Geoengineering schemes "could harm billions"
Climate and energy news
Juncker reveals giant EU investment
plan
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is giving
details of a 300bn (£238bn;$374bn) investment plan to kick-start
Europe’s economy, reports BBC News. In a speechJuncker included the
integration of renewables into the energy system and energy
efficiency in his priority areas for the funds.
New Carbon Market Is Key Part of Climate
Agreement, UK Says
Winning UN support for carbon markets “would be the most
important part of any international agreement,” UK climate minister
Amber Rudd said on Wednesday. Bloomberg reports her comments at a
Parliamentary hearing in which she said the UN needs not to specify
what nations must do but to agree a “toolbox” for countries to
choose from when tackling climate change.
China moves on carbon market as part of emissions
plan
China is planning to launch a national carbon market in 2016
that will “mature” by 2020, reports RTCC. The move is part of
Chinese efforts to peak emissions by “around 2030”. A senior
Chinese official has said the rules for the carbon market could be
published by the end of this year.
UN climate negotiators: What are the priorities
for Lima?
RTCC has interviewed climate negotiators from Switzerland,
Russia, Ecuador, Seychelles, Bangladesh, Chile and France what next
week’s UN climate conference in Lima, Peru should deliver. The two
week conference is supposed to lay the groundwork for a global
climate agreement to be signed in Paris next December.
A separate articlefrom RTCC covers
the hopes and fears of US climate envoy Todd Stern. RTCC is also
carrying comments on the Lima conference from Greenpeaceand the World Resources Institute.
Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Rules on
Mercury From Power Plants
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a legal challenge to
planned controls on mercury emissions from power plants. The rules,
put forward by the US Environmental Protection Agency, are expected
to indirectly help cut US carbon emissions by forcing some
coal-fired power stations to close. In a separate announcementthe EPA said
it wanted to introduce further air pollution controls on power
plants and factories in an effort to limit smog-causing ozone
emissions.
China fears US Republican opposition in climate
change talks
Chinese climate change negotiators fear US Republican Party
opposition could hamper a deal to limit greenhouse gas emissions,
the Financial Times reports. The concerns were raised in advance of
UN climate talks due to begin in Lima, Peru next week. Republicans
stood in the way of US ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and could
block a new climate deal, says Xie Zhenhua, vice director of
China’s national planning agency and its chief negotiator on
climate change. The Guardian reports on the latest in a long line of
attemptsby Democratic lawmakers to pass a US
climate bill.
UN backs calls for carbon capture incentives in
global climate deal
An influential coalition of 56 countries says incentives for
technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions should be
part of any global climate change deal, reports RTCC. The
Geneva-based UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which
includes the US, Canada and EU among its 56 members, said efforts
to deploy CCS should be accelerated.
Climate and energy comment
The growing absurdity of German energy
policy
A critical editorial in the Financial Times argues Germany
is increasingly reliant on coal to fill the gap in energy supplies
left by its decision to phase out nuclear power. The editorial says
Germany’s aim to get 80 per cent of its energy from renewables by
2050 is “an ambitious target that delights the powerful green
lobby. But it is increasingly seen by other nations as a lesson in
the danger of doing too much too quickly on energy policy.”
New climate science
Assessment of radar-derived snow depth over Arctic
sea ice
Journal of Geophysical
Research: Oceans
Being able to accurately measure the amount of snow sitting
on top of Arctic sea ice is an important part of monitoring changes
in sea ice thickness. Early results from NASA’s Operation Icebridge
project suggest a new technique can measure snow depth to within
one centimetre on flat ice. Things get trickier over rougher
surfaces, however, where accuracy drops to about 60 per cent.
Uncertainty in the magnitude of aerosol-cloud
radiative forcing over recent
decades
Tiny airborne particles, known as aerosols, and their effect
on cloud formation is one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in
working out Earth’s response to greenhouse gases. A new study
suggests the contribution is a very slight warming one, whereas
other existing estimates suggest a cooling influence. This makes it
even harder to suggest greater aerosol forcing is part of the
reason why temperatures at earth’s surface are rising slower than
in past decades, the so-called surface warming hiatus.
Weather shocks and inter-hemispheric supply
responses: implications for climate change effects on global food
markets
Climate models predict more extreme weather in the coming
decades, which is expected to reduce crop production. A new study
investigates the effect of “weather shocks” on food markets and how
losses can be partly buffered by careful planning, storage and
scaling up trade from the opposite hemisphere.