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Ministers should be 'sued' over climate change targets

27.09.17

News

Climate change: Ministers should be ‘sued’ over targets

BBC News

Ministers should be sued if they do not make efforts to tighten the UK’s official climate change targets, the government’s former chief scientist has said. Prof Sir David King said the government’s current goal to shrink carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 is too weak to protect the climate. He is now supporting a legal case forcing ministers to cut emissions to zero by 2050. Government ministers previously promised more ambitious climate polices in their upcoming – but long delayed – Clean Growth plan. In 2015, Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom promised a 100% cut in emissions to keep the UK on track with its obligations under the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to between 1.5 and 2C above pre-industrial levels. But this promise has not yet been enshrined within the Climate Change Act. “This is crazy,” Prof King told the BBC. “The government knows very well what needs to be done – but it isn’t doing it. If it takes legal action to force ministers to behave properly, then so be it – I’ll support it.” Prof King is in support of preliminary legal action from a small group known as Plan B, which is run by former government lawyer Tim Crosland. The group argues that Business Secretary Greg Clark is obliged to tighten climate targets if a scientific census shows that it is necessary. “The science has clearly hardened since the Climate Change Act was agreed,” Mr Crosland said. “If scientists are telling us our current course of emissions potentially takes us to catastrophe, then to stick to the current course is irrational.” Carbon Brief previously reported on some of the challenges that the UK will face in meeting its obligations under the Paris Agreement.

Climate change made Lucifer heatwave far more likely, scientists find

The Guardian

The Lucifer heatwave that sparked wildfires across Europe and left thousands needing medical assistance was made at least four times more likely by climate change, scientists say. And, if no action is taken to tackle global warming, such summer heatwaves with temperatures topping 40C will become the norm by 2050, scientists find. The new analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group also found that the scorching temperatures experienced across Europe this summer were made at least ten times more likely by global warming. “In the early 1900s, a summer like the one we just experienced would have been extremely rare,” Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, senior researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said in a statement, according to Reuters. “Across southern Europe, there is now a one in 10 chance of seeing a heatwave as hot as we saw during this past summer every summer.” The average intensity of European heatwaves has also shot up by 1 to 2C since 1950, WWA said. Inside Climate News also reports on the findings.

UK could rescue energy efficient homes policy with few key steps

The Guardian

The government could save billions by making Britain’s homes more energy efficient by taking a few key steps, a new report finds. Ministers are currently working on a new “clean growth” plan after the scrapping of the green deal, which left the country without a policy on making homes more energy efficient. Now a new report by Frontier Economics, has won the backing of more than 20 organisations, including green campaigners, thinktanks, companies selling insulation and services, and the energy companies E.ON and Npower. The 88-page report calls for the reinstatement of a requirement for new homes to be zero carbon by 2020, for all homes to be brought up to a performance rating of C (on a scale of A to G) by 2035, and for low-income families to receive assistance in order to meet this standard. The report also suggests that homeowners who sell draughty properties should face a fine, BBC News reports. Carbon Brief also writes on the report’s findings.

Dyson to make electric cars from 2020

BBC News

Engineering heavy-weight Dyson is planning to launch a “radical” electric car by 2020. The company revealed today that 400 of its staff have been secretly working on a £2bn project to build a battery-powered vehicle for the last two years. However, the car does not yet exist and a factory site is yet to be chosen, the company says. Sir James declined to give further details of the project. “Competition for new technology in the automotive industry is fierce and we must do everything we can to keep the specifics of our vehicle confidential,” he told staff in an email. Despite no car being built, the firm has began developing two different battery types that are reportedly more efficient than those in current electric vehicles, The Guardian reports. Sir James did not name a price but warned the car could be expensive, saying: “Maybe the better figure is how much of a deposit they would be prepared to put down.” The Financial Timesreports that the company is currently deliberating over whether to begin manufacturing in the UK or the Far East. The Telegraph and The Daily Mail also have the story.

EasyJet puts its weight behind plans for electric planes

BBC News

EasyJet is planning on building a commercial aircraft powered by electric batteries instead of conventional aero engines with 10 to 20 years. The prototype will be developed by a US firm called Wright Electric, which has already built a two-seat electric plane. The new, larger plane could have a range of 335 miles, the companies said. EasyJet said this meant it would be able to fly well-known routes such as London to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Cologne, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of EasyJet, said she was now confident that such a plane, possibly carrying 220 passengers, will one day fly. “We share an ambition with Wright Electric for a more sustainable aviation industry,” she said. “Just as we have seen with the automotive industry, the aviation industry will be looking to electric technology to reduce our impact on the environment.”

California Considers Following China With Combustion-Engine Car Ban

Bloomberg

State officials in California are considering a ban on combustion-engine vehicles. Governor Jerry Brown has expressed an interest in banning the sale of combustion-engine cars, Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, told Bloomberg. The proposed ban could be at least a decade away, she added. “There are people who believe, including who work for me, that you could stop all sales of new internal-combustion cars by 2030. Some people say 2035, some people say 2040,” she said. “It’s awfully hard to predict any of that with precision, but it doesn’t appear to be out of the question.” In California, more than 2m new vehicles were registered last year, topping the number of new cars in France, Italy or Spain. The Hill also has the story.

Comment

U.S. Climate Change Policy: Made in California

Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times

The Trump administration may appear to control climate policy in Washington, but the nation’s most dynamic environmental regulation is happening in California, writes Hiroko Tabuchi in the New York Times. In an in-depth feature, the Times explores how Mary Nichols, California’s 72-year-old air quality regulator, is pressing ahead with a far-reaching agenda of environmental and climate actions despite inaction from the federal government. “We’re standing firm. We’re prepared to sue. We’re prepared to do what we need to do,” Ms. Nichols said in a recent interview. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

Wind power is now cheaper than nuclear – the energy revolution is happening

John Sauven, The Guardian

The falling price of wind power means that Britain is “on the cusp of a quiet revolution”, says Greenpeace director John Sauven in The Guardian. “The UK needs affordable and secure energy,” he writes. “We have to replace our obsolete power stations and meet growing demand from the electric vehicle revolution. Offshore wind, alongside a smart energy system including storage and interconnectors, should be the backbone of how the UK generates its power in future.” He adds that such a system could “help us meet our climate change commitments and speed up the move to a low-carbon economy.”

Science

Atmospheric evidence for a global secular increase in carbon isotopic discrimination of land photosynthesis

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Climate change and rising CO2 are altering the behavior of land plants in ways that influence how much biomass they produce relative to how much water they need for growth. A new study shows that it is possible to detect changes occurring in plants using long-term measurements of the isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2. These measurements imply that plants have globally increased their water use efficiency in leaves in proportion to the rise in atmospheric CO2 over the past few decades. The results help to quantify the extent to which the biosphere has become less constrained by water stress globally.

Katabatic winds diminish precipitation contribution to the Antarctic ice mass balance

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Precipitation over Antarctica remains largely unknown, despite its crucial role in the surface mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Using unprecedented observations covering an entire year, a new study finds a previously unknown mechanism that leads to the sublimation of a large fraction of snowfall in the lower atmosphere, resulting from the interaction of precipitation and katabatic (or downslope) winds. Snowfall sublimation in the atmosphere, caused by katabatic winds, is in the order of 35% in the margins of East Antarctica. This process affects the interpretation of satellite-based remote sensing observations close to the ground and suggests that snowfall sublimation in a warming climate may counterbalance the expected increase of precipitation due to more water vapor being present in warmer air.