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Daily Briefing |

TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 26.07.2017
UK plans to ban sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040, Solar has not beaten coal in the race to electrify India, & more

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News.

UK plans to ban sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040
Financial Times Read Article

Environment secretary Michael Gove is set to announce plans for a 2040 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK, reports the Financial Times and others. The move is a hardening of the existing UK government “ambition” that all new cars be zero-emission by 2040, the paper notes, adding that it remains a “hugely symbolic announcement [that] will be seen as a milestone in the shift towards electric cars”. The news is the lead story for the BBC News website (“New diesel and petrol vehicles to be banned from 2040 in the UK”) and is the front page splash for the Times (“End of the diesel and petrol car”), the Telegraph (“Diesel car ban to cut pollution”), the Guardian (“Ban from 2040 on diesel and petrol car sales”) and the Daily Mail (“War on diesels getting dirty”). Several papers point to a similar recent commitment in France, which also plans to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2040. The UK government’s Committee on Climate Change has said that 100% of new sales should be zero-emission by 2035, as part of efforts to meet UK carbon targets. Gove’s announcement is part of revised government air quality plans, which have been repeatedly ruled inadequate. PoliticoPress Association and Reuters also have the story. BusinessGreen picks up reports that Gove will also announce a limited diesel scrappage scheme to encourage owners to shift to cleaner vehicles. Separately, the GuardianBusinessGreenReutersBBC News and Sky News report that BMW’s Cowley plant near Oxford will build the firm’s new fully electric Mini. A prototype electric mini was being tested back in 2011, the Guardian reported at the time.

Solar has not beaten coal in the race to electrify India
Climate Home Read Article

More efficient coal plants will undercut the cost of renewables, creating new demand for the fuel, says Partha Bhattacharya, former chair of Coal India, in an interview with Climate Home. Bhattacharya agrees that solar has become a major competitor to new coal but argues that under-utilised existing coal plants will be able to undercut the cost of new solar, by raising their output.

Like Exxon, Utilities Knew about Climate Change Risks Decades Ago
Inside Climate News Read Article

Electric utility officials knew about the risk of climate change forty years ago and told the US Congress of their concerns, according to a detailed report from the Energy and Policy Institute, reports Inside Climate News. The firms said the problem might require world to back away from coal-fired power, the report shows. The Hill and Reuters also cover the report.

Anti-fracking police chief accused of pulling force from protests
The Times Read Article

Arfon Jones, North Wales police and crime commissioner has been accused of abusing his position after his force stopped sending officers to a fracking protest site, reports the Times. Jones was an anti-fracking campaigner and has taken part in protests, the paper says. The Guardian also has the story, saying the North Wales force pulled officers from a protest site in nearby Lancashire after Jones intervened.

Comment.

The perversity of ‘red-teaming’ climate science
John Holdren, The Boston Globe Read Article

Most advocates of a climate science “red-team blue-team” debate are “disingenuous”, writes John Holdren, chief science adviser to president Barack Obama, in the Boston Globe. The idea, being pushed by US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, seems to be to create a “kangaroo court” that purports to have the same status as the findings of the “most competent bodies in the national and international scientific communities,” says Holdren. “The purpose of that, of course, would be to create a sense of continuing uncertainty about the science of climate change, as an underpinning of the Trump administration’s case for not addressing it. Sad.” The Trump administration is lining up a “red team” for the process says the Washington Examiner. It carries a quote from Trump transition team member Myron Ebell, who says: “In general, we need to go beyond what they establishment says whenever they’re confronted, which is, ‘You can trust us.’ I don’t think we can trust them.” The administration has asked rightwing thinktank the Heartland Institute to help identify “red team” members, reports Climate Progress. Meanwhile Ars Technica reports on a letter from Democrat figures to Pruitt, saying: “Your [red-team] effort seems to be divorced from reality and reason.” According to E&E News, several contenders to be “red team” members, including John Cristy and Judy Curry, are keen to join the process, saying it “would be a hoot”.

Comment: Ireland's staggering hypocrisy on climate change
John Gibbons, The Guardian Read Article

Ireland appears to be acting on climate change, but “looks can be deceiving,” writes John Gibbons in the Guardian. The country’s plans are merely “a soothing combination of words entirely lacking in substance,” he writes. Ireland is expected to miss its 2020 EU carbon targets, he notes, so “the spectre of serious EU fines looms ever closer”. Per capita emissions in the nation are the third highest in the EU, he says, while 45% of Ireland’s emissions outside the EU Emissions Trading System are set to come from agriculture. Gibbons concludes: “When it comes to a coherent climate policy, Ireland’s turns out to be more greenwash than green.”

Science.

Is El Niño really changing?
Geophysical Research Letters Read Article

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events are a major driver of short-term climate variability both regionally and globally, and understanding how they may be changing in response to global warming is of great interest and importance for society. A new paper finds that statistically significant systemic changes have indeed occurred in ENSO dynamics since the late 1970s, and have affected the evolution of El Niño and La Niña events from their embryonic to fully mature stages.

A 3 °C global RCP8.5 emission trajectory cancels benefits of European emission reductions on air quality
Nature Communications Read Article

A new paper examines the impact of an additional degree of warming, from the 2C international target to the 3C that existing commitments put us on track to meet, on regional air quality in Europe. They find that a 3C global pollutant emission trajectory with respect to pre-industrial climate would significantly increase European ozone levels relative to a 2C one. This increase is particularly high over industrial regions, large urban areas, and over Southern Europe and would annihilate the benefits of emission reduction policies. These results make regional emission regulation, combined with emissions-reduction policies for global methane, of crucial importance.

The relative contributions of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and atmospheric internal variability to the recent global warming hiatus
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Read Article

The causes of the relative slowdown in global temperature change between 1998 and 2012 are still an area of active research for scientists. However, this slowdown was largely limited to boreal regions during the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. While previous studies have suggested that the tropical Pacific ocean temperatures are driving factors in the hiatus, a new study finds that the tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures are only half the story, and that cooling over central Eurasia and North America driven by intrinsic atmospheric dynamics plays an equally large role.

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