James Hansen: Copenhagen climate talks must collapse

The outspoken climate scientist says that next week’s climate talks must fail if the world is to tackle global warming effectively

Global gas glut threatens green energy

Robin Pagnamenta

A glut in global supplies of natural gas threatens to undermine British investment in low-carbon sources of electricity, including nuclear and wind power, according to the chief executive of Britain’s biggest energy supplier.
Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, said that an expected surplus of global gas supplies over the next five years could force down wholesale prices to a level where energy companies may be discouraged from investing in more costly alternative sources of energy, such as nuclear reactors and offshore wind farms — particularly if this was accompanied by continued weakness in the price of carbon emissions permits.
“If you have a low gas price and a low carbon price, then the investment signals [for nuclear and wind] won’t be there,” Mr Laidlaw said, adding that it was essential that UN climate talks in Copenhagen next week led to the creation of a robust international price for carbon to bolster the investment case for low-carbon energy. “That is why Copenhagen is so important. The answer comes back to the carbon price.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said this month that rising production of so-called unconventional gas in the United States and Canada, using new technology, was creating an oversupply.

Global unconventional gas output will rise to 629 billion cubic metres in 2030 from 367 billion cubic metres in 2007, or to 15 per cent of worldwide supply from 12 per cent, the Paris-based adviser to 28 countries said in its annual World Energy Outlook. Gas supply capacity is set to outstrip annual demand growth of 2.5 per cent between 2010 and 2015, the IEA said.

China Wind-Power Plans Pose Carbon-Credit Issues

International climate-change officials have raised questions about the economics behind about two dozen Chinese wind-power projects, underscoring the complications involved in putting a price tag on global-warming emissions ahead of a new round of environmental talks in Copenhagen.
A United Nations committee is in various stages of reviewing about 25 wind-power projects that applied to receive carbon credits. The credits, which can be sold and traded and are used by companies to offset their own emissions, are meant to pay for projects that wouldn’t have received investment otherwise.

The question is whether the projects need the credits to be economically feasible, said Lex de Jonge, chairman of the executive board of what is known as the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism, or CDM. The committee is specifically looking at the tariffs they received from grid operators.
“The suspicion of the board is that in some cases the tariffs may have deliberately been set lower to make the project eligible,” he said, adding that the 25 projects represent about half the China projects submitted. “It’s not about China,” he said.
Chinese officials said project operators applied for the credits in good faith, before national tariffs on wind electricity were set.
The projects represent about 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each on average, Mr. de Jonge said. The reviews were reported Wednesday by the Financial Times.
Coming just ahead of the next round of talks in Copenhagen next week, the carbon-credit tussle underscores how hard it will be to convince nations like the U.S. that China needs extra money to pay for reducing greenhouse gases. China, which has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s top greenhouse emitter, has pledged to slow down the pace of its growing carbon emissions. But it wants rich nations to help offset the costs for poor countries’ carbon-abatement projects.
China has been the beneficiary of 48% of global CDM carbon credits, which allow economically advanced nations to meet part of their carbon emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol by investing in clean-energy projects in developing nations.
As China’s wind-power market matures and with the CDM set to expire in 2012 along with the Kyoto Protocol, the probability that the nation’s wind-power projects will be eligible for additional post-Kyoto funding is diminishing, said Lin Na, a project manager of the EU-China CDM Facilitation Project.—Jing Yang and Carlos Tejada

Climate scientist James Hansen hopes summit will fail

James Bone in New York

A leading scientist acclaimed as the grandfather of global warming has denounced the Copenhagen summit on climate change next week as a farce.
James Hansen, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Insitute for Space Studies, told The Times that he planned to boycott the UN conference because it was seeking a counter-productive agreement to limit emissions through a “cap and trade” system.
“They are selling indulgences there. The developed nations want to continue basically business as usual so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds.” he said.
Dr Hansen, 68, the fifth of seven children of an Iowa farmer, joined Nasa after taking his PhD to study Venus but changed course when he realised that man-made emissions were choking the atmosphere on his own planet.

He was one of the first voices to raise the alarm about rising global temperatures in the early 1980s, forecasting correctly that the planet would warm in the coming decades.
Next week he publishes his first book, entitled Storms of my Grandchildren, warning that “our planet, with its remarkable array of life, is in imminent danger of crashing” and declaring, “It is our last chance”.
He decries the cap and trade system envisaged by governments trying to “seal the deal” at Copenhagen as ineffective in stemming carbon emissions. Under such systems, governments set limits on overall emissions and polluters trade quotas among themselves.
“The fundamental problem is that fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy. As long as they are, they are going to be used,” he said. “It’s remarkable. They refuse to recognise and address the fundamental problem and the obvious solution.”
He dismisses government announcements of national targets for greenhouse gas emissions as promises that will not be kept, noting that even Japan missed its goals under the Kyoto Protocol. He said that it would be better for the summit to fail rather than reach the type of cap and trade-based system envisaged.
“If they sign on to anything like they are talking about then it’s definitely counter-productive. Any time you start down that path, it’s time wasted. We would do better taking a year time-out and figuring out a better path.”
Dr Hansen, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York, argued that the only effective way to control global warming was to institute an increasing “carbon tax”, not “cap and trade”.
“We are going to have to move beyond fossil fuels at some point. Why continue to stretch it out longer?” he said. “The only way we can do that is by putting a price on carbon emissions. The business community and the public need to understand that there will be a gradually increasing price on carbon emissions.”
He proposes that the “carbon tax” start at the equivalent of about $1 per gallon of petrol but rise in future years. The tax revenues should be returned directly to the public in the form a dividend, he said.
He added that the world must be prepared to abandon coal unless its emissions are captured and embrace a new generation of nuclear power.
Dr Hansen, who was a young post-doctoral student at Columbia University at the time of student unrest against the Vietnam War on the campus in the late 1960s, said that government inaction on global warming called for similar “civil resistance” now. He said: “That is the kind of activism we need.”

Scotland can play key energy role, EU boss told

Rory Watson, Brussels

Alex Salmond used a visit to Brussels to emphasise the contribution that Scotland could make towards the Continent’s energy needs.
In a meeting with José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, the First Minister said that it was vital to press ahead with an electricity super-grid across the North Sea. “It could offer the Continent many answers to questions of security of supply and green energy,” Mr Salmond said.
The First Minister suggested that a combination of Scotland’s North Sea resources, offshore wind and wave and tidal power, coupled with Norwegian hydro-generated electricity, would in time be sufficient to meet Germany’s energy needs. He also noted that the commission, as part of the EU economic recovery plan, was investing in Scotland’s energy potential through an offshore transmission hub.
He said it was ironic that despite having legislated for ambitious anti-global warming measures, Scotland could not represent itself at the Copenhagen climate summit.

Low-CO2 engine research

An ultra-efficient car engine with massively reduced CO2 emissions is the aim of a major two-year research project announced this week.

By David Williams Published: 4:25PM GMT 02 Dec 2009

Funding boost for low-emissions family transport
Known as HyBoost, the Government-backed collaboration aims to develop a petrol engine that delivers the performance of a 2.0-litre motor while reducing emissions by up to 40 per cent, to below 100g/km. It will have to be capable of efficient mass-production for use in family cars.
“HyBoost aims to demonstrate the very significant benefits that can be achieved using an intelligent combination of innovative technologies to deliver low carbon transport solutions,” said Neville Jackson, Ricardo group technology director.

“The targets of this research would enable a consumer-attractive ‘average car’ to be offered with CO2 emissions well below the mandated future target set for the European fleet average without compromising vehicle performance.”
The project is being led by Ricardo in partnership with Controlled Power Technologies, the European Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium, Ford, Imperial College London and industrial group Valeo. The project is supported by investment from the Government-backed Technology Strategy Board.
The HyBoost engine will call on a range of technologies including exhaust gas energy recovery, stop/start, regenerative braking, torque assist, exhaust gas energy recovery and what is claimed to be a “novel energy storage technology”.
Its backers believe that elements of the new engine – or even the entire unit – could make it into production within three years

Emissions Cuts Would Cost India Dearly

The poor can’t afford a big tax on energy usage, or a return to the License Raj of times past.
By SHIKHA DALMIA
In the pre-iTunes, pre-MTV age, there was usually a multiyear lag before hit songs in the West reached India. Now India is experiencing a similar time-lag on global warming. Just when fresh doubts about the issue are emerging in the West, India is flirting with the idea of hopping on the global-warming bandwagon at the Copenhagen climate-change summit next week.
This is in large part a misguided attempt to bolster India’s political standing in the world. In an October letter to the prime minister conveniently leaked to the press, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh expressed concern that India’s intransigence on the issue was making it a pariah among developed countries, jeopardizing its bid for permanent membership at the United Nations Security Council. He counseled that India delink itself from the Group of 77 developing nations resisting forced emission cuts without compensation, and instead make common cause with the Group of 20 rich countries pushing for climate action.

Mr. Ramesh’s letter is a significant change of tune, given he made headlines this summer when he bluntly told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that India was simply in no position to accept binding emissions cuts. It is widely regarded as a trial balloon by the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and has triggered a maelstrom of protest in parliament, forcing Mr. Ramesh to pledge not to accept legally binding emissions cuts. But the government is nevertheless trying to change India’s current domestic global-warming policy more dramatically than it is letting on to better align it with global demands.
The current policy, called Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, in some ways is a declaration of India’s independence on climate change. It essentially tells the world that India will undertake mitigation efforts if and when it is in its self-interest. The proposed new policy, dubbed Nationally Accountable Mitigation Outcomes, is something completely different. It would commit India to developing a mitigation plan right away. The plan would be enforced by domestic law but Mr. Ramesh—tellingly—wants to submit the emissions reports generated for international scrutiny every two years. This could well become a prelude to India eventually joining a global emissions regime.
Even worse, the new regime would unleash Byzantine new regulations on the country, from new energy efficiency standards in building codes to new fuel economy standards for vehicles. India would have to obtain 20% of its energy from renewable sources—wind, solar and small hydroelectric power—compared to 8% now. Given that these sources are typically far more expensive than fossil fuels, this would mean putting Indians, 40% of whom don’t even have access to electricity, on an even stricter energy diet. The increased expense will put homes, air conditioning and cars out of reach of more Indians—all of which will make them, especially the poor, less able to withstand floods, heat waves and other dire effects of global warming should they ever materialize.
The resulting emission cuts won’t even make a dent in global temperatures. India’s per capita energy consumption is 15 times less than America’s and half of China’s—the two biggest polluters. To be sure, President Obama is poised to pledge to cut U.S. carbon emissions 80% below 2005 by 2050 at Copenhagen. But it’s an empty promise because there is little to zero chance that he will be able to get Congress to go along. China too announced plans—modest by all accounts—to curb its emissions. So India will certainly face pressure at the conference to act, despite the fact that bigger polluters won’t.
But as a developing country, India can least afford to give up its right to consume as much energy as is necessary to deliver all Indians a living standard comparable to the one that rich countries take for granted. There is every reason to believe that the new License Raj will damage India’s economy every bit as much as the old one in the preliberalization days, when India’s growth rate remained stuck at around 2%. This would be unfortunate at any time, but especially now, when the West itself is in the middle of a huge rethinking on this issue.
Front and center is the ClimateGate scandal that’s erupting in Britain. Leaked emails out of the climate research center of Britain’s University of East Anglia, unveiled last week, suggest scientists manipulated data, destroyed inconvenient evidence and tried to suppress opposing views. The scandal is prompting calls for a full-blown government inquiry into the science of global warming in both Britain and America. Cap-and-trade regimes in Washington and Canberra have stalled, and no one expects a climate deal of any substance at next week’s Copenhagen meeting.
Meanwhile, global-warming fatigue is setting in everywhere. An October poll by Pew Center Research found that only 57% of Americans think there is solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer, down from 71% in April 2008. Only 36% now believe that the warming is caused by humans, compared to 47% in April 2008. Nor is America unique. The number of people rating climate change as the major issue they worry about has dropped to fourth place behind global economic stability in the last year, according to the HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor, a polling operation established by the bank and leading environmental outfits.
In the long run, India will gain more international respect if it remains focused on growing its economy instead of reshackling its people under a new, green License Raj. That’s the real climate-change calculation Mr. Singh should be worrying about.
Ms. Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation and a Forbes columnist.

Copenhagan: On the climate change front line in Bangladesh

If the scientists are right, Bangladesh will be one of the countries to suffer most from global warming, reports Louise Gray.

By Louise GrayPublished: 7:32AM GMT 02 Dec 2009

Asma doesn’t know much about global warming but she knows what it is like to burn her fingers every day making bangles for other people to wear. The 10-year-old was sent to work after flooding forced her family to move from a low-lying island on the Ganges to the slums of Dhaka.
Sosi hasn’t heard of climate change either, but he can tell you what it is like to lose everything in a terrifying torrent of water. And Hasina, who is living on one meal a day after her home was destroyed in a cyclone, just wants to know that she will be able to feed her baby tomorrow.
These Bangladeshis are living on the margins, their aim not much more than survival, yet, in a week’s time, they and others like them will be the centre of attention as world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss climate change.
Chronic poverty, weak government and lack of resources are behind many of the problems of Bangladesh and other developing countries. On top of that, Bangladesh lies on the Ganges delta and has always suffered floods. But, according to scientists, charities and non-governmental organisations, global warming is set to make life significantly worse for millions of people in similar situations around the world.
In Bangladesh, aid workers describe climate change as a fact of everyday life, “like the traffic in London”. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the region is the most vulnerable to global warming and the World Bank has described Bangladesh as the most “climate vulnerable in the world”.
This week, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) warned that by 2100, as polar ice melts, sea levels will rise by almost five feet (1.4m). This is more than double previous estimates, and for Bangladesh it could be catastrophic.
Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) has warned that a fifth of Bangladesh could disappear if sea levels rise by more than one metre. This would destroy crops and livestock, spread disease and leave an estimated 30 million people homeless.
The aftermath of Cyclone Aila, which hit Bangladesh in May, gives an idea of what this might look like. Four million people were affected by the storm and hundreds of thousands lost their homes. In the flooded delta south of the port of Khulna, thousands are still surviving on a narrow embankment that is the only high point for miles around. Their only help is from aid agencies such as Save the Children.
Sitting outside her makeshift bamboo hut, Hasina Begum, 23, says she survives on one meal of rice and vegetables a day and is worried for her two-year-old son, Mizan, who has already been to hospital with diarrhoea this year. Children are also in danger of dysentery, mumps and scabies because of the living conditions.
Sosi Bhuson, 52, a handsome man reduced to wearing a dirty blanket against the wind that whips off the sea, is the spokesman for the community. He says this used to be a “well-to-do” area, but the crops will fail this year and maybe even the year after that, because of the salinity in the soil.
The IPCC estimates that production of rice might drop by 8 per cent and of wheat by 32 per cent over the next 40 years, as temperatures rise in Bangladesh. Farming prawns for export to countries such as Britain is a possible alternative, but the farms destroy the environment and provide little income to the local community.
Inland, at the madrassa, the old men complain about the weather. But this is no small talk. They tell of a catastrophe: the weather has turned against them, the crops have failed and the cows have stopped giving milk.
Only Allah knows why. Their greatest fear now is that the community will die out; already, their grandchildren are leaving for the cities. Many of the families moving into the overcrowded streets of old Dhaka from flood-prone areas are forced to send their children to work in order to make enough to survive. Save the Children estimates that almost five million children, like Asma, are working in Bangladesh in balloon factories, aluminium plants and chocolate factories.
The British Government is taking a keen interest in the situation, not only for humanitarian reasons. After all, where will displaced people go in the future? In Bangladesh, there could be between 50 and 100 million people currently living in coastal zones who will need to move by 2080. While most will move within the region, some may go abroad.
Perhaps we should just accept that it is impossible for people to live comfortably on a massive flood plain that is gradually being overwhelmed by the sea. But the Netherlands is also well below sea level and Japan suffers a high number of natural disasters, yet both manage to thrive.
Bangladesh is never going to be like either of these countries, but its government is confident that it could become far more resilient to climate change. The British taxpayer is already spending £126 million a year in Bangladesh. On the remote Biswas char in the Patuakhali area, British aid has helped to rebuild hundreds of homes devastated by 2007’s Cyclone Sidr.
The basic houses have mud floors and an outside latrine, but are a vast improvement on the temporary shelters people had been living in. Crucially, they are on raised plinths, meaning they will be protected if the sea returns. The lush paddy fields are a world away from the devastation in the Aila-affected zones: families in the area have been given seeds for more saline-resistant crops and ducks instead of hens; a cyclone shelter doubles as a school and children have lessons on what to do in another storm.
Saleemul Huq, a member of the IPCC and adviser on climate change to the Bangladeshi government, admits there is a danger that all the world’s problems are blamed on climate change. But he asks the sceptics to look at what is happening in Bangladesh – and to consider the thorny problem of “global justice”.
Bangladeshis have one of the lowest carbon footprints per head in the world, at 1.1 tons a year, compared with 29 tons for the average American and 15 tons for Britons, yet they are suffering the most from global warming.
“It is time for rich countries to accept their responsibilities in terms of reducing emissions and providing assistance to developing countries that did not cause the problem but are going to suffer the consequences,” says Huq.
At Copenhagen, the rich world will be asked to provide support for countries such as Bangladesh to adapt to climate change. Poor countries have said they will need an annual fund of around £250billion to develop green technologies such as solar power, while also building sea defences and other infrastructure, but no rich country has yet been willing to come close to that figure.
Not only will there be problems persuading taxpayers to part with yet more cash during the recession, but questions will also be asked about how money will be distributed in countries still struggling with corruption.
Even in Bangladesh, where the government is considered to be leading the world in the fight against climate change, there are problems. Money put aside for adaptation has not been spent simply because the country does not yet have the capacity to mend infrastructure, such as the broken dam that caused the flooding of Sosi and Hasina’s homes.
For Chris Austin, head of DFID in Bangladesh, Britain’s position is clear. He says the Government has a duty to help poor countries develop, not only for humanitarian reasons but for strategic benefit. This is particularly true of Bangladesh, which is not only an important source of manufacturing and manpower but is nestled between two potential new superpowers, China and India.
“Even if you are sceptical about climate change, you have to admit that Bangladesh is in the front line in terms of vulnerability to weather patterns and poverty,” he says. “We can do a lot to address this through reducing poverty and adaptation.”
Mr Austin says that tackling climate change through a tough deal in Copenhagen is not only an opportunity to help countries like Bangladesh, but will benefit Britain by reducing poverty around the world. It would also reduce the chance of “climate change refugees” coming into our own country, as well as the risk of warfare and terrorism driven by food and water shortages.
“This is something we are going to have to deal with all the time in the future,” he says. “We cannot just patch things up every time someone’s house is destroyed and just wring our hands every time people die. We have to have a long-term permanent plan for dealing with climate change and we have that opportunity at Copenhagen.”

Carbon trading is not enough to tackle climate change

Unambitious emissions caps provide no incentive for businesses to cut CO2 output

Stuart Brady
The Guardian, Thursday 3 December 2009
Your article explaining how the global carbon market could be worth $3tn a year, but “enthusiasm to place it at the heart of the Copenhagen treaty is matched by growing criticism of the concept”, elucidated the issues of the expanding yet unproven policy of emissions trading (Fear that $3tn market of future benefits few, 30 November).
Having worked advising British industry on international climate change policies, I would concur with many of the points made about the flaws of market-based mechanisms.
Shell’s chief executive, Peter Voser, was quoted as calling on governments to introduce a carbon tax or a minimum price for CO2 because “the ETS [emissions trading scheme] was failing to deliver sufficient incentives to kickstart expensive technologies such as carbon capture and storage”. This lack of incentive comes about because if industry surpasses expectations by cutting emissions far below the cap set within the ETS, or if the cap is unambitious, the price of carbon will be low and return on low-carbon investment reduced. This is exactly what has happened during this recession, where an economically induced reduction of emissions has caused the price of carbon to plummet.
Emissions caps have an advantage over a carbon tax as they should guarantee emission levels are reduced at a specified rate. But, without a minimum price for CO2, they provide very little incentive to industry as a whole. Policies should encourage industry to reduce emissions as much as possible, not just to the level of the cap – which, if achieved, would still leave a good chance of dangerous climate change.
Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF Energy, “warned of the dangers of a ’sub-prime’ crisis inside the ETS if complex financial instruments were created by market participants”. There could indeed be a crisis, not because of the complexity of the financial instruments, but rather because of the quality of the underlying carbon credits. The EU common agricultural policy (CAP) gives us a great example of how large regional policies can be abused.
The article also states that John Browne, “a former boss of BP and an early ETS promoter, has also expressed reservations about such schemes, saying it was ‘wrong’ to place all your faith in them”. He is entirely correct. Globally, where the greatest strides have been made in climate and energy policy, carbon markets have not played a role. Instead, government intervention and planning (such as in the Danish and now Chinese energy sector), guaranteed return on investment (such as through “feed in tariffs” for renewables in Germany and elsewhere), and heavy regulation of the energy sector (as in California’s energy efficiency improvements) have been key. My experience with UK industry was that any substantive decarbonisation was as a result of high energy costs and more direct policies such as the Renewables Obligation.
Copenhagen will undoubtedly envisage a role for emissions trading. However, its shortcomings must be addressed and its limitations acknowledged through a commitment from all countries to a broad range of other policy measures.

Green and confused: Is olive oil production harming the environment?

Kieran Cooke

It seems we’re all in love with olive oil but I wonder about the environmental impact of its mass production. In southern Spain I’ve watched harvesting machines shaking the trunks of trees on vast plantations. It didn’t look pleasant. Am I being over sensitive?
Thanks to Jamie, Nigella and the rest of the cooking crowd, we are drizzling olive oil on our food in ever increasing quantities, with UK sales rising by nearly 50 per cent over the past ten years. While olive oil has a pleasant taste and is apparently beneficial to our overall health it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s also good for the environment.
In Spain there is an environmental disaster in the making brought about by growing demand and mistaken EU policies. Mediterranean countries produce about 90 per cent of the world’s olive oil. In the 1980s and 90s Brussels, under the Common Agricultural Policy, encouraged enormous increases in production. Traditional farming methods based on terraced smallholdings were phased out in favour of giant plantations similar to the one you saw in Spain.
Terraced trees are fed by natural water flow: animals graze on surrounding land, and bird and plant life flourish. The new plantations are soulless places. Stretching over hundreds of hectares, the trees are sprayed with chemicals and water is piped in, often from hundreds of kilometres away. A lack of ground cover means that parts of Andalusia in Spain and Puglia in Italy are turning to desert. The EU now encourages more balanced production methods but the damage has been done: it’s likely that the rate of desertification will increase as rainfall patterns change and drought hits more areas of the Mediterranean.
An added problem is the disposal of the waste associated with the olive oil production process. If the waste is not properly treated it can poison land and water courses: the careless disposal of it caused serious damage to the environment in Syria and Morocco, both big olive oil producers.
Then there is the transport issue. Most of the olive oil in your local supermarket will be labelled “Made in Italy” or “Bottled in Italy” or say it is “100 per cent Italian oil”. Yet Italy does not produce enough oil to satisfy even its own needs.
Italy specialises in marketing: it imports vast amounts of olive oil to be packaged up and re-exported. Spain now accounts for more than 40 per cent of global olive oil production. Day and night tankers en route from Spain to Italy thunder along the Côte D’Azur highway in southern France. After bottling and labelling, the oil is once again transported, at a considerable cost to the environment in the form of carbon emissions, to markets in Northern Europe, including the UK.
Maybe it’s time to cut back on the drizzling.
Kieran Cooke Send your eco-dilemmas to
greenandconfused@thetimes.co.uk