Corporate Climate Response: Day 2 (Offsetting)

The emissions from the conference where offset by The Carbon Neutral Company and travel emissions by Climate Care.

Climate Care is one of only two offset providers that i have actually offset with in the past. I like the type of projects that they carry out, i trust them and i like there whole ethos. The Carbon Neutral Company used to be called Future Forests but have now change from this, in part because of the slack that afforestation has received in the UK media and in part because they where becoming overexposed to risks related to replanting forests if anything killed them off. I think that speaks volumes.

There seemed to be very different views coming from the panel, and the audience had some very pointed questions. On the claim being used by some large businesses that they are going CarbonNeutral by virtue of buying green power there was a scathing attack from Mike Mason of Climate Care. There is double counting--Twice!

As these companies are bying green power and then selling the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) apparent double counting is obvious. Power companies are legally obliged to create a certain amount of green power. The ROCs represent this power, if they are not retired by the company purchasing the green power, then it simply isn't green--no scarcity and absolutely no net effect. This trick has been picked up by many people.

What hasn't been picked up however is a far more subtle kind of double counting. The UK government has emissions targets under the EU ETS. If reductions in the form of offsets are made, the government therefore has to put in fewer green policies! That might mess with your mind a bit but it is a serious concern, if the carbon offsetting business continues to grow then are the government having a free ride on consumers of the offsets? This is clearly only the issue for domestic projects, not those in the developing world but Climate Care would like to do some projects in the UK and DEFRA refused to wipe reduce its carbon budget by the amount being offset in the UK. That is a fascinating story that I have never hear before.

These are details: i have stated in the past that i support well managed carbon offsets and that is still the case. More on carbon offsets later.

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Coorporate Climate Response: Employing Energy Efficiency

One of the main themes of the first day of this conference has been energy efficiency improving corporate efficiency. This case, as argued so stongly by Amory Lovins et. al., is simultaneously encouraging and disconcerting. There was very little actual talk about climate change. Whilst, little conversation on the climate science is perhaps a good thing-there is no distracting debate-it is also a problem. The more we seperate the climate crisis from the case for business action (using an intermediary existing business consideration) the colder the case for action seems to me. I could get passionate about saving the rainforests, my fellow human beings and our civilisation. I would find it less easy to take the degree of action required in the name of saving some money.

This is perhaps the devide between business world and climate change campaigner; being an optomist the search for money has never been a weakness for business! Niggling final question--how many of these people know the science and see the enormity of the challenge?

Here is a great background on the latest science by the UK's leading climate policy institution, the Tyndall Centre. It explains that the govornments 60% by 2050 target implies atmospheric co2 concentrations far beyond any safe (or non-catastrophic level). It is woefully inadequate. Can business act fast enough, it is preparing to...my answers would be perhaps (but with significant changes to many business models) and no (at least not to a significant degree).

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Coorporate Climate Response: All the sessions on video (well nearly)

There is a bit of delayed action going on with the blogging due to the long days and my lack of a laptop. However, this is just to let you know that i have recorded all but one of the sessions!

Yes, that is a lot of tape, and yes it will take some time to upload, but if you go to my video blog on http://www.youtube.com/calvinjones then you can see previous climate conference recordings, and you can subscribe so that any time you log on to youtube you will be alerted to the new uploads.

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Manchester City Football Club Go Green

Continuing a long line of speakers in slagging off treehuggers and talking instead about business sense and social responsibility Pete Bradshaw, Social Responsibility Officer for Manchester City (the only one in the UK --but not for long!) spoke about working with ecotricity to install a 2MW wind turbine at Manchester Cities Football ground.






There is a guide to the project plan here. The interesting thing about ecotricity is that they manage, construct and finance the whole deal so that no capital outlay is required. The organisation (in this case a football club) then buys there own power back, but at a dramatically reduced rate.

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Corporate Climate Response Blog Is Underway Live

I will be posting my updates from the first day of the 'Corporate Climate Response' later this evening.

Meanwhile for a fairly objective overview of the day in terms of the various themes, please check out the climate response blog.

My only comments for now are that the Presentation given by Dr Chris Tuppen of BT was perhaps the most interesting of the day so far. Partly due to the fact that BT uses a large portion of the UK energy supply, partly because Chris new his own carbon footprint (6 tonnes) do you, and partly because of the fascinating internal competitions that BT have been holding to track down servers that are still drawing power but are not currently being used, they have found literally thousands. So my confidence in BT as a leader on climate issue is increased, I knew that they where at least looking at the issues carefully because CarbonSense have donw work for them.

Finally, Andrew Jenkins of Boots gave a very interesting explanation of the work that Boots has done with the carbon trust in calculating the carbon footprint of one of its shampoos. This was particularly interesting because of the great complexity involved and Andrews take on this problem. In the past Andrew worked for a packaging company at around the time that seemingly laborious regulations where put in place to reduce packaging. Very soon this nightmare--where a huge number of companies where asking for information of suppliers--was simplified to a small number of central information handling nodes; and now a single centre.

There was a significant feeling in the room that carbon labelling of individual items would perhaps be to difficult and costly to achieve vs a range of other arguably more effective measures. My own view, partly from personal experience, is that in the beginning this information will indeed be a nightmare, but that as it is integrated into more and more businesses the burden will become less and less, once you are asked for information once, you might as well be asked for it a hundred times it is no more difficult. An once a given source materials energy usage is known then all customers can readily gain that information. Price, after all is the integration of a lot of information. It's just core to business and is therefore very well known for any product! I think that Andrew wasn't to far away from me in this belief.

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Latest Climate Change and Development Bulletin

Issue 63 of the quarterly bulletin is now on-line, featuring articles on on
health and climate in Kashmir, environmental stress and climate change and
gender issues...


In the latest issue of Tiempo Climate Newswatch, a weekly online news magazine
on climate and development...

News of the latest IPCC assessment of climate mitigation options...
 
Plus the latest news on...

• Bonn climate negotiations
  
• 
  
• WWF mitigation report
  
• 
  
• Migration and climate change
  

The Current Climate section now includes the latest monthly data for global
temperature and the Southern Oscillation as well as access to a mosaic of global
webcam skyviews...

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Climate Pirates Needed! London: Sat 9th June

A horde of pirates needed, as ships crew and boarding parties to loot and pillage Camden lock on Saturday 9th June.

You will need:

Your own pirate outfit

Grog

A sense of fun

To be able to reliably commit to the event.

The climate pirates intend to highlight the injustices of the rich nations plundering the poor. While developed nations (like the UK) emit huge amounts of CO2 the developing nations suffer the consequences (famine, drought, flooding etc).

The climate pirates will be sailing under a WDM flag, but it will be so much fun that everyone should come. See http://www.wdm.org.uk/campaigns/climate/

Camden lock is entirely supportive of the event and so (looting and pillaging) aside the day will be a legal and colourful way to make your voice heard. Please come along.

If you can commit to help out on the day please email Richard:
emptyhand17 at yahoo.com by Sunday 3rd June.

If you can’t commit but would like to find out more, then please email me to say you’re interested and we will email round final details nearer the time.

Tell friends; bring your mum, parrots, pirate songs, people you meet in the street, your own plank, and yourself.

It’s going to be good!

Richard

And yes we do have our own ship

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Solar PV Costs to Plummit

An interesting story from RenewableEnergyAccess

PV Costs to Decrease 40% by 2010

The solar industry is poised for a rapid decline in costs that will make it a mainstream power option in the next few years, according to a new assessment by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Prometheus Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

How much is being invested in renewable energy? Details via clean edge.

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Campaign against Climate Change Aberdeen: Biofuels not the answer!

My nearest climate campaign group Aberdeen--Campaign against Climate Change have been making there voices heard. Nice work everyone! Hope to see you all at the next meeting.

CLIMATE CAMPAIGNERS TAKE BIOFUEL FIGHT TO DOOR OF ENERGY COMPANIES AT EXHIBITION

08:50 - 24 May 2007

Climate-change campaigners made a brief protest during the All-Energy 07 show, which opened yesterday.

Aberdeen Campaign Against Climate Change was responsible for a short interruption to the speech by US Ambassador to the UK Robert Tuttle.

(left: soy motivated deforestation, increasingly for the production of 'green' biodesil)

Several members of the group, who are unhappy at US use of biofuels made from crops, unfurled anti-biofuels banners and made their views known before they were asked to leave.

The campaigners, who left peacefully, later continued their protest outside the show venue, Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre.

All-Energy 07, the largest renewable energy event in the UK, concludes today.

The campaign group's Almuth Ernsting said:

"The US government have been sabotaging progress at international climate conferences for years and their emissions continue to rise steeply.

"Large-scale biofuels do not mitigate global warming but make it happen even faster, as rainforests and other ecosystems are rapidly being destroyed to make way for vast monocultures to grow crops for cars in rich nations."

Campaigner Alan Fleming added:

"We are holding this protest to make sure that people distinguish between clean, truly renewable sources of energy such as sustainable wind, solar, wave and tidal power on the one hand and biofuels from large-scale monocultures on the other.

"We are glad the All-Energy conference will promote wind, solar and marine energy sources as part of the solution to climate change.

"However, companies with interests in biofuels who are presenting at the conference should be aware of the problems biofuels are creating.

"Both intensive agriculture and deforestation are major contributors to global warming and biofuels threaten to greatly increase those emissions."

All-Energy project director Judith Patten said of the protest:

"We live in a democracy. Thank heavens people are allowed to express their views."

One of the people quoted, Almuth Ernsting is more well known for her involvement in biofuelwatch. Bellow is a video where she explains more about that group. As you can see from the website, Almuths' views are based on rigorous research and complete independence. Biofuelwatch is an entirely volunteer led organisation.

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Corporate Climate Response

How are UK based corporations: dealing with, reducing there contribution to, and positioning 
themseleves relative to, climate change?

The upcoming 'corporate climate response' conference aims to address these issues, perticularly:

• 21 Case studies from early adopters including: Tesco, Marks & Spencer, BT, Standard Chartered Bank, Asda, Whole Foods Market, John Lewis Waitrose, City of London, Boots, Unilever, Manchester City Football Club, Allied Distillers, Lastminute.com and many more. 
  
• DEFRA address: Carbon Footprint and Supply Chain Management
  
• Think tanks on Personal Carbon Accounting and Organisational Response
  
• One day dedicated to Climate Change and the Food Industry

This perticular conference has its intenet home here, full program here. A facinating project by Ogilvy PR who have managed to arrange for a whole range of bloggers to cover the event.

Updates (1st or second hand, i`m not sure yet) will be posted here later.

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Climate News Update: World Business Council on Sustainable Development

Energy efficiency a growing corporate concern -- survey
--------------------------------------------------
Greenwire, 18 May 2007 - Nearly eight out of 10 corporate building managers expect energy costs to rise significantly during the next year, according to a new survey commissioned by building systems provider Johnson Controls Inc.
--------------------------------------------------


No excuse for lack of action on climate change: UN
--------------------------------------------------
AFP, 18 May 2007 - Governments must act decisively to avert a global climate catastrophe, the UN's chief official on climate change said Friday after talks to lay the ground for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
--------------------------------------------------

Clinton Climate Initiative Offers $5B to Green Cities' Buildings
--------------------------------------------------
GreenBiz.com, 17 May 2007 - At this week's C40 Large Cities Climate Summit here, companies, cities and organizations have announced plans and programs to help cities fight global warming. But yesterday, former U.S. president Bill Clinton trumped them all with the announcement of his $5 billion program to renovate municipal buildings at cities worldwide.
--------------------------------------------------

Climate issue now 'conventional' in US, S&P says
--------------------------------------------------
Environmental Finance, 17 May 2007 - Climate change has moved from "controversial" to "conventional" in the US, according to Standard & Poor's, although costs are difficult to estimate since control technologies are uncertain.
--------------------------------------------------

Wave power tipped as 'holy grail' for Australia
--------------------------------------------------
AFP, 17 May 2007 - New technology harnessing wave energy could be the "holy grail" for providing electricity and drinking water to Australia's major cities, Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane said Thursday.
--------------------------------------------------

Companies see need for Energy Executive
--------------------------------------------------
GLOBE-Net, 16 May 2007 - Most companies do not have an energy strategy in place despite concerns over climate change, and the majority of executives now see a need for a 'Chief Energy Officer' to manage strategic energy issues, according to a recent survey.
--------------------------------------------------


Emissions rising in both rich and poor countries
--------------------------------------------------
GLOBE-Net, 16 May 2007 - Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise, with the world producing 16 percent more CO2 today than in 1990, according to the World Bank's Little Green Data Book 2007, launched at United Nations Sustainable Development meeting which is focused on issues of energy and climate change.
--------------------------------------------------


Asian and European Firms Lead World on Carbon Cuts
--------------------------------------------------
GreenBiz.com, 15 May 2007 - Nearly a third of companies currently have no way of monitoring their own carbon emissions, or the indirect emissions of their supply chain, and they have no plan to begin doing so, a new survey of global executives has found.
--------------------------------------------------

Biofuels: The New Trade Frontier?
--------------------------------------------------
Bridges, 15 May 2007 - Fuelled by concerns over climate change and energy security, as well as rapidly increasing commercial interest, emerging patterns in biofuel production and trade are generating both international co-operation and growing unease over trade terms.
--------------------------------------------------

(Above: biofuels are promoted as a green energy source but are actually one of the main drivers of tropical deforestation)

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Camp for Climate Action 2007: Heathrow

The Climate Camp has already garnered a fair deal of interest.

Most favourable coverage from The Times under heading 'Revolting middle class join eco-warriors'. This article includes references to a wie range of interest groups who are already opposing the expansion of heathrow, and aviation growth more broadly. Guardian 
was not bad, but no real attempt to pain the broader picture.

The most negative coverage comes from the Daily Hate (AKA Daily Mail) and the Express. Both of whom have converted a press release about alternative to high carbon living, and promotion of sustainable practices and education into a story of frightening, violent, thugs. The small mistakes littered throughout seem largely irrelavent given the dilberately distorted tone.

The first local coverage is from the Ealing Times which runs an overwhelmingly positive short article.

PRESSURE is mounting on BAA as Climate Camp decides to pitch its tents outside Heathrow.

The decision announced this week to stage this year's Climate Camp near Heathrow will increase pressure on BAA to drop its controversial plans to expand the airport.

Last year's Climate Camp, which took place outside Selby in Yorkshire, climaxed in a high-profile attempt to occupy Drax Power Station.

This year the camp will be pitching its tents in the Heathrow area from the August 14 to 21, and thousands of people are expected to camp out to protest against the impact aviation is having on the planet.

Geraldine Nicholson, chair of local campaign group NOTRAG (No Third Runway Action Group), said: "BAA should not be surprised that people are planning to come from all over the country to protest at their expansion plans. This community will be destroyed if a third runway is built at Heathrow. An ever-increasing number of people think aviation policy is going in the wrong directions for a whole number of reasons - climate change, community destruction, noise. Together we can win."

Chair of campaign group HACAN Clearskies, John Stewart, said: "The terrible twins of the UK aviation industry, BA and BAA, must be stopped in their tracks. Their activities are damaging the planet and ruining the quality of life of countless people living under flight paths. The climate camp will be a striking symbol of the revulsion a growing number of people feel at the antics of the aviation industry."

The blogosphere/alternative media also have a fair number of stories floating around.

'A Daisy Through Concrete' has several stories on the climate camp, notably this one on the angle taken by certain tabloids. 'Goldfish nation' has a similar take.

Music blog 'Dilated Tunes' also has a post on the camp, as do Global Warming Heatwatch, Earth First, the Wombles, Radical Heat Watch, Car Free Blog, Kliamatet (Netherlands?), Oread Daily (USA).

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Climate Camp Location Released: Heathrow!

So I said that I would post more information about the climate camp soon.

Here it is, the location is: Heathrow!

I didn't want to preempt the press release, now that this has been done, you can all make your plans to come to the camp from the 14th-21st August.


"Revolting middle classes join eco-warriors"

The Times

Members of the public are set to join forces with radical protesters in unprecedented campaigns of direct action if the Government persists with proposals for the biggest reform of planning for 20 years.

As climate change campaigners announced plans to set up a protest camp at Heathrow this summer, mainstream environmental groups, which usually frown on such tactics, insist that plans to restrict public consultation on major developments will lead to a dramatic increase in direct action and civil disobedience.

Moderate groups such as the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), the Ramblers Association and the RSPB have formed a “planning disaster coalition” to campaign against ambitious proposals to fast-track the construction of nuclear plants, airports, motor-ways and waste incinerators, and allow the spread of out-of-town shopping centres.

They argue that plans to set up an independent commission to take the final decision on major developments, outlined in the Government’s White Paper on Monday, will remove parliamentary accountability, cut out consultation at local level and make it far easier for controversial projects to go ahead.

Friends of the Earth, which usually eschews direct action, is predicting a return to “Swampy tactics”. Swampy, real name Daniel Hooper, became a media darling in 1996 when he was the last “mole” to be forcibly removed from a tunnel dug to protest against the planned Newbury bypass in Berkshire.

Marina Pacheco, head of planning at the CPRE, said: “We are having a fortnight of direct action this summer. We are suggesting to our branch members that they get creative to raise the profile of the White Paper.

“We are suggesting that they hold events in areas at risk. Our membership is quite middle class so I don’t think there will be anything really extreme.”

Patrick Grady, countryside campaigner for the Ramblers Association, said: “We usually encourage people to get involved in local campaigns, but if decisions are going to be centralised we will want to mobi-lise members in conjunction with other organisations. The coalition is hopeful that the Government will listen to us before this becomes a Bill.”

Christine Shilling of Notrag, No Third Runway Action Group, says it could be forced to rethink its policy of refraining from direct action in its campaign against Heathrow’s expansion.

She said: “We view this as one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation ever contemplated in terms of civil liberties and individual human rights.

“Notrag is not involved in this camp at Heathrow as we have always ruled out direct action, but if our rights are taken away and we have no opportunity to voice our opinions then we’d have to think again.”

The Heathrow protest is being organised by The Camp for Climate Action, which was behind a 600-strong protest against the Drax power station in North Yorkshire last summer. Its organisers insist that the week-long Heathrow camp between August 14 and 21 will be peaceful, although some are said to be planning disruption inside terminal buildings.

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Paraguaian farmers call for help--risk of eviction for soy expansion.

I just recieved the following email. I`m having web problems so this is from an internet cafe and therefore brief. Please do what you can to support these people. If this where forests rather than soy it would be know as leakage...displaced farmers will be landless and possibly move into virgin forests to clear an rebuild there lives. This kind of problem is being exacerbated by poor carbon offset schemes and biofuels across the tropical regions of the world.


========
Dear Sir/Madam,

A farmers organisation in Paraguay has asked for urgent international help to try and prevent the eviction of and possible violence against a group of young landless farmers in Pariri Province, and to protest against charges brought against the leader of their organisation, MAP for trying to peacefully support farmers whose lands are being taken over by large soya plantations. A previous eviction, like the one threatened now, ended in a large number of arrests, including of children, and two people being shot dead. International support is vital if similar violence is to be prevented in coming days and weeks.

Paraguay now has 2 million hectares of soya plantations, which have been established at the expense of rainforests as well as farming communities. Around 90,000 families have lost their land as a result, and biodiverse traditional farming systems are being turned into large monocultures, with aerial spraying of pesticides, which poisons people, wildlife, water and soil. The current biofuel boom is accelerating the expansion of soya plantations and the loss of farmland, rainforests, food sovereignty and biodiversity.

Please go to:

http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch

Please ask your friends and family if they might like to take part, too. Many thanks!

Kind regards,
Reinhard Behrend
Rettet den Regenwald e. V.
Friedhofsweg 28
22337 Hamburg
Telefon 0049 -40 - 4103804

Info@regenwald.org
http://www.regenwald.org

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Electric cars, part of a future low energy, low emissions future.

Decarbonising transport is not an easy goal to achieve. Biofuels may be part of the
 solution, but chosen poorly they are part of the problem. The sheer scale of the demand for transport related energy is a huge issue.

No matter which source of energy you look at you have trade offs. As with the whole energy sector it is effeciency that is key. There is some debate over the best technology to be used for transport. Some very well respected energy analysts suggesting that hydrogen via high temperature reforming is a viable solution. This process is far more energy efficient that electolysis at present.

However, hydrogen storage is a tricky issue and transporting hydrogen is non-trivial. One technology that we already have is battery powered cars. Battery design is advancing apace, the price is still high but with sufficient interest, and large scale manufacture, electricity is becoming the energy storage medium of choice.

Whatever that medium of energy storage, total system efficiency is key. The generation of electricity is typically 35-45% at large scale power station, if both electricity and heat are generated as is currently the case across denmark then efficiency of >95% is possible. If better car designs and technologies are used then energy usage compared to average cars can be doubled, trippled or more.

Combining this 95% overall energy efficiency of the energy infrastructure with the doubling or trippling of efficiency of energy usage we have a radically low carbon system whatever the fuel.

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August 14th-21st Camp for Climate Action

Well that took a while.

After a day and a half of talks the national climate camp meeting (that took place downstairs in the Greenpeace UK offices) finally arrived at a consensus decision on the location of the next climate camp! (Details here in a few days).

The aims of the camp are:

• Be a place were we explore grassroots solutions to climate change through workshops, skill-sharing, education, debate and entertainment. The camp will also bring together people already campaigning on this and related issues.
• Take direct action against the root causes of climate change. Yes we need to change light bulbs and stop flying to Spain for the weekend, but we also need to act collectively. This is the only way to stop the actions of those vested interests that watch the planet burn while counting the money they make from the fire.
• Demonstrate and live the alternatives by bringing diverse groups and individuals together to live in an ecologically sustainable, cooperative way. The camp will aim to be as carbon neutral as possible and all energy, except perhaps gas for cooking, will come from renewable sources.
• Be a space for celebration, for kids and families, a place to socialise with friends old and new. Western civilisation has tried to answer the eternal question of what it is to be human by surrounding itself in a cocoon of objects, an endless stream of meaningless stuff. This is a chance to show the opposite, that less can be so much more.

Its going ahead, its ambitious, its exciting. We have a groovy new poster.


In the mean time enjoy one of the posters being used, and check out the climate camp pomotional videos.

This is what we did last year. Now we have the profile, the momentum and the experiance. Make sure you get involved if you are based in the UK.

Some photos from last year:







Some news coverage on Channel 4, one of the main uk national stations.







A clip of a documentary made about the climate camp 2006.

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National Climate Camp Meeting: London 19th-20th May

I'm just off to London, my second trip in two weeks, this time for the 'Camp for Climate Action' meeting.

I have been in an awkward situation since leaving Campaign against Climate Change...I really need a full time job and some Independence. On the other hand, this is proving difficult, if not impossible for the work I want to do. So the question becomes, what do I do instead, I could get a full time job I don't like, or I could do what I am currently doing and work part time and spend the rest of my time working on climate change. I`m uncertain about what it is best to do and also somewhat depressed by things. This makes doing anything difficult, particularly complex tasks requiring careful thought. Having said that, I am now trying to get more involved in climate campaigning again. I am responding to the Climate Bill, attending the climate camp meetings with the aim of doing whatever I can (but not committing to more than that) and also hoping to start helping campaign against climate change in Aberdeen again soon.

The climate camp meeting will be at:
Greenpeace Offices, Canonbury Villas, Islington, LONDON N1 2PN.


Here's to making this one bigger, more impactfull, and ultimately more successful than ever!

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Musical Interlude: Jill Sobule a happy song about global warming

From video description on youtube:

Like nearly everyone at TED2006, Jill Sobule was stirred by Al Gore's spectacular speech on the clear and present danger of climate change. The time for action is now, Jill thought. And so she wrote a song. But since everyone else was so down about the impending collapse of ecological systems, which could lead to floods, drought, hurricanes, mosquito overpopulation and species extinction, she decided to write a happy song about global warming. And here it is: Inspired by TED Curator Chris Anderson (who cameos here). Written and performed first at TED. Al Gore loved it, and so will you...

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Audio from the Carbon Expo Conference + Emissions Trading Update

Interested in business atitudes to climate legislation, the EU ETS, emissions tading as a whole?

I just recieved this information from BusinessAssurance.com the podcast is facinating listening and there is a good deal of content on the climate change section of the website already.

---------------------------------------------------

We've just launched a new climate change section:

http://www.businessassurance.com/climatechange

which includes a Carbon Emissions podcast:

The site is aimed at businesses which want to gain a better understanding of
environmental issues, legislation and best practice.

The podcast (mp3) interviews were conducted at the Carbon Expo conference in
Cologne and are presented by Neville Hobson, the business podcaster.

Some of the global experts interviewed include:

• Jos Delbeke, Director, DG Environment, European Commission
  
• 
  
• Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
  
• 
  
• William Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts
  
• 
  
• Kristalina Georgieva, Director, Strategy and Operations Sustainable Development, The World Bank
  
• 
  
• Bill Kyte, Chairman of the UK Emissions Trading Group (ETG)
  
• 
  
• Garth Edward, Trading Manager, Environmental Products, Shell
  

We've also taken the opportunity to revamp the site structure, and content
is now arranged into six categories:

• podcasts: featuring interviews with industry experts
  
• 
  
• news: impartial news summaries
  
• 
  
• blogs: on key issues such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, carbon offsetting and sustainability
  
• 
  
• resources: a comprehensive set of reports and white papers
  
• 
  
• events: a calendar of conferences, trade shows and other events
  
• 
  
• standards: a directory of standards, including information on key ISO and industry specific standards

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Murdoch speech on climate change.

A few days back I mentioned Rupert Murdoch's speech on climate change.

I just found the transcript: here.

I just love the references to fox news and it's 'greening', the world really has gone mad!

And i`m glad.

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Campaign Strategy + Communicating Climate Change (Video+Reports)

On the 12-13th May Campaign against Climate Change organised an international climate conference with an unreasonable number of speakers and a great list of topics covered.

I have some of this on tape (about 12hrs) but it takes ages to shift, cut, edit, encode, upload.

The first session is now available on my youtube channel. I completed this session first as it is an area that i am perticularly interested in, and I organised it for Campaign against Climate Change.

Speakers:

• Chris Rose (Campaign Strategy) on targeting audiances.
• Simon Retallack (IPPR) on the language we use to communicate climate change.
  
• Solitaire Townsend (Futerra) on marketing low carbon behaviour.
  

Why did I invite these people to speak? Because of these pieces of work:

• 'How to win campaigns' by Chris Rose.
  
• Warm Words by IPPR.
• New Rules : New Game by Futerra.

Chris: 1 of 3



Simon: 1 of 2



Solitaire: 1 of 3

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Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis

This week's report of the week is by christian aid. Entitled "Human Tide: The Real Migration Crisis" this latest report looks at one of the greatest potential impacts of climate change, the distinctly human rather than environmental impact of mass migration.

"At least one billion people will be forced from their homes between now and 2050 as the effects of climate change deepen an already burgeoning global migration crisis, predicts a new Christian Aid report."

A great number of development organisations are now looking at climate change, and issue that is so huge as to be a daunting addition to these groups doing very direct and worthwhile development work...but it is becoming increasingly obvious that climate change threatens to wash away any hope of development for the poor, hence christain aids latest climate campaign.

Links bellow to the climate change sections of a few development organisations.

Oxfam, World Development Movement, MedAct, RedCross,

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Obama and Clinton Support Bill Calling for 80% GHG Reductions by 2050

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have co-spo sponsored a bill by Bernnie Sanders, the only socialist us senator...calling for an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

This discrete signing occured shortly after 1400 events--as part of step it up 2007-- across the US brought people out onto the streets calling for a bill with this level of reduction to be enacted.

"Ever wonder if citizen action really matters? There's no one who can read public opinion like presidential candidates (they have armies of pollsters), so please take it as a real tribute to your hard work that on Thursday both Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton signed on to support 80% emissions cuts by 2050!!!! They did it quietly, signing on as co-sponsors to the Sanders bill in the Senate which contains that goal. We'll need them to speak out loud and clear in the months ahead to make sure that whoever wins the White House has a mandate for big change. But we're awfully glad that they've followed John Edwards down the 80 by 50 road. When we announced that goal in early January, people said it was too big, too ambitious. But we knew it was what the science demanded--and now we know that, thanks to you, political reality can change with lighting speed!"

If this came into law it would certainly give America a leadership role on the issue...and hope would become a somewhat more significant feature of climate politics. Internationally the impact would be huge, and America may even regain a reputation as responsible member of the international community.

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Passing on the latest James Hansen news...

Jim gave a presentation in a court case that vermont are involved with:

Presentation used last week as a witness for Vermont in its case vs auto makers is available as 4.8 MB pdf here. Alternatively the ppt is available ppr here.

As a more scientific and referenced version of these pieces, the written decleration is available:

My written declaration, with 48 charts, including ~ one paragraph discussing each chart, is probably a clearer scientific summary than my talks. So in response to requests from the public I now provide this declaration (although there are a few updated charts in the above) rather than the “annotated charts” from a solar energy conference presentation. The written declaration.

Jim was also impressed by the work of Vermont's legal team:

It was quite an experience to see the way the team presenting the Vermont case worked (David Bookbinder, Matt Pawa, et al.) – very impressive in their dedication and skills. My guess/hope is that they will win this case, but a ruling is not expected before late summer.

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Did China just make a huge announcement that no one noticed?

I was reading an article entitled "180 GW of Wind Power Possible in Europe by 2020" which is nice, as we already know that most of the EU's 20% renewable energy target will be derived from wind power as it is the most developed renewable energy.

At the base of the article it did mention, more aless as an aside that china has taken on a 16% renewable energy target for 2020! That is huge isn't it?

I`m not saying adequate, but still, HUGE!

So internationally we have the following:
1. EU has 20% renewable energy target (all energy not just electricity), this will be 30% if other nations join in a post-kyoto deal.
2. The US is considering a 15% renewable mandate.
3. China has a 16% renewablke energy target.

Does anyone have any clue how vast the market for renewable energy is going to be, relative to today if these targets are met or even approached.

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Murdoch talks tough on climate change.

Rupurt Murdoch has decided that climate change is a problem, and he's going to make sure that everyone who watches/reads/listens to media under his control gets that message.

How important is this? Well Murdoch controls:

"Fox News, 20th Century Fox, HarperCollins, MySpace.com, and dozens of newspapers in Australia, the U.K., the U.S., and beyond."

So it is a significant position...I just wonder how his news empire, including Republican mouthpiece FoxNews can make climate change a key issue without making Al Gore a hero. I guess slander should do it, i`ll watch with interest how this progresses.

The general approach will include more sitcoms, commedy, general programing including climate change.

News Corp. Vice President of Business Development Roy Bahat told Grist that the company will not try to awkwardly wedge the issue into programs, but said, "It will naturally become more prevalent throughout our programming, be it sitcoms or news. We are asking all of our creative leaders to incorporate climate change in ways that would make drama more dramatic, or comedy funnier, or news more relevant -- ways that inspire viewers to bond with the program."

This story from Grist.

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Musical Interlude: I Need to Wake Up

I should do more of these...enjoy a musical interlude from An Inconvenient Truth "Melissa Ethridge - I Need To Wake Up".

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US to Mandate 15% Renewable Electricity by 2020?

This could be huge. 15% renewable energy by 2020 is being considered in the US.

To put this into perspective let me say that by huge I mean grossly inadequate.

Ohh the confusion of it all...i`m effectively saying that near exponential growth untill 2020 is just not good enough. Perhaps if you have seen the latest IPCC report you will realise why, and this gets at the very reason that climate change isn't just another issue, the steepness of the cuts in emissions that are required is daunting!

The target is short of the much hyped 20*20 target, which is wha the EU has committed to but which, likewise is inadequate. 30% by 2020, that is starting to get serious and the EU has committed to this if a post kyoto deal can be struck. Assuming that renewable energies decrease in costs with time and that more innovations take place I think that 30% renewables by 2020, along with energy efficiency and reduced energy demand is along the lines of what is needed for 90% developed world cuts by 2050.

In fact, i switch frequently between despair and hope. We have seen how wind has taken off now that it has passed a certain cost barrier, with only minimal support. If we can get a reasonable price on carbon and a real push behind reneables then i think really huge cuts in emissions could be made.

What i am really waiting for is some faith in a cap and trade system. I firmly believe that a stringent target would lead to all sorts of innovation, much of which would be difficult to track down, lots of small smarter decisions would reduce energy demand and emissions dramatically. Its just a shame that governments don't seem to take markets as seriously when they have potential to save as as when they are desperately avoiding intervening to protect us from unregulated exploitation!

Nothing is linear, that is some reassurance, as time goes by it is impossible to tell if a political and behavioural tipping point is wishful thinking or an inevitable occurrence in the near future.

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IPCC 4AR WG3 (Mitigation) Technical Summary

Can't wait for the Fourth Assessment report (4AR) to come out? Need something with a bit more meat than the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM)?

The best i can do fo you at the moment is the Technical Summary of the Working Group 3 report.

I`m not sure how widely distributed this is but it is a much more detailed (110p vs 35p) document. It also has more diagrams that illustrate certain points perticularly well. You know, crucial points that you really wish the would let policy makers know about...and diagrams are such a good way to do that clearly.

This diagram that makes the temperature changes likely very clear, is not in the SPM.

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IPCC: Fourth Assesment Report, Climate Change Mitigation Summary (WG3)

The IPCC has released the summary report of there third and final working group.

Working Group Three looked at emission scenarios and climate change mitigation.

The summary report can be downloaded here. An outline of the report along with question and answer session can be viewed here.

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(George Monbiot) Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning

In Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning, George Monbiot shows how our carbon emissions can be reduced by 90% by 2030 - without bringing civilisation to an end. He shows how we can transform our houses, our power and our transport systems. But he also argues that this can happen only with a massive programme of action which no government has yet been prepared to take.

Part 1 of 4



Part 2 of 4



Part 3 of 4



Part 4 of 4

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Ethics of Climate Change (Report of the Week)

The ethics of climate change, something that is vaguely talked about often but looked at in detail rarely.

Penn State university have done some facinating work on this in collaboration with a wide range of other groups.

My report of the week is the Ethical Dimension of Climate Change Whitepaper.

An extremely eloquent spokesperson for this report speaks on the issues involved in this video.

The Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change Seeks to:

• Facilitate express examination of ethical dimensions of climate change particularly for those issues entailed by specific positions taken by governments, businesses, NGOs, organizations, or individuals on climate change policy matters;
  
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• Create better understanding about the ethical dimensions of climate change among makers and general public;
  
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• Assure that people around world, including those most vulnerable to climate change, participate in any ethical inquiry about responses climate change;
  
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• Develop an interdisciplinary approach inquiry about the ethical dimensions of climate change and support publications examine ethical dimensions of climate change;
  
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• Make results of scholarship on ethical dimensions of climate change available to and accessible policy makers, scientists, and citizen groups;
  
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• Integrate ethical analysis into the work of other institutions engaged in climate change including Intergovernmental Program on Climate Change and Conference of Parties to United Nations Conference on Climate Change.
  

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Climate Change: A Moral and Ethical Issue

This is my video of the week, it is facinating, and somewhat desturbing. Well worth watching.



Why is climate change an issue of justice and morality?

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Climate Change, a fad?

(The Ford Quadricycle was as far as 'motor cars' had advanced by 1896, perhaps cars are the real fad that we could have done without)


I recently read somewhere that 30% of Americans believe that climate change is a fad.

Here is the history of climate change (via climate scientist at princeton) you decide...

Over one hundred years ago, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius recognized that human activities were likely to be increasing the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, and that this would cause the world to warm; his detailed calculations actually came quite close to present estimates (Arrhenius, 1896). By the 1930s, British scientist G. S. Callendar asserted that he had measured both the CO2 increase and an associated increase in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature (Callendar, 1938).

By the late 1950s, American scientist Roger Revelle and Swiss scientist Hans Suess had clearly explained why the growing emissions of CO2 fromcombustion of coal, oil, and natural gas (as well as from accelerated clearing of the land and oxidation of soil carbon) could not be taken up rapidly by the oceans, and so human influences on atmospheric composition and the climate would last for centuries, making clear that humans were undertaking a great “geophysical experiment” (Revelle and Suess, 1957).

In 1965, a distinguished panel of American scientists convened by the President’s Science Advisory Council (PSAC) summarized the science and reported that climate change was an issue that:

• The views presented in this article are those of the author, and not necessarily of any of the organizations with which he is or has been affiliated. His experiences with these groups, have, however, provided many of the insights.
• Needed to be addressed (PSAC, 1965. By 1978, the fledgling U.S. Department of Energy2 (DOE) had initiated a major research program on the carbon cycle and climate change.
  

In 1979, working with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the US scientific community outlined the full range of potential impacts to society and the environment. By the mid 1980s, the National Research Council (NRC) and the DOE had both issued reports that detailed the state of scientific understanding, clearly establishing that human-induced climate change was becoming a very significant issue (NRC, 1983; DOE, 1985a, 1985b). The world community was also coming to realize that the climate change issue was important. The first international scientific meetings took place in the early 1970s (e.g., SCEP, 1970; SMIC,1971). By 1979, the World Climate Programme was being planned and research and other activities were initiated. By 1985, an international meeting of scientists and government officials in Villach, Austria had agreed that governments needed to be taking the issue seriously (WMO, 1985). Modeled on the success of the international effort to protect the Earth’s stratospheric ozone layer, the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the late 1980s and tasked it with preparing comprehensive assessments that represented the best critical review of the science that the world’s scientific community could provide. With an unprecedented effort, the IPCC has published three such assessments and a few dozen supporting reports since 1990, all unanimously accepted by the roughly 180 nations that make up the IPCC3 (the most recent reports are IPCC, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2001d).

No other major issue has led to such a broad international consensus of scientific understanding and the prospects for future conditions.

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