Climate | News & Views

Scientists to review climate body

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the world’s science academies to review work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Work will be co-ordinated by the Inter-Academy Council, which brings together bodies such as the UK’s Royal Society.

The IPCC has been under pressure over errors in its last major assessment of climate science in 2007.
Mr Ban said the overall concept of man-made climate change was robust, and action to curb emissions badly needed. The Inter-Academy Council will convene a panel of experts to conduct the review, and will be run independently of UN agencies.

One issue that was raised at the UN news conference was how independent the scientists on the Inter-Academy Council’s review panel will be from the scientists who contributed work to the IPCC in the first place. “Let me be clear – the threat posed by climate change is real,” said Mr Ban, speaking at UN headquarters in New York.
“I have seen no credible evidence that challenges the main conclusions of [the IPCC's 2007] report.”

Robbert Dijkgraaf, the council’s co-chair, said the review panel will be chosen so that it includes both inside knowledge of the IPCC and outside perspectives.
“The panel will look forward and will definitely not go over all the vast amount of data in climate science,” he said.

REVIEW’S TERMS OF REFERENCE
Analyse the IPCC process, including links with other UN agencies
Review the use of non-peer reviewed sources, and quality control on data
Assess how procedures handle “the full range of scientific views”
Review how the IPCC communicates with the public and the media

“It will see what are the [IPCC's] procedures, and how can they be improved, so we can avoid certain types of errors.”

But Roger Pielke Jr, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado who has recently criticised the IPCC over its assessment of the costs of climate-related disasters, said the terms of reference appeared to have some significant omissions. “How will it deal with allegations of breakdowns in procedures in the AR4?”, he asked. “The terms of reference say nothing about looking at the AR4 procedures, but it would be difficult to do a serious evaluation without actually evaluating experience,” he told BBC News.

“Should it ignore the AR4 issues, then it will risk being called a whitewash.” Prof Pielke also suggested the panel might look at apparent conflicts of interest within the IPCC’s staff. The conflict of interest charge has been levelled against the IPCC’s chair, Rajendra Pachauri, over his business interests.

But standing alongside Mr Ban, he welcomed the review.
“The IPCC stands firmly behind the rigour and reliability of its Fourth Assessment Report from 2007, but we recognise that we can improve,” he said. “We have listened and learned from our critics, and we intend to take every action we can to ensure that our reports are as robust as possible.”

The review was demanded by world governments at last month’s meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) Governing Council. The Inter-Academy Council has been asked to finalise its conclusions by August, in time that its recommendations can be discussed and adopted at October’s IPCC meeting.

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Whaling worsens carbon release, scientists warn

By Victoria Gill

A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes – or a large forest’s worth – of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say. Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released. US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at the Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, US. Dr Andrew Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the “forests of the ocean”.

Dr Pershing and his colleagues from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute calculated the annual carbon-storing capacity of whales as they grew. “Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon,” he said. “And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that’s removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere.” He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.

“And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean. “If they die where it’s deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years.”

In their initial calculations, the team worked out that 100 years of whaling had released an amount of carbon equivalent to burning 130,000 sq km of temperate forests, or to driving 128,000 Humvees continuously for 100 years. Dr Pershing stressed that this was still a relatively tiny amount when compared to the billions of tonnes produced by human activity every year.

When whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.
Dr Andrew Pershing, University of Maine. But he said that whales played an important role in storing and transporting carbon in the marine ecosystem. Simply leaving large groups of whales to grow, he said, could “sequester” the greenhouse gas, in amounts that were comparable to some of the reforestation schemes that earn and sell carbon credits.

He suggested that a similar system of carbon credits could be applied to whales in order to protect and rebuild their stocks. Other scientists said that he had raised an exciting and interesting problem.

Dr Pershing said: “These are huge and they are top predators, so unless they’re fished they would be likely to take their biomass to the bottom of the ocean [when they die].”

Read the full article at BBC News

Litter: our legacy to future generations

By Jeremy Paxman

Our grandchildren will know us by our discarded cans of Coca-Cola and packets of Walkers crisps

It’s the real thing, all right. That plastic jewel glinting in the verge among the emerging daffodils is a plastic bottle. Probably an empty Coke one.

An organisation called Litter Heroes (surely the most unglamorous club in Britain?) has done something rather useful. They have traced where the crud that morons in cars chuck out of their windows originally comes from. No surprise to discover that the worst-offending brand is Coca-Cola (4.9% of all litter), followed by Walkers Crisps (4.1%) and McDonald’s (3.6%).

And what does Coca-Cola say by way of apology? A company spokesman “acknowledges” the report. How very gracious of him. He goes on to blather that its bottles “carry the Tidy Man and Recycle Now logos”. Well, that should do it.

There is more fatuous wittering from McDonald’s, which even has the nerve to attempt a tone of wronged outrage, saying that “in 2009 we spent over ¬£2m on staff labour alone” picking up litter. That’s ¬£2m out of a turn over of more than ¬£2bn in Britain.

Anyone who walks anywhere in this filthy country knows that what the 39 volunteers from Litter Heroes discovered is true. No one in their right mind talks any longer about a “green and pleasant land”. A beautiful country is being submerged under a rising tide of rubbish.

Worst of all is the fact that whereas paper bags biodegrade, plastic bottles and confectionery wrappers last for generations. Our great-grandchildren will still be living among the gaudy wrapping of the chocolate bar we excreted last month.

The poor saps who have to act as apologists for the fizzy-drink and junk-food manufacturers never use the obvious argument because it would ¬≠insult their customers. Why don’t they try the tactic of US gun ¬≠manufacturers, who say: “It’s not guns that kill, it’s people”? Of course, it’s not the boss of Coke or Cadbury chucking the company products out of the car window; it’s some oaf who doesn’t understand that in tidying up his private space he’s making the shared space filthy.

The turning of verges into rubbish tips is a symptom of the “everyone for himself” attitude that has come to dominate in the last 50 years. What can we do? Local councils are supposed to have a statutory duty to clear up litter, but are largely useless. Ditto the national government. The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves. At least future generations won’t lack evidence of the kind of people we were.

Read the full article at the guardian website

Did the Copenhagen Summit Fail?

According to John Vidal, Allegra Stratton and Suzanne Goldenberg – ‘Copenhagen Ends in Failure’ cop15_logo_b_m1

(This article is a summary – read the full article at the guardian.co.uk)

The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.

After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord “recognises” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

American officials spun the deal as a “meaningful agreement”, but even Obama said: “This progress is not enough.”

In a press conference held after the talks broke up, Brown said the agreement was a “vital first step” and accepted there was a lot more work to do to get assurances it would become a legally binding agreement. He declined to call it a “historic” conference:

The deal was brokered between China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US, but late last night it was unclear whether it would be adopted by all 192 countries in the full plenary session. The deal aims to provide $30bn a year for poor countries to adapt to climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year by 2020.

But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries which had been holding out for deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in past drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 80% was also dropped.

Obama hinted that China was to blame for the lack of a substantial deal. In a press conference he condemned the insistence of some countries to look backwards to previous environmental agreements. He said developing countries should be “getting out of that mindset, and moving towards the position where everybody recognises that we all need to move together”.

Negotiators will now work on individual agreements such as forests, technology, and finance – but, without strong leadership, the chances are that it will take years to complete.

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. Ed Miliband [UK climate change secretary] is among the very few that come out of this summit with any credit.” It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”

Budget Airlines – Better for the Environment

Passengers who fly with no-frills carriers leave a softer “carbon footprint” than those on full-service easyjet airlines, new research has shown.

A couple flying with Ryanair from London to Venice and returning a week later have a carbon footprint of 410kg, while the equivalent journey on Alitalia would produce 977kg. A flight from London to Zurich with easyJet has a carbon footprint of 277kg per couple, compared with 688kg with Aer Lingus.

An easyJet spokesman said: “Our policy is to expand our fleet through the acquisition of the latest-technology aircraft, as these are more fuel-efficient than older models. The average age of an aircraft in our flight is 3.5 years. We also use these aircraft as efficiently as possible, by maximising load factors and seating density.” On an Airbus A319, the average full-service airline has 124 seats; easyJet has 156.

“Our analysis shows that the environmental stigma of budget travel may be unwarranted,” said Gbenga Kogbe of Liligo.co.uk. “Travellers can now assess the financial and environmental costs of travelling with low-cost airlines, traditional airlines and charter-flight companies.”

While many scheduled carriers report dwindling passenger numbers, low-cost carriers continue to see growth: easyJet reported a 9.3 per cent rise in passenger traffic in December compared with December 2008.
Analysts said the airline had benefited from the threat of Christmas strike action against BA and the disruption by snow of Eurostar services.

BA carried four per cent fewer passengers in December compared with the same month last year. Overall, passenger numbers fell by 750,000 to 25.2 million last year. It is not yet clear how damaging the renewed threat of strikes will be to bookings, but several travel agents have already switched flights away from BA since the cabin crew’s union, Unite, announced plans for a new strike ballot. The vote is expected to be held in early March.

Read the full article at the telegraph.co.uk

Concern for Temperature Rises Remains High

The most alarming forecasts of natural systems amplifying the human-induced greenhouse effect may be too high, globalwarming according to a new report.

The study in Nature confirms that as the planet warms, oceans and forests will absorb proportionally less CO2.
It says this will increase the effects of man-made warming – but much less than recent research has suggested.
The authors warn, though, that their research will not reduce projections of future temperature rises.
Further, they say their concern about man-made climate change remains high.

Some climate sceptics have argued that a warmer world will increase the land available for vegetation, which will in turn absorb CO2 and temper further warming. This is known as a negative feedback loop – the Earth acting to keep itself in balance.
But the Nature research concludes that any negative feedback will be swamped by positive feedback in which extra CO2 is released from the oceans and from already-forested areas.
The oceans are the world’s great store of CO2, but the warmer they become, the less CO2 they can absorb. And forests dried out by increased temperatures tend to decay and release CO2 from their trees and soils.

The IPCC’s fourth assessment report had a broad range of estimates as to how far natural systems would contribute to a spiral of warming. The Nature paper narrows that range to the lower end of previous estimates.
The report’s lead author, David Frank from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told BBC News that many of the calculations for the IPCC assessment report did not include an integrated carbon cycle.
He said that if the results his paper were widely accepted, the overall effect on climate projections would be neutral.
“It might lead to a downward mean revision of those (climate) models which already include the carbon cycle, but an upward revision in those which do not include the carbon cycle.
“That’ll probably even itself out to signify no real change in the temperature projections overall,” he said.

The oceans’ ability to absorb CO2 figures strongly into the debate
This stands in sharp contrast to the recent estimates of positive feedback models, which suggest a release of 40 parts per million per degree; the team say with 95% certainty that value is an overestimate.

The paper will surely not be the last word in this difficult area of research, with multiple uncertainties over data sources.

“We have plenty of reason to believe that the shape of the relationship may change (be nonlinear) when we ‘hit the system harder’. So, I don’t think they can rule out that the positive feedback from the carbon cycle could become stronger in a significantly warmer climate.”

See the full article at the bbc.co.uk/news

China has ‘open mind’

China’s lead climate change negotiator has said he was keeping an “open attitude” as to whether global warming cop_logo_1_r was man-made or due to natural cycles.

Xie Zhenhua said climate warming was a “solid fact” and that mainstream scientific opinion held it was due to emissions of gases such as CO2.

Mr Xie’s comments appeared to surprise the other environment ministers and envoys at a news conference at the end of their two-day meeting.
He said: “It is already a solid fact that the climate is warming.
“There is one starkly different view, that the climate change or climate warming issue is caused by the cyclical element of nature itself.
“I think we need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research.”
He said that it was important to include as many views as possible “to be more scientific and to be more consistent”.

A number of scientists have recently disputed the figure. The vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said last week that it was an error and would be reviewed.
But the IPCC’s vice-chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele said it did not change the broader picture of man-made climate change.

At their weekend gathering, the officials said they would announce by the end of the month their plans to cut emissions.

They also agreed to contribute $10bn (£6.2bn) this year to help poor nations combat the effects of climate change.
Brazil’s Environment Minister Carols Minc said this would be “a slap in the face to the rich countries” who pledged at the Copenhagen climate summit in December to contribute $30bn (£18.5bn) in funding for the next three years and $100bn (£61.8bn) by 2020.

See the full article at the bbc.co.uk/news

Environment Agency Reveals New Weapon Against Waste Crime

An innovative technology that can map what’s buried underground is being used by the agency to search for waste 203_environment_agency_203x152 buried illegally, and make sure the polluter pays for its clean up.
The new technology will add to the armoury of CSI-style techniques used by the Environment Agency to tackle serious waste criminals. It will be used alongside sophisticated techniques including forensics, handwriting analysis and Smartwater tracking by a dedicated national environmental crime team.

Since 2008 the Environment Agency has closed 1,500 illegal waste sites, and fines for committing waste offences have doubled since 2003, from £1.4million to over £3million. But the Agency estimates that there are still approximately 800 illegal sites currently in operation and new technologies are vital tools in shutting them down. Illegal waste sites and organised criminal flytipping operations cost businesses and taxpayers millions of pounds every year to clean up.

Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, Dr Paul Leinster, said: “This is just one of the many state of the art technologies that the Environment Agency uses to make sure that waste criminals are caught, prosecuted and made to pay for the clean up of the land they have polluted.
“By dumping waste illegally, waste criminals avoid landfill charges and undercut legitimate waste businesses, but more importantly they put the environment and human health at risk. We are making sure that waste crime does not pay, and have set up specialist crime teams to catch criminals and confiscate the assets they’ve gained from crime.”

See the full article at environment-agency.gov.uk

Brazil’s Silva criticizes US stance in Copenhagen

COP15 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is criticizing the United States for failing to commit to concrete carbon-emissions reductions at the U.N. climate conference in Denmark.

Silva says the U.S. stance at one point prompted several European nations and Japan to reconsider the Kyoto Protocol, which he says would have been “very serious.” Under the Kyoto Protocol, 37 industrial nations were already making modest emissions cuts.

The U.S.-brokered Copenhagen Accord reached Saturday calls for, but does not require emissions reductions.

Commenting during his weekly radio program Monday, Silva warned that all nations will need to keep treating climate change as a priority to reach a definite solution to global warming.

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Copenhagen Summit – Day 9 Summary

The UN climate conference in Copenhagen entered its decisive phase on Tuesday, as heads of state and government began to arrive for the final three days of negotiations. The leaders will be facing “a defining moment in history”, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Prince of Wales speech at Copenhagen - The Prince of Wales has arrived in Copenhagen to promote forest issues.He delivered a speech today at the UN Summit.

Foreign Secretary ‘determined’ to secure ambitious deal - Britain is determined to make sure that Copenhagen produces an ambitious deal on tackling climate change in which Europe plays a ‘critical role’.

UN conference gearing up for make-or-break finale - World leaders “face a defining moment in history”, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said as the Copenhagen conference formally entered its high-level stage Tuesday.

South Korea to bridge rich and poor nations - As the first emerging economy to take on absolute reduction commitments, South Korea hopes to play a key role in Copenhagen. Read more

China: Poor countries are first in line for funding – So far the majority of internationally funded projects under the Kyoto Protocol have been in China. But other countries need the funds more urgently according to Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei. Read more

Merkel concerned over Copenhagen pace – German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced concern Tuesday about the pace of climate negotiations in Copenhagen and said she is “somewhat nervous” about prospects of success. Read more

Forest negotiations are making headway – There is mounting agreement on rewarding tropical countries which slow deforestation under a new deal. This is the first issue where significant progress has been made in Copenhagen. Read more

Further commitments needed to break negotiation deadlock – A blueprint, released Tuesday in Copenhagen, outlines three options for long-term climate aid from developed to developing countries. Read more

Japan to unveil 10 billion dollars in climate aid – A pledge of funds from rich countries will be a key ingredient for any climate change deal in Copenhagen. Japan is ready to make an offer. Read more

Australian PM warns of failure – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Monday urged world leaders to be more flexible as a consensus looks difficult to achieve. Read more

Schwarzenegger says states key to climate fight – Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says countries cannot solve the problem of climate change without the help of states, cities, regions, activists, scientists and universities. Read more

Developing world threatens battle on drafts -African countries, Brazil, China, South Africa and India say they have produced a default proposal to be used only if rich countries try to shortcut UN-led negotiations in Copenhagen. Read more

>>>Full in depth article visit COP15 and Act on Copenhagen

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