British press watchdog says climate change article was faulty

18.09.17

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British Press Watchdog Says Climate Change Article Was Faulty

The New York Times broke the story early on Sunday morning that IPSO, the UK press regulator, has upheld a complaint against an article in the Mail on Sunday earlier this year claiming climate scientists had manipulated data ahead of the Paris Agreement. IPSO has ruled that the article by the notoriously controversial writer David Rose was “significantly misleading” and ruled the newspaper must publish a lengthy statement explaining why, both online and in print. The complaint had originally been made by Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. Ward told the New York Times: “It was fairly obvious right from the start it was bound to be suspicious because David Rose has a long history of promoting climate change denial. It was grossly overblown and that was clearly what he was trying to do.” The original article, which sat under the print headline, “EXPOSED: How world leaders were duped over global warming,” had been spread around the world on social media and even tweeted twice by Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, a Republican who heads the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The Guardian also carries the story and includes a quote from the Mail on Sunday: “We are disappointed with this finding, but we accept it and are publishing the adjudication with prominence in the newspaper and online.” Ward, the complainant, has published his experience of the IPSO process on the LSE website. It’s worth noting that IPSO does not adjudicate on matters of scientific accuracy. Carbon Brief published a detailed factcheck of the scientific claims made in the Mail on Sunday article at the time.

Trump Administration Seeks to Avoid Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord

Wall Street Journal

Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, has said that America is open to staying in the Paris Agreement on climate change, “if we can construct a set of terms that we believe is fair”. Tillerson said Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, was directing the discussions: “So I think the plan is for Director Cohn to consider other ways in which we can work with partners in the Paris climate accord. We want to be productive. We want to be helpful.” Tillerson’s comments to the US network CBS backed up reports on Saturday suggesting Trump had softened his attitude, after a meeting of environment ministers. Miguel Arias Canete, the EU’s top climate official, said US officials had indicated the US would not renegotiate the Paris accord but “try to review the terms on which they could be engaged”. However, the Hill reports that later on Saturday the White House denied suggestions that the Trump administration was softening its stance on the deal: “There has been no change in the United States’ position on the Paris agreement. As the President has made abundantly clear, the United States is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favourable to our country”. On Sunday, US national security adviser H.R. McMaster said that reports that Trump is reconsidering his decision to pull out of the Paris were “false”, but also said that the door remains open to a better agreement down the road, the Washington Post writes. “The president’s ears are open if, at some point, they decide they can come forward with an agreement that addresses the president’s very legitimate concerns with Paris,” McMaster said. Exiting the international climate deal was one of Trump’s key campaign pledges. Meanwhile, Bloombergreports that the EU and China are stepping up their coordination on climate change after the US’ decision to exit the deal. The BBC, the Guardian, the Financial Times CNN and the Hill also cover the story.

Big Oil Becomes Greener With Cuts to Greenhouse Gas Pollution

Bloomberg

A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that 62 of the world’s 100 largest companies consistently cut their emissions on an annual basis between 2010 and 2015, with an overall 12% decline during the period. “This is a reflection of growing pressure from shareholders, investor groups and civil society for more disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as setting reduction targets,” said Laura McIntyre-Brown, the author of the report. Oil majors, which are among the biggest corporate emitters of pollution, also participated in the trend, Bloomberg reports, with the five biggest – Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, BP and Total – collectively curbing their pollution by an average of 13% between 2010-2015. BP cut the most at 25%. While some of the reduction from the big oil companies is probably due to the crash in oil prices that began in 2014, the report notes, all five majors have enacted climate and efficiency policies, as well as anti-pollution measures. However, “there isn’t evidence yet that the oil business could break the link between its revenue and the pollution it emits”, the report says. But outside the energy industry “companies collectively have managed to pare back emissions while boosting sales”. The reductions recorded by the 100 top companies saved 70.7 million tons of carbon dioxide over the period – about as much as Israel emits in a year, Bloomberg writes.

Ed Miliband smart meter energy scheme blows a fuse

The Times

In 2009 the former climate change secretary Ed Miliband ordered Britain’s energy giants to replace energy meters with “smart meters”, which allows homeowners to see how much energy they are using. The aim was to encourage households to use less energy, however research published this week found that: “The costs are high at £200-£300 per home and the energy savings are tiny”. Benjamin Sovacol, professor of energy policy at Sussex University, and his colleagues found that “The technology has generated ‘confusion and resistance’ in many households. There is little awareness of the benefits or of how the technology works”.

Trump Administration Moves to Open Arctic Refuge to Drilling Studies

New York Times

An internal memo in the US Interior Department has proposed lifting restrictions on exploratory seismic studies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This could be a possible first step toward opening the area to oil and gas drilling, the New York Times reports. The document, first brought to light by the Washington Post, proposes ending a restriction that had limited exploratory drilling. The refuge, which covers more than 30,000 square miles, has been closed off to drilling because of concerns about the impact on caribou, polar bears and other animals in the region. The Hill also carries the story.

UK firms ever more vulnerable to activists with energy firms first in the crosshairs

The Telegraph

British energy firms are a third more likely to come under pressure from activist investors than their European counterparts, according to a report from the consultants Alvarez & Marsal. The model has identified 54 vulnerable UK firms, the Telegraph reports. They also found “early indications” that increasing the number of women on a board could reduce the risk of shareholder activism. Activist investors “build up stakes in companies they believe are underperforming in order to demand changes in management or the way they are run”, the Telegraph explains.

Most Britons ‘dislike prospect of living near mini nuclear station’

The Guardian

62% of Britons would not be happy living near small modular reactors that several companies including Rolls-Royce want to build in the UK. The government has promised the developers help from a £250m funding pot to build the reactors. In comparison, only 24% would be unhappy living near an onshore windfarm, for which the Conservative party has introduced tougher planning rules. “These results show just how wildly out of step with public opinion UK energy policy has become”, said Ellie Roberts, campaigner at 10:10. The government is set to give the green light to the reactors in the coming months, the Telegraph reports.

Huge cash shortfall stops electricity reaching world’s poor

Climate Home

Investment in electrification needs to double to bring power to every home by 2030, concludes an analysis by Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All), a UN initiative. Nearly all the funds tracked went to boost grid electricity supplies, with less than 1% going into off-grid options like solar home systems. SE4All recommends a greater focus on solar home systems for underserved rural areas, Climate Home reports. “This is the first time anyone has worked to assess how much finance is flowing to energy access, and the results surprised us,” said Barbara Buchner, executive director of Climate Policy Initiative, which contributed to the report.

Comment

Catastrophe models are good for the insurance business

John Dizard, Financial Times

While insurers “believe that climate change is a real phenomenon”, they “they do not use climate models as their principal method of pricing storm risk”, explains John Dizard, in feature analysing how insurance businesses price risk in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and Irma. Instead they use catastrophe models, “which incorporate modest but steady increases in assumed losses due to climate change”. “Climate models do not generate results that can be used directly to price risks, because they have problems modelling extreme weather events and are too expensive to run on the required scales of time and space”, Dizard writes. “Whatever the covered losses turn out to be, the world can expect significantly higher premiums, and more attention to catastrophe modelling, as well as climate change headlines”, he concludes.

Beyond peak oil

Nick Butler, Financial Times

The Financial Times’ columnist Nick Butler explains how the “concept of peak oil has therefore shifted from peak supply to peak demand”, as technology has enabled the industry to keep finding more oil. “The expectation is that demand will begin to fall before supply starts to run out”, he says, although “there is no consensus on the date”. Butler predicts that: “a peak in demand — say in the mid to late 2020s — will be followed by a long plateau keeping global oil demand at around 100m b/d for many years”.

Science

Carbon dioxide fertilization offsets negative impacts of climate change on Arabica coffee yield in Brazil

Climatic Change

Action on climate change could see projected losses to Brazilian arabica coffee yields being outweighed by the boost to growth caused by extra CO2 in the atmosphere, new research suggests. Under a stabilisation scenario emissions, where atmospheric CO2 levels off around mid-century, arabica yield losses due to high air temperatures and water deficit will increase in 2040-70, while losses due to frost will decrease. However, these impacts could be offset by the CO2 fertilisation effect, the researchers say, and average yield for Brazil may even see a 0.8% increase.

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