The Great Debate UK

from Environment Forum:

“The Harry Potter theory of climate”

Climate doesn't change by magic.

Just ask Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. On a conference call with other scientists and reporters, Serreze and others linked climate change to the last two harsh winters over much of the United States and Europe. And they squarely blamed human-caused greenhouse gas emissions for the rise in world temperatures that got the process going.

"Climate doesn't change all by itself," Serreze said. "It's not like the Harry Potter theory of climate, where he flicks his magic wand and the climate suddenly changes. Climate only changes for a reason."

He crossed off other possible drivers for climate change one by one.

"Could it be that the Sun is shining more brightly than it was? No, that doesn't work. We've been monitoring energy coming from the Sun and apart from the 11-year sunspot cycle, there's not much happening.

"Is it that the warming is coming from the oceans -- the oceans are releasing heat into the atmosphere? ... Well, if that were the case, we'd have to observe that the oceans are cooling ... but oceans are not cooling, the oceans are warming like the atmosphere.

"We might be able to argue that it's something we don't understand, something like a cosmic ray flux modulated by the Sun ... That's pretty much of a cop-out, OK? Because you're not really making an explanation, you're making a supposition."

from Environment Forum:

Cancun talks ignore intrusive aspect of climate change

One pesky aspect of climate change is that rising temperatures  and stronger storms may increase  invasions of non-native species to places that have no natural defenses against them.

The issue is mostly being ignored at the annual U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, California's Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura said.

Just a few miles away from the talks an island called Isla Mujeres has been fighting an infestation of cactus moth swept there during a hurricane, storms that are expected to get stronger as a result of climate change.  The moth destroys prickly pears, and if it makes it to mainland --ferries full of tourists go to and fro Cancun to the island all day long -- it would could harm more than the price of prickly pear fruit for your margarita.

Mexico is afraid it could reach the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts and hurt the 76 types of pricklies there and the 38 found only in Mexico. Many insects eat only the cacti and in turn many desert birds and mammals depend on those insects.

Pricklies are also an important food source in Mexico -- you might have had them in a nopales soup or salad.

Another example is biting midges swept up in dust storms from North Africa that infect European sheep and cattle with blue tongue disease, a big headache for countries trying to sell livestock to other countries.

Another is the pine beetle creeping farther North in North America and killing vast swaths of tree stands as average winters are too mild to kill it off.

Why we should still be constructive about Cancun

Lord Professor Julian Hunt is Vice President of GLOBE (Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment), Visiting Professor at Delft University, and former Director-General of the UK Met Office. The opinions expressed are his own.

Ahead of the UN Summit in Cancun, legislators from across the world, ranging from United States Congressman Bart Gordon to Chinese Congressman Wang Guangtao, met in China earlier this month at the GLOBE Climate Change Symposium.  While the prospects for a comprehensive deal being reached in Mexico have been widely talked down, much progress can still be made and there remains substantial room for optimism.

Last year’s disastrous Copenhagen conference showed the lack of willingness of major countries to establish any meaningful international agreement to deal with the causes and impacts of man made climate change.  This might involve only the developed countries reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), as in the Kyoto Protocol, or could also involve other countries with major emissions.

Neither of these scenarios seems likely to be achieved at Cancun.  Currently, it seems that the meeting might just result in a set of statements by countries about what they are doing individually and in various multilateral arrangements — a disappointing, lower key re-run of Copenhagen.

However, it needs to be remembered that text in a communique does not reduce emissions in itself — it is action on the ground.  In this context, there are reasons to be optimistic about recent legislative activity in developing countries.  For instance, the Chinese announced at the GLOBE symposium that they are beginning a feasibility study into a new comprehensive climate change law.

Moreover, if a comprehensive deal isn’t reached, the summit still represents a remarkable opportunity for countries to assess the future more realistically and then explain and collaborate on the practical policies that need to be introduced in coming years.  Seen from this prism, Cancun offers a stepping stone to secure a truly sustainable global deal in 2011 or beyond.

Under current plans, many industrialising countries will continue to increase their emissions.  This is despite the fact that in most of the major emitting countries, administrative and innovative market mechanisms are incentivising industry to use energy more efficiently:

from Reuters Investigates:

Weird weather and the Amazon

As scientists from around the world gather in Cancun for the latest U.N. conference on climate change, Stuart Grudgings reports from Caapiranga, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, for his special report "Weird weather leaves Amazon thirsty."

This year's drought in the Amazon was the kind of thing experts call a "once in a century" event. Unfortunately, it was the second one in five years.

It's not just Brazil that is feeling battered by extreme weather. As this graphic shows, extreme events have become far more commonplace in recent years. 

To see the special report in multimedia PDF format, click here.

Why Pakistan monsoons support evidence of global warming

-Lord Julian Hunt is visiting Professor at Delft University, and former Director-General of the UK Met Office. The opinions expressed are his own.-

The unusually large rainfall from this year’s monsoon has caused the most catastrophic flooding in Pakistan for 80 years, with the U.N. estimating that around one fifth of the country is underwater.  This is thus truly a crisis of the very first order.

Heavy monsoon precipitation has increased in frequency in Pakistan and Western India in recent years.  For instance, in July 2005, Mumbai was deluged by almost 950 mm (37 inches) of rain in just one day, and more than 1,000 people were killed in floods in the state of Maharashtra.  Last year, deadly flash floods hit Northwestern Pakistan, and Karachi was also flooded.

It is my clear view that this trend is being fueled both by global warming (which also means extremes of rainfall are also a growing world-wide trend), and indeed potentially by any intensification of the El-Nino/La-Nino cycle.

To understand the reasons why global warming is playing a role here, one needs to look at the main climatic trends in South Asia.  In addition to more extreme rainfall events, there is also a decreasing thickness of ice over the Tibetan plateau and changing patterns of precipitation, with less snow at higher levels, plus more rapid run off from mountains.

How does climate change help explain this?

from Environment Forum:

Global warming accelerates; Climategate rumbles on

A report by a group of leading scientists that global warming is accelerating and that world sea levels could rise at worst by 2 metres by 2100* is grim reading.

But sceptics are using a flood of leaked e-mails from a British University -- dubbed "Climategate" -- to question the findings.

You can read the Copenhagen Diagnosis here, by 26 researchers worldwide.  It says a thaw of summer sea ice around the North Pole, for instance, has far outpaced projections in a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) two years ago. They say world emissions must peak by 2020 to avoid the worst of climate change.

They say that sea levels could rise by perhaps a metre, at worst 2 -- a figure also mentioned recently by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon -- and far above scenarios in 2007 by the IPCC. More than 190 nations will meet in Copenhagen from Dec. 7-18 to try to agree a new pact to combat global warming.

But the leak of thousands of hacked documents from the University of East Anglia has added fuel to the debate because they include snide comments about climate sceptics and exchanges about how to present the data to make the global warming look convincing.

Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the university, is quoted today as saying that he "absolutely" stands by his findings and says the suggestion that there was a conspiracy to alter evidence was "complete rubbish".

I've had a several e-mails from people who doubt humans are to blame for global warming saying that "Climategate" indicates that the Copenhagen Diagnosis is a new example of alarmism. Will this be a new pattern before Copenhagen?

from UK News:

‘Green’ expert sees red over UK climate pledges

Professor Sir David King, the British government's former top scientific adviser, is no stranger to controversy.

He ruffled feathers on both sides of the Atlantic in 2004 when he described climate change as a more serious threat to the world than terrorism.

Earlier this year, he said the Iraq war may come to be seen as the world first’s “resource war”, based on oil rather than weapons of mass destruction.

from Environment Forum:

Ice Age or global warming?

It looks more like an Ice Age than global warming.

There is so much snow in Oslo, where I live, that the city authorities are resorting to dumping truckloads of it in the sea because the usual storage sites on land are full.

That is angering environmentalists who say the snow is far too dirty -- scraped up from polluted roads -- to be added to the fjord. The story even made it to the front page of the local paper ('Dumpes i sjøen': 'Dumped in the sea').

In many places around the capital there's about a metre of snow, the most since 2006 when it was last dumped in the sea. Extra snow usually gets trucked to sites on land, where most of the polluted dirt is left after the thaw. Those stores are now full -- in some the snow isn't expected to melt before September.

But are these mountains of snow a sign that global warming isn't happening?

Unfortunately, more snow might fit projections by the U.N. Climate Panel, which says that northern Europe is likely to get wetter and the south drier as temperatures rise this century.

"By the 2070s, hydropower potential for the whole of Europe is expected to decline by 6 percent, with strong regional variations from a 20 to 50 percent decrease in the Mediterranean region to a 15 to 30 increase in northern and eastern Europe." it said in a 2007 report (page 60 of this link).

from The Great Debate:

A stimulating energy policy

- Robert Engle is the Michael Armellino Professor of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business and a Nobel Laureate. His views are his own. -

We have faced energy crises before. The last energy crisis was about running out of oil. This one is about the fear that we might not. The future health of our planet is jeopardized by the greenhouse gases emitted by our industrial society. But can we afford an expensive energy policy in this time of economic distress?

The simplest and best solution to reducing emissions is thought by most economists to be a comprehensive tax on the emission of greenhouse gases. Only in this way will individuals and businesses that avoid the tax be doing what is socially desirable. Only in this way will it become profitable to find substitute energy sources; no longer would it be necessary to subsidize alternatives. The price of oil will rise naturally when we begin to run out, but in this proposal, the price would rise before we reach the bitter end. It is only a matter of timing.

However, a tax is generally considered politically impossible and in this time of deepening recession, it is especially unpalatable. But what about the money - what happens to the money that is raised by this tax? This revenue could be divided evenly among all U.S. residents and sent out in a periodic cheque. This check could even be sent before the tax revenue was received. A substantial emission tax would generate a substantial check. This could be used for anything but might well be used to buy a more fuel efficient car, insulate a house, move closer to work or otherwise reduce the impact of the impending tax.

Because this tax would be returned to consumers, it would stimulate the economy. The sectors that might expect benefits would be automobiles, construction and real estate. These all can use good news. Because of the per capita redistribution, this would be particularly beneficial to low income groups who would pay less than an equal share of the taxes. Because the tax would reduce our consumption of oil, we would be sending fewer petrodollars abroad and instead returning it to Americans.

We already know that high oil prices induced dramatic changes in our economic behavior which had clear benefits for reduced emissions. Driving miles fell, sales of SUVs fell and the only growth areas of automobile sales were in small cars. Housing prices fell more in the distant suburbs than in the central cities, and public transportation rider ship increased. But these gains are now being reversed as the price of oil has dropped dramatically.