Experts have published a short guide to climate science to
help people challenge claims about global warming made by the
“ill-informed pub bore or the family know-it-all”. Climate
scientists at the Royal Society have produced a 60-second animation
and short Q&A guide that address some of the most common claims
made by people who dismiss the scientific basis of climate change.
You can find the guide here.

The price of a barrel of oil has continued to fall, slipping
below $65 for the first time in five years, the Financial Times
reports. There is a “looming supply glut” in the international oil
market, the paper warns. Shares in large oil companies fell when
the news was announced. Writing for Reuters, analyst John Kemp considers the
effect the falling oil price could have on the US shale gas
industry, in a detailed piece. While many of the shale plays will
remain profitable, “drilling on the frontier of the shale
revolution, where costs are relatively high and the quality of the
shale is variable and often poorly understood, is highly sensitive
to prices”, he warns.

The UK’s energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey has
called for tougher reporting rules for companies investing in
“risky” fossil fuel assets which could fall in value if climate
legislation is implemented in the future. Speaking at a side event
to the Lima climate change conference, Mr Davey said there was a
case for making it mandatory for companies to disclose information
about the risks they face. The Guardianalso reports the
story. In other news from Lima, environmental group
Greenpeace has apologisedafter carrying out a
protest on a sensitive Peruvian archaeological site. And Japan is
under pressure from other big economies such as China to set fresh
emissions targets as its coal use rises, says Reuters.

The US Council for International Business, a business lobby
group with over 6 million members, has said that businesses need to
have a bigger role in the international climate negotiations.
Businesses should be “co-parties” in the talks, not just observers,
it argues. At the moment only government delegates can formally
participate in the talks, the FT notes.

BP is expected to spend the best part of $1bn dollars on
redundancy payments to staff who will lose their jobs as part of a
sweeping restructuring at the company. The company is responding to
the falling price of crude oil, the Financial Times says.

A group of Catholic bishops argue that nations should aim to
keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5 degrees celsius, as
governments meet at UN climate talks in Lima. Limiting warming to
this level will be necessary “in order to protect frontline
communities suffering from the impacts of climate change, such as
those in the Pacific Islands and in the coastal regions”, their
statement says.

Reuters reports: “Japan’s weather bureau said on Wednesday
that an El Nino weather pattern, which can trigger drought in some
parts of the world while causing flooding in others, had emerged
during the summer for the first time in five years and was likely
to continue into winter.”

The Green Climate Fund will seek to invest in energy projects
that exemplify a “shift away from business as usual”, Reuters
reports. The comments made by its executive director come in the
wake of request from campaigners for the Fund to make explicit that
it will not provide funding to fossil fuel projects.

The government has given the go-ahead for 1.2GW of offshore
wind capacity off the Yorkshire coast. Final investment decisions
are still to be made. If the project goes ahead, it could
ultimately pave the way for 4GW of offshore wind capacity in the
area, Business Green reports.

Observers of Australia’s stance at international climate
negotiations have suggested that there may be an element of
political grandstanding for a domestic audience to their generally
less-than-enthusiastic stance on international climate policy.
According to one observer: “They’re still saying some strange
things here in Lima, for example questioning the long-term goal to
limit global warming to two degrees, but on the whole they are
being reasonably constructive. It seems like a lot of their
messaging is just designed for the audience at home.”

A new study confirms that atmospheric levels of nitrous oxide
rose significantly as the Earth came out of the last ice age.
Researchers analysed air bubbles in ice cores drilled from a
glacier in Antarctica. Their findings show a 30 per cent increase
in atmospheric nitrous oxide from 16,000 years ago to 10,000 years
ago. This rise was caused by changes in the ocean and on land, the
scientists say, and contributed to the warming at the end of the
ice age.

A 13-year decline in vegetation in the eastern and
southeastern Amazon is linked to a decade-long rainfall decline in
the region, a new study finds. The researchers use satellites to
show a decrease in “greenness” of 5.4 million square kilometres of
forest, equivalent to over half the area of the US. Further drying
would mean the potential loss of vegetation and associated carbon
storage, the authors warn.

Climate change will push marine species northward by an
average of 30 kilometers per decade, according to new research. The
study estimates the distribution changes in 28 fish species, from
sharks to salmon, in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The findings
suggest species will likely move into the habitats of other marine
life to the north, shaking up fish communities and shifting fishing
grounds.