Lancashire council under pressure to approve fracking
News
UK meets interim renewable energy target, says
DECC report
New data from DECC show, contrary to recent press reports,
the UK met its interim renewable energy target for 2013/14. The UK
got 6.3% of its energy from renewables averaged over 2013/14,
easily passing its interim goal of 5.4%. However, the UK remains
well short of its target under the EU Renewable Energy Directive.
The UK must source 15% of its energy for heat, transport and power
from renewable sources by 2020.
Climate and energy news
Lancashire council under pressure to approve
fracking
The Times reports that councillors in Lancashire are under
pressure to approve the first fracking site in Britain for four
years after their own barrister said it would be “unreasonable” to
reject it. The council’s development committee has deferred its
decision whether to greenlight fracking at Cuadrilla’s Preston New
Road site until Monday. However, the council’s barrister told
councillors he was “unaware of any objective evidence” that
Cuadrilla’s application would cause unacceptable visual, light and
noise impact, or pollute the air and groundwater. A lost appeal
could land the authority with millions in costs. The
Financial Timessaid that the
councillors had decided to reject Cuadrilla’s parallel application
to frack at Roseacre Wood near Preston. In an analysis piece for
the BBC, the local reporter Steve Becker,
said the Roseacre Wood rejection was “very significant”: “It is the
first test case on whether fracking will be given the go-ahead in
Lancashire and it has been turned down because of traffic.”
Gates to double investment in renewable energy
projects
The FT’s interview with the Microsoft founder and
philanthropist features on the frontpage with Gates saying that he
plans to double his personal investment in “innovative green
technologies” to $2bn over the next five years in an attempt to
“bend the curve” in combating climate change. He argues that
current technologies could only reduce global CO2 emissions at a
“beyond astronomical” economic cost. “The only way you can get to
the very positive scenario is by great innovation,” he said, adding
that he would prefer to see a move away from subsidies towards
R&D: “It should be like the Manhattan Project and the Apollo
Project.” He lists “recycling nuclear”, “solar chemical” and
high-altitude wind power among the most promising new technologies.
David Attenborough and Barack Obama face-to-face
in TV interview
Preview footage has been released of the meeting in May at
the White House where the US president interviewed the TV
naturalist. The full interview will be broadcast on BBC1 this
Sunday. Challenged by Attenborough on why he cannot show a
commitment to tackling climate change in the same way previous
presidents had strived to put people on the moon, Obama says:
“We’re not moving as fast as we need to and part of what I know
from watching your programmes, and all the great work you’ve done,
is that these ecosystems are all interconnected. If just one
country is doing the right thing but other countries are not, then
we’re not going to solve the problem, we’re going to have to have a
global solution to this.” TheBBC, Timesand Telegraphalso carry the story.
Obama and Brazilian President Rousseff to talk
climate change next week
The White House has confirmed that “climate and the
environment would be an important part of the agenda” at next
Tuesday’s meeting between the US and Brazilian presidents. “It is
unclear whether Rousseff will unveil any concrete carbon reduction
targets during her visit to Washington,” said a White House
spokesperson. The Washington Post said “a commitment by Brazil to
lower deforestation still further could…be a very strong climate
policy signal heading into Paris [climate summit]”. RTCCsaid there were “hopes for
zero deforestation” in Brazil’s climate plan. Whereas
Reutersran with the headline:
“Deforestation freeze unlikely in US-Brazil climate declaration.”
EU ministers seek ambitious, binding deal at Paris
climate talks – draft
Reuters has seen a draft of a position statement for EU
ministers which shows that they will be seeking an “ambitious,
durable and legally binding deal to curb global warming, enforced
through five-yearly reviews” at the Paris climate conference in
December. EU environment ministers are due to meet on 18 September
to iron out their joint position. The detail of “scaling up the
mobilisation of climate finance” will be left for EU finance
ministers to decide in October. Meanwhile,RTCCreports that the EU and
Chinese leaders will discuss a “long term emissions goal” when they
meet at a summit on Monday. “We will discuss CCS [carbon capture
and storage], carbon markets, a long term goal at the summit,”
Miguel Arias Canete, the EU’s climate commissioner, told reporters
at a briefing in Brussels.
Senior Tories slam government’s Green Investment
Bank sell-off
Senior “green Tories” – Conservative supporters who want the
party to act on environmental issues – have attacked the
government’s decision to sell a majority stake in the Green
Investment Bank (GIB). Bright Blue, an influential thinktank
focused on the Conservative party and numbering senior Tories among
its backers, said the sell-off was “the last thing we need” and
criticised the move as putting public sector capital in competition
with the private sector. The BBCreports the reaction from
Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, who called the
sell-off plan “rash and irresponsible”.
Thousands of people killed by extreme weather so
far in 2015 as climate change feared to bring more heatwaves,
hurricanes and floods in future
With thousands dying across the the Sub-Continent this month
due to a heatwave, the Independent examines recent and on-going
extreme weather events and asks whether they can be linked to
climate change. “Let us not fool ourselves,” said India’s earth
science minister recently. “It’s not just an unusually hot summer,
it is climate change.”
Climate and energy comment
Energy Files: Amber Rudd’s coal calculations don’t
add up
Joe Sandler Clarke,
EnergyDesk
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd appeared last week to commit the
government to reducing the amount of power the UK gets from coal
from 25% today to just 1% by 2025, with the gap largely filled by
renewables and nuclear. But this was later clarified by DECC to be
a “projection” rather than an aim. EnergyDesk looks at the
projection’s numbers and concludes they “just don’t add up”.
Hague climate change verdict: ‘Not just a legal
process but a process of hope’
Minnesma, the director of Urgenda, the NGO which won a court
ruling this week in which a judge ordered the Dutch government to
cut emissions further than planned, explains how the victory was
secured. She also sets out the ruling’s likely influence: “I think
plaintiffs in Belgium and Norway [where similar cases are pending
or in preparation] will look to our case and bring it in front of
their own judge to show how the Dutch verdict was structured, Many
things in our verdict are general that they can copy for example,
80% of all our arguments and supporting documentation can be used
in any country.”
New climate science
Genomic determinants of coral heat tolerance
across latitudes
Some coral populations already have genetic variants
necessary to tolerate warm ocean waters, and humans can help to
spread these genes, a new study suggests. Researchers crossed
corals from naturally warmer areas of the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia with corals from a cooler latitude nearly 300 miles to
the south. The coral larvae resulting from parents in the warmer
areas were 10 times more likely to survive heat stress, the study
says.
Will A Warmer and Wetter Future Cause Extinction
of Native Hawaiian Forest
Birds?
Hawaii’s unique forest birds will be at increasing risk of
Avian malaria as global temperatures rise, a new study finds. Using
climate change projections in an epidemiology model, the
researchers show an “acceleration of malaria transmission and a
dramatic decline in bird abundance”. The projected effects are most
severe in the second half of the 21st century, giving natural
resource managers time to implement conservation strategies, the
researchers note.
Other stories
- Greenhouse gas blamed for ‘climate expulsion’
driving temperature rises across Pacific
nations (The Guardian) - EU unveils Morocco summit to gauge climate
pledges (RTCC) - Alberta doubles carbon tax on large emitters by
2017 (Financial Times) - Leading health experts call on Wellcome to divest
from fossil fuels (The Guardian) - Credit rating agencies are miscalculating risks of
climate change (The Guardian) - Government energy efficiency plans ‘off-track’,
official review warns (BusinessGreen) - Japan to stop inefficient coal-fired power plants
being built (Reuters) - Coral breeding may help cooler reefs survive
warming: study (Reuters) - ()