Climate records shattered in 2015, climate-friendly flying could cost $60 billion a year, & more

03.08.16

News

Environmental records shattered as climate change ‘plays out before us’

With air and ocean temperatures breaking records, sea levels reaching historic highs and carbon dioxide surpassing a key milestone, the world is careering towards an environment never seen before by humans, says the Guardian about yesterday’s State of the Climate report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Described by the agency’s director, Thomas Karl, as an “annual physical” of the Earth’s climate system, the weighty analysis confirmed annual surface temperature in 2015 beat the previous record set in 2014 by 0.1C, making the world 1C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times. Thermal expansion of the oceans, compounded by melting glaciers, saw the highest global sea level on record while the Arctic experienced its lowest maximum sea ice extent in the 37-year satellite record. The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle and are “playing out before us in real time”, says Penn State’s Michael Mann. Climate change has “reached a fever pitch in recent years, causing records to fall like dominoes”, saysClimate Central. Climate Home has the top five takeaways from the report.

UN: climate-friendly flying could cost $60 billion a year

Climate Home

Replacing conventional jet fuel with carbon neutral alternatives would cost up to $60 billion a year from 2020 to 2050 and would require around 170 new bioenergy refineries to be built every year, according to the UN’s aviation body. A report from the International Civil Aviation Organisation predicts a growth in the industry of 4% per year to 2030 and beyond. Boubacar Djibo, head of ICAO’s airport transport bureau, says that while alternative fuels are the only practical renewable energy option available for aircraft, “integrated thinking is now required to accompany the large-scale deployment of biofuels.” Campaigners already oppose current levels of biofuels, notes Climate Home, since in many parts of the world they compete with farmland that supplies food to millions. BusinessGreen has more on the new report. Under the current proposal, a deal to limit carbon emissions from global civil aviation could be voluntary for the first five years instead of mandatory for certain countries, reports Reuters.

UK’s carbon footprint rises 3%

Press Association via The Guardian

Greenhouse gases linked to goods and services consumed by UK households rose by 3% between 2012 and 2013, according to new government data. The figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs cover imported and domestically produced goods and services consumed in the UK, as well as heating homes and fuelling household vehicles with fossil fuels. Despite the year-on-year rise, the “carbon footprint” of UK consumption is almost a fifth (19%) below the peak seen in 2007, notes The Guardian. BusinessGreen has more on the new figures.

UK new nuclear programme not dependent on Hinkley, say rivals

The Telegraph

Scrapping Hinkley Point would not derail the UK’s wider programme to build new nuclear capacity, say nuclear developers NuGen and Horizon. The Japanese and French-owned NuGen insists it will continue developing its project at Moorside in Cumbria “irrespective of the status of other developers”. Horizon, which has planned reactors on Anglesey, is also distancing itself from the worries over Hinkley, with a spokesperson saying the company had “no qualms about the continued commitment of the Government to UK nuclear new build”. The statements follow a warning from industry experts that confidence across the sector would take a hit if Teresa May pulled the plug on the £18bn project. Neither the Horizon nor the NuGen project has Chinese involvement, notes The Telegraph, understood to be one of the key causes of concern for Mrs May over Hinkley.

Comment

Britain can find opportunities beyond Hinkley

Nick Butler, The Financial Times

With guests flown in and the champagne laid out, it’s hard to see how the wedding can be rearranged after the UK government seemingly left French power utility EDF abandoned at the altar, says Nick Butler. There can only be two reasons why the government is holding an eleventh-hour review: the new administration dislikes the price for power that has been provisionally agreed, or it objects to the project’s Chinese involvement. While right to object, changing the terms of either could pose a mortal threat to the project, he says. For the UK government, this could be a chance to accelerate projects from lower cost nuclear providers and natural gas to replace the electricity that Hinkley was supposed to provide, says Butler. While this is not impossible, it “will require a degree of planning not evident in UK energy policy in recent years”, he says. Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, looks at the case for the government delaying its decision beyond September.

The climate crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us

George Monbiot, The Guardian

Monbiot returns to the subject he has written about for more than a decade – the “climate crisis” and how the media misreports it: “In Britain, the media largely failed to hold David Cameron to account for his extravagant green promises and shocking record as prime minister. His successor, Theresa May, has made some terrible appointments, but the new climate change minister, Nick Hurd, an adult among her pet buffoons, is an interesting choice as he seems to understand the subject. The basic problem, however, is that the political costs of failure are so low…To pretend that newspapers and television channels are neutral arbiters of such matters is to ignore their place at the corrupt heart of the establishment.”

Gas and the search for a coherent energy policy

Letters, The Times

Leading climate change economists and policy experts have responded to a claim by Times columnist and Conservative peer, Matt Ridley, in a series of letter to the newspaper’s editor. Ridley concluded in an article that the price for Hinkley C nuclear power station is too high, given its £60 price tag for every tonne of CO2 avoided and the US government’s best estimate of the impacts from climate change sitting at around £28 per tonne. But since Hinkley is expected to generate electricity for 60 years from 2025, a better comparison would the US government’s estimate for the impacts of CO2 released in mid-century, which is more like £52 in 2050, making Hinkley look much closer to a worthwhile bet, says Cambridge economist Chris Hope.

Science

The scientific veneer of IPCC visuals

Climate Dynamics

A new study investigates how people respond to the illustrations used in the latest Summary for Policymakers report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The researchers presented a group of test subjects with four IPCC visuals and two other infographics, and compared how well they were understood. The group viewed the IPCC visuals as more legitimate because they look scientific, the study finds, whereas infographics were found to appear less serious. While infographics can be accessible for readers, the authors urge that they should be used with caution as “any negative impact on scientific credibility is an unwanted feature in IPCC communication.”

Big Data Sensors of Organic Advocacy: The Case of Leonardo DiCaprio and Climate Change

PLOS One

Researchers have quantified how Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2016 Oscar acceptance speech citing climate change affected global news, social media and Google searches. Tweets including the terms “climate change” or “global warming” reached record highs, increasing 636% – with more than 250,000 tweets the day DiCaprio spoke. Meanwhile, Google searches for the same terms increased by more than 200% the day of DiCaprio’s speech and remained high for four more days. The “DiCaprio effect” surpassed the average daily impact of the Paris climate talks and last year’s Earth Day by at least a factor of three, the study says.