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Daily Briefing |

TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 24.10.2016
Miners strike rich seam in the rising price of coal, big companies not doing enough to meet carbon goals, & more

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News.

Miners strike rich seam in the rising price of coal
The Times Read Article

On the frontpage of the Times’s business section, Leroux writes that an “unlikely resurgence” in the price of coal could deliver an “$18bn boost” to the four big mining groups listed in London – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Glencore and Anglo American: “Despite falling foul of increasingly stringent environmental regulations around the world, the unfashionable fuel has rebounded spectacularly this year, making it one of the best-performing commodities. The leap in prices is on a similar scale to that after the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011, which took place when China’s boom was in full flow. The rise in prices is down to the vagaries of Chinese policy. Beijing has ordered mines to cut back on production, which sent import prices soaring.” Reuters reports that “China’s electric power utilities are scrambling to get coal from anywhere they can, but are coming up short as efforts to boost supply take time to come into effect”. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that China has said it will halt construction work on 30 coal-fired power plants, in what Greenpeace has described as a “globally unprecedented move”. this would be the first time China has moved to scrap plants already under construction. “Up to now, the Chinese government had avoided interfering in projects that had already been contracted and financed, and where construction had started,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy analyst for Greenpeace in Beijing.

Big companies not doing enough to meet carbon goals
Financial Times Read Article

More than 900 of the world’s largest companies have a plan to cut their carbon pollution but only a fraction are doing enough to meet the goals of the Paris climate change accord, according to data compiled for Norway’s $876bn oil fund and other big investors. In a sign of how investment groups are starting to use the Paris agreement to pressure companies, the research reveals that only 94 of these businesses have a strategy to deal with the UN pact’s aim to stop global temperatures rising more than 2C. The response from oil majors and other big fossil fuel groups is “disappointing”, says a report by the Carbon Disclosure Project.

Climate change hits coffee yield? It’s a load of froth, say scientists
The Times Read Article

Climate change has been wrongly blamed for devastating coffee plantations in Colombia between 2008 and 2011, a study has found. Coffee leaf rust (CLR) caused coffee production in the country to fall by 40% over this period. Some scientists had linked the spread of the fungus to climate change because it thrives in higher temperatures and the moisture caused by increased rainfall. But scientists at the University of Exeter writing in the Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions B concluded: “We find no evidence for an overall trend in disease risk in coffee-growing regions of Colombia from 1990 to 2015, therefore, while weather conditions were more conducive to disease outbreaks from 2008 to 2011, we reject the climate change hypothesis.” TheTelegraph also carries the story.

Donald Trump Gettysburg Address: Republican promises to shut down climate change funding, close sanctuary cities and halve corporation tax
The Independent Read Article

The Republican presidential nominee used a speech to list what he would do within the first 100 days as president. His proposals include scrapping funding to UN climate change programmes and building controversial projects such as the oil and gas Keystone Pipeline. “We’re paying billions of dollars [to the UN],” he said. “We’re going to fix our own environment.”

Comment.

I ran the Airports Commission: Forget Gatwick. Expand Heathrow now and Birmingham later
Howard Davies, Daily Telegraph Read Article

A government decision is expected on airport expansion tomorrow. Davies, who chaired the Airports Commission which concluded last year that Heathrow should be expanded, writes that those arguing that both Heathrow and Gatwick should be grown are wrong: “That would be a mistake. Allowing two proposals to continue could mean neither is built, as it would be impossible to argue that both runways could be fully used in the next 20 years while meeting our legislated climate change commitments. So the decision could be challenged in the courts.”

We shouldn’t pin our hopes on battery power
Matt Ridley, The Times Read Article

The Times columnist and prominent climate sceptic argues that there is a “considerable quantity of balderdash being talked about” batteries. “You begin to see why nuclear and gas make sense. But even if you only stored enough juice to turn our existing fleet of wind turbines into reliables — able to provide baseload electricity on demand — the cost would still be huge…their cost is still huge, and their Achilles heel is the long time it takes to recharge. That’s a problem on the way to being solved, but not without risk: there seems to be evidence that it is rapid charging that increases the risk of internal shorting and this may be one of the problems within the Samsung batteries, leading to melting, oxygen release and explosion.”

Airport expansion’s disastrous effects, near and far
Letters, The Guardian Read Article

A range of leading environmental campaigners, including the leaders of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, have signed a letter in the Guardian calling for the government to scrap plans to expand airports: “With the scrapping of vital decarbonisation policies and funding, the UK is already way off-track to meet our climate change commitments. The impacts of any new runway will be devastating to people’s lives and to the planet…Growth is being driven by the frequent leisure flyers taking weekend breaks and shopping trips by plane. Half of the UK population don’t fly in any given year, yet all of us subsidise the holidays of the rich. The UK must not abandon our commitments under the Paris agreement and the Climate Change Act for the convenience of binge flyers. We will not allow our government to ignore the promises they have made to us and to the world.”

Desperate Denial
Tamino, Open Mind Read Article

A flawed claim in Christopher Booker’s latest column in the Sunday Telegraph leads Tamino to reach for the global temperature data record. Booker seeks to dismiss climate models because “none of them predicted a temporary fall in global temperatures of 0.7 degrees”. Tamino easily points out using the data why this is a “blatant case of misleading cherry-picking”.

The Guardian view on climate change: good news – but not yet good enough
Editorial, The Guardian Read Article

An editorial in the Guardian heralds recent global deals on HFCs and aviation: “These progressive moves, though belated and insufficient, must be welcomed.” But it laments the anchor of US politics: “The biggest obstacle to action on climate remains, as it has been for more than 20 years, the US political system…To achieve what is needed before the window closes, we must recapture the sense of urgency that motivated the Montreal protocol.”

Science.

Integrated population modeling reveals the impact of climate on the survival of juvenile emperor penguins
Global Change Biology Read Article

A study of fledgling emperor penguins in Antarctica for the period 1971-1998 finds strong evidence for the positive effect of a natural climate fluctuation known as the Southern Annular Mode during the rearing period on juvenile survival. The pattern affects juvenile emperor penguins body condition and survival through its influence on wind patterns, fast ice extent and distance to open water, say the authors.

Optimal bioenergy power generation for climate change mitigation with or without carbon sequestration
Nature Communications Read Article

A new study investigates in what situation bioenergy-biochar systems (BEBCS) might be a viable alternative for removing carbon dioxide from the air than the more familiar technique of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). With twice the sequestration potential per unit biomass, BEBCS is the most cost-effective technology at carbon prices below $1,000 Mg−1 C, the authors find, assuming biochar significantly improves agricultural yields.

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