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Daily Briefing |

TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 25.04.2018
Plastic trapped in Arctic sea could flood world’s oceans as climate warms

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News.

Plastic trapped in Arctic sea could flood world's oceans as climate warms
The Telegraph Read Article

Arctic sea ice may contain a much higher concentration of microplastics than previously thought, which could be released into the world’s oceans with global warming, research finds. Researchers surveyed five regions in the Arctic Ocean and found there were 12,000 microplastic particles per litre of ice. Sea ice in the Arctic transports plastic waste to waters off the northeast coast of Greenland, where it eventually enters the global ocean, the research says. As sea ice continues to melt because of climate change, this transport of plastic could increase, the study finds. The scientists behind the study warned that the implications of this level of plastic pollution were still unknown, the Guardianreports. The research is also covered by the TimesBBC News and The Independent.

UK runs without coal power for three days in a row
The Guardian Read Article

The UK set a new record as it was powered without coal for three days from Saturday morning until Tuesday afternoon. Without coal, nearly a third of the UK’s electricity was supplied by gas, followed by wind and nuclear. The new record comes just days after the last record of 55 hours was set, BBC Newsreports.

Foreign Office climate staff cut by 25% under Boris Johnson
The Guardian Read Article

The number of staff working on climate change in the Foreign Office has fallen by almost 25% in the two years since Boris Johnson became foreign secretary, according to data obtained exclusively by The Guardian. Documents released following freedom of information (FoI) requests show that the number of officials working full time on climate change dropped from 72 to 55 between early 2016 and 2018. In contrast to his two predecessors, Johnson has failed to mention climate change in any official speech since he took the office, according to The Guardian. The news comes as Reuters reports that Nick Bridge, a special representative for climate change in foreign office, has said that the UK’s plans to leave the European Union “will not change” its climate ambition.

BP chief urges Cambridge University to keep fossil fuel investments
The Guardian Read Article

BP’s chief executive has appeared to urge Cambridge University not to drop its fossil fuel investments, The Guardian reports. Chief Bob Dudley reportedly told an industry conference on Tuesday: “We donate and do lots of research at Cambridge so I hope they come to their senses on this.” His comments come a week after he launched BP’s climate change strategy, which involves growing clean energy and cutting CO2 emissions. Dudley’s remarks were considered by some to be an “outrageous threat” to the university, the Financial Times reports. Cambridge Zero Carbon Society, a divestment group, said Dudley’s comments showed that Cambridge’s “academic independence is under threat”. The group said: ““University authorities are in hock to private interests, as demonstrated by this outrageous threat from BP’s chief executive.” However, a spokesperson for BP told Financial Times that the comments were “light-hearted and off-the-cuff” and “absolutely not a threat”. Meanwhile, The Times reports that Dudley has said he makes “no apology” for working with Russia

General Electric to trial world’s largest wind turbines in the UK
The Telegraph Read Article

The world’s largest offshore wind turbines will be trialled in the UK, General Electric has announced. The American conglomerate will test its 12MW wind turbines at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult centre in Northumberland for five years, with the trial beginning this year, officials said. Reuters adds that building larger turbines could help companies to help get more power from each turbine installed and drive down the cost of electricity. MailOnline also has the story.

Comment.

Hey millennials, don’t fall for Shell’s pop star PR
Graham Readfearn, The Guardian Read Article

“If you’re a millennial, the global oil and gas company Shell will have been most pleased if you’d seen one their #makethefuture music videos,” writes Graham Readfearn in his Planet Oz blog. The videos, which feature singers such as Jennifer Hudson, Pixie Lott and Yemi Alade, are an attempt by Shell to convince young people that they are “acting on climate change”, he argues. “But Shell’s central role in this challenge is what? Give the world more oil and gas,” he writes.

Net zero is the aim. But the Tories won't get us there
Barry Gardiner, BusinessGreen Read Article

“How curious to see Claire Perry showered with praise for announcing that she intends to seek the advice of the Committee on Climate Change on the implications of the Paris Agreement for the UK’s climate goals,” writes Barry Gardiner MP, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for international trade and shadow minister for international climate change. “Stranger still to see her make such an announcement without a single reference to ‘net zero emissions’, a ‘1.5 degrees limit’, the current ’80 per cent target’, or even the ‘Climate Change Act’ itself.” In an opinion piece for BusinessGreen, Gardiner argues that the government is still far from implementing a plan “consistent with a 1.5 limit and a net zero world”.

Science.

Invasive alien pests threaten the carbon stored in Europe’s forests
Nature Communications Read Article

Approximately 10% of the carbon in Europe’s forests is at risk from invasive pests, a new study warns. Large parts of Europe could already be invaded by five pests in the current climate, the study finds, causing “large pulses of tree mortality” and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Yet rising global temperatures could increase the potential range of alien pests, the study shows, particularly in northern and eastern Europe. The researchers call for “increased efforts to halt the introduction and spread of invasive alien species”.

Arctic sea ice is an important temporal sink and means of transport for microplastic
Nature Communications Read Article

Sea ice traps large amounts of microplastics and transports them across the Arctic Ocean, a new study says. Along with samples from ice cores and sea ice, the researchers use an ice growth model to identify regions where microplastics become trapped during sea ice growth. The findings suggest that “increasing exploitation of Arctic resources will likely lead to a higher microplastic load in the Arctic sea ice and will enhance the release of microplastics in the areas of strong seasonal sea ice melt,” the researchers say.

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