the climate brief Accurate Reporting of Climate Science

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Stephen Lovegrove has been appointed Permanent Secretary for the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) after the Prime Minister intervened to block the Secretary of State's preferred candidate, David Kennedy. But does Lovegrove possess the background to help accelerate investment from the private sector to get new energy initiatives off the ground, as the PM hopes? We compare the two candidates' credentials.

Comparing credentials

One of the permanent secretary's main tasks will be to try and attract investment in the UK's energy sector, while ensuring the government gets a good deal. The Prime Minister blocked Kennedy's appointment because he was looking for someone with  "commercial experience and the ability to do deals" - something he felt Kennedy lacked. So is Lovegrove a better candidate?

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Source: Committee on Climate Change

The Committee on Climate Change's (CCC) new  report warns that electricity bills could be £600 higher in 2050 if the UK relies on gas rather than switching to a low-carbon power system.

But on the  Today programme this morning presenter John Humphreys accused the head of the CCC of "disregarding" the potential impact of cheap shale gas on lowering energy bills. As the UK's energy future continues to look uncertain, we look at the CCC projections.

Energy bills up to 2020

In the report, the CCC reiterates its  earlier assessment that green policy measures will add around £100 to consumer energy bills by 2020.

Energy efficiency measures will reduce bills a bit, but increasing wholesale energy costs, costs from environmental policies and the cost of paying for upgrading energy transmission networks will push bills up overall.

The CCC points out that households which rely mainly on electricity for heating will see a bigger impact - up to £400 (See  page 27). Policies will be needed to limit this effect, the CCC say.

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Climate talks in Doha are in full swing and attention is again focused on whether the world's nations can agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The process has often contained more deadlock than breakthrough. But in the spirit of optimism, we've examined three compromise deals that might move the world forward - and what different countries think of them.

Kyoto 2

The Kyoto Protocol, is the set of policies that created the first binding global emissions reduction target. Kyoto requires the nations with the most developed economies, including the UK, to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five per cent on 1990 levels in the period 2008 to 2012. It does not put any binding targets on developing countries, including India and China. 

The Protocol is due to expire at the end of this month. So what next? The first option being explored at Doha is to extend the Kyoto Protocol - an idea known as  Kyoto 2 (or 'Commitment Period 2'). 

The European Union (EU) supports the idea, and has committed member states to a greenhouse gas reduction of 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, with an offer to increase this to 30 per cent by 2020 if other major industrialised countries sign up to binding agreements. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is also committed to the idea, and Australia recently declared  a Kyoto 2 target of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020.

Finally, China, India, Brazil and South Africa - collectively known as the BASIC countries - are  committed to extending the Kyoto Protocol. However, this is with a big condition - that they continue to be classified as developing countries, and are therefore excluded from any binding commitment to reduce emissions. The BASIC countries also call for  more emissions cuts from the developed countries.

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Progress tackling climate change is recklessly slow, warned economist Lord Stern in a report yesterday, as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. It's  the latest in a string of warnings that current efforts to address climate change aren't on track to keep warming at a manageable level. So what's holding everyone back? We take a look at why taking action to tackle climate change isn't always straightforward.

Uncertainties surrounding climate risks

Media reports of climate talks often reflect frustration at government's seeming inability to agree on climate action. But as the  new report from economists at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change acknowledges there are a number of uncertainties which can hold back action on climate change, even though our understanding of them has improved over the past decade.

Some of those uncertainties surround the climate risks themselves. It's hard for climate models to predict exactly how much temperature, precipitation and sea levels will change in the future. That's why climate projections, like those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are given in terms of probabilities.

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Three different reports released in advance of the latest instalment of the international climate talks in Doha all carry more or less the same message. On current trends the world is increasingly unlikely to avoid a temperature rise of two degrees above pre-industrial levels - and a four degree rise is possible, they say.

We've pulled out some of the most interesting statistics and graphs to summarise the different reports.

The World Meteorological Organisation's greenhouse gas bulletin

First, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) - a specialised United Nations agency - released its annual greenhouse gas bulletin. The findings are based on data gathered by the WMO's Global Atmosphere Watch Network, which monitors the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The WMO's top-line conclusion is that greenhouse gas concentrations in 2011 were the highest on record. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - the greenhouse gases driving additional warming - are now 140 per cent, 259 per cent and 120 per cent higher than pre-industrial levels, respectively.

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Could laptop models help negotiators imagine the impacts of climate change? How could emissions accounting be improved to include land use? With the UN's COP18 international climate talks starting today, we look at some recent developments in science and political research that can play a part in helping countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

Upper limits

Climate scientists' predictions go to the heart of the UNFCCC process. Scientists first suggested in 2007 that to avoid serious climate change, global mean temperature rise should not exceed two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But as three different reports out last week highlight, this target looks increasingly unrealistic.

According to the World Meteorological Office (WMO), carbon dioxide has continued to rise at a fairly constant rate  for the past decade, reaching a record high this year along with methane and nitrous oxide - two other important greenhouse gases.

The United Nations Environment Programme has said the "emissions gap" - the difference between government pledges to reduce emissions and what is needed to stabilise global temperature rise at two degrees - is widening.  And according to the World Bank, without further action, the world is likely to warm by more than three degrees.

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Details of the UK's new energy bill have been published, with an announcement that £7.6 billion a year will go to fund low carbon energy, which the government will fund from household energy bills. Here's our rough roundup of all the media interpretations of how much this will cost consumers, and where we think the numbers come from.

BBC environment correspondent Roger Harrabin cites two estimates for how much the £7.6 billion will add to household energy bills. He reports a DECC estimate that the measures will add £95 a year, or seven per cent to an average energy bill by 2020 - although Harrabin notes "some analysts think it would be more".

That apparently includes the government's decarbonisation advisor, the Committee on Climate Change, which apparently thinks it would add about "£110 to the average household energy bill by 2020."

Other media outlets have all come out with rather different assessments of the likely impacts on bills.

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The fast growth of renewable energy generation in Europe has pushed down wholesale electricity prices in recent years, but could this trend mean governments end up subsidising fossil fuel plants that might otherwise be forced to close? We look at how the growth in renewables may affect electricity costs in Europe and the UK.

According to a report by market analyst  Moody's, the profitability of fossil fuel generated electricity has gone down as renewables have grown. This means some power stations are operating at a loss, and may close. Since some form of backup is needed for days when renewables produce less electricity, Moody's suggests governments may need to incentivise power plants to stay open. And that could put an upward pressure on prices.

Renewable electricity generation

According to  the somewhat gloomily titled Moody's report, 'European Utilities: Wind and Solar Power Will Continue to Erode Thermal Generators' Credit Quality', the expansion of solar and wind power, combined with reduced demand for electricity thanks to the economic downturn, has led to an oversupply of electricity in Europe, pushing down its market price.

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Arnoldius

" Unproven and implausible" climate science and an energy policy based on coal, gas and nuclear: welcome to the UK Independence Party's vision for UK energy, according to its new policy document. We check our pick of the report's claims.

UKIP's energy policy document, ' Keeping the Lights On: How UKIP would prevent the impending energy shortfall', came out last month. Co-authored by UKIP MEP Roger Helmer, it threatens energy apocalypse at the hands of Brussels, climate science and, of course, wind power, unless the UK ditches them all in favour of UKIP's plan - highlighted in Union Jack bullet points.

1. Climate science - back to the dark ages

First, climate science. According to UKIP:

"Professor Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia recognises that there has been no statistically significant warming for fifteen years..."

This is a misrepresentation of an interview Jones did with the BBC in 2010. Jones told the interviewer temperature rise from 1995 to 2010 was statistically insignificant, "but only just". Whether a trend is statistically significant can vary depending on the time period over which it is measured - and a bit more data either side can change the outcome.

And as we have  discussed before, scientists don't draw general conclusions about global temperature trends  based on short timeframes, as  Jones himself  and the Met Office have said. The argument also ignores the well-established evidence base from different scientific disciplines showing that the world is warming.

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Obama's back. So, is climate change?

Media outlets and commenters got excited about an early, albeit brief, mention of climate change in President Barack Obama's victory speech this week. Obama said:

"We want our children to live in an America that isn't [...] threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet".

This was heady stuff compared to almost complete silence on the climate from both presidential candidates during the election. It prompted speculation that Obama, freed from concern about re-election, might be able to put climate change back on the agenda - or even push for a carbon tax - in the US.

Talk about possible links between hurricane Sandy and climate change - and its impact on US climate politics - also rumbles on in the US media and the blogosphere.

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