Hammond poised to halt plans to overhaul UK energy industry

15.07.19

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Hammond poised to halt plans to overhaul UK energy industry

The chancellor Philip Hammond is planning to block a set of government proposals to overhaul the UK energy industry because of “the potential spending implications for a new prime minister”, according to Bloomberg, which has spoken to “people familiar with the matter”. The plans are contained in a “long-awaited energy white paper that the business department has been working on for months”, according to Bloomberg. Potential measures include changes to the way nuclear power plants get funding, more funding for carbon capture and storage, increased decarbonisation of the power industry and efforts to make housing more energy efficient, Bloomberg says. The white paper was due to be unveiled before parliament goes on summer recess at the end of this week, Bloomberg adds. The Guardian reports that the new nuclear “regulated asset base” funding model expected in the white paper could “leave taxpayers liable” for rising costs or delays. The Sunday Times also reports on the potential impact for taxpayers.

Corbyn pledges Labour transparency on UK carbon footprint

The Observer

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to “measure” carbon emissions from imports, as well as from domestic production, if elected to government, the Observer reports. [The UK government already monitors emissions linked to imports goods and services, as noted by the Observer story: “According to government figures, the UK’s consumption of emissions is 69% higher than the amount it produces. While its carbon production footprint has fallen by 40%, it has only fallen by 10% when consumption is measured.”] Corbyn says the move would see an end to “passing the buck to poorer countries” when it comes to tackling climate change, the Observer reports. Speaking at the party’s international social forum on Sunday, Corbyn said, according to the Observer: “Currently, when we measure a country’s emissions, we are talking about the greenhouse gasses generated as goods and services that are produced in that country. But for a country like Britain, that measurement hides the country’s true impact on our climate because we don’t only contribute to climate breakdown with what we produce, we contribute with what we consume too. Over the last two decades the UK has reduced emissions – but it has done so in part by offshoring those emissions. That isn’t tackling global emissions – it is passing the buck to poorer countries.” Press Association also has the story.

Elsewhere, BusinessGreen reports that Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell has called for the “radical reform” of global institutions such as the World Bank and IMF “to better address the climate crisis”. Separately, the Guardian reports on a study for the TUC calling for a strategy to deal with the “the challenges that automation and the move to a low-carbon economy pose for UK industry”.

Arctic wildfires in June equivalent to Sweden’s annual emissions

Reuters

“Unprecedented” Arctic wildfires in June – “some the size of 100,000 soccer [football] pitches” – emitted as much CO2 last month as Sweden does in an entire year, Reuters reports. “In June alone these wildfires emitted 50 megatonnes [million tonnes] of CO2 into the atmosphere, this is the equivalent of Sweden’s annual total CO2 emissions. This is more than was released by Arctic fires in the same month between 2010 and 2018 combined,“ said Clare Nullis of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), according to Reuters. “Wildfires are common in the northern hemisphere between May and October, but this year the fires have been at an unusual latitude and intensity,” Reuters says. Wildfire scientists have been posting updates on this year’s “unprecedented” Arctic wildfire season on Twitter.

Storm Barry’s threat to New Orleans heightened by climate change: scientists

Reuters

Storm Barry, which made landfall over Louisiana on Saturday and brought heavy rain and flooding over the weekend, was “likely exacerbated by climate change”, Reuters reports. “While no single storm can be linked directly to climate change, the trend of warming air and seas around the globe has caused conditions that scientists say will, on average, make storms stronger and rainier,” Reuters says. “The real increased threat from a warming climate is an atmosphere that’s capable of producing higher intensity precipitation events,” Jill Trepanier, an expert in extreme climatic and weather events at Louisiana State University, tells Reuters. “She said warmer air in the Gulf of Mexico will likely add fuel to the storm, while warmer ocean temperatures there will fill it with vast amounts of evaporated water that can lead to dangerous flooding,” the article adds. BuzzFeed News also reports on the links between climate change and Storm Barry. Meanwhile, the Hill reports that the tropical storm has reduced crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico by 59%.

Comment

We were already over 350ppm when I was born

Jamie Margolin, The Guardian

“Treating the climate crisis as a stand-alone problem is a mistake,” writes 17-year-old climate activist Jamie Margolin in the Guardian. “Issues of justice – economic justice, racial justice, gender justice and intergenerational justice – lie at the heart of this crisis, and these injustices must be addressed if the fight for a liveable future is to succeed.” Tackling climate change requires the world “to dismantle the systems of oppression that gave rise to and perpetuate the climate crisis, including colonialism, racism and patriarchy”, she writes. “Colonialism’s mindset of heedless extraction, greed and human exploitation not only planted the seeds of today’s climate crisis, it remains visible in the crisis’s central injustice: although the poor are responsible for only a tiny share of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, they generally suffer first and worst from the heatwaves, droughts, storms, rising seas and other effects of those emissions.”

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Sun reports on a new survey of its readers finding that “nearly all are worried about climate change, and willing to adapt their own lifestyles in order to save the planet”.

Exaggerating how much CO2 can be absorbed by tree planting risks deterring crucial climate action

Duncan McLaren, The Conversation

Duncan McLaren, a researcher studying the social and political implications of greenhouse gas removal at Lancaster University, writes a reaction to a recent Science study finding reforesting the world could be the “biggest and cheapest tool” for tackling climate change. “The researchers claimed that reforestation could remove 205 gigatonnes [billion tonnes] of carbon from the atmosphere – equivalent to about 20 years’ worth of the world’s current emissions. This has [been] criticised as an exaggeration. It could actually be dangerous,” he writes. “Our research suggests that the promises implied in such studies could actually set back meaningful action on climate change. This is because of what we call ‘mitigation deterrence’ – promises of cheap and easy CO2 removal in future make it less likely that time and money will be invested in reducing emissions now.” McLaren’s article follows criticism of the study by scientists on Twitter.

Science

Why environmentalists eat meat

PLOS ONE

A new paper looks at the topic of why “people who care about the environment adopt behaviours that are not consistent with their beliefs”, by asking 42 environmentally-minded researchers why they eat meat. Through interviews with 42 researchers, the study finds they were “aware of and cared about the environmental and ethical impacts of meat eating’. The interviewees gave several reasons for continuing to eating meat, including “technological, or political changes [being] more important than what they personally do, because of doubts about the impact of personal action in a complex world, or simply because they lack the determination to stop eating meat”.

Climate change lengthens southeastern USA lightning‐ignited fire seasons

Global Change Biology

The dry season in the southeastern US has extended by as much as 156 days over the past 120 years, a new study says, with the season “both starting earlier and ending later with less total precipitation”. Using data for 1897–2017 in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States, the researchers examined changes in annual dry season length, total rainfall, and (since 1945) the seasonal distribution of days with thunder as an indicator of lightning activity. The findings suggest that “less rainfall over a longer dry season, with no change in seasonal thunderstorm patterns, likely increases both the potential for lightning‐ignited wildfires and fire severity”.

Overcoming barriers to solar and wind energy adoption in two Asian giants: India and Indonesia

Energy Policy

New research reviews the “substantial obstacles” to uptake of solar and wind electricity generation in India and Indonesia – and the strategies to overcome them. These barriers include the “entrenched positions of coal and other fossil fuels, regulatory barriers to market access, and weak abilities of electricity utilities to manage intermittent renewables”, the authors say. Possible solutions include “tax and subsidy reform options”, “regulatory and incentive-design strategies”, “approaches to bolster grid management capacities” and “the importance of minimising protectionist barriers”. [Carbon Brief has published climate and energy profiles for both India and Indonesia.]

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