Saturday, 26 July 2014
Sunday, 17 November 2013
CLIMATE CHANGE 2013 The Physical Science Basis
www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGI_AR5_SPM_brochure.pdf
source:
source:
HASSNERS.org highlights
HASSNERS.org comments
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Sunday, 27 October 2013
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Every person in UK uses equivalent 125 lightbulbs (40W) every day
Key Points by www.withouthotair.com - David McKay (Physicist)
- Every person in UK uses the equivalent of 125 lightbulbs (40W) on all the time every day
- Coal, Gas & Oil will run out eventually
- Transport is 1/3 of energy used
- average car driven 50km a day = 140 lightbulbs
- 1 wind turbine powers 200 people = 25,000 lightbulbs (4')
- Wind farms today power 4 lightbulbs per person in Britain (4' 11")
- Sizewell B nuclear power station produces 0.4 lightbulbs power of everyone in Britain = > all wind farms in Britain today = 2000 wind turbines (4'23")
- If all of coastline were covered with Wave power machines = 4 lightbulbs for all in Britain (4' 59")
- 90% energy today is generated by fossil fuels, 10% by nuclear/wind/wave & other renewables (5'33")
- Renewables must be be increased 10 fold if we replace fossil fuels by 2050
- 125 lightbulbs per day for everyone in UK requires 300 Sizewell B power stations OR 600,000 wind turbines which would cover half of Britain (5'58")
- There are 10 nuclear power stations and 2408 wind turbines today in Britain, 11 new nuclear power stations & 4462 wind turbines have been approved (6'4")
GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION - 4th December 2010
GLOBAL DAY OF ACTIONINTERNATIONAL DEMONSTRATIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGEDECEMBER 4TH 2010AT THE TIME OF THE UNITED NATIONS TALKS ON CLIMATE CHANGE (COP16/MOP6)
IN CANCUN, MEXICO
IN CANCUN, MEXICO
This webpage has been set up to publicise and promote plans for demonstrations on climate change, to coincide with the annual United Nations Climate Talks which are taking place this year (COP16/MOP6) in Cancun, Mexico on November 29th to December 10th 2010.
We intend synchronised demonstrations around the world on Saturday December 4th 2010 - in as many places as possible - to call on world leaders to take urgent action on climate change.
After the dissapointing results from the Copenhagen conference last year it is clear that the job of acheiving a fair and effective global agreement on climate change is far from done. The consensus among scientists is that we have ten years or less to stop and reverse the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions before 'runaway' climate change becomes uncontrollable. The need for fair and effective international collaboration to achieve this becomes more urgent every year. Our next chance to achieve an agreement that will deliver this is during the Cancun Talks in December. We feel therefore that there is an overwhelming need to demonstrate a global will for urgent and effective action at this time.
The 'Call to Action' for the demonstrations is as follows
“We demand that world leaders take the urgent and resolute action that is needed to prevent the catastrophic destabilisation of global climate, so that the entire world can move as rapidly as possible to a stronger emissions reductions treaty which is both equitable and effective in minimising dangerous climate change.
We demand that the long-industrialised countries that have emitted most greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere take responsibility for climate change mitigation by immediately reducing their own emissions as well as investing in a clean energy revolution in the developing world. Developed countries must take their fair share of the responsibility to pay for the adaptive measures that have to be taken, especially by low-emitting countries with limited economic resources.
We demand that the long-industrialised countries that have emitted most greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere take responsibility for climate change mitigation by immediately reducing their own emissions as well as investing in a clean energy revolution in the developing world. Developed countries must take their fair share of the responsibility to pay for the adaptive measures that have to be taken, especially by low-emitting countries with limited economic resources.
ENGLAND & WALES
Organization name:Campaign against Climate Change
Contact name: info@campaigncc.org +44 (0) 2078339311
Website: www.campaigncc.org
Organization name:Stop Climate Chaos coalition
Contact name: info@stopclimatechaos.org +44 (0) 207 324 4622
Website:www.stopclimatechaos.org/
Global Day of Action 2010
March on Parliament for a Zero Carbon Britain
SaturdayDecember 4th
On the Saturday midway through the UN Climate Talks in Cancun, Mexico.
Challenge the government to take the action we need to meet the climate threat.
12 noon: Assemble at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park.
Timetable:
10.30 am Protest Bike ride assembles at Lincoln's Inn Fields - to join the main protest at Hyde Park later. See here for further details and route map.
11.00 am Climate Service at the Church of the Annunciation, Bryanston Street organised by Christian Ecology Link, see here.
12.00 noon Assemble on North Carriageway Drive (just West of Speaker's Corner), Hyde Park.
12.00 - 1.00 pm Help us spell out a message for Zero Carbon by 2030 - with hundreds of people in a photo taken from above in Hyde Park.
Zero Carbon March to Parliament
via Park Lane, Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall.
via Park Lane, Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall.
2.30 pm: Climate Emergency Rally in Parliament Square.
The failure of the international Talks in Copenhagen doesn't mean the threat of catastrophic Climate Change has got any less grave or less urgent. Don't let them think last year's big climate demo was just a 'one-off wonder'. Tell them we need urgent action NOW and take to government a message and vision for a Zero Carbon Britain that wont just stop with this demo but that we can build on afterwards!
And remember building a Zero Carbon Britain means Climate Jobs Now: we have a positive vision not only for addresing the global threat of climate catastrophe but also for the economic crisis.
March with us for…
Climate Action and Climate Justice….
A Zero Carbon Britain by 2030
One Million Climate Jobs Now!
Ten percent cuts in one year
Real Cuts not offsets
Green Energy Revolution
Moratorium on Agrofuel use
Green Energy Revolution
Moratorium on Agrofuel use
End Domestic Flights
Expand Public Transport
55 mph speed limit
Sunday, 28 February 2010
U.N. to create science panel to review IPCC
This news was cited by Richard Black here.
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - An independent board of scientists is to review the work of a U.N. climate panel, whose credibility came under attack after it published errors, a U.N. environment spokesman said on Friday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accepted last month that its 2007 report had exaggerated the pace of melt of Himalayan glaciers, and this month admitted the report had also overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level.
The report shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and has driven political momentum to agree a new, more ambitious climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
The remit and process of the review panel would be disclosed next week, said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the U.N. Environment Programme, on the sidelines of a UNEP conference of environment ministers and officials from more than 135 countries in the Indonesian island of Bali.
"It will be a credible, sensible review of how the IPCC operates, to strengthen its fifth report," he said.
"It should do a review of the IPCC, produce a report by, say, August. There is a plenary of the IPCC in South Korea in October. The review will go there for adoption. I think we are bringing some level of closure to this issue."
The latest, fourth IPCC report was published in 2007 and the next is due in 2014.
HUMANS TO BLAME
All options are on the table for the review, Nuttall said, including, how to treat "grey literature" -- a term for academic papers which are not published in peer-reviewed journals.
The IPCC had said that the Himalayas could melt by 2035, but an original source spoke of the world's glaciers melting by 2350, not 2035. The IPCC report had cited the 2035 year from a non-peer reviewed WWF paper, which in turn had referred to a Scientific American article.
Public conviction of global warming's risks may have been undermined by the panel's errors and by the disclosure of hacked emails revealing scientists sniping at skeptics, who leapt on these as evidence of data fixing.
Pachauri told Reuters on Wednesday that the IPCC stood by its main 2007 finding -- that it was more than 90 percent certain that human activities were the main cause of global warming in the past 50 years.
Governments and ministers attending the conference this week in Bali reaffirmed their confidence that manmade greenhouse gas emissions were stoking climate change, said Nuttall.
"There was absolutely no government, no minister of environment who attended that meeting who said that the IPCC was the wrong vehicle for understanding the science of climate change," Nuttall added.
The IPCC's 2007 assessment report on the causes and impacts of climate change was over 3,000 pages long, cited more than 10,000 scientific papers and is policymakers' main data source.
(Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn in London; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Monday, 8 February 2010
Rising scepticism - a chill wind?
Richard Black (The Reporters)Feb 05, 2010 17:52:20
Over the last few months, a number of British commentators have been trumpeting an increase in scepticism about climate change.
The cold weather (often claimed - incorrectly - to be a hemisphere-wide phenomenon), the University of East Anglia e-mail hack, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's lack of rigour over projections of Himalayan glacier melt, the weak outcome from the Copenhagen summit: all these and more have been proclaimed as factors that are said to be deflecting the public away from climate concern.
An unusually hot summer - and globally, January was the warmest on record, in case you missed it, and El Nino conditions pertain in the Pacific - and fickle opinion might turn again.
more....
Over the last few months, a number of British commentators have been trumpeting an increase in scepticism about climate change.
The cold weather (often claimed - incorrectly - to be a hemisphere-wide phenomenon), the University of East Anglia e-mail hack, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's lack of rigour over projections of Himalayan glacier melt, the weak outcome from the Copenhagen summit: all these and more have been proclaimed as factors that are said to be deflecting the public away from climate concern.
An unusually hot summer - and globally, January was the warmest on record, in case you missed it, and El Nino conditions pertain in the Pacific - and fickle opinion might turn again.
more....
Sir David King: IPCC runs against the spirit of science
The science of climate change appears to be under siege.
By Professor David King, former Government chief scientist
Published: 7:30AM GMT 06 Feb 2010
Comments 78 | Comment on this article
Following leaked emails from the University of East Anglia and evidence for sloppy referencing in the IPCC’s 2007 report, the work of thousands of remarkable scientists is now being questioned, not just by the public but also by other members of the scientific community. To understand the implications, it helps to consider how this parlous situation has arisen.
First, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produced the landmark reports in 2007 showing that climate change is real, and has been at the heart of this storm. Faced with the social need to tell the world what the science says, the IPCC was set up as a means of seeking consensus. My concern has always been that it runs against the normal spirit of science.
The American lobby system, driven by political and economic vested interests in fossil fuels, seeks to use any challenge to undermine the entire body of science. The drive for consensus has come to some extent because the scientific community (me included) has become frustrated with this willful misuse of the scientific process.
This is exacerbated because—as the lobbyists know only too well—
That’s why I believe that this set of so-called scandals will be little more than a temporary setback to the state of climate science. For one thing, there are more than 3000 pages to the IPCC’s 2007 report. Lobbyists have thrown an enormous amount of effort at discrediting this and have so far come up with very little—and nothing that touches the foundations of the problem. Of course the Himalayan glaciers will not vanish overnight, and the report should never have suggested that they would. But if they continue at their present rate of melting, they will be around for a mere 300 years. That’s still a pretty short span on humanity’s timescale, and the run-up to that loss will make life very uncomfortable for the many hundreds of millions of people who depend on the water they provide.
What’s more, this is only one manifestation of a very broad and robust set of evidence. We know from thermometers and satellites that temperatures have risen at least 0.8C. There is now massive monitoring of the loss of land ice around the planet, including the ground-breaking double satellite gravitational measurements. We have robust data on rising sea levels, the acidification of our oceans, and the spectacular multidimensional details of how climate has changed in the past.
Enough already. Instead of vainly trying to pretend that the waters are not rising, let’s get on with the opportunities for innovation and wealth creation that this climate challenge brings. We in the UK have a fantastically strong science base, but in the past few decades manufacturing has fled our shores and we have been steadily losing our ability to capitalize on science. Now is the time to turn that around.
By Professor David King, former Government chief scientist
Published: 7:30AM GMT 06 Feb 2010
Comments 78 | Comment on this article
Following leaked emails from the University of East Anglia and evidence for sloppy referencing in the IPCC’s 2007 report, the work of thousands of remarkable scientists is now being questioned, not just by the public but also by other members of the scientific community. To understand the implications, it helps to consider how this parlous situation has arisen.
First, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produced the landmark reports in 2007 showing that climate change is real, and has been at the heart of this storm. Faced with the social need to tell the world what the science says, the IPCC was set up as a means of seeking consensus. My concern has always been that it runs against the normal spirit of science.
In science, people are supposed to rock the boat. If someone challenges your findings, you make measurements, check the arguments, and see if they might be right. Well-established theories such as evolution and relativity have survived this process. The ideas you don’t hear about are the ones that didn’t make it through this ordeal by fire.
If you depart too far from this in your desire for consensus, the consequences can be disturbing. The emails from scientists at the University of East Anglia suggest that certain members of the IPCC felt that the consensus was so precious that some external challenges had to be kept outside the discussion. That is clearly not acceptable.
Moreover, this leads to the danger that people will go beyond the science that is truly reliable, and pick up almost anything that seems to support the argument. The dodgy dossier saying that all ice would vanish from the Himalayas within the next 30 years is an example of that. When I heard Dr Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, declare this at Copenhagen last December I could hardly believe my ears. This issue is far too important for scientists to risk crossing the line into advocacy.
However, it’s not all the IPCC’s fault. Climate scientists have been forced into this corner by a disastrous combination of cynical lobbying and a misguided desire for certainty.
The American lobby system, driven by political and economic vested interests in fossil fuels, seeks to use any challenge to undermine the entire body of science. The drive for consensus has come to some extent because the scientific community (me included) has become frustrated with this willful misuse of the scientific process.
This is exacerbated because—as the lobbyists know only too well—
people and governments hunger for certainty. The problem is that science doesn’t work that way. Nothing can ever be 100% sure; we use science to draw conclusions about how probable it is.
When cigarette manufacturers paid lobbyists to try to discredit the scientific theory that smoking causes lung cancer, they used the argument that it wasn’t a proven fact. Well it wasn’t then, and nor will it ever be, but would you now bet against it? We have built many successful enterprises by going with the balance of probabilities that science deals us. And in the case of climate change, the scientific probability that the world is warming, and that humans are the chief cause, is overwhelming.
That’s why I believe that this set of so-called scandals will be little more than a temporary setback to the state of climate science. For one thing, there are more than 3000 pages to the IPCC’s 2007 report. Lobbyists have thrown an enormous amount of effort at discrediting this and have so far come up with very little—and nothing that touches the foundations of the problem. Of course the Himalayan glaciers will not vanish overnight, and the report should never have suggested that they would. But if they continue at their present rate of melting, they will be around for a mere 300 years. That’s still a pretty short span on humanity’s timescale, and the run-up to that loss will make life very uncomfortable for the many hundreds of millions of people who depend on the water they provide.
What’s more, this is only one manifestation of a very broad and robust set of evidence. We know from thermometers and satellites that temperatures have risen at least 0.8C. There is now massive monitoring of the loss of land ice around the planet, including the ground-breaking double satellite gravitational measurements. We have robust data on rising sea levels, the acidification of our oceans, and the spectacular multidimensional details of how climate has changed in the past.
Given all this evidence, it’s ridiculous to say this that human-induced climate change isn’t happening, absurd to say we don’t understand why, and any suggestion that we have nothing to worry about is like making a very bad bet.
Enough already. Instead of vainly trying to pretend that the waters are not rising, let’s get on with the opportunities for innovation and wealth creation that this climate challenge brings. We in the UK have a fantastically strong science base, but in the past few decades manufacturing has fled our shores and we have been steadily losing our ability to capitalize on science. Now is the time to turn that around.
We know that we need to decarbonise our economy, so let’s do it. Let’s work to create a new, smart manufacturing sector in this county that is fit to tackle the carbon challenge while stimulating our economy back into growth.
New errors in IPCC climate change report
The United Nations panel on climate change is facing fresh criticism today as The Sunday Telegraph reveals new factual errors and poor sources of evidence in its influential report to government leaders.
Researchers insist the errors are minor and do not impact on the overall conclusions about climate change.
However, senior scientists are now expressing concern at the way the IPCC compiles its reports and have hit out at the panel’s use of so-called “grey literature” — evidence from sources that have not been subjected to scientific scrutiny.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Climate scepticism 'on the rise' - BBC poll
The number of British people who are sceptical about climate change is rising, a poll for BBC News suggests. The Populus poll of 1,001 adults found 25% did not think global warming was happening, an increase of 10% since a similar poll was conducted in November. The percentage of respondents who said climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% in November to 75% this month. And only 26% of those asked believed climate change was happening and "now established as largely man-made". The findings are based on interviews carried out on 3-4 February. In November 2009, a similar poll by Populus - commissioned by the Times newspaper - showed that 41% agreed that climate change was happening and it was largely the result of human activities.  "It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period," Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News. | |
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Scientists must rein in misleading climate change claims
Overplaying natural variations in the weather diverts attention from the real issues
Comments (235)
Vicky Pope
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 February 2009 12.30 GMT
News headlines vie for attention and it is easy for scientists to grab this attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change. This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off.
Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will disappear very quickly. The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years. This diverts attention from the real, longer-term issues.
For example, recent results from the Met Office do show that there is a detectable human impact in the long-term decline in sea ice over the past 30 years, and all the evidence points to a complete loss of summer sea ice much later this century.
This is just one example where scientific evidence has been selectively chosen to support a cause. In the 1990s, global temperatures increased more quickly than in earlier decades, leading to claims that global warming had accelerated. In the past 10 years the temperature rise has slowed, leading to opposing claims. Again, neither claim is true, since natural variations always occur on this timescale. For example, 1998 was a record-breaking warm year as long-term man-made warming combined with a naturally occurring strong El Niño. In contrast, 2008 was slightly cooler than previous years partly because of a La Niña. Despite this, it was still the 10th warmest on record.
The most recent example of this sequence of claim and counter-claim focused on the Greenland ice sheet. The melting of ice around south-east Greenland accelerated in the early part of this decade, leading to reports that scientists had underestimated the speed of warming in this region. Recent measurements, reported in Science magazine last week, show that the speed-up has stopped across the region. This has been picked up on the climate sceptics' websites.
Again, natural variability has been ignored in order to support a particular point of view, with climate change advocates leaping on the acceleration to further their cause and the climate change sceptics now using the slowing down to their own benefit. Neither group is right and all that is achieved is greater confusion among the public.
What is true is that there will always be natural variability in the amount of ice around Greenland and that as our climate continues to warm, the long-term reduction in the ice sheet is inevitable.
For climate scientists, having to continually rein in extraordinary claims that the latest extreme is all due to climate change is, at best, hugely frustrating and, at worst, enormously distracting. Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of the science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening.
Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically and swiftly over the coming decades.
When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we "believe in climate change". Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity's activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.
• Dr Vicky Pope is the head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre
Comments (235)
Vicky Pope
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 February 2009 12.30 GMT
News headlines vie for attention and it is easy for scientists to grab this attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change. This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off.
Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will disappear very quickly. The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years. This diverts attention from the real, longer-term issues.
For example, recent results from the Met Office do show that there is a detectable human impact in the long-term decline in sea ice over the past 30 years, and all the evidence points to a complete loss of summer sea ice much later this century.
This is just one example where scientific evidence has been selectively chosen to support a cause. In the 1990s, global temperatures increased more quickly than in earlier decades, leading to claims that global warming had accelerated. In the past 10 years the temperature rise has slowed, leading to opposing claims. Again, neither claim is true, since natural variations always occur on this timescale. For example, 1998 was a record-breaking warm year as long-term man-made warming combined with a naturally occurring strong El Niño. In contrast, 2008 was slightly cooler than previous years partly because of a La Niña. Despite this, it was still the 10th warmest on record.
The most recent example of this sequence of claim and counter-claim focused on the Greenland ice sheet. The melting of ice around south-east Greenland accelerated in the early part of this decade, leading to reports that scientists had underestimated the speed of warming in this region. Recent measurements, reported in Science magazine last week, show that the speed-up has stopped across the region. This has been picked up on the climate sceptics' websites.
Again, natural variability has been ignored in order to support a particular point of view, with climate change advocates leaping on the acceleration to further their cause and the climate change sceptics now using the slowing down to their own benefit. Neither group is right and all that is achieved is greater confusion among the public.
What is true is that there will always be natural variability in the amount of ice around Greenland and that as our climate continues to warm, the long-term reduction in the ice sheet is inevitable.
For climate scientists, having to continually rein in extraordinary claims that the latest extreme is all due to climate change is, at best, hugely frustrating and, at worst, enormously distracting. Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of the science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening.
Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically and swiftly over the coming decades.
When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we "believe in climate change". Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity's activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.
• Dr Vicky Pope is the head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre
Climate change: give us science we can trust
It becomes difficult to resist the climate-change sceptics if the IPCC's research can't be relied on.
For those of a sceptical disposition who have been persuaded by scientists to adopt the view that global warming is either a man-made phenomenon or has been exacerbated by human economic activity, these are unsettling times. Over the past week or so, some of the supposed evidence for what we are invited to believe is no longer a contestable truth contained in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 has been called into question.
Last week, we learnt that an assertion that glaciers in the Himalayas were melting so fast that they would disappear by 2035 (always a far-fetched notion) was based on a single quote in a science journal news story, never repeated in peer-reviewed literature. The IPCC quickly admitted the error but dismissed it as an aberration carried on just one page of a report thousands of pages long.
However, the weekend brought further disclosures that claims in the report blaming rising temperatures for an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods had not been properly reviewed by other scientists. It is true that the first people to apologise for these errors and to promise to rectify them were the IPCC scientists themselves, who understand how important it is for the credibility of their case that the evidence on which it is based is copper-bottomed.
The continuing controversy over the dossiers compiled to justify the case for a war in Iraq are testament to the dangers of seeking to include conjecture as fact in order to reinforce a preferred conclusion. We have argued that a conservative case for preserving the planet's scarce resources should support much of the action demanded by concerned scientists, whether or not the case for man-made global warming can be proved. But it becomes difficult to resist the blandishments of the sceptics if a purportedly scientific document cannot be wholly relied on. The most charitable interpretation is that the drafters were sloppy.
Two things are now required. First, when the fifth IPCC report is prepared for publication, any errors must be fully acknowledged and others removed. In addition, the report should contain contrarian evidence produced by scientists to demonstrate that this is a serious document, not a holy writ. Second, the chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, should step down. This will please environmentalists since he was appointed after the uber-sceptic George W Bush objected to his predecessor, Dr Robert Watson; but Dr Pachauri no longer carries the credibility that is required to take this hugely important debate forward.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
IPCC Statements on reports regarding hacking of the East Anglia University email communications
Statement by the IPCCChairman
Further elaboration by IPCCWorking Group I
The report referred to by Working Group 1: A report of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Trying to find a “safe” level for atmospheric carbon dioxide BY DAVID BIELLO
Despite decades of effort, scientists do not know what “number”—in terms of temperature or concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—constitutes a danger. When it comes to defining the climate’s sensitivity to forcings such as rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, “we don’t know much more than we did in 1975,” says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who first defined the term “climate sensitivity” in the 1970s.
“What we know is if you add watts per square meter to the system, it’s going to warm up.” Greenhouse gases add those watts by acting as a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat. They have warmed the earth by roughly 0.75 degree Celsius over the past century. Scientists can measure how much energy greenhouse gases now add (roughly three watts per square meter), but what eludes precise definition is how much other factors play a role—the response of clouds to warming, the cooling role of aerosols, the heat and gas absorbed by oceans, human transformation of the landscape, even the natural variability of solar strength.
“We may have to wait 20 or 30 years before the data set in the 21st century is good enough to pin down sensitivity,” says climate modeler Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Despite all these variables, scientists have noted for more than a century that doubling preindustrial concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million (ppm) would likely result in global average temperatures roughly three degrees C warmer. But how much heating and added CO2 are safe for human civilization remains a judgment call.
European politicians have agreed that global average temperatures should not rise more than two degrees C above preindustrial levels by 2100, which equals a greenhouse gas concentration of roughly 450 ppm. “We’re at 387 now, and we’re going up at 2 ppm per year,” says geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University. “That means 450 is only 30 years away. We’d be lucky if we could stop at 550.”
Goddard’s James Hansen argues that atmospheric concentrations must be brought back to 350 ppm or lower—quickly. “Two degrees Celsius [of warming] is a guaranteed disaster,” he says, noting the accelerating impacts that have manifested in recent years. “If you want some of these things to stop changing—for example, the melting of Arctic sea ice—what you would need to do is restore the planet’s energy balance.”
Other scientists, such as physicist Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, examine the problem from the opposite side: How much more CO2 can the atmosphere safely hold? To keep warming below two degrees C, humanity can afford to put one trillion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2050, according to Allen and his team—and humans have already emitted half that.
Put another way, only one quarter of remaining known coal, oil and natural gas deposits can be burned. “To solve the problem, we need to eliminate net emissions of CO2 entirely,” Allen says. “Emissions need to fall by 2 to 2.5 percent per year from now on.”
Climate scientist Jon Foley of the University of Minnesota, who is part of a team that defined safe limits for 10 planetary systems, including climate, argues for erring on the side of caution. He observes that “conservation of mass tells us if we only want the bathtub so high either we turn down the faucet a lot or make sure the drain is bigger.
An 80 percent reduction [in CO2 by 2050] is about the only path we go down to achieve that kind of stabilization.” The National Academy of Sciences, for its part, has convened an expert panel to deliver a verdict on the appropriate “stabilization targets” for the nation, a report expected to be delivered later this year. Of course, perspectives on what constitutes a danger may vary depending on whether one resides in Florida or Minnesota, let alone the U.S. or the Maldives.
Keeping atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below 550 ppm, let alone going back to 350 ppm or less, will require not only a massive shift in society—from industry to diet— but, most likely, new technologies, such as capturing CO2 directly from the air. “Air capture can close the gap,” argues physicist Klaus Lackner, also at Columbia, who is looking for funds to build such a device.
Closing that gap is crucial because the best data—observations over the past century or so—show that the climate is sensitive to human activity. “Thresholds of irreversible change are out there—we don’t know where,” Schneider notes. “What we do know is the more warming that’s out there, the more dangerous it gets.”
“What we know is if you add watts per square meter to the system, it’s going to warm up.” Greenhouse gases add those watts by acting as a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat. They have warmed the earth by roughly 0.75 degree Celsius over the past century. Scientists can measure how much energy greenhouse gases now add (roughly three watts per square meter), but what eludes precise definition is how much other factors play a role—the response of clouds to warming, the cooling role of aerosols, the heat and gas absorbed by oceans, human transformation of the landscape, even the natural variability of solar strength.
“We may have to wait 20 or 30 years before the data set in the 21st century is good enough to pin down sensitivity,” says climate modeler Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Despite all these variables, scientists have noted for more than a century that doubling preindustrial concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million (ppm) would likely result in global average temperatures roughly three degrees C warmer. But how much heating and added CO2 are safe for human civilization remains a judgment call.
European politicians have agreed that global average temperatures should not rise more than two degrees C above preindustrial levels by 2100, which equals a greenhouse gas concentration of roughly 450 ppm. “We’re at 387 now, and we’re going up at 2 ppm per year,” says geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University. “That means 450 is only 30 years away. We’d be lucky if we could stop at 550.”
Goddard’s James Hansen argues that atmospheric concentrations must be brought back to 350 ppm or lower—quickly. “Two degrees Celsius [of warming] is a guaranteed disaster,” he says, noting the accelerating impacts that have manifested in recent years. “If you want some of these things to stop changing—for example, the melting of Arctic sea ice—what you would need to do is restore the planet’s energy balance.”
Other scientists, such as physicist Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, examine the problem from the opposite side: How much more CO2 can the atmosphere safely hold? To keep warming below two degrees C, humanity can afford to put one trillion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2050, according to Allen and his team—and humans have already emitted half that.
Put another way, only one quarter of remaining known coal, oil and natural gas deposits can be burned. “To solve the problem, we need to eliminate net emissions of CO2 entirely,” Allen says. “Emissions need to fall by 2 to 2.5 percent per year from now on.”
Climate scientist Jon Foley of the University of Minnesota, who is part of a team that defined safe limits for 10 planetary systems, including climate, argues for erring on the side of caution. He observes that “conservation of mass tells us if we only want the bathtub so high either we turn down the faucet a lot or make sure the drain is bigger.
An 80 percent reduction [in CO2 by 2050] is about the only path we go down to achieve that kind of stabilization.” The National Academy of Sciences, for its part, has convened an expert panel to deliver a verdict on the appropriate “stabilization targets” for the nation, a report expected to be delivered later this year. Of course, perspectives on what constitutes a danger may vary depending on whether one resides in Florida or Minnesota, let alone the U.S. or the Maldives.
Keeping atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below 550 ppm, let alone going back to 350 ppm or less, will require not only a massive shift in society—from industry to diet— but, most likely, new technologies, such as capturing CO2 directly from the air. “Air capture can close the gap,” argues physicist Klaus Lackner, also at Columbia, who is looking for funds to build such a device.
Closing that gap is crucial because the best data—observations over the past century or so—show that the climate is sensitive to human activity. “Thresholds of irreversible change are out there—we don’t know where,” Schneider notes. “What we do know is the more warming that’s out there, the more dangerous it gets.”
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
TckTckTck is a project of the the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA
TckTckTck is a project of the the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), a bold, new initiative involving a growing number of national and global
organizations in support of a single goal: to mobilize civil society and to galvanize public opinion in support of transformational change and rapid action to save the planet from dangerous levels of climate change.
organizations in support of a single goal: to mobilize civil society and to galvanize public opinion in support of transformational change and rapid action to save the planet from dangerous levels of climate change.
Barack Obama denies accusations that he 'crashed' secret Chinese climate change talks
Barack Obama denies accusations that he 'crashed' secret Chinese climate change talks
Senior US officials insist that President Barack Obama did not "crash" a secret Chinese meeting in the final dramatic hours of the Copenhagen climate change talks.
By Philip Sherwell in New York
Published: 7:22PM GMT 19 Dec 2009
They portrayed the President as pulling negotiations back from the brink of collapse on a day that veered between chaos and farce.
Aides said that by standing up to the Chinese on the make-and-break issue of transparency, he helped force a deal, however flimsy.
The President was desperate not to return to Washington empty-handed after his risky one-day dash to Denmark.
But his aides were forced to deny that Mr Obama "crashed" a meeting of the Chinese, Indian, South African and Brazilian leaders when he walked in unexpectedly on the gathering.
The US delegation was caught unawares by the session taking place behind its back involving the Chinese and their allies. Officials acknowledged that they had been frantically trying to keep track of other presidents and premiers.
Mr Obama thought he was on his way to a one-to-one meeting with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, who had earlier snubbed him by skipping a session of world leaders.
But just before he entered the room, he was told that the other three leaders there too. "Good," he told aides and strode in with the words "Are you ready for me?" The Americans were particularly taken aback by the presence of Manmohan, the Indian premier, as they were told he had already headed to the airport.
"I think there was no doubt there was some surprise that we were going to join the bigger meeting," said a top Obama aide.
It was during the 80-minute meeting with the other four that the final details were hammered out.
Earlier in the day, at a one-to-one with Mr Wen, Obama aides said the president pushed the Chinese premier "hard" on transparency language. Mr Wen apparently took offence because when world leaders gathered later, he was notably absent. Beijing was instead represented by the climate change ambassador in the ministry of foreign affairs.
A senior US official said: "The President said to staff, I don't want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen".
But the Americans were told that Mr Wen had left for his hotel and Mr Singh had already headed to the airport. The day meanwhile seemed destined for deadlock Mr Obama returned to the meeting with Gordon Brown and other European leaders.
Obama aides said that he courted support from the others present for pushing ahead with a deal, even without the backing of China and possibly India, South Africa and Brazil which shared some of Beijing's concerns.
The White House argued that it was this approach that created the leverage that persuaded the four to have "make one more run at this" "The senior official said: "I think that's why people stowed their luggage in their overhead bins and decided to come back [from the airport] to the negotiating table."
Without even having time to sign the agreement, the president had to dash to the airport to fly home before a winter blizzard slammed the East coast.
By the time he woke up in a snowbound Washington, the so-called "Copenhagen Accord" that he had brokered the previous evening was already unraveling.
Negotiators at the talks gave the deal only the most tepid thumbs-up.
They chose to "take note" of the agreement but failed to adopt it as an official decision of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Mr Obama called the agreement an "important breakthrough that lays the foundation" for further progress in years to come. "We know it's not enough," he said. "We have a long way to go and I want America to continue to lead on this journey."
The president had already acknowledged the limitations of the "deal" when he was asked how confident he felt about securing a legally-binding agreement at next year's climate change summit in Mexico City.
"I think it is going to be very hard and it's going to take some time," he said after a day of drama that bordered on farce. He made clear that the ultimate goal was to "press ahead with something more binding".
But the agreement secured by Mr Obama lost wording from earlier drafts that calling for a binding accord "as soon as possible", and no later than at November's meeting in Mexico. Instead, the final version stated only that the agreement should be reviewed and put in place by 2015.
Mr Obama's aspiration to lead the world on climate change has been seriously undermined by the failure of the US Congress to reach agreement on the issue.
Senator John Kerry, lead author of the Senate's stalled climate change bill, expressed hope that the agreement would give fresh impetus for legislation early next year.
"This can be a catalysing moment," he said on Friday. "President Obama's hands-on engagement broke through the bickering and sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home."
But the accord set no target for concluding a binding international treaty, leaving the implementation of its provisions uncertain and fuelling criticism that it was more of a sham than a breakthrough.
It is expected to face several months, very possibly years, of follow-up negotiations before any internationally enforceable agreement can be reached.
Also dropped from earlier drafts was a collective agreement among nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050.
Nonetheless, some US environmental groups gave a cautious nod of approval.
"The world's nations have come together and concluded a historic - if incomplete - agreement to begin tackling global warming," Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said on Friday. "Tonight's announcement is but a first step and much work remains to be done in the days and months ahead in order to seal a final international climate deal that is fair, binding and ambitious. It is imperative that negotiations resume as soon as possible."
But other US environmentalists were scathing of the president. Mr Obama may become known as "the man who killed Copenhagen," said Greenpeace US head Phil Radford.
Senior US officials insist that President Barack Obama did not "crash" a secret Chinese meeting in the final dramatic hours of the Copenhagen climate change talks.
By Philip Sherwell in New York
Published: 7:22PM GMT 19 Dec 2009
They portrayed the President as pulling negotiations back from the brink of collapse on a day that veered between chaos and farce.
Aides said that by standing up to the Chinese on the make-and-break issue of transparency, he helped force a deal, however flimsy.
The President was desperate not to return to Washington empty-handed after his risky one-day dash to Denmark.
But his aides were forced to deny that Mr Obama "crashed" a meeting of the Chinese, Indian, South African and Brazilian leaders when he walked in unexpectedly on the gathering.
The US delegation was caught unawares by the session taking place behind its back involving the Chinese and their allies. Officials acknowledged that they had been frantically trying to keep track of other presidents and premiers.
Mr Obama thought he was on his way to a one-to-one meeting with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, who had earlier snubbed him by skipping a session of world leaders.
But just before he entered the room, he was told that the other three leaders there too. "Good," he told aides and strode in with the words "Are you ready for me?" The Americans were particularly taken aback by the presence of Manmohan, the Indian premier, as they were told he had already headed to the airport.
"I think there was no doubt there was some surprise that we were going to join the bigger meeting," said a top Obama aide.
It was during the 80-minute meeting with the other four that the final details were hammered out.
Earlier in the day, at a one-to-one with Mr Wen, Obama aides said the president pushed the Chinese premier "hard" on transparency language. Mr Wen apparently took offence because when world leaders gathered later, he was notably absent. Beijing was instead represented by the climate change ambassador in the ministry of foreign affairs.
A senior US official said: "The President said to staff, I don't want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen".
But the Americans were told that Mr Wen had left for his hotel and Mr Singh had already headed to the airport. The day meanwhile seemed destined for deadlock Mr Obama returned to the meeting with Gordon Brown and other European leaders.
Obama aides said that he courted support from the others present for pushing ahead with a deal, even without the backing of China and possibly India, South Africa and Brazil which shared some of Beijing's concerns.
The White House argued that it was this approach that created the leverage that persuaded the four to have "make one more run at this" "The senior official said: "I think that's why people stowed their luggage in their overhead bins and decided to come back [from the airport] to the negotiating table."
Without even having time to sign the agreement, the president had to dash to the airport to fly home before a winter blizzard slammed the East coast.
By the time he woke up in a snowbound Washington, the so-called "Copenhagen Accord" that he had brokered the previous evening was already unraveling.
Negotiators at the talks gave the deal only the most tepid thumbs-up.
They chose to "take note" of the agreement but failed to adopt it as an official decision of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Mr Obama called the agreement an "important breakthrough that lays the foundation" for further progress in years to come. "We know it's not enough," he said. "We have a long way to go and I want America to continue to lead on this journey."
The president had already acknowledged the limitations of the "deal" when he was asked how confident he felt about securing a legally-binding agreement at next year's climate change summit in Mexico City.
"I think it is going to be very hard and it's going to take some time," he said after a day of drama that bordered on farce. He made clear that the ultimate goal was to "press ahead with something more binding".
But the agreement secured by Mr Obama lost wording from earlier drafts that calling for a binding accord "as soon as possible", and no later than at November's meeting in Mexico. Instead, the final version stated only that the agreement should be reviewed and put in place by 2015.
Mr Obama's aspiration to lead the world on climate change has been seriously undermined by the failure of the US Congress to reach agreement on the issue.
Senator John Kerry, lead author of the Senate's stalled climate change bill, expressed hope that the agreement would give fresh impetus for legislation early next year.
"This can be a catalysing moment," he said on Friday. "President Obama's hands-on engagement broke through the bickering and sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home."
But the accord set no target for concluding a binding international treaty, leaving the implementation of its provisions uncertain and fuelling criticism that it was more of a sham than a breakthrough.
It is expected to face several months, very possibly years, of follow-up negotiations before any internationally enforceable agreement can be reached.
Also dropped from earlier drafts was a collective agreement among nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050.
Nonetheless, some US environmental groups gave a cautious nod of approval.
"The world's nations have come together and concluded a historic - if incomplete - agreement to begin tackling global warming," Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said on Friday. "Tonight's announcement is but a first step and much work remains to be done in the days and months ahead in order to seal a final international climate deal that is fair, binding and ambitious. It is imperative that negotiations resume as soon as possible."
But other US environmentalists were scathing of the president. Mr Obama may become known as "the man who killed Copenhagen," said Greenpeace US head Phil Radford.
And Bill McKibbon of the liberal climate change pressure group 350.org, said: "The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming. It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it's at the expense of everything progressives have held dear."
Ed Miliband: China tried to hijack Copenhagen climate deal
Climate secretary accuses China, Sudan, Bolivia and other leftwing Latin American countries of trying to hijack Copenhagen.
John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 December 2009 20.30 GMT
The climate secretary, Ed Miliband, today accuses China, Sudan, Bolivia and other leftwing Latin American countries of trying to hijack the UN climate summit and "hold the world to ransom" to prevent a deal being reached.
In an article in the Guardian, Miliband says the UK will make clear to those countries holding out against a binding legal treaty that "we will not allow them to block global progress".
"We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way," he writes in the aftermath of the UN summit in Copenhagen, which climaxed with what was widely seen as a weak accord, with no binding emissions targets, despite an unprecedented meeting of leaders.
Only China is mentioned specifically in Miliband's article but aides tonight made it clear that he included Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, which also tried to resist a deal being signed.
But in what threatened to become an international incident, diplomats and environment groups hit back by saying Britain and other countries, including the US and Australia, had dictated the terms of the weak Copenhagen agreement, imposing it on the world's poor "at the peril of the millions of common masses".
Muhammed Chowdhury, a lead negotiator of G77 group of 132 developing countries and the 47 least developed countries, said: "The hopes of millions of people from Fiji to Grenada, Bangladesh to Barbados, Sudan to Somalia have been buried. The summit failed to deliver beyond taking note of a watered-down Copenhagen accord reached by some 25 friends of the Danish chair, head of states and governments. They dictated the terms at the peril of the common masses."
Developing countries were joined in their criticism of the developed nations by international environment groups.
Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, said: "Instead of committing to deep cuts in emissions and putting new, public money on the table to help solve the climate crisis, rich countries have bullied developing nations to accept far less.
"Those most responsible for putting the planet in this mess have not shown the guts required to fix it and have instead acted to protect short-term political interests.".
In a separate development, senior scientists said tonight that rich countries needed to put up three times as much money and cut emissions more if they were to avoid serious climate change.
Ed Miliband has pointed the finger at China over the outcome of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Photograph: Anja Niedringhaus/AP
John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 December 2009 20.30 GMT
The climate secretary, Ed Miliband, today accuses China, Sudan, Bolivia and other leftwing Latin American countries of trying to hijack the UN climate summit and "hold the world to ransom" to prevent a deal being reached.
In an article in the Guardian, Miliband says the UK will make clear to those countries holding out against a binding legal treaty that "we will not allow them to block global progress".
"We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way," he writes in the aftermath of the UN summit in Copenhagen, which climaxed with what was widely seen as a weak accord, with no binding emissions targets, despite an unprecedented meeting of leaders.
Miliband said there must be "major reform" of the UN body overseeing the talks – the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – and on the way negotiations are conducted. He is said to be outraged that UN procedure allowed a few countries to nearly block a deal.
The prime minister, Gordon Brown, will repeat some of the UK's accusations in a webcast tomorrow when he says: "Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down [those] talks. Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries."
Only China is mentioned specifically in Miliband's article but aides tonight made it clear that he included Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, which also tried to resist a deal being signed.
But in what threatened to become an international incident, diplomats and environment groups hit back by saying Britain and other countries, including the US and Australia, had dictated the terms of the weak Copenhagen agreement, imposing it on the world's poor "at the peril of the millions of common masses".
Muhammed Chowdhury, a lead negotiator of G77 group of 132 developing countries and the 47 least developed countries, said: "The hopes of millions of people from Fiji to Grenada, Bangladesh to Barbados, Sudan to Somalia have been buried. The summit failed to deliver beyond taking note of a watered-down Copenhagen accord reached by some 25 friends of the Danish chair, head of states and governments. They dictated the terms at the peril of the common masses."
Developing countries were joined in their criticism of the developed nations by international environment groups.
Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, said: "Instead of committing to deep cuts in emissions and putting new, public money on the table to help solve the climate crisis, rich countries have bullied developing nations to accept far less.
"Those most responsible for putting the planet in this mess have not shown the guts required to fix it and have instead acted to protect short-term political interests.".
In a separate development, senior scientists said tonight that rich countries needed to put up three times as much money and cut emissions more if they were to avoid serious climate change.
Professor Martin Parry of Imperial College London, a former chair of the UN's Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "Even if non-binding pledges made at Copenhagen are completely fulfilled, there is a 1.5C 'gap' leading to unavoided impacts. The funding for adaptation covers impacts up to about 1.5C, and the mitigation pledges to cut climate change down to 3C at most ... leaving 1.5C of impacts not avoided because of the failure of adaptation and mitigation to close the gap."
The UN climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said: "The opportunity to actually make it into the scientific window of opportunity is getting smaller and smaller."
Copenhagen 2009 - Comments from climate change experts
Copenhagen climate deal: Spectacular failure - or a few important steps?
We ask leading climate change experts for their assessment of the Copenhagen deal
Fuqiang Yang, director of global climate solutions, WWF International
The negotiations in Copenhagen ended without a fair, ambitious or legally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, what emerged was an agreement that will, at the very least, cut greenhouse gases, set up an emissions verification system, and reduce deforestation. Given the complexity of the issue, this represents a step forward.
I hasten to add that much of the hard work still lies ahead. The Copenhagen accord, the text that came out of the talks, leaves a long list of issues undecided. Among them are the emissions targets industrialised nations will accept, and how much climate finance they will offer.
The accord essentially allows countries to set their own greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals for 2020.
But I am optimistic, because the talks did achieve $100bn in aid from industrialised countries to poorer nations. China, as well, submitted to an emissions verification system under which all nations will report.
The accord also includes measures to help cut greenhouse gases and reduce deforestation, particularly in heavily forested developing nations such as Brazil and Indonesia.
These are big steps forward, and I think it is important to remember that there were achievements made in Copenhagen. There is still a great deal that needs to be done by China and all other signatories. Specific, binding targets are extremely important and need to be worked out. But we did see a move towards an agreement that could keep atmospheric Co2 levels from rising above dangerous levels.
John Prescott, climate change rapporteur for the Council of Europe
I've read a lot about so-called Brokenhagen and the failure to get a legally binding agreement. Frankly we were never going to get one, just as we didn't get one at Kyoto, when I was negotiating for the EU.
What you need is a statement of principle.
The details and targets to meet that principle will be settled at COP16 in Mexico in 12 months' time. Until then, countries must show, as Ban Ki-Moon said, greater ambition to turn their backs on the path of least resistance.
Many of the countries have set out their own carbon action plans by 2020. So let's see them put those plans into action and put those figures in the annexes to the Copenhagen accord. The rest of the world will follow.
Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, master of Trinity College, professor of cosmology and astrophysics, university of Cambridge
Plainly the outcome of Copenhagen was less than many hoped – but perhaps not substantially less than could be realistically expected. The involvement of India and China was clearly going to be crucial.
We in the UK should surely acclaim the constructive and committed role played by our government, and by Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband in particular, both in the lead-up to Copenhagen and during the frustrating and exhasting negotiations last week.
Next year, one hopes the US internal debate will evolve further, so Obama feels able to play a less muted role. Let's hope also that negotiations within groups of nations are carried forward.
Bryony Worthington, climate campaigner with sandbag.org, who helped draft the UK climate change bill
Copenhagen was a spectacular failure on many levels. The UN process was stretched to breaking-point, with no consensus on any pressing issues.
The accord that was signed was clearly designed to meet the needs of the US, who always wanted a voluntary "pledge and review later" type agreement with minimum enforcement.
The sums of money agreed to help developing nations adapt to climate change are so low as to be insulting.
The future of the major mechanism driving private capital into solutions, the carbon market, has been left with a question mark over its future, and the long-anticipated agreement on stopping deforestation lacked clarity.
What happens next? The most honest answer would be to accept that under the current arrangements consensus will not be reached.
We have to focus on domestic action in big fossil-fuelled economies: the US, China, and Europe. All three have made pledges about their intentions to act – each has the opportunity to introduce policies which will create huge markets in climate solutions. If they lead, these solutions will become available for use in all parts of the world, with the costs of development having been born by those most able to pay.
That is our best hope.
Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist at Nasa and co-founder of the RealClimate blog
Look at the history of environment negotiations – take the ozone ones as the best example. People start off negotiating very hard and the first agreement does nothing but moderate the problem.
Carbon and climate change are much more complicated, and we're just getting to that 20-year mark now. Anyone expecting a definitive solution to the problem on timescales any shorter than that is extremely optimistic.
It's not an event, it's a process. I guarantee that the decisions we will be making in 2050 will not be the ones made in Copenhagen.
People are now seeing the problem for the challenge that it really is. But, in seeing that challenge, it makes the process – because that challenge is very large.
Kumi Naidoo, executive director, Greenpeace International
The outcome of the summit was not fair, ambitious or legally binding. This eluded world leaders because they put national economic self-interests, as well as those of climate polluting industries, before protecting the climate.
With each month of delay in getting a real climate deal, the chances of the world staying below a 2C rise slips further away, and the cost to this and the next generation in tackling climate change increases.
Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office
The accord is fairly weak, and we will only know how effective it will be when countries fill in the table that details their targets to reduce emissions (they have until the end of January to do so).
Only when we have those targets and we can add them up to see the scale of cuts will we be able to properly judge what has been achieved. It is a positive thing that finance is included, as that could help to make things happen.
Going forward, the first thing that needs to happen is that the table of targets needs to be filled in. Then the whole agreement needs to be made legally binding.
Nicholas Stern, chair, Grantham research institute on climate change and the environment, London School of Economics and Political Science
Dr Myles Allen, head of climate dynamics group in the atmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics department, University of Oxford
We ask leading climate change experts for their assessment of the Copenhagen deal
Fuqiang Yang, director of global climate solutions, WWF International
The negotiations in Copenhagen ended without a fair, ambitious or legally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, what emerged was an agreement that will, at the very least, cut greenhouse gases, set up an emissions verification system, and reduce deforestation. Given the complexity of the issue, this represents a step forward.
I hasten to add that much of the hard work still lies ahead. The Copenhagen accord, the text that came out of the talks, leaves a long list of issues undecided. Among them are the emissions targets industrialised nations will accept, and how much climate finance they will offer.
The accord essentially allows countries to set their own greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals for 2020.
But I am optimistic, because the talks did achieve $100bn in aid from industrialised countries to poorer nations. China, as well, submitted to an emissions verification system under which all nations will report.
The accord also includes measures to help cut greenhouse gases and reduce deforestation, particularly in heavily forested developing nations such as Brazil and Indonesia.
These are big steps forward, and I think it is important to remember that there were achievements made in Copenhagen. There is still a great deal that needs to be done by China and all other signatories. Specific, binding targets are extremely important and need to be worked out. But we did see a move towards an agreement that could keep atmospheric Co2 levels from rising above dangerous levels.
John Prescott, climate change rapporteur for the Council of Europe
I've read a lot about so-called Brokenhagen and the failure to get a legally binding agreement. Frankly we were never going to get one, just as we didn't get one at Kyoto, when I was negotiating for the EU.
What you need is a statement of principle.
At Copenhagen this was a final admission that we cannot let temperature rise 2C above pre-industrial levels.And to get approval from 192 countries on this principle is remarkable, considering Kyoto dealt with only 47 nations.
The details and targets to meet that principle will be settled at COP16 in Mexico in 12 months' time. Until then, countries must show, as Ban Ki-Moon said, greater ambition to turn their backs on the path of least resistance.
Many of the countries have set out their own carbon action plans by 2020. So let's see them put those plans into action and put those figures in the annexes to the Copenhagen accord. The rest of the world will follow.
Copenhagen's achievements are an acceptance of the science (contested at Kyoto), an admission there will be global emission cuts, and an acceptance that there will have to be verification.
Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, master of Trinity College, professor of cosmology and astrophysics, university of Cambridge
Plainly the outcome of Copenhagen was less than many hoped – but perhaps not substantially less than could be realistically expected. The involvement of India and China was clearly going to be crucial.
But the grandstanding by particular nations (and the insistence by some on an unreasonable target of 1.5 degrees) was plainly unhelpful to the negotiations.
We in the UK should surely acclaim the constructive and committed role played by our government, and by Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband in particular, both in the lead-up to Copenhagen and during the frustrating and exhasting negotiations last week.
Next year, one hopes the US internal debate will evolve further, so Obama feels able to play a less muted role. Let's hope also that negotiations within groups of nations are carried forward.
There is more hope of something being agreed among a group of up to 20 key nations (provided the group covers developing and developed countries), which others then sign up to.
And to be positive, the Copenhagen meeting, circus though it was, carried the process forward. For instance, it stimulated pledges of funding from developed nations (albeit, not as firmly as might have been hoped) and made progress on forestry. And it maintained global long-term concerns about climate change on the international agenda.
Bryony Worthington, climate campaigner with sandbag.org, who helped draft the UK climate change bill
Copenhagen was a spectacular failure on many levels. The UN process was stretched to breaking-point, with no consensus on any pressing issues.
The accord that was signed was clearly designed to meet the needs of the US, who always wanted a voluntary "pledge and review later" type agreement with minimum enforcement.
The sums of money agreed to help developing nations adapt to climate change are so low as to be insulting.
The future of the major mechanism driving private capital into solutions, the carbon market, has been left with a question mark over its future, and the long-anticipated agreement on stopping deforestation lacked clarity.
What happens next? The most honest answer would be to accept that under the current arrangements consensus will not be reached.
We have to focus on domestic action in big fossil-fuelled economies: the US, China, and Europe. All three have made pledges about their intentions to act – each has the opportunity to introduce policies which will create huge markets in climate solutions. If they lead, these solutions will become available for use in all parts of the world, with the costs of development having been born by those most able to pay.
That is our best hope.
Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist at Nasa and co-founder of the RealClimate blog
Look at the history of environment negotiations – take the ozone ones as the best example. People start off negotiating very hard and the first agreement does nothing but moderate the problem.
While the Montreal protocol was ultimately a huge triumph, it made an infinitesimally small difference at first. It took them four amendments to get from reduction to a ban [on CFCs], a process of 20 years after science identified the problem.
Carbon and climate change are much more complicated, and we're just getting to that 20-year mark now. Anyone expecting a definitive solution to the problem on timescales any shorter than that is extremely optimistic.
It's not an event, it's a process. I guarantee that the decisions we will be making in 2050 will not be the ones made in Copenhagen.
Copenhagen did show some improvement in the process. People are now talking about changes in greenhouse gas emissions that are commensurate with the size of the problem. Before, they weren't.
People are now seeing the problem for the challenge that it really is. But, in seeing that challenge, it makes the process – because that challenge is very large.
Kumi Naidoo, executive director, Greenpeace International
The outcome of the summit was not fair, ambitious or legally binding. This eluded world leaders because they put national economic self-interests, as well as those of climate polluting industries, before protecting the climate.
Even if all countries reach their pledges, our planet will be propelled towards a 4C temperature rise, double what leaders say they must achieve. This will have devastating climate impacts, including crop failures and the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.
With each month of delay in getting a real climate deal, the chances of the world staying below a 2C rise slips further away, and the cost to this and the next generation in tackling climate change increases.
To avoid this, industrialised countries as a group – which bear historic responsibility for the problem – must make the largest emission cuts. They also need to provide at least $140bn a year to help developing countries.
The non-result from Copenhagen calls into question the ability of leaders to deliver what is needed. Citizens around the world will need to elect more ambitious leaders and embrace new, low impact technologies.
Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office
At previous meetings in the runup to Copenhagen, in Barcelona and elsewhere, there was talk about greenhouse gas targets for 2020 and 2050; it is disappointing that those have been lost, but it is good that everyone accepted the scientific reality that climate change is a problem and that we need to limit warming to 2C.
The accord is fairly weak, and we will only know how effective it will be when countries fill in the table that details their targets to reduce emissions (they have until the end of January to do so).
Only when we have those targets and we can add them up to see the scale of cuts will we be able to properly judge what has been achieved. It is a positive thing that finance is included, as that could help to make things happen.
Going forward, the first thing that needs to happen is that the table of targets needs to be filled in. Then the whole agreement needs to be made legally binding.
Nicholas Stern, chair, Grantham research institute on climate change and the environment, London School of Economics and Political Science
The Copenhagen meeting was a disappointment, primarily because it failed to set the basic targets for reducing global annual emissions of greenhouse gases from now up to 2050, and did not secure commitments from countries to meet these targets collectively.
Nevertheless, the road to Copenhagen and the summit itself generated commitments on emissions reductions from many countries, including, for the first time, from the world's two largest emitters, China and the US. The Copenhagen accord also did recognise that a rise in global average temperature should be limited to below 2C.
In addition, the prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, speaking for the African Union, put forward a very important proposal on financial support, much of which is reflected in the Copenhagen accord, including the creation of the Copenhagen green climate fund to administer funding for developing countries.
The current UN framework convention on climate change process has been found wanting over the past few weeks.
One potential way forward is for Mexico, as hosts of COP16 (the next full summit) in 2010, to convene a group of 20 representative nations, as Friends of the Chair, to work on a potential treaty and tackle the outstanding issues and building consensus around strong action. The group should start its work immediately.
Dr Myles Allen, head of climate dynamics group in the atmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics department, University of Oxford
On one level, it could be argued it is quite a good outcome.
There is a goal to limit global temperature rise to 2C and an acknowledgement that current commitments are not enough to meet that goal. It is good that China recognises the 2C goal and that emissions reductions are the way to go.
I am glad they did not make serious progress towards a legally binding treaty, because the current thinking that nationally negotiated emissions targets and a system of carbon trading will solve this problem is flawed. I'm very sceptical about that whole approach.
A legally binding regime based on that principle would lock us into that process, and it could take 20 or 30 years before it became sufficiently obvious it was not working. Once set up, there is enormous investment in a system like that and it becomes difficult to change. So something close to success in Copenhagen based on what the politicians were aiming for could have been counterproductive.
It's depressing that governments appear to have walked away from Copenhagen only to say they are going to spend the next year fighting for the legally binding treaty they wanted it to produce, rather than use the time to consider some radical alternatives.
One way we have suggested is to target producers rather than emitters. A mandatory requirement on fossil fuel companies to capture and store carbon emissions, to clean up after themselves, could solve a big part of the problem without complex international negotiations.
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed
Mark Lynas
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 December 2009 19.54 GMT
Mark Lynas wrote Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet
And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.
All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday's Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries".
Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.
Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".
Shifting the blame
Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition.
Strong position
So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn't need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: "The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans." On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer.
Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.
China's game
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action.
Mark Lynas
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 December 2009 19.54 GMT
Mark Lynas wrote Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again.
And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.
All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday's Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries".
Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.
Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".
Shifting the blame
To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel.
Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition.
China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.
Strong position
So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn't need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: "The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans." On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer.
Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.
With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. "How can you ask my country to go extinct?" demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.
China's game
All this raises the question: what is China's game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, "not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?" The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time".
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action.
I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.
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