Pope Francis criticizes "lack of courage" in climate debate
Climate and energy news
What is the future direction of oil
prices?
Most analysts think the oil price won’t dip much below it’s
current level of $50 a barrel. Not Anatole Kaletsky, who says it
could go as low as $20 – with low oil prices becoming the new
normal for the industry. Reutersreports that oil prices are
expected to stay around the current level until there is a cut in
supply, which doesn’t look like happening soon. Meanwhile UCL
professor Paul Ekins says the low oil price could erode some of the
economic benefits that come with decarbonisation of the UK economy
over the next 15 years, but it would not negate them
altogether, BusinessGreenreports.
Rate of environmental degradation puts life on
Earth at risk, say scientists
The Guardian reports on new research which finds the earth
has now crossed four of nine planetary boundaries, meaning humanity
is now ‘eating away at our own life support systems’. Degrading
land and freshwater systems, emitting greenhouse gases and
releasing vast amounts of agricultural chemicals into the
environment is raising the risk of inadvertently driving the Earth
into a much less hospitable state, reports the Daily Mail. Reutersalso covered the story.
Carbon Brief wrote up the new research, here.
Hinkley Point nuclear agreement expected in
March
EDF expects to sign an investment agreement with its Chinese
partners by the end of March. The deal will help it procurement the
needed £24.5 billion for the project. “In principle, everyone’s on
board,” said Song Xudan, chief executive for EDF in China. “But
these are huge contracts and we have to go through them line by
line.”
Urgent N Sea oil review ordered as job axe falls
on Aberdeen
The British government has ordered an urgent review of the
North Sea oil industry after a collapse in prices that has prompted
hundreds of job losses and raised fears for the survival of ageing
fields. The government wants the review to with “practical measures
to mitigate the immediate risks that the downturn in prices
presents us with”. Reutersalso has the story.
Climate and energy comment
Energy: Seize the
day
An editorial in the Economist argues that falling oil prices
provide a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to “fix” failing
energy policies around the world. “A cheaper, greener and more
reliable energy future could be within reach,” it says, if a price
is put on carbon emissions and fossil subsidies are ended.
It is ‘impossible’ for today’s big oil companies
to adapt to climate change
Climate change is not too entrenched for oil and gas
companies to be able to respond in a rational way, argues
environmentalist Jonathon Porritt. The writing was on the wall when
analysis showing most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves will have
to remain ‘unburned’ left them “entirely unmoved”, he
says.
15 of the hottest spots around the world in
2014
With two of the three main global weather data centres
expected to confirm 2014 as the world’s hottest year on record, The
Guardian looks at some of the places the mercury peaked. A
separate Guardianpiece looks at some of the
health problems that experts say we can expect as temperatures
rise, including allergies, respiratory illnesses, salmonella
outbreaks, malaria, heat exposure, malnutrition and depression.
Rupert’s last hurrah should be to hold George to
his North Sea pledge
The chancellor should reintroduce the fuel duty escalator to
help the ailing North Sea oil and gas industry, the Financial Times
argues. In the 2011 budget Mr Osborne jacked up the supplementary
charge on North Sea production from 20 per cent to 32 per cent.
New climate science
Future Climate Change under RCP Emission Scenarios
with GISS ModelE2
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
A new NASA model study looks at temperature change out to
2500 under different emissions scenarios. For the highest scenario,
RCP8.5, the range is 3.5 to 4.5ºC by 2100, with steep declines in
both arctic and Antarctic sea ice and a complete cessation of a
major circulation system in the North Atlantic. By contrast, if
emissions stay within the RCP2.6 scenario, global temperature
recovers completely by 2500, the model finds.