Hawking says Trump's climate stance could damage Earth, Big six hopes rise as Ofgem is ‘set to limit energy price cap’, & more
News
Hawking says Trump’s climate stance could damage Earth
Speaking to BBC News, veteran Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking has warned US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement could put Earth onto a path that turns it into a hothouse planet like Venus. “”We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid,” he said. The Telegraph also covers Hawking’s comments. Meanwhile former President Barack Obama on Saturday indirectly criticised President Trump in a speech delivered in Indonesia for withdrawing “American leadership” on climate change by abandoning the Paris accord, the New York Times reports. “In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history about climate change, an agreement that even with the temporary absence of American leadership can still give our children a fighting chance,” Mr. Obama said at the Fourth Congress of Indonesian Diaspora in Jakarta, the capital, according to The Associated Press.
Big six hopes rise as Ofgem is ‘set to limit energy price cap’
Ofgem is likely to propose an energy price cap for only about two million households after being handed responsibility for implementing the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge, analysts have forecast. The announcement, expected from the regulator within days, could mean energy firms fare significantly better than investors had feared, if the analysis by Bernstein proves to be correct. According to the Times, the Conservative manifesto left wiggle room on its pledge to cap all standard variable tariffs, promising only to extend the cap that applies at present to the four million households with pre-payment meters to “more customers” on the poorest-value tariffs. The expected announcement comes after the necessary legislation to introduce an “absolute cap” on standard gas and electricity prices was dumped from Queen’s Speech after the June 8 debacle left the PM facing a hung Parliament, reports the Sun. Without a change in the law, Ofgem faces judicial review if it introduces an absolute cap, it adds.
Europe’s contribution to deforestation set to rise despite pledge to halt it
Europe’s contribution to global deforestation could rise by over a quarter by 2030, despite a pledge to halt such practices by the end of this decade, according to a leaked draft EU analysis. Despite signing several international pledges to end deforestation by this decade’s end, more than 5Mha of extra forest land will be needed annually by 2030 to meet EU demand for agricultural products, a draft EU feasibility study predicts. “The EU pledged to stop deforestation by 2020, not to increase it,” said Sebastian Risso, a spokesman for Greenpeace. “Deforestation is a conveyor belt to devastating climate change and species loss that the world must stop, and fast.”
Satellite temperature data, leaned on by climate change doubters, revised sharply upward
A new study has applied corrections to obtain a more accurate and, ultimately, 30 percent higher estimate of global warming from satellites orbiting the Earth, writes the Washington Post – strongly supporting the conclusion that “the world is getting warmer at a steady clip, it has not stopped in recent years, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re measuring the temperature from the surface of the Earth or space”. The article quotes analysis of the new paper by Carbon Briefwhich showed the estimated warming since 1998 increased by 140 percent after the corrections were applied, indicating warming has continued unabated. TheIndependent also covers the new research, quoting Carbon Brief’s Zeke Hausfather: “Climate sceptics have long claimed that satellite data shows global warming to be less pronounced that observational data collected on the Earth’s surface. This new correction to the … data substantially undermines that argument. The new data actually shows more warming than has been observed on the surface, though still slightly less than predicted in most climate models.”
As the world prepares to grill Donald Trump on climate change at G20, Britain looks set to miss key renewable target
The UK looks set to miss a key renewable energy target, campaigners have warned, in the latest sign that the Government is backsliding on the fight against global warming, reports the Independent. Despite the relatively low target of getting 15 per cent of all energy – including electricity, domestic heating and transport – from renewables by 2020, the UK still has more ground to make up than all other European Union countries except three. The new government report, which is the latest update on progress, said the UK had reached 8.9 per cent in 2016. This comes as Angela Merkel prepares to lead attempts to take climate science denier Donald Trump to task at the forthcoming G20 summit in Germany, the Independent adds. Ahead of this week’s G20 summit, anti-globalisation activists took to the streets in Hamburg, Reuters reported yesterday, the first of 30 registered demonstrations this week. Some carried banners reading “Fight poverty”, “stop coal” and “Planet earth first”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday leaders will have to focus on sustainable and inclusive economic growth rather than their own prosperity, including on climate change.
North Sea becomes burden on taxpayers
Official figures show the North Sea oil industry has cost taxpayers more than £300m over the past financial year, the Times reports, thus becoming a drain on national finances for the first time on record. Taxes paid by oil and gas companies fell in 2016-17 because of lower oil prices, continuing investment and cuts in tax rates, according to the figures from HM Revenue & Customs. Meanwhile tax rebates issued to companies as relief on the costs of decommissioning and other expenditure outweighed the tax paid for the first time. Carbon Brief analysis published earlier this year similarly showed that North Sea oil and gas sector became a net drain on the UK’s public finances for the first time last year, with the sector receiving £396m in 2016, net of tax payments.
Renewable energy sets new record for UK electricity generation
Renewable energy made up over 26 per cent of the total produced in the UK, in the first three months of this year, generating a record amount of electricity, new government figures show. Some 24.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity came from wind, solar, hydro and other forms of clean energy, a five per cent rise on the same period last year. The report comes from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which tracks energy trends and prices as they change quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, notes Energy Live News. Scotland in particular boasted a strong performance, says BusinessGreen. Generation rose 13 per cent compared to the same period last year, while capacity soared 16 per cent. The news comes as National Grid and UK Power Networks have announced an “innovative” project aims to cut costs for new renewables connecting to the grid across London and the South East of England, as reported in BusinessGreen. Meanwhile Reuters reports that Germany raised the proportion of its power produced by renewable energy to 35 percent in the first half of 2017 from 33 percent the previous year.
Comment
Trump and the Truth About Climate Change
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Project Syndicate
Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, the United States took another major step toward establishing itself as a rogue state on June 1, when it withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, writes economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. “While fairness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, Trump’s claim [that the agreement was bad for the US and implicitly unfair to it] is difficult to justify. On the contrary, the Paris accord is very good for America, and it is the US that continues to impose an unfair burden on others.” Fortunately, he adds, large parts of the US, including the most economically dynamic regions, have shown that Trump is, if not irrelevant, at least less relevant than he would like to believe. “In the meantime, the world must protect itself against rogue states. Climate change poses an existential threat to the planet that is no less dire than that posed by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. In both cases, the world cannot escape the inevitable question: what is to be done about countries that refuse to do their part in preserving our planet?”
Is the shipping sector about to set sail for a climate deal?
For the past two decades, negotiations on tacking the shipping sector’s two to three per cent share of global greenhouse gas emissions have stalled, writes freelancer journalist Ed King in a piece ahead of this weeks high level UN shipping and climate summit. “That’s a concern for climate scientists, who observe that shipping emissions are projected to rise 50-250 per cent by mid century depending on economic growth. Goodbye carbon budget for 1.5C.” Yet despite President Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, and fears this could precipitate a bonfire of climate policymaking, shippers appear to be waking up to reality, he adds. “Submissions to IMO filed ahead of next week’s high level shipping and climate summit indicate there is global agreement that (a) a deal is possible and (b) shipping needs cleaner fuels.”
Science
Different sensitivities of snowpacks to warming in Mediterranean climate mountain areas
Environmental Research Letters
A new study looks at the sensitivity of snow cover to rising temperatures at selected mountain sites that have a “Mediterranean climate” – including the Pyrenees in Spain and Andorra, the Sierra Nevada in Spain and California (USA), the Atlas in Morocco, and the Andes in Chile. The researchers projected reductions of 9%–19% and 6–28 days in the mean snow water equivalent and snow duration, respectively, per degree of warming. The Pyrenees and USA Sierra Nevada have a high sensitivity to warming, the researchers find, which is because they have a deeper and warmer snowpack. In contrast, the Andes and Atlas Mountains have a shallow and cold snowpack, which explains their lower sensitivity.
Public Perceptions of How Long Air Pollution and Carbon Dioxide Remain in the Atmosphere
The lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is hundreds of years – many times longer than that of common air pollution, which is typically hours to a few days. However, new survey results on local and national scales in the US suggest that the general public considerably overestimate the residence time of air pollution and drastically underestimate that of CO2. As a result, “roughly a quarter of survey respondents held the view that if climate change is real and serious, we will be able to stop it in the future when it happens, just as we did with common air pollution,” the researchers conclude.
Polar zoobenthos blue carbon storage increases with sea ice losses, because across‐shelf growth gains from longer algal blooms outweigh ice scour mortality in the shallows
The amount of “blue” carbon stored by tiny organisms on Antarctic seabeds increases as sea ice diminishes, a new study finds. Researchers assessed the size and variability in seabed blue carbon – from the shallows to depths of 500m – in the Ryder and Marguerite bays of the West Antarctic Peninsula. They found that increases in seabed carbon capture and storage in response to sea ice declines has been underestimated, and is only slightly reduced by greater ice scour on the seabed from icebergs.
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- UK barristers slam government approach to post-Brexit green law (BusinessGreen )
- IGas plans UK shale exploration after restructuring clears path (Financial Times)
- ExxonMobil talks up tackling climate change ‘while still funding climate deniers’ (The Independent )
- Kids’ Climate Change Case to Go to Trial (Scientific American )
- Gardens aimed at coping with floods and heavy rain feature at Hampton Court (AOL UK via Press Association )
- China energy demand may already have peaked – researchers (Reuters )
- Could climate risk disclosure be the new bottom line for Australian companies? (Guardian Sustainable Business )
- How an obscure Austrian philosopher saw through our empty rhetoric about ‘sustainability’ (The Conversation )
- Iran temperature hits 53.7C – one of the hottest days ever (Mail Online )
- Iran to sign $4.8bn gas deal with Total (Financial Times )
- Solar Moves in a Curious Direction Since Trump Quit Paris Deal: Up (Bloomberg )
- Mapped: How high are emissions in your district? (BusinessGreen )
- EPA head launching initiative to ‘critique’ climate science (The Hill )
- As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants (New York Times )
- Fukushima nuclear disaster: former Tepco executives go on trial (Guardian )
- Statoil to look at building world’s first CO2 injection storage (Reuters )
- Fighting climate change could trigger a massive financial crash (New Scientist )
- Space shades Malta’s solar power push (Politico )
- Judge tells Heathrow protesters to leave community garden (The Times )
- Cash begins trickling out of Green Climate Fund (Climate Home )