China can take lead, climate envoy says, Saudi Arabia seeks $30bn-$50bn solar and wind energy investment, & more

17.01.17

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China can take lead, climate envoy says

China is capable of taking a leadership role in combating global climate change, says China’s special envoy. Speaking ahead of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Xie Zhenhua said China is taking steps to fulfil pledges made under the Paris Agreement, including launching a nationwide carbon trading market this year. Xie also “attempted to calm fears that Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House will spell disaster for the fight against climate change,” says the Guardian. Xie reaffirmed Beijing’s “firm attitude” towards fighting global warming and noted that the incoming US president had “softened his tone on whether climate change is real” following his election. “Industrial upgrades aiming for more sustainable growth is a global trend … It is not something that can be reversed by a single political leader,” Xie said. Meanwhile, China has suspended progress on 85 planned and under-construction coal power stations in 13 provinces, reports Energydesk. The step, announced by the National Energy Administration, is the latest step in China’s attempts to meet its Five Year Plan. China has committed to a cap on coal capacity of 1,100GW, but completing all the plants in the pipeline would take them up to 1,250GW. The latest suspension calls a halt to 100GW of capacity being built. About 430bn yuan ($62.30bn) was invested in these projects, says Reuters. Carbon Pulse also covers the story.

Saudi Arabia seeks $30bn-$50bn solar and wind energy investment

Financial Times

Saudi Arabia will “within weeks” start issuing tenders for a solar and wind power programme worth $30bn-$50bn by 2030, the country’s oil minister said yesterday. Speaking at the annual IRENA renewable energy summit in Abu Dhabi, Khalid al-Falih said the kingdom is targeting renewable power projects with a capacity of 10GW by 2023. Saudi Arabia is also in the early stages of assessing the feasibility of the country’s first commercial nuclear power stations, with capacity of 2.8 gigawatts, he added: “There will be significant investment in nuclear energy.” Saudi Arabia has been trying for years to diversify its energy mix so that it can export more of its oil, but progress has been slow, says Reuters. Mr al-Falih reiterated the Kingdom was committed to sourcing 30% of power from non-fossil sources by 2030, says Climate Home. Also announced in Abu Dhabi, Jordan will plans to award 300 megawatts of renewable projects by the end of this year, reports Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Ziad Jibril Sabra, assistant secretary general in the Ministry of Energy, said Jordan is planning four solar projects and two wind plants, each producing 50 megawatts of electricity.

Ice crack to put UK Antarctic base in shut-down

BBC News

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is to pull all staff out of its Halley VI base in March because the Brunt Ice Shelf on which the research station sits has developed a large new crack. The station, which comprises a series of hi-tech pods that are mounted on hydraulic legs and skis, is already in the process of being relocated because of a different chasm that opened up in the ice shelf. The new crack has been steadily growing to the north of the base, and computer modelling suggests that it could cause a large iceberg to calve off, destabilising the area, says the Telegraph. BAS said while there was no immediate risk to its 88 staff at the station, the new crack “presents a complex glaciological picture” and that it would be extremely difficult to evacuate during the winter if the ice shelf fractured, reports the Guardian. “We want to do the right thing for our people. Bringing them home for winter is a prudent precaution given the changes that our glaciologists have seen in the ice shelf in recent months,” said Tim Stockings, director of operations. The Associated Press and MailOnline also cover the story.

Global sea ice at lowest area ever recorded

Climate Home

There is now less sea ice covering the planet than ever recorded in the satellite record, newly-released data shows. The record is a result of very low sea ice area in both the Arctic and Antarctic, say scientists at the US government’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre. “In the Arctic, there’s definitely that connection between the substantial warming and the substantial sea ice decrease,” said Dr Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at Nasa. “In the Antarctic case there hasn’t been substantial warming so the connection is not as clear.” The immediate cause of the current dip could be a weakening of the winds around Antarctica in November 2016, reports New Scientist, who spoke to John Turner, a climatologist at the British Antarctic Survey. “It was a very exceptional month,” says Turner. “Relatively small changes in winds can have a huge effect on sea ice.”

Ikea won’t invest any of its £524m green energy fund in UK until Government backs renewables

Independent

Ikea won’t spend any of its £524m green energy fund in the UK because government policies on renewables have made it “difficult” to invest, the company said. The Swedish furniture giant reportedly says it has spent more than €1.5bn over the last 20 years on tackling climate change and has another half a billion to invest by 2020. Joanna Yarrow, Ikea UK’s head of sustainability, told the Huffington Post that the UK’s “political context” does not encourage investment in renewables: “I would say that over the last five or six years it has become increasingly difficult to invest in renewable energy production in the UK.”

Concerns over first snow and common leopards found in same area

BBC News

The first ever recorded video footage of snow leopards and common leopards sharing the same habitat has caused concern among conservationists. The video, from July last year, was obtained from a camera trap in Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau in China. Wildlife experts say this is the first pictorial evidence of the two cats at the same place. They are worried about the future of the snow leopard’s habitat if common leopards begin to live at higher elevations in a warming climate.

We need a Ladybird book of climate change deniers

Guardian

The announcement that Prince Charles has co-written a Ladybird book about climate change “sounds like another spoof” in line with the satirical Ladybird series for adults, says natural history writer, Patrick Barkham. However, the 5,000 word book is part of the “Expert range,” he notes. “Hooray for Ladybird’s championing of expertise,” Barkham says, but he wonders if a satirical take on climate change scepticism would “chime with readers reprogrammed to see the books as satire.” “I’m sure there would be a readership for a spoof Ladybird called Climate Change Deniers,” he writes: “A few laughs might be an effective educational tool too.”

Science

Sensitivity of projected long-term CO2 emissions across the Shared Socioeco

Nature Climate Change

Using six state-of-the-art integrated assessment models, a study examines how sensitive CO2 emissions are to a number of key drivers in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), a new set of scenarios introduced to describe alternative social, economic and technical narratives, spanning a wide range of plausible futures. Of a number of factors including population, income, energy efficiency, fossil fuel availability, and low-carbon energy technology development, the authors show how assumptions in the models about energy intensity and economic growth are the most important determinants of cumulative emissions in the decades ahead.

Future increases in extreme precipitation exceed observed scaling rates

Nature Climate Change

Rainfall extremes in Australia could increase at a higher rate in future than has been seen in observed data. A new study uses model projections for several cities in Australia to show that 2C warming would produce an 11.3–30% increase in extreme daily rainfall, while 4C would produce an 22.6–60% increase. This is a higher scaling rate than would be expected from extending the observed relationship forwards in time and is tightly correlated with the change in water vapour.

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