the climate brief Accurate Reporting of Climate Science

Shale gas has received the official nod - David Cameron told an influential committee of MPs last night that there is a "gas revolution taking place across the world" and "I want us to be part of that revolution". But the government's support for shale gas has also been criticised over the past few days by experts who have labelled it " misleading and dangerous" and "categorically and mathematically" incompatible with the government's climate change targets.

The arguments over shale - often repeated in media coverage of the issue - seem to boil down to three key questions. We take a look at them.

1. How much shale gas is there in the UK?

In 2011, the British Geological Survey (BGS) estimated the UK has 150 billion cubic metres of shale gas reserves - that's about two years of current UK gas consumption. It's also around 5.3 trillion cubic feet, if we've got our conversion right. But then oil and gas company Cuadrilla announced that it had discovered 200 trillion cubic feetof shale gas under Lancashire, near Blackpool.

This is obviously a much larger amount. How can the two figures be compared? It's important first of all to note that the BGS figure refers to reserves - the amount of shale gas it believes can be extracted once economic and political limitations are taken into account.

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How much shale gas lies under the surface of the UK - and how much will be extracted over the next two decades? Over the weekend the Independent claimed that more than 60 per cent of the UK countryside could be exploited for shale gas - a statement the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) dismissed as "nonsense". So what does the data show?

The question is particularly relevant this week as the chancellor George Osborne is due to announce the government's gas generation strategy as part of this Thursday's autumn budget statement. And according to the Financial Times, he will support a greater expansion of gas fired power stations than previously expected. The media are also reporting that Osborne will create a new office for shale gas to " co-ordinate and speed up production" - as well as a new "generous" tax regime to stimulate investment.

Exploiting 64 per cent of Britain?

Parts of the media have frequently discussed how much shale gas the UK will be able to exploit - and how quickly - and they haven't been shy of making some wild estimates. On Saturday the front page of the Independent added another number to the mix, claiming:

"More than 60 per cent of the British countryside could be exploited for shale gas, government documents show".

"It is too early to assess the potential for shale gas but the suggestion more than 60 per cent of the UK countryside could be exploited is nonsense."

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"Wind farms to increase energy bills by £178 a year" announced the the  front page of Friday's  Daily Telegraph - adding in a subheading that the price rise will occur under a deal just struck over the government's new Energy Bill. Since then, other newspapers seem to have used the figure to suggest that the government's new energy bill will add around £170 to bills. So is this correct?

The Telegraph article followed an  announcement from the  Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that the government will be publishing the energy bill this week. The legislation contains provisions to increase the amount of energy the UK gets from renewables and nuclear power.

The Telegraph searched out a figure for how much government policies will add to bills: £178. A closer look shows:

• The claim that bills will go up by £178 over the next two decades is based on figures from DECC which are a year old. The figures do not refer specifically to the impact of the measures in the energy bill;
• The extra £178 DECC calculated is due to a range of factors, including rising gas prices over the next two decades - it's not solely attributable to climate and energy policies.
• The same figures show DECC believes energy bills would go up by a greater amount without new energy and climate policies;
• The price rise is not attributable solely to subsidies for wind farms, as the Telegraph's front-page headline claims.

Given all these considerations, it's perhaps unsurprising that other newspapers mistakenly started to warn of a bill hike of around £170 as the result of the new energy legislation.

Let's take a look at the details.

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The world is cooling, claims an article in yesterday's Sunday Times. But perhaps uniquely, the article then rebuts itself.

In an article published yesterday, the Sunday Times's environment editor Jonathan Leake claims that "The world's climate has cooled during 2011 and 2012," a discovery which he suggests may prove embarrassing for upcoming UN climate talks. Leake writes:

"In such a febrile situation, any data casting doubt on climate scientists predictions is potentially explosive."

So, does the fact that 2010 was warmer than the this year or last year according to Met Office data "cast doubt" on climate scientists' predictions? The answer is no, as the end of the Sunday Times article itself reveals.

"Significantly hotter"

Leake has written the article on the basis of not-quite three years of data, which comes from the  Met Office. The data suggests that global average temperatures were higher in 2010 than in either 2011 or 2012. NOAA's dataset shows  2011 was cooler, as does NASA's dataset. Neither show figures for the whole of 2012 yet, however.

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Does the government remain committed to long-term targets for emissions reductions contained within the Climate Change Act?

On Channel 4 News last night energy minister John Hayes made the case that the UK already has enough onshore wind power built or in planning to meet our renewables target.

That, according to Hayes will be "job done" for onshore wind - and maybe even for renewables as a whole. Meanwhile, an undercover video from Greenpeace featured in the Guardian shows MP Peter Lilley apparently claiming various politicians have been maneuvered into "key positions" in government, in order to get the UK "off the hook" on its green commitments. But what does that mean?

Lobbying to undermine the Climate Change Act?

Environmental group Greenpeace released an undercover video last night showing Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris outlining how he encouraged James Delingpole to stand as an anti-wind candidate in the Corby by-election. The plan was to raise wind power up the political agenda, he said. Heaton-Harris suggested he had support at the heart of government, claiming he and Delingpole would be meeting with energy minister John Hayes.

The video also shows prominent Conservative MP Peter Lilley - one of the few MPs to vote against the  Climate Change Act in 2008 - claiming that chancellor George Osborne has maneuvered people into positions of power within government in order to undermine the government's green targets.

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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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Two articles appeared in the Scottish versions of the Sunday Times and the Daily Express over the weekend arguing that expansion of wind energy will add £400 to Scottish consumer energy bills by 2020. The figure originates from anti-wind group the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) and appears to differ markedly from government estimates. We look at why.

The Scottish Sunday Times article is headlined 'WINDFALL; A loss of wind farm subsidies would blow a hole in Alex Salmond's financial calculations'. It quotes REF director John Constable saying:

"...the aim of producing the equivalent of 100% of Scotland's electricity from renewables by 2020 threatens to saddle the average household, of two adults and two children, with an annual "wind tax" of £400."

Monday's Daily Express uses the same research to report: "Wind farms will add £410 to your power bill".

In contrast, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) estimates subsidies for renewables paid out through the Renewables Obligation (RO) and the government's electricity market reform (EMR) programme will add a net total of £69 to consumer electricity bills across the UK.

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As part of our look at media coverage linked to Hurricane Sandy, we look at Telegraph columnist Fraser Nelson's arguments in favour of dropping attempts to slow climate change and focusing on adapting to new conditions.

Hurricane Sandy has prompted new interest in the media over the links between climate change and extreme weather, but journalist Fraser Nelson took a different tack. Writing in the Telegraph, he says New York's response to the storm shows that while efforts to mitigate climate change are faltering, humans are already adapting successfully to the effects of higher temperatures. He says:

"[A]s science evolves, the hysteria is draining out of the climate change debate - and a new rationalism taking its place. We might not be sure that we can make any meaningful difference to its trajectory, but we know that we can adapt to it."

To support his argument, Nelson makes several claims about research on climate change and extreme weather and the ability of different countries to adapt. We take a look at some of them.

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The Daily Mail's article "  Coalition at war over wind farms" yesterday was illustrated by a collection of bullet point facts about wind power, referencing the Mail's extensive back catalogue of articles on the subject. The Mail is not in favour of wind power.

As the 'facts' cut across much of the current debate about wind power, we have taken a look at them in some more detail. So how do the Mail do? It's a bit of a mixed bag. Here are the five statements, where they come from, and whether they're right:

"A typical turbine generates power worth £150,000 a year but attracts subsidies of £250,000, with costs passed on through higher bills"

We have found it hard to identify where this claim - which has been made  previously in the Mail and has been  frequently repeated in anti-wind literature - originates from. It was stated in the foreward to a report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation in March,  but not referenced.

Wind turbines do get substantial subsidies, but figures from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) don't seem to agree with this statement. Calculations shared with us by DECC indicate that a typical onshore wind turbine, generating 4.73 gigawatt hours per year, would generate electricity worth about £250,000 and attract subsidies worth about £200,000.

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Roger Kidd

Environment minister Owen Paterson introduced an interesting take on windfarm siting in an interview on Radio 4 this weekend - the angle of the trees. Paterson believes windfarms shouldn't be sited in areas such as his own constituency in Shropshire because there's not enough wind in the county. Is that right? And is it the case that a lack of wind is a reason why people don't like wind turbines?

On BBC Radio 4's  Today programme last Saturday at the end of a segment on ash dieback, Paterson was asked some questions about his views on climate change and wind turbines (starting at 05.50). He said:

"I do not like windfarms in the wrong place. I've been absolutely clear as a local MP where the trees grow vertically because we don't get that much wind I think that's an idiotic place to build windfarms and do significant -  not just environmental, but economic damage."

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