Daily Briefing

There is continuing coverage in the UK media responding to UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s speech last week in which he announced he wants the UK to become the “Saudi Arabia of wind power”. The Observer says that the “government’s high-profile commitment to renewable energy could bring a decade of opportunities for young people”. It adds: “Within the industry there is little doubt that it can be done. Investor appetite has been whetted by years of falling costs, guaranteed returns and growing political support. The sector has already exceeded expectations in recent years to emerge as one of Britain’s great modern industrial success stories – and it is ready to do so again. The catch? It needs government ministers to translate the rhetoric to reality…The industry’s concerns centre on the government’s auction of project contracts, which guarantee a set revenue stream for their clean electricity via energy bills. The reverse auction has delivered record low prices which are unlikely to raise household costs. And the next one will be held in the spring. But there will need to be many more over the next decade to meet the government’s targets, and they will need to be far bigger too. In return for having the gates opened to more offshore projects, the industry has promised to play a major role in the government’s bid to ‘build back better’ from the coronavirus crisis as part of a green economic recovery. The upcoming auction alone, which will include onshore wind and solar power for the first time in four years, could secure more than £20bn of investment and create 12,000 jobs.”

Meanwhile, the Guardian says there are problem being reported with the government’s £5,000 “green homes grants” with householders saying it is nearly impossible to find an accredited installer. It adds: “Large areas of the country appear to have no contractors willing or able to do the work – leading the founder of the Moneysavingexpert website, Martin Lewis, to warn that the scheme risks becoming a ‘postcode lottery’ without immediate government intervention.” The Daily Mail claims it has uncovered a “botched green scheme” in Northern Ireland [now closed] which means that it is “paying wind turbine owners seven times the value of the electricity they generate – and it is set to cost UK consumers an estimated £1.4bn” [at £70m, a year over 20 years]. It adds: “The Daily Mail can reveal the eyewatering fiasco in the week Boris Johnson declared that wind power was the future for the nation’s energy generation. The scheme was set up to encourage homeowners to install a small windmill to supply their needs and feed into the electricity grid. But blundering civil servants set a subsidy rate so high it has been branded ‘a licence to print money’.” An accompanying editorial in the Daily Mail says it is “another green debacle”. Similarly, the Sunday Telegraph has published claims promoted by a climate sceptic lobby group that household electricity bills “could” double under Johnson’s plans to power every home using offshore wind farms by 2030. The UK government has responded to the claim saying “it is demonstrably false that the cost of offshore wind is rising”. The Sunday Times has an investigation claiming that power companies are “paying as little as 93p a customer” for the right to claim that “dirty energy tariffs are actually green”. It adds: “There are 111 energy tariffs now classed as renewable out of 282 on the market, 39% of the total, and the cost of these deals is falling. But a Sunday Times investigation has found huge confusion over what renewable really means because suppliers can ‘greenwash’ fossil fuel energy by buying certificates.”

Separately, in other UK news, the Sunday Times reports that Boris Johnson has approached his predecessor Theresa May “about whether she wanted to take charge of the COP26 climate change summit that Britain is hosting next year”. It adds: “Sources close to May say she has not turned down a post. They confirmed that May discussed climate change with Johnson because she introduced the target for Britain to be ‘net-zero’ in carbon emissions by 2050. However, one Tory familiar with the talks said neither [Lord] Feldman nor May…was attracted to the idea of working with [Johnson advisor Dominic] Cummings. ‘Dom was one of the issues,’ the source said.”

Reuters picks up a report published over the weekend by China’s official Xinhua News Agency which says that China will invest close to $900bn over the next five years to help further develop the country’s power grids. Reuters adds: “Investments in power grids and related industries are expected to exceed 6tn yuan ($896bn) in 2021-2025, Xinhua reported, citing Mao Weiming, chairman of the State Grid Corp of China, the country’s biggest power utility. The investments will centre on areas such as ultra high voltage power transmission, electric vehicle chargers and new digital infrastructure, Mao said.”

Separately, the Guardian reports that “China’s customs authorities have told several Chinese state-owned steelmakers and power plants to stop importing Australian coal, according to two industry newswire services”. It adds: “The move comes amid ongoing tensions in the relationship between China and Australia and reportedly affects both thermal and coking coal. S&P Global Platts, which covers energy and commodities markets, cited several unnamed sources as saying Chinese state-owned utilities and steel mills had received the verbal notice to cease the imports “with immediate effect”. Similarly, Argus Media reported that the order applied to at least some of China’s state-owned steelmakers and power plants – although the publication added it was also aware of some operators that were yet to receive the notice.”

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, has expressed her support for the US Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, reports Reuters. The newswire adds: “The Swedish 17-year-old said in a tweet that she never engages in party politics, but that ‘the upcoming US elections is above and beyond all that’.” She added: “From a climate perspective it’s very far from enough and many of you of course supported other candidates. But, I mean…you know…damn! Just get organised and get everyone to vote #Biden.”

Axios also covers Thunberg’s tweet saying: “Biden’s climate change plan doesn’t get rid of fracking or fossil fuels, something he’s said repeatedly. It does, however, bar any new oil drilling leases on public lands.” The Observer has published an interview with Thunberg in which she says: “People like me – who have Asperger’s syndrome and autism, who don’t follow social codes – we are not stuck in this social game of avoiding important issues. We dare to ask difficult questions.”

Meanwhile, the New York Post says that “Joe Biden [has] deepened the rift within the Democratic Party Saturday with an emphatic embrace of Pennsylvania’s energy industry”. It adds: “Both Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, said repeatedly during their primary campaigns that they hoped to do away with the extraction method. But they have said otherwise in recent weeks – earning disdain from other Dems.” The Sunday Times’s Laura Pullman asks: “Where do Trump and Biden really stand on climate change and fracking?” She says: “Biden is listening to a variety of different perspectives on the environment but, if he were to win, how achievable are his policy ambitions? Those Sanders supporters who come out for him could be left sorely disappointed…He has stopped short of fully endorsing the ambitious [“Green New Deal”] policy programme, a favourite punchbag on the right, which calls for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across the entire US economy within a decade.“ In contrast, the Guardian carries a feature headlined: “Trump has made fracking an election issue. Has he misjudged Pennsylvania?” And David Roberts writing for Vox lays out “how Joe Biden could reorient foreign policy around climate change”.

Separately, Reuters reports that “top US utility Duke Energy plans billions of dollars of new spending this decade as it ramps up efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions”, adding: “The move comes amid growing pressure from Democratic politicians and activist investors for power producers to reduce their hefty contribution to climate change…Duke said the increased spending will cover efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by retiring old coal plants and replacing them with more solar and wind facilities, with the exact targets tied to forthcoming regulatory decisions.”

An editorial in the Guardian argues that the UK government “needs an environmental sense of purpose that specifies the appropriate ends for economic activity”. It continues: “Saving the planet ought to be a goal for, not a cost to, humanity. Yet this insight appears lost in the discussion about the climate emergency. Last week, it emerged that the Treasury was thinking about levying a UK-wide carbon tax. This approach, it was suggested, could be sold as a way of ‘raising revenue while cutting emissions’. Properly targeted taxes can change behaviour. But ‘revenue raising’ green policies invariably end up being valued by the amount of taxes they produce rather than on their effectiveness in combating the climate crisis. UK governments have frozen fuel duties for a decade because it is politically easier to rake in cash than deter driving. A carbon tax is superficially appealing…Governments ought to confront whether the growth of real GDP is too destabilising for global ecosystems. For decades the planetary boundary for resource use has been exceeded because conventional economics has encouraged political leaders to concentrate on goals that are largely irrelevant to human welfare.”

In the Daily Telegraph, the chief executive of utility firm SSE Alistair Phillips-Davies writes: “We’re hopeful that the strong signal from the government about the need to unlock low-carbon investment will help us get to a more sensible place in December’s final determination [on the level of electricity network investments allowed by regulator Ofgem] so that we can get on with building the infrastructure, and creating the jobs, this country needs – rather than wasting time on a costly CMA [competition and markets authority] review, as the water sector has done. These are exciting opportunities for the UK at a time when the eyes of the world will be on us as we prepare to host the next big UN climate summit, COP26, in Glasgow next year. Now, more than ever, the government, industry and the regulator need to work together towards our shared objective of delivering net-zero and creating jobs at lowest cost.”

In the Financial Times, Dieter Helm, a professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, argues: “The day of reckoning on energy and energy policy is fast approaching. The UK legislated for a unilateral net-zero territorial carbon production target by 2050, its coal industry is now effectively closed and the nuclear fleet is ageing. With the climate change committee’s sixth carbon budget due before Christmas and the delayed COP26 global climate talks in 2021, something has to be done. The long-promised energy white paper must be delivered and decisions taken. Otherwise, the lights might go out and the carbon targets be missed. If the prime minister wants to address global warming, developing offshore wind and CCS are among the greatest contributions the UK could make. Why? Because the shallow, windy North Sea is one of the best locations in the world for offshore wind turbines. It is also littered with empty oil and gasfields and pipelines, which offers an inherent infrastructure to help pioneer CCS. The case for hydrogen and nuclear is less obvious.”

Also in the Financial Times, Henry Mance says he fears that Johnson’s “proposal for UK to become Saudi Arabia of wind may be just bluster”. He adds: “Will Mr Johnson follow through and create the conditions for tens of billions of pounds of investment in wind and hydrogen capacity? He likes moving on to the next shiny thing. He talks fast on green issues, but acts slower. The environment bill has stalled. Grouse moors are being burnt, despite the government’s pledge to stop that practice.” (Nada Farhoud, the Daily Mirror’s environment editor, writes about the topic of peatland burning in today’s edition.) And in another Financial Times comment piece, city editor Jonathan Ford writes about the “big challenge” facing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs): “The UK has plenty of form in pursuing hubristic nuclear projects that become money swamps. A glance at the history of overruns and delays that plagued the ‘Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor’ project in the 1960s should suffice as a reminder. For SMRs to avoid a similar miserable fate, the government must pick a single commercial technology which can bring in sufficient private sector investment and attract export orders. This cannot be some ‘made in Britain’ industrial exercise. If that’s what’s in prospect, then, honestly, big is probably best.”

In the Guardian, astronomer royal Sir Martin Rees argues: “We need innovative techniques to extract energy more efficiently from sunlight, wind and tides; for cheaper energy storage; and for smart grids and other infrastructure. It’s surely worthwhile, given our historical expertise in nuclear energy, to investigate safer and more flexible designs for nuclear reactors, especially small modular reactors.” Writing for CNN, the International Energy Agency’s Fatih Birol and Rafael Mariano Grossi say that “without nuclear power, the world’s climate challenge will get a whole lot harder”. And for the Institute for Government website, Jill Rutter says that Johnson “needs to convert his high-blown rhetoric about the UK into a practical plan of action”.

The New York Times responds to the new “Earthshot” prize announced last week by Prince William: “At a time when elected officials appear stymied by the challenge of climate change, or even in denial about it, it is heartening to see a royal prince pitch in with a good initiative…The announcement comes at a time when a dose of positivity is sorely needed, with the coronavirus raging through the world and symptoms of global warming, like the wildfires in California and the melting Arctic ice, becoming ever more acute and dangerous…A million pounds – roughly $1.3m – is significantly more than a Nobel Prize and should inspire some serious and creative thinking about the plight of Planet Earth. Unlike the Nobel Prize money, moreover, the Earthshot money is supposed to be spent on the winning project.”

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, financial columnist Matthew Lynn says: “The prince is harnessing the power of competition and incentives to fix the challenge posed by global warming. That is far better, and far more likely to be effective, than the stale, joyless, anti-capitalist rhetoric of most of the environmental movement. If the project can convert the greens to markets, that really will be an achievement…Most of the environmental movement, from Greta Thunberg to the Prince’s collaborator on Earthshot Sir David Attenborough, remain stuck in a tired anti-capitalist, anti-production groove. With innovators and entrepreneurs using their imagination, we can clean up the environment, and maintain growth, while also preserving the planet. The Prince’s initiative might even convince a few of his fellow campaigners of that simple truth – and that really would be a prize worth having.”

Separately, the Press Association reports on Prince William’s new TED Talk in which he says there is “no choice but to succeed” when tackling the problem of climate change over the next 10 years.

In the Sun, Sir David Attenborough writes: “Humanity is at a crossroads. The natural world is under serious threat and the consequences could be apocalyptic. We are already seeing the coral reefs dying, forests disappearing, the North Pole beginning to melt…People sometimes think of going green as giving things up. But the opposite is true – by going green we gain clean air, we gain healthier food, we gain more wildlife and green space and we gain a safe, stable world.” The Sun has also launched a new green campaign called “Count us in”.

Vulnerable people (aged over 65) experience five times the number of heatwave days than the global average, a new analysis says. The research reanalyses global and nationwide heatwave trends using climate models and population data. It finds that, in China and India, heatwave exposure increased by an average of 508 million person-days per year in the last decade. The Middle East and southeast Asia also saw large increases in exposure of vulnerable people to heatwaves, the study adds.

The land will act as a net contributor to climate change throughout the 21st century unless efforts are taken to restore and protect global peatlands, research finds. Peatlands are water-logged boggy environments that cover just 3% of the Earth’s surface but account for one fifth of the world’s soil carbon. The researchers say: “According to our results, the land system would turn into a global net carbon sink by 2100, as projected by current mitigation pathways, if about 60% of present-day degraded peatlands would be rewetted in the coming decades, next to the protection of intact peatlands.”