Paris climate summit inches towards deal & Storm Desmond flooding partly due to climate change

11.12.15

News

COP21: Climate summit inches towards deal

Delegates have been working through the night on the latest draft of the agreement, delivered by French Foreign Minister late yesterday evening. The options for the long term goal have been slimmed down, with the text now saying temperatures must be kept “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C”. The new text was “well received”, says Climate Home while The Guardian says it cuts through many of the sticking points. The latest draft is slightly shorter and has lost most of its “square brackets”, notes Press Association. But a few key roadblocks still remain, including over emissions reporting, finance and loss and damage wording. China has been accused of blocking progress on whether countries will agree to revisit their pledges to cut emissions every five years, reports The Financial Times. A review process beginning in 2019 – a top priority for the UK and EU, according to Carbon Pulse – is now written into the text. A separate article in the FT this morning describes confusion over a reference in the new text to reaching “greenhouse gas emissions neutrality” in the second half of the century. The Telegraph reports concerns over emissions from international shipping and aviation being missing from the latest draft text. India is not fully satisfied with the new text, reports, The Economic Times, describing the failure to reach a consensus on finance as “disappointing”. The Indian Express says the agreement is “only slightly nearer to where it was when the conference began.” While fatigue is taking its toll, adrenaline is still running high, says The Independent. With a new text now not expected until Saturday, keep an eye on the live blogs over at ClimateHome and The Guardian for updates throughout today.

Storm Desmond flooding partly due to climate change, scientists conclude

The Guardian

After some very rapid modelling work, researchers have found that the heavy rain that led to the flooding across northern parts of the UK last weekend was made 40% more likely because of climate change. Describing the result as “small but robust”, the researchers from Oxford University and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute crowd-sourced computing power from thousands of households across the world to run their simulations, meaning they could come up with a figure for how climate change is altering events like Storm Desmond in real-time. The Financial Times also covers the story.

UK has ‘lost world climate leadership role’ by axing domestic green policies

The Guardian

The Guardian reports comments by the former EU chief scientific advisor that the UK is “moving backwards” on its green leadership with a string of recent cuts to support for low carbon energy. Glover said: “The UK does not have a leadership role, nor is it regarded to have a leadership role in Brussels”. Former UK climate diplomat John Ashton warns that it will be difficult for the UK to have authority in Paris while undermining green policies at home. “Rule one of diplomacy is, walk your talk: otherwise people stop listening.”

Coal, nuclear and diesel to keep lights on in £800m scheme

The Telegraph

The National Grid is preparing to release the results of its latest capacity market auction, which will see hundreds of pounds of subsidies paid to diesel generators and old coal and nuclear plants, says The Telegraph. Designed to pay energy companies to guarantee they can provide electricity in 2019-20, the price of subsidies will be set at £18 per kilowatt for a total capacity of just over 46 gigawatts.

More misery as Cumbria town floods again

The Times

Another night of rain has brought devastation to parts of Cumbria, with 67mm of rain falling in 24 hours. The Express has a series of aerial pictures showing the damage from the week of storms and flooding. The government this week pledged 50 million to the people and areas affected, with up to £5,000 available to each household to protect their homes against future floods. Meanwhile, a comment piece in The Guardian examines how almost half of the areas fast-tracked for new housing development by George Osborne are on floodplains, according to Greenpeace analysis.

The Daily Express

The Daily Express misunderstands Carbon Brief analysis calculating how much developing countries expect it will cost to implement their climate pledges. The correct figure is $3.5tn (£2.4tn), with only £277bn explicitly requested from international sources. £53bn is expected to come from domestic budgets and the rest currently unspecified. The story also appeared without these important caveats in yesterday’s Times.

Comment

Hard though it is for a Brit to admit, the French are conducting the climate negotiations brilliantly

Geoffrey Lean

With a global agreement to address climate change in our sights, the French presidency are “playing a blinder”, says lean. There are still some big issues unresolved but the contrast with the climate summit in Copenhagen six years ago could hardly be more stark, he says. “By honouring the negotiators’ efforts so far, instead of effectively dismissing them as a waste of time – egos and sensibilities are assuaged and the process has so far run remarkably smoothly.”

The politics behind climate summit’s 1.5 degree target

Kalina Oroschakoff and Sara Stefanini, Politico

A climate deal that doesn’t do enough on it’s own to limit global warming to 2C is no surprise but talk about adopting the even more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees is unexpected, says Politico. In practical terms, it would require countries to stop emitting greenhouse gases almost immediately but the reasons for mentioning it in the text are largely political: “For the EU, it represents a show of goodwill towards a group of countries it desperately needs to secure the kind of deal it wants.” But while the 1.5 degree goal may be good politics, there are serious doubts it can be met, the piece says.ClimateHome has a brief history of the 1.5C target.

Science

Antarctic Ice Shelf Thickness from Cryosat-2 Radar Altimetry

Geophysical Research Letters

Using satellite radar measurements, scientists have measured the thickness of ice shelves across the whole of Antarctica between 2011 and 2014. The study uses data from CryoSat-2, which was launched by the European Space Agency in April 2010 and covers 92.3% of ice shelves in Antarctica. The new dataset provides key improvements in accuracy and coverage, which will help reduce uncertainties in modelling how ice sheets and ice shelves are changing, the paper says.

More frequent moments in the climate change debate as emissions continue

Environmental Research Letters

A new paper plots a timeline of significant climate meetings and reports against rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and global temperature. The results suggest one of two things, the researchers say: either a lack of progress in limiting climate change despite multiple recent keynote meetings, or that the increasing level of debate is an encouragement that solutions will be found to prevent dangerous warming levels.