieving
that, so we mumble about bigger cuts later and avoid looking into our
children’s eyes.”
“Let us address some facts. To achieve a 2 degrees Celsius threshold, we
must reduce our global carbon budget from 50 gigatonnes today to 36 by
2020, and seven by 2050. The rich countries must cut from about 40 today
to 11 by 2020 and one by 2050. That is correct: we in the rich world
must emit only one gigatonne in 2050, out of the seven emitted by the
world that year. It is called contraction and convergence, and it is the
only way humanity will successfully deal with climate change. That is
when our moral and political standards will merge at the global level.”
“I rise to address the issue of climate change and this Government’s
failure to develop adequate national policy to combat it. Climate change
has slipped below the threshold of daily media focus and that is the way
that this Government seems to want it.”
“The failure at Copenhagen to tackle the global threat head on has sent
the international community into a state of collective catatonia. We see
this in the lack of leadership from the UN itself, in the actions of
national Governments around the world, and in the attitude of much of
the public around the world. The problem we have is that Nature is not
disposed to wait for humanity to iron itself out morally and get its
political act together.”
“The poor countries rail against us for historical responsibility and
insufficient reduction targets. The rich countries fear the projected
population growth among the poor and insist that they enter binding
commitments before we sign on to medium-term cuts.”
“Humanity probably faces only two global threats: immolation through
nuclear conflict, or suffocation through global warming. The first is
the product of traditional enmity; the enemy was the other tribe or the
other nation. Climate change is the product of a new enemy: it is us.”
“We try to cut nuclear arsenals by changing the enemy’s behaviour; we are
required to cut carbon emissions by changing our own behaviour. It is no
surprise that we are not succeeding. Most Governments lack the political
courage to convey the magnitude of the climate change threat to their
peoples, and they lack the political insight to prescribe the required
global and national policies that are necessary.”
“Before, during, and since Copenhagen the threat of serious unpredictable
climate change has grown. Our scientists do not know when non-linear
change might occur, but they warn that tipping points exist. If the
precautionary principle is to mean anything, we must all move with
speedy purpose and resolve. Translated politically, that means we must
act not as an international community of states, but as a global
community of peoples who are represented by Governments. If the
difference seems vanishingly small, then we do well to act on it none
the less, lest our prospects of survival prove to be the same.”
“Our professional negotiators are rearranging the deckchairs,
contemplating whether we shall have one or two legal agreements, and
whether it will be next year or 3 or 10 years from now. Our political
leaders dampen our expectations with appeals to realism. We all suffer
from cognitive dissonance. Every so often we see the magnitude and
imminence of the threat, and it is simply too frightening to accept
individually and politically, so we basically return to business and
government as usual.”
“As the Minister made clear recently in question time, the state of play
is the Copenhagen Accord, with voluntary commitments to national cuts.
These are demonstrably inadequate to the science-based judgment of what
is required to avert failure, but we pretend that it is a useful start
to greater things. We are told that global emissions must peak within
about 7 years, and we know that the Accord is way short of achieving
that, so we mumble about bigger cuts later and avoid looking into our
children’s eyes.”
“Let us address some facts. To achieve a 2 degrees Celsius threshold, we
must reduce our global carbon budget from 50 gigatonnes today to 36 by
2020, and seven by 2050. The rich countries must cut from about 40 today
to 11 by 2020 and one by 2050. That is correct: we in the rich world
must emit only one gigatonne in 2050, out of the seven emitted by the
world that year. It is called contraction and convergence, and it is the
only way humanity will successfully deal with climate change. That is
when our moral and political standards will merge at the global level.”
“After 10 millennia, especially the past two centuries, it is the moment
of truth. For our part, New Zealand has to agree through treaty or by
voluntary declaration in advance to cut our national emissions
proportionately. That means we must cut from 78 million tonnes today to
56 million tonnes in 2020, down to 1.6 million in 2050.”
“That is the scale of the challenge before New Zealand. It is as well
that we face up to it now, not when it is too late.”
Scientists are proverbially poor at communication, but we will eventually be able to explain to you what is happening to the Earth in a way that you will understand.
You need to give some time to the data, to the arguments. You need to read the significant research papers, learn how to read graphs, learn the acronyms, abbreviations, technical terms.
You will need to be able to weigh in your mind the significance of probabilities, the risks of extremes, the trends, the changing patterns.
After a while, you will start to reappraise the evidence, and start looking into the data and see the conclusions for yourself.
You will begin to appreciate the strong line of reasoning, and come to be in awe of the minds of many who work on Climate Change.
I’ve become impressed by the body of scientific evidence, that’s why I will always be aligned with the Climate Change science community.
We’re not going anywhere. We’re here, and we’re right. There has already been significant change in the Earth’s climate due to humankind’s mining-to-burn activities, and the projections are for further, possibly very dangerous change.
The scientists know what the problems are, and what the engineering solutions are. Some companies/corporations, economists and politicans and sadly even some compromised “environmentalists” promote non-solutions like carbon pricing, Carbon Taxation, Carbon Trading, Carbon Capture (and Storage), GM Crops, Nuclear Power, geoengineering – but the academies of scientists are telling you they won’t work, or won’t solve all the problems.
What is needed is wholesale removal of Fossil Fuels from the global economy in order to prevent further deterioration and disruption in the global climatic conditions. Either BP, Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil hang up their boots forever, or they need to embrace new clean energies (not Nuclear Power) to stay in business.
Oil, gas and coal depletion in the production facilities of those countries that are national players will mean that they will go bust, because a consistently high price for Fossil Fuels is not supportable, because the global economy is so Fossil Fuel-dependent currently. This is both a buyer’s market and a seller’s market, so the price will be governed by the operation of this two-sided cartel, not by the theories of “scarcity economics”.
Either Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, China, Venezuela and so on are on their way to extreme poverty, or they will embrace new clean energies (not Nuclear Power) to stay economically developed.
Meanwhile, the project of empirical scientific enquiry continues apace, and even though rich fossil fuel businesses are financing doubt, even though people with pension funds in mining pour scorn on Climate Change science, and even though the mainstream media can’t recognise uneducated propaganda when they meet it; you need to trust the intellectual community of Climate Change science researchers.
Stop listening to accusations of malpractice, dodgy data, weak methods, poor models. Do you really know what you are talking about when you pass judgement on the scientific community ? Who told you that scientists were wrong ? Can you really trust the people who tell you not to trust the scientific community ? Do you have the right or the authority to lay somebody else’s fabricated blame at the door of those whose whole lives are devoted to discovering the truth ?
Why don’t you do an integrity check on your sources, before replicating myths ?
Read the science journals and not the newspapers, is my advice.
And when it comes to the Internet, search wisely. You can’t believe every website you come across – there are some web loggers who are misled, and there are others seeking to mislead.
If you want to filter out the nonsense, try this :-
But you never reckoned a Conservative (if Coalition) Government would do it.
Everybody knew that the Carbon Reduction Commitment was going to reduce some people to tears. Something so labyrinthine was never going to work. But now it appears that this New Labour “challenge” is going to morph into a Carbon Tax.
The basic idea behind the New Labour Carbon Reduction Commitment or CRC was to encourage medium-sized businesses to lower their Carbon Dioxide emissions.
Everybody was to fully disclose their emissions the first year, and then make a report on their emissions in the following years.
At the start, they were told they would be judged on a “league table” of performance. At the start of a measuring period they would pay into a common pot according to their emissions levels, and then if they performed better than other companies in reducing emissions, they would get money back out of the pot.
But George Osborne has just waved the “league table” magically away, it seems. All revenues from the CRC will be considered as public money.
OK, OK, so all firms using more than 6000 megawatthours of power a year would be forced to take part, and maybe large companies do need a negative incentive to seriously consider how to keep their electricity use down – they seem to waste a lot, after all.
But what about those companies and organisations that don’t qualify for the CRC because they are already part of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) ?
Any player that’s large enough to be under the EU ETS scheme gets their Carbon permits for free, and can trade them for cash if they use less than their entitlement.
OK, so in 2013 EU ETS Carbon permits will be under an auction scheme, but between now and then there is a huge disparity in the way that medium- and large-sized companies will be treated.
In ETS ? Free permits until 2013.
In CRC ? Obliged to pay a Carbon Tax.
“…John Alker, director of policy and communications at the UK Green Business Council, spoke for many across the low carbon economy when he said he was surprised by the decision. “The announcement that government is keeping the money from Carbon Reduction Commitment allowance sales has come out of the blue,” he said. “It may make the scheme simpler but this is something you’ve got to consult with industry on before plunging into.” Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Climate Minister Greg Barker said the decision had not been taken lightly and had been made as a result of the ” catastrophic” deficit inherited from the labour government. He admitted that the changes would increase costs for businesses, but argued that the structure of the CRC meant that “progressive businesses that act to improve energy efficiency will be able to minimise their exposure”. Harry Manisty, environmental tax specialist at PwC, said businesses would effectively view the change as an additional tax, which may cause carbon price discrepancies with the EU emissions trading scheme…”
My guess is that this ploy is the opening salvo in a game of political ping pong that will ultimately destroy implementation of the CRC.
Already there have been wars and rumours of wars that people won’t play this particular emissions cutting game. For example, the start date of various parts of the scheme have been set back, and there are reports that organisations have over-assessed their Carbon Dioxide emissions now so they can look good later when they “cut” them.
George Osborne has served the first (wrecking) ball. What will the response of business be ?
In a spirit of complete transparency, I share with you an e-mail from Peter Ridley CEng MIEE (see below), a moving, rambling feast of what some would call complete irrelevancies.
Pete, if you’ve got something to share that’s positive, productive and progressive, then please do so. However, this recent e-mail from you (see below) ticks none of those boxes and I shall not waste my time by replying to your e-mail or taking it seriously.
You have three more strikes and then you’re out, unless you stick to the subject of this web log in your communications to me.
This web log is about keeping the Climate stable – it’s about the problems already being caused by Global Warming and about efforts to address those.
Yes, it’s also about hearing different views, and about working out what to accept and ignore.
Most of the comments made here by Climate Change sceptic-deniers are pure entertainment for those who know what’s really going on.
It’s rare to read something that’s free from irrational argument from Climate Change sceptic-deniers.
I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have your efforts become ridiculed, so please start being serious about the science of Climate Change instead of complaining about perceived political bias.
Climate Change is not a polarised political argument as you seem to think judging by your web log. Policy thinkers and workaday politicians of all stripes and none are engaged on a common agenda to tackle the root causes of excess Carbon Dioxide emissions.
The reason that politicians and diplomatic missions take part in the United Nations process on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the reviewing of the IPCC reports, is because the environmental and economic impacts of global warming are likely to have serious consequences.
It’s lazy to dismiss all politicians as selfish, money-grabbing and power-hungry without a moral duty to the truth. There are many politicians who are genuine, upright and want what’s best.
You must be able to work this out – it can’t be that every last Member of Parliament is on the take or working for backhanders, as some commentators continue to insist, can it ?
And what about Climate Change Science ? How could people survive unchallenged in academia if they cut-and-paste or fabricate ? Upholding the good reputation of the academic institutions is why I will not enter into general discussion about my course of study on this web log, so please don’t press me on that issue any further. Surely you could have worked this out ? You’re smart enough.
Please drop the conspiracy theories and start thinking logically about the Science of Climate Change and the implications it holds.
Slightly tangentially, I am currently reading a book by Gwynne Dyer called “Climate Wars”. Although I don’t like some of the attitudes and some of the views of some of the people he mentions in the field of national and international security, at least they take Climate Change scenarios seriously, and are willing to try to navigate the future in the best way.
You would earn my respect if you could do the same.
from Peter Ridley
to Jo Abbess
date Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:38 PM
Jo, please excuse me for contacting you by E-mail uininvited but I wanted to respond privately to one of the comments on your “The Messia: With us …” thread.
Ref. the comment bt “Stormboy” on October 18th at 03:13, the original comment was posted by the real Stormboy (AKA Phil – who runs the evangelical Bloodwoodtree blog at https://bloodwoodtree.org) on 14th February at 08:23:48AM following months of exchanges between us on Australian Senator Steve Fielding’s blog. Despite repeated requests Phil was unprepared to reveal any evidence of having demonstrated scientific expertise regarding global climate processes and drivers, e.g. through peer-reviewed papers. Phil had said that he used a false name because of previous threats against him and his family.
Towards the end of our public exchanges Phil persistently called me a con man, which I did not appreciate, coming as it did from someone who I considered was cowering behind a false name, so I decided to try to track him down. I was astounded that I was able to find out, in only four hours on the Internet using Google, who he was, where he worked, his E-Mil address and details of family and friends. This was from information that he had put into the public domain. One source of much of this information was Facebook, which brought home to me the importance of heeding repeated police warnings of the dangers of the Internet. I immediately warned members of my family about taking great care on Facebook. I also contacted Phil, through Facebook, by E-mail and on his own blog, about how easy it had been to track him down but in the process frightened his wife and of course gave Phil a scare too. He didn’t know what kind of a person I am and was understandably concerned. That was why he posted that comment on Steve Fielding’s blog.
I quickly apologised to Phil for frightening his family and since then we have resolved any differences that we had (other than about the causes of global climate change) and have exchanged numerous friendly E-mails. Phil confirmed to me a few days ago, after that comment of his appeared recently on the Greenfudge blog, that he has only posted the comment once, on Senator Fielding’s blog in February.
That comment of Phil’s has been posted repeatedly by another person who hides behind numerous false names. These include Cooloola, Guess Who, Lord Monkton, Phoenix and JA. She has also pretended to be me and fellow sceptics PeggyB and Colin. Now she has started posing as Stormby himself. She is a thoroughly nasty, dishonest, cowardly, bullying Australian from Queensland who has been hurling vile abuse at any sceptic who upset her on Senator Fielding’s blog. Now that it has closed (he’s no longer a Senator) she is looking for anywhere else to spit her invective. I’ve tried very hard to track her down and expose her but could only get as close as the Maroochidor/Noosa/Cooloola area of Queensland.
If you are interested you can pick up those repeats by Googling “he spent four hours on the net hunting down my last name”. The ones on Steve Fieldings blog are cached versions.
I think a number of people are coming to terms with the fact that carbon pricing cannot possibly sort the problem of emissions. The only way forward is regulation, legislation, rules, laws.
So, where are the policymakers ? And what are they saying ?
If you, dear Reader, are a Republican American, and you are demographically “middle class”, and you support the Tea Party movement, you are likely to have been seriously deceived – by Big Energy. Or Big Mining.
Who are these “Big Diggers”, propagandising the naive, well-intentioned, right-wing citizens of the United States of America, so they don’t realise they’re thinking somebody else’s thoughts, shouting somebody else’s slogans, riding somebody else’s train ?
