The Great Debate UK

from UK News:

Are you losing faith in climate science?

While attending a meeting of prominent climate sceptics during the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December (an anti-COP15, if you will), I listened to each of the speakers put forward their theory on why conventional evidence on the primary causes of climate change should be dismissed as, for lack of a better phrase, complete hokum.

Among their denunciations of widely-accepted truths regarding global warming, greenhouse gases, melting glaciers and rising sea levels was the assertion that a change in attitude was afoot; the public may have been duped into believing the mainstream scientific assessment of climate change, but not for long.

There was something in the air, the sceptics said, and soon people would begin to question their trust in the majority view.

I’m no scientist and am in no position to comment on the validity of any of the evidence on show; as journalists we were there to make sure both sides of the argument were being heard. This group of climate outcasts were in every sense on the fringes of COP15, but after a series of controversies in recent weeks it seems they were right about one thing at least -- the public conviction about the threat of climate change is slipping.

Well, it is in Britain anyway. An Ipsos Mori poll of over 1,000 UK adults found that the proportion of people who believe climate change is definitely a reality dropped from 44% to 31% in the past year.

Meanwhile, 31% said the threat was exaggerated, up 50% on last year – worrying statistics for the government and charities trying to convince the public to change its behaviour and to accept higher priced energy and goods as a small price to pay for saving the planet.

Why the sudden drop off? The poll follows weeks of suggestions that mainstream climatologists have, in the past, manipulated data and that an influential study by the U.N.’s main climate science body contains inaccurate information.

from The Great Debate:

Climate skeptic: We are winning the science battle

- Dr. Fred Singer is the President of The Science & Environmental Policy Project and Professor Emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia. The views expressed are his own -

The International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) charter states that the organization’s purpose is to look for human induced climate change. The Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) does not have this problem. If we find support for human induced climate change, we say so. If we do not find support for human induced climate change, we say so. In fact, the first NIPCC report, of which I was a lead author, was called 'Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate'.

We see no evidence in the climate record that the increase in CO2, which is real, has any appreciable effect on the global temperature. IPCC relies heavily on the surface temperature data, which is distorted by a deletion of a number of surface stations. The 'best' stations were kept - the ones around temperature islands and by airports.

Now the Climategate leak has shown that the surface temperature data that IPCC relies on is based on distorted raw data and algorithms that they will not share with the science community. The scientists implicated in Climategate have misused peer review and pressured journal editors to prevent publication of research that questions their research. They have taken control of the IPCC process and they have smeared opponents personally, rather than critiquing the research.

IPCC’s mandate states that its role is to assess the science in a comprehensive, objective, open, and transparent manner. Unfortunately, the process has been anything but comprehensive, objective, open, and transparent. Climategate exposed this flawed process, and now it turns out that global warming might have been 'man made' after all.

I have traveled around Europe for a month now, talking to colleagues and people who are concerned about the draconian policies being put in place. But we are winning the science battle; the alarmist has no evidence.

The World Meteorological Organization (UN-WMO) wanted to set the tone for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen by releasing a statement that says that the past decade has shown some of the warmest tempratures on record, based on the 160 year of instrumental data we have. Intended or not, the statement created the impression that anthropogenic global warming is the cause of increased temperature and that the IPCC was correct after all. Nothing could be further from the truth.

from The Great Debate:

For real results on climate, look beyond Copenhagen

-- Aron Cramer is the president and CEO of BSR, a global business network and consultancy focused on sustainability. He is also coauthor of the forthcoming book Sustainable Excellence (Rodale 2010). The views expressed are his own.  --

(Updated on December 17th to correct figure in McKinsey study in paragraph 7.)

As world leaders seem uncertain about whether a binding treaty is even possible at Copenhagen, it’s important to remember what was already clear: Twelve days in Copenhagen were never going to solve climate change anyway.

No doubt, these negotiations, now extending into 2010, are crucial. The sooner we can seal a global deal to reduce emissions, the sooner we can avoid catastrophic climate change. But as important as the treaty negotiations in Copenhagen’s Bella Centre are, even a successful outcome will be for naught if boardroom decisions and factory processes aren’t reoriented toward a low-carbon future.

To steer the world in that direction, business must change how it operates, with a shift of historic proportions. Otherwise—like the Kyoto Protocol of 1997—a new international climate agreement won’t achieve its goals.

Making this change requires business to focus on innovation, efficiency, mobilization, and collaboration—and that work must start now.

At every turning in point in history, from the advent of the railroad to the internet revolution, innovation has redefined our economy. Solving climate requires exactly the same thing. Everything about a climate-friendly economy—from the basic products we use to the places we shop to how we commute—will look different.

John Reid on climate change and global security

- John Reid MP, formerly UK Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Defence, is the Chairman of the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies at University College, London. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Barack Obama’s announcement that there will be no all-encompassing protocol agreed at Copenhagen underlines that climate change is perhaps the most complex issue facing the world today.  In part, this is because it involves long-term thinking and modeling which our existing political, financial and economic institutions and governance frameworks are ill-designed and configured to grapple with and resolve.

With uncertainty building over what, if anything, the Copenhagen Summit can still achieve, now is therefore the time to remind ourselves about some of the larger stakes in play next month at what has been billed by some as the most important environmental summit in world history.

We know already that climate change will impact upon our quality of life and have potentially profound consequences for future generations through, for instance, the impact of rising sea levels, and more extreme weather.  In the medium-term, the Stern Review estimates the overall impact on GDP could be 5 to 20 percent from 2050.

This alone should alarm us all.

Moreover, while all will be affected, it is the most vulnerable countries and populations which will suffer earliest and most — even though they have contributed least to the causes of the problem.  This is injustice on a truly global scale and should, in itself, be sufficient reason for all sides to move closer at Copenhagen so that a comprehensive climate change deal can be agreed in 2010 or 2011.

However, there is an additional factor in this equation that should compel our action out of enlightened self-interest.  Because climate change also has major geopolitical and security implications for the UK, the EU and the rest of the world.

A freakonomic view of climate change

Ahead of a U.N. summit in Copenhagen next month, scepticism is growing that an agreement will be reached on a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.

The protocol set targets aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed to be responsible for the gradual rise in the Earth’s average temperature. Many scientists say that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is key to preventing climate change.

But authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner argue in their new book SuperFreakonomics that humanity can take an alternative route to try and save the planet.

“If the goal is to stop warming then geo-engineering solutions are worth considering because they are far cheaper, probably much more do-able and easily reversible,” Dubner told Reuters before a talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London.

Related vlog: How to become a freakonomist

from Environment Forum:

Trade lessons for climate negotiators

- John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own --

As hopes for reaching a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions at the Copenhagen summit die, climate negotiators could learn useful lessons on how to structure the negotiations from the multiple rounds of trade talks within the GATT/WTO framework.

Climate negotiations are about limiting carbon dioxide emissions, but the negotiators are also hammering out a complex economic instrument that will define the distribution of production, energy use and income in the next few decades. It is the agreement's profound economic effects that are making it so hard to reach a final deal.

While the stalled negotiations on the Doha Round might make it seem likely an unlikely role model, the GATT/WTO process has successfully created a legal framework for liberalising world trade through eight successive rounds of increasingly complex negotiations, as well as a dispute settlement system accepted by all major countries.

In the process, negotiators have already had to resolve many of the difficult issues bedevilling attempts to reach an emissions deal:

* How to obtain treaty commitments from a huge range of countries at different stages of economic development.

Can emissions be tackled without Copenhagen deal?

Even if a deal is reached among political delegates at the upcoming United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen, it is unlikely to set out specific emission targets, says Mike Hulme, author of “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” and a professor at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

“What we’ve done with climate change is to attach so many pressing environmental concerns to the climate change agenda that trying to secure a negotiated multilateral agreement between 190 nations is actually beyond the reach of what we can achieve,” he argues.

Hulme, who will take part in a debate hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs in November about carbon emission policies and economic activity before he heads to the Copenhagen conference, discussed his views with Reuters.

In the fight against climate change, carbon capture is crucial

- Hannah Chalmers is a postgraduate researcher at the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey. All views expressed are her own -

This week the International Energy Agency launched a series of detailed technology roadmaps covering 19 technologies that are expected to be important in mitigating the risk of dangerous of climate change. One of these was for carbon capture and storage (CCS).

At the same time, energy and environment ministers were attending a meeting convened by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum. Their final communiqué affirmed CCS as “an important element of any effective response to climate change” and described a series of industrial-scale demonstration projects as “vital”. But, what is CCS? Why does it matter? And can it deliver?

The principle is simple. To avoid dangerous climate change it is very likely that we need to avoid a significant proportion of the carbon dioxide emissions that could be produced by fossil fuels that we already know how to access at reasonable cost. It is, therefore, necessary to either (1) convince countries with fossil fuels to leave them in the ground unused, essentially forever, or (2) ensure that the vast majority of carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuel use does not end up in the atmosphere. CCS projects implement the second option. They collect carbon dioxide that is produced by fossil fuels (or biofuels which also contain carbon).

In a typical scheme, this captured carbon dioxide is then transported and injected into a geological formation at least 1 kilometre below the earth’s surface. Getting CCS to work matters because it should make it much easier for countries with large fossil fuel reserves, and particularly coal-rich countries such as the USA and China, to sign up to serious global action on climate change.

A range of technologies for CCS are under development and are at different stages of maturity. For the options closest to commercial deployment, the main technical challenges tend to centre on adapting, enlarging and integrating proven approaches from existing industries. There are some initial trial units already in operation, but further large-scale demonstration is needed before CCS can be seen as ‘business-as-usual’.

Although some engineering challenges remain, most of the significant hurdles to a successful global rollout of CCS are not technical. CCS adds to the cost of using fossil fuels for the sole purpose of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but it typically receives much less support than other developing low carbon options with similar costs. Implementing CCS also requires that the general public and other key players become comfortable with the risks and opportunities of a new industry. This takes time, but there is general agreement that we must act quickly on climate change.