Cambio climático

California Takes Step to Limit Emissions

Big brands lagging on climate action, survey says

25 November 2009 Study of 600 brands finds two-thirds are either increasing emissions, have weak targets on cuts or do not publish data Consumer expectations that favourite brands are actively tackling climate change will be challenged tomorrow by a report showing that some of Britain's top corporate names, including Barclays, Amazon and Sky, are lagging behind their competitors and failing to respond to the lead set by the government. A survey of the carbon performance of 600 of the UK's biggest brands reveals that two-thirds are either increasing their greenhouse gas emissions, have targets that are weaker than the government's Copenhagen goal for carbon cuts, or are failing to put information about their carbon emissions in the public domain. To tackle global warming the government has set a national target for 2020 of a cut of 34% on the 1990 emission levels. The companies offered their own information for the survey, entitled Brand Emissions, and the data revealed that only one in five brands was demonstrating a reduction in emissions and had ambitious targets in line with the UK's aims. The "leaders" emerging from the research included the supermarket giant Tesco, the phone company T-Mobile, the computer company Dell and the car manufacturer BMW. At the other end of the scale, and for 250 brands, researchers found no carbon emissions information at all reported; this group included Google, McKinsey and Amazon. There were no public emission reduction targets for 320 brands, including Porsche, Harvey Nichols and McDonald's. Around 122 of the brands that did report their carbon output were seen to have increased their emissions in 2008. This group included Barclays, Sky and eBay. The project, launched tomorrow,was developed by Marketing magazine and Brand Republic, with ENDS Carbon, a specialist carbon ratings agency, and the University of Edinburgh business school. The aim is to give an annual rating of leading UK brands. Craig Mackenzie, research director of the Brand Emissi... [more...]

Climate cash is 'unaccounted for'

Next year may be hottest yet, Met Office says

Storm clouds gather over leaked climate e-mails

A climate deal is like trying to halt the rains in Cumbria | Paul Kingsnorth

24 November 2009 Copenhagen won't alter the ecological reality. There is no quick fix or sustainable growth, only painful decline ahead For a while, it looked as if things might be returning to normal. The road outside my house, which had become a stream bed, reverted to asphalt. The waters which had coursed through nearby homes were falling back. The roads were and still are closed, the bridges still down , the fields still lakes, but it seemed the worst was over. Only now it's raining again in Cumbria , and everybody is waiting to see when it will stop and what it will leave behind. I have no idea whether the extreme weather raging outside my window has anything to do with climate change, but I do know that describing it as "extreme weather" seems unconvincing. The last major floods here were just four years ago; some people had barely recovered before they were hit again last week. And I wonder how many more people will have to be rescued from their homes with military helicopters, and how many more A-roads will have to collapse into the torrents beneath, and how many more National Trust tea rooms will have to be submerged under metres of water before we can grasp that the future is not behaving in the way it was supposed to. There is a standard response to a situation like this which, as an environmentalist, I might be expected to follow. It is to say that these floods are a warning of what will happen if we can't urgently reduce global emissions. It is to say that next month's Copenhagen conference is a turning point, and that we urgently need a deal to stop climate change. But I find I can't say this stuff anymore; not because I have stopped believing in climate change, but because I have stopped believing we can prevent it. As the politicians prepare to fly to Copenhagen, I can't help thinking of Chamberlain's trip to Munich in 1938 . Everyone could see, then, what the future held: it was there in Hitler's speeches and in the ferocious aggression emanating from German... [more...]

Climate of fear

US and India pledge common action on climate change

24 November 2009 Hopes of a strong deal at Copenhagen summit renewed as Obama and Singh commit to 'significant mitigation actions' America and India today pledged common action to fight climate change and to build a new global clean energy economy, claiming the new "green partnership" between two of the world's biggest emitters would help produce a strong political deal at next month's summit in Copenhagen. Barack Obama and visiting Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, both committed to "significant mitigation actions", ie reducing greenhouse gas emissions. With today's understanding, three of the world's top emitters, China, America and India are now committed to action on emissions at Copenhagen, though they have yet to reveal the actual targets. But it does significantly boost the prospect that world leaders could commit to strong action at the UN summit, despite the rancourous atmosphere among their official negotiating teams at the last set of meetings in Barcelona this month. "It takes us one step closer to a successful outcome in Copenhagen." Obama said. Today's pledge from Singh comes a day after the White House said Obama would commit to cutting emissions before the Copenhagen meeting gets underway. China's Hu Jintao committed to reducing the future growth rate of emissions during Obama's visit to Beijing a week ago. India's new commitment is to take what the White House described today as "vigorous action to combat climate change" in return for assistance from industrialised countries for its shift from coal to cleaner energy sources. Singh made it clear there would be a price for India's cooperation. "We will do more if there is global support in terms of financial resources and technology transfer," he told the Council of Foreign Relations yesterday. Some of that support came through today, with the announcement of a joint research centre, with US and Indian government funds, to help speed the development of more energy efficient technologies, as well as carbon capt... [more...]

Hacked archive provides fodder for climate sceptics

World's last bastion of stable ice now thawing

Dispelling myths about India and climate change

24 November 2009 Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh need to overcome the mistrust that has characterised recent US-India relations on climate change and energy. From the World Resources Institute , part of the Guardian Environment Network Today, President Obama will host the first state visit of his presidency, rolling out the red carpet for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. Climate change will be high on the agenda for the leaders of the world's two biggest democracies. And the timing is auspicious, coming only two weeks before the start of the high stakes global climate summit in Copenhagen. With some trying to dampen expectations that the world will seal a new climate agreement in the Danish capital, a US-India breakthrough on action to reduce greenhouse gases could provide the negotiations with much needed impetus. But for this to happen, the two leaders need to overcome the mistrust that has characterized recent US-India relations on climate change and energy. For Americans, this requires dispelling three damaging myths. The first myth lumps India in with China as a global economic player and US competitor which does not need industrialized country support to switch to a low carbon economy. In fact, while India is not Chad, neither is it China. Within its borders, mostly in small villages, live a third of the world's poor. Some three hundred million Indians – more than the entire population of the United States - survive on less than a dollar a day. Four hundred million lack electricity. They are seeking to switch lights on, not turn them off. While a few rich Indians now boast the same carbon footprint as the average American, India's slum dwellers still vastly outnumber its middle class. The second myth casts India as the rogue of the UN negotiations, refusing to curb its spiraling greenhouse gas emissions without rich country handouts. In fact, while India talks tough, its actions speak otherwise. In recent years, New Delhi has deployed wind power incentives and hi... [more...]

Climate 'drives African conflict'

Australia's climate legislation reform looms with compromise carbon deal

24 November 2009 The government has released details of a compromise deal negotiated with the main opposition party Australia's government today took a key step toward passing legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions by negotiating a compromise deal with the opposition Liberal Party. The prime minister, Kevin Rudd, also urged lawmakers to support the bill. The Senate rejected similar legislation in a vote in August with only the governing Labor party's 32 senators supporting the bills in the 76-seat Senate. The government today released details of a compromise deal negotiated with the main opposition party that increases financial assistance to major polluters including electricity generators. It also ensures that farmers are not taxed for the methane produced by livestock. Liberal lawmakers, including the party's 37 senators, are deeply divided over the legislation and today began debating at a meeting behind closed doors about whether the party should accept the deal. Rudd called on Liberals to support the legislation. "We believe it's in the national interest for Australia, the hottest and driest continent on the earth, to act," he said. "My appeal to all members opposite is to get behind in a bipartisan spirit this necessary national reform – the biggest reform for the environment that this country has seen in its history.". The opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, supports the deal, and the Liberal senator, Gary Humphries, said he expected Turnbull would succeed in persuading his colleagues to back the deal. If the legislation is rejected again, Rudd can call a snap election early next year on the issue of climate change. His centre-left party is leading the conservative Liberals in opinion polls and would likely win such an election convincingly. The government plan would institute a tax on industries' carbon emissions starting in 2011 and would limit Australia's overall pollution. The government wants to slash Australia's emissions by up to 25% below 2000 levels by 2... [more...]

US 'will announce climate target'

The voices of climate change sceptics

24 November 2009 Thinktanks, lords and shock jocks are just some of the dissenters in the climate change debate The furore over the climate scientists' emails has given an unexpected boost to global warming sceptics on both sides of the Atlantic, but none outside that small circle believe the affair will divert governments, businesses or communities from seeking a low-carbon future. The affair lifted the launch, announced in The Times, of a new "high-powered" think tank on climate change by Lord Nigel Lawson, the former Conservative Chancellor and current global warming critic. He denies he is a climate change sceptic, but is "sceptical" about the policy response. He found the perfect platform to promote his Global Warming Policy Foundation while also calling for an independent inquiry into the content of the emails. The director of the GWPF, headquartered in a room rented from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, is Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool's John Moores University, who has argued concern about climate change has reached "near hysteria". Its board of trustees includes Lord Barnett, a former vice-chairman of the BBC who voted against the Climate Change Bill, and the Bishop of Chester, who has argued there was no consensus among climate change scientists that "carbon dioxide levels are the key determinant". Its academic advisory council includes Prof Ian Plimer, an Australian who argues volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans. "Some of those names are straight from the Who's Who of current climate change sceptics", said Ward. "To me, this is pretty much indistinguishable from the websites that are run by rightwing, free-market think tanks in the US. It's just going to be a way of pumping material into the debate that hasn't been through scrutiny". In the US, the trove of hacked emails seemed heaven-sent for America's most devoted climate contrarians. Among the last citadels of climate change deniers – the radio host Rush Limbaugh and the Republ... [more...]

Full text: Climate science statement

24 November 2009 This is a joint statement from the Met Office, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society on the state of the science of climate change ahead of the Copenhagen climate conference The UK is at the forefront of tackling dangerous climate change, underpinned by world class scientific expertise and advice. Crucial decisions will be taken soon in Copenhagen about limiting and reducing the impacts of climate change now and in the future. Climate scientists from the UK and across the world are in overwhelming agreement about the evidence of climate change, driven by the human input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As three of the UK's leading scientific organisations involving most of the UK scientists working on climate change, we cannot emphasise enough the body of scientific evidence that underpins the call for action now, and we reinforce our commitment to ensuring that world leaders continue to have access to the best possible science. We believe this will be essential to inform sound decision-making on policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change up to Copenhagen and beyond. The 2007 assessment report of the UN's climate change panel (the IPCC) – made up of the world's foremost climate scientists – provided unequivocal evidence for a warming climate, and a high degree of certainty that human activities are largely responsible for global warming since the middle of the 20th century. However, the IPCC process is based only on information already published and even since the last assessment report the scientific evidence for dangerous, long-term and potentially irreversible climate change has strengthened significantly: • Global carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise, and methane concentrations have started to increase again after a decade of near stability; • The decade 2000-09 has been warmer, on average, than any other decade in the previous 150 years; • Observed changes in precipitation (decreases in the subtropics and incr... [more...]

Climate change email hacking to be looked into by University of East Anglia

23 November 2009 • Online publication seized on by denial bloggers • No evidence that data was falsified, says Met Office The University of East Anglia is to launch a review into the theft and online publication of hundreds of emails sent by scientists in its climate research unit. Selected and unverified extracts from the emails have been used by climate change deniers to claim that the scientists colluded to manipulate climate data, causing a storm on deniers' blogs. The charge is rejected as "despicable" by those involved and as groundless by leading scientific bodies. With less than two weeks before the crucial UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, climate scientists and campaigners are assessing the damage the incident has caused to the public understanding of global warming. Opinion was split last night over how to deal with the fallout. Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, called for an investigation. "Once appropriate action has been taken over the hacking, there has to be some process to assess the substance of the email messages as well," he said. "The selective disclosure and dissemination of the messages has created the impression of impropriety, and the only way of clearing the air now would be through a rigorous investigation. " However, others said an investigation would be a mistake, particularly as some climate sceptics were also calling for one. Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth's executive director, said: "Calls for an inquiry look suspiciously like an attempt to cast doubt on the science of climate change ahead of crucial UN negotiations. "The overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe that climate change is happening, that it is man-made, and that it poses a major threat to people across the planet. We can't afford to be distracted from the need for urgent action." George Marshall, founder of the Climate Outreach and Information Network, said: "The UE... [more...]

African conflicts spurred by warming

Leaked emails mark dangerous shift in climate denial strategy | Mark Lynas

23 November 2009 Instead of targeting high-profile science communicators, climate deniers are now encouraging mistrust of those who collect and interpret global warming data The theft and web publication by climate change deniers of private emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit is an extremely worrying development in the tortured politics of global warming. Although high-profile individuals have been targeted and unfairly vilified before – Pennsylvania University's Michael Mann comes to mind, with his "hockey stick" palaeoclimate graph – most of the ire of the denial movement has so far been reserved for big-hitters like Al Gore. Gore can take it. Politics is his job. But the "exposure" of private correspondence from a much larger group of scientists – and the out-of-context quotation of certain sentences as "revealing" some hidden subterfuge – suggests a dangerous shift in strategy. Instead of targeting the science communicators (myself included), the deniers are now declaring war on the scientists themselves. Like the creationists they unconsciously mimic , they make no distinction between the political and the scientific sphere – it is open season in both. And the strategy is simple. Given that scientists are one of society's most trusted groups (unlike journalists or politicians), the climate denial movement has begun a battle to undermine public trust in climate scientists themselves. No more will the legions of anonymous researchers who collect and interpret data from meteorological stations, satellites and ice cores be considered above the fray – they now run the risk of personal attacks, exposure of their private lives and vilification. It is important to understand the significance of this. Scientists are not politicians. They are not used to communicating publicly. They trust in their objectivity, the objectivity of their peers, and the rigour of only citing work published in learned journals. They will have private views, but are ver... [more...]

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