Paris climate pact sinks coal stocks & lifts renewable energy, UK is going into reverse on clean energy
News
Paris climate pact sinks coal stocks, lifts renewable energy
As trading began on Monday for the first time since the UN climate deal was agreed, markets began to react. Solar and renewable energy funds received a boost, with shares of SunPower increasing by 8.7% to $23.40, Meanwhile the US Oil & Gas Index fell 1% before reversing its losses. Coal took the biggest blow — shares in Peabody Energy Corp dropped by 12.6%.
UK is going into reverse on clean energy, says former Environment Agency head
The final report of a shale gas taskforce, led by former Environment Agency chairman Lord Chris Smith, has concluded that the UK is “going into reverse” on renewable energy while accelerating fracking. While it finds that shale gas can be safely and usefully produced in the UK, it also warns that the government’s recent cancellation of a £1bn competition to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has damaged the viability of a large shale gas industry – a development that he called a “severe disappointment”.
EU says 1.5C global warming target depends on ‘negative emissions’ technology
The EU’s climate commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, has said that it has not yet looked into the policies needed to keep temperature rise to 1.5C, the aspirational goal agreed in the new UN climate deal on Saturday. He said he will look to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide advice about negative emissions. He also said that the EU is unlikely to increase its climate targets before 2020, reports Climate Home. Carbon Brief also interviewed the commissioner on the close of the climate talks in Paris.
Ministers confident of meeting climate goals with no extra policies
The UK government’s private assessment of the new UN climate deal is that it will not need to make any new policies to meet its target, says the Financial Times. One government aide said that new technologies could be in place in the second half of the century which means they wouldn’t have to revise current 2050 goals. The relaxed attitude contrasts with public statements on the deal’s importance, says the FT. The Committee on Climate Change is examining the UK’s current targets to see if they need tightening.
Paris climate change deal too weak to help poor, critics warn
Bloomberg New Energy Finance has delivered a downbeat appraisal of the UN climate deal. Richard Chatterton, head of climate policy at the group, criticised it for containing “no concrete increase in the level of ambition”, and suggested it would allow countries to maintain the “status quo” for years to come. He also suggested the long term goal to balance emissions was ambiguous.
Coal lobby chief: COP21 means ‘we will be hated like slave traders’
The coal industry’s European lobbying association, Euracoal, has struck out against the UN climate deal, saying that it will lead to the coal industry being “hated and vilified, in the same way that slave traders were once hated and vilified”. Brian Ricketts, the head of the organisation, told members that the deal was based on a “UN lie” and the first step to creating a “global government”.
India says Paris climate deal won’t affect plans to double coal output
The UN climate deal has not changed India’s plan to double coal output by 2020 and rely on resources for subsequent decades, according to a Reuters interview with Anil Swarup, the top bureaucrat in the coal ministry. He said that there were “no other alternatives available”, while stressing that the environment is “non-negotiable”.
Comment
COP21: Did the Pope save the climate deal?
The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin runs through a couple of rumours of how a recalcitrant Nicaragua was finally persuaded to sign up to the UN climate deal during the tense final hours of the talks. Did the Pope call up the president of Nicaragua? Has Ban Ki-moon promised to celebrate Christmas in the country? “Whatever the truth of these rumours, this extraordinary deal was eventually done,” says Harrabin.
The Guardian view on UK energy policy after Paris: Amber Rudd must flick the trip switch
After climate and energy secretary Amber Rudd played a positive role in the UN climate talks, she must take a positive role on energy policy back home in the UK, argues a Guardian editorial. Climate policy has so far been dictated by George Osborne and cuts carried out with “indecent haste”, it says. It expresses the hope that Paris will give Rudd “the sort of shock that might jolt her from half-decent intentions into a real and lasting commitment to act.” Another comment piece in the Guardian by Friends of the Earth’s Craig Bennett also looks at Paris in conjunction with UK climate policy, this time through the prism of David Cameron.
Finally, America acted like a grownup and took responsibility for climate action
Ruth Greenspan Bell, The Guardian
US academic Ruth Greenspan Bell praises the role that the US took in the recent UN climate negotiations, saying that it has finally done the right thing. Both Secretary John Kerry and President Obama were committed to the deal, while their commitment to pragmatism means that the agreement is far more achievable than previous attempts.
Silence on the Climate Pact From the Republican Candidates
An editorial in the New York Times looks at the unusual silence from the Republicans on the subject of the UN’s new climate deal. Presidential candidates who have fought against climate change policies are beginning to look more like outsiders considering support for measures both in the US and in the world as a whole, as indicated by the Paris deal. Though they have not been entirely silent — the Hill quotes Marco Rubio as saying the new deal is an “unfunny joke”.
Science
Enhanced weathering strategies for stabilizing climate and averting ocean acidification
Chemical breakdown of rocks (“weathering”) is an important but very slow part of the carbon cycle that ultimately leads to CO2 being locked up in carbonates on the ocean floor. A new study investigates how the storage of carbon could be enhanced by artificial spreading of weathered rock across around a third of tropical land areas. The findings suggest the process could lower atmospheric CO2 by 30–300 parts per million by 2100 and reduce – or even reverse – ocean acidification. However, the researchers also highlight major issues of cost, social acceptability, and potential unanticipated consequences.
Other stories
- COP21: What does the Paris climate agreement mean for me? (BBC News)
- Claim no easy victories. Paris was a failure, but a climate justice movement is risin (The Guardian)
- Hope From Paris (The New York Times)
- Venezuela: From bloodied hand to shock climate pledge (Climate Home)
- Green groups are deeply divided on whether the Paris Agreement is a win or lose (Grist)
- Pentagon to lose emissions exemption under Paris climate deal (The Guardian)
- Melting glaciers blamed for subtle slowing of Earth’s rotation (Mail Online)