A coalition of leading NGOs is calling on the UK’s political
leaders to commit to phase out the use of unabated coal power by no
later than the early 2020s. The move comes after the leaders of the
Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats jointly pledged
last month to end the use of unabated coal power, without
committing to a firm date. “The joint pledge to end dirty coal was
a great step forward, but for it to have a real impact it needs a
clear deadline and concrete policies to make it happen,” said
Greenpeace. The Daily Mailsays that, as well as
Greenpeace, the coalition includes WWF UK, Oxfam, RSPB and the
Women’s Institute.

The UK’s ability to attract investment to fund renewable
energy projects has fallen to its lowest level in 12 years,
according to a new report by the consultancy EY. The fall in
ranking is due to, reports the Telegraph’s industry editor,
“confusion over how much providers of green power will be paid for
the energy the produce, along with uncertainty over how the
election will affect policy”. BusinessGreennotes that “the top
four of China, the US, Germany, and Japan remains unchanged, but
India has overtaken Canada to move into fifth as a result of
Narendra Modi’s ambitious green energy targets and policy reforms”.

Plans have been unveiled for six lagoons – four in Wales and
one each in Somerset and Cumbria – that will capture incoming and
outgoing tides behind giant sea walls, and use the weight of the
water to power turbines. Together, they could generate 8% of the
UK’s electricity for an investment of £30bn. One firm
wants £168 per MWh hour for electricity at a Swansea-based lagoon,
reducing to £90-£95 per MWh for power from a second, more efficient
lagoon in Cardiff. The BBC’s environment analyst says this compares
favourably with the £92.50 price for power from the planned Hinkley
nuclear station, “especially as the lagoon is designed to last 120
years – at a much lower risk than nuclear”.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said over the
weekend that the UK government budgets for offshore wind power are
unlikely to support Scotland’s ambitions to develop the industry.
Only one Scottish offshore wind farm received a share of £260m set
aside for projects from 2016-2018 and beyond. Last week, the UK
government confirmed that two major offshore wind farms in Scotland
were refused 15-year Contracts For Difference (CFDs), which
guarantee a price for the power generated. The Timessays that Sturgeon’s support
for wind means that she is now “at the centre of a bitter argument”
with Scotland’s biggest conservation charities, who are frustrated
at her government’s “relentless support” for wind energy.

Media attacks on wind energy appear to have impacted the
public’s understanding of the sector, reports BusinessGreen. A new
poll shows a large majority of people overestimate the cost of wind
power and underestimate the level of public support it enjoys. The
survey of 2,000 adults, commissioned by trade association
RenewableUK, found that the average estimate for the amount paid in
subsidies to support wind energy from the average household bill
stood at £259 – more than 14-fold the £18 a year currently paid per
household. Similarly, 90 per cent of respondents underestimated the
level of public support for onshore wind energy, which has been
steady at between 65 per cent and 70 per cent for several years.

Hundreds of thousands of academics, engineers and lawyers in
Denmark are set to vote on divesting their €32bn (£23bn) pension
funds from fossil fuels. The first of a series of resolutions will
be filed today asking six funds to dump their coal investments by
2018 and exclude high-risk oil and gas projects such as tar sands
extraction and Arctic drilling. Meanwhile, the Guardianalso reports on 50
academics from Edinburgh University who have signed an open letter
calling for the institution to divest its £230m endowment fund from
fossil fuels and the arms trade.

Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, will call in a
speech today in Glasgow for the part-nationalisation of oil fields
as a way of rescuing the beleaguered North Sea industry. Brown will
say that radical measures are needed to protect the oil and gas
sector from falling prices, raising the prospect of public-private
partnerships taking over failing oil fields to return them to
profitability. If such measures are not considered, reports
the Guardian, Brown will say severe
structural damage will be inflicted that will weaken the entire
Scottish economy.

Readfearn tells the tale of a 1998 plan hatched by “some of
the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world” to “hijack the
science of human-caused global warming”. The so-called Global
Climate Science Communications plan saw fossil fuel corporations
join forces with operatives from major conservative think tanks and
public relations experts to convince “a majority of the American
public” that “significant uncertainties exist in climate science”.
Readfearn tracks down the people involved to see what they’re up to
now.

An editorial in the Guardian focuses on the threat of
climate change to food supplies. “Global warming has barely begun
but climate scientists have been warning about the consequences for
food security for 30 years,” it says, noting new studies that cite
climate change as a contributory factor for falling crop yields.
“The two latest bits of research into wheat yields are not isolated
indicators of tomorrow’s troubles. The big heat has yet to arrive.
It will be catastrophic.” The paper argues that imapacts on food
production must be at the forefront of negotiators minds this
December at the climate talks in Paris.

The focus on courting or battling with the tiny minority of
individuals who self-identify as a climate change sceptic is a
distraction to the majority of people, writes Corner. He adds:
“Climate change has been dogged by obsessive (and often vitriolic)
name-calling. Whether its ‘denier’, ‘sceptic’, ‘lukewarmer’ or
‘alarmist’, no-one seems entirely happy with the box they find
themselves put in.” Corner highlights new research that argues
these rigid and often binary labels are producing an unhelpfully
antagonistic and combative discourse on climate change.

A new study investigates heat and the cold waves in the
Carpathian Region – a chain of mountain ranges stretching from the
Czech Republic through Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and
Romani. The area’s rich biosphere is endangered by extreme events,
say the researchers. Of seven heatwaves between 1961 to 2010, four
occurred since 2000. On the other hand, the 1960s and the 1980s
were the decades most hit by severe cold waves.

When the sea ice began to retreat after the last glacial
maximum about 19 thousand years ago, emperor penguin numbers
dropped and became isolated in there key areas, according to new
research. A rapid rise in penguin numbers as temperatures rose and
sea ice retreated at the start of the Holocene suggest there’s an
optimum amount of sea ice that allows the animals to fish from the
sea and return to their nests without overexertion.