Category Archives: Climate Change & Sustainability

Posts on aspects of climate science, climate action and climate policy & planning.

Climate Change & Sustainability, Sundries

The price of oil

5 Comments

Recently John Quiggin in The fossil fuel crash of 2014 asked what should we make of the fact that oil prices have fallen from more than $100/barrel in mid-2014 to around $60/barrel today? He also looked at coal, I’ll stick with oil. Quiggin poses the questions:

The big questions are
(i) to what extent does the price collapse reflect weak demand and to what extent growing supply
(ii) will these low prices be sustained, and if so, what will be the outcome?

Quiggin says:

The answer to the first question seems to be, a mixture of the two, with some complicated lags.

I thought it was the Saudis increasing supply to put the American frackers out of business. This turns out not to be the case. Richard Heaney gives us this graph on monthly oil production:

image-20141219-31034-s3o1c6_600

So it is the Americans who have largely increased supply. The Saudis have simply decided not to reduce supply, the usual tactic to increase the price. I’m sure they are hoping the American frackers will feel the squeeze.


Anjli Raval gives this graph of costs:

f9c2521e-8058-11e4-872b-00144feabdc0.img

Raval says that most at risk are the Canadian oil sands, US shale plays and other areas of “tight oil”. Also vulnerable are Brazil’s deepwater fields and some Mexican projects. Crude at $70 puts at risk projects for 2016 to the extent of 1.5 million barrels per day.

Raval has perhaps the best discussion of what might happen in the future. The short answer is that we don’t know. A pull-back in investment could lay the basis for the next price surge. There may also be a switch to cleaner energy sources.

Much of the discussion, including a Financial Times editorial arguing that the fall in the price of oil was good for the economy (the concern was over deflation), ignores climate change.

John Quiggin says, inter alia that:

if we are to reduce emissions of CO2, a necessary precondition is that the price of fossil fuels should fall to the point where it is uneconomic to extract them.

I’m confused. I thought the aim of carbon pricing was to make fossil fuels more expensive to discourage use and to make the use of renewable alternatives competitive.

Adair Turner in a piece Please Steal Our Fossil Fuels goes into considerable detail about the transition to renewables. If all the fossil fuels were stolen we would not be stuck (or not for long) and it would in the long run cost a negligible amount more. However, the assumption is that the transition will depend on price. Unfortunately electric cars may not be cheaper until the late 2020s. There is plenty of oil in the ground and whilst it is available we will keep using it.

Turner says “we should commit to leaving most fossil fuels forever in the ground” and no great harm would befall us economically if we did, but we won’t. Miracles would be required.

At this point I’ll state my case that we should act out of policy, not rely on markets or miracles. If Germany can forswear nukes because they are dangerous and evil, why can’t we do the same in relation to fossil fuels, which are even more dangerous? Sooner or later we’ll have to ignore the fossil fuel mafia.

Before I go, Heaney has this graph of the oil price in recent years:

image-20141219-31034-wl7wo0_550

It demonstrates that oil can be extremely volatile. There is no way of telling where the current crash will end, but my guess is that it will more or less stabilise soon. After that we are in uncharted territory.

Elsewhere Jeffrey Frankel makes several interesting points.

Firstly most dollar denominated commodities have fallen in price, including iron ore, silver, gold, platinum, sugar, cotton and soybeans. So something general is going on beyond the vagaries of specific commodities.

Secondly, The Economist’s euro-denominated Commodity Price Index has actually risen over the last year.

Third, and most importantly, it seems, there is a link between commodity prices and interest rates. When interest rates go up, commodity prices fall. Frankel suggests that traders are anticipating a rise in interest rates in the US next year. It’s not the whole story, but perhaps an important factor overlooked elsewhere.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Climate clippings 119

5 Comments

1. Abbott appoints fruitcake to assist Greg Hunt

baldwin_220

He says he’s not a denier or a sceptic, so let’s just call him a fruitcake. In the recent ministerial reshuffle Bob Baldwin has been moved from Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry to Parliamentary Secretary to the Environment Minister.

Baldwin told the Chinese that the climate had been changing for millions of years and we wouldn’t have coal, oil or gas without climate change. That’s a typical denialist tack. Elsewhere he quoted that well-known authority on everything, Queensland radio shock-jock Michael Smith. If the atmosphere was a bridge a kilometre long, he said, the first 770 metres would be nitrogen, the next 210 metres oxygen, and so on until you come to CO2. Australia’s contribution of CO2 is the equivalent to 0.18 millimetres, the width of a human hair.

2. Bernie Fraser sends a Christmas message to Abbott

Bernie

Basically, keep the Renewable Energy Target (RET), it all you’ve got, and the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) may not meet its initial target of 5% emissions reductions by 2020. In any case it is not scalable to meet the targets we are likely to be committed to post 2020.

The Climate Change Authority has just completed its review of the RET and a review of the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), as mandated in the establishing legislation. I’d recommend reading Bernie’s Chairman’s Statement.

The CCA recommends extending the achievement date of the RET by up to three years, but this is the big picture:

The Authority has argued consistently throughout its short life that an effective policy response to the risks of climate change requires favourable winds on at least two fronts:

• first, a broad community consensus that climate change poses real risks to the community; and

• secondly, a well-stocked toolbox to be able to tap into opportunities to reduce emissions wherever they occur.

Neither exists today. The earlier broad political consensus has ruptured in recent years, and no early repair is in prospect. And the tool box is feeling less weighty, with the removal of the carbon pricing mechanism, an unproven ERF, and an uncertain outlook for the RET.

There’s more from Giles Parkinson who calls it “a damming assessment of Abbott government climate policy” and from Sophie Vorrath.

3. Harper flags carbon price rethink for Canada

Abbott-Harper-144x144

Before Christmas when Tony Abbott was asked what he’d achieved as Minister for Women he nominated dumping the carbon tax. At the same time the Canadian PM Stephen Harper, Abbott’s soul-mate on climate policy, suggested that he was open to a country-wide carbon pricing scheme similar to the one implemented in Alberta.

In Alberta, energy heavy polluting companies are required to reduce their energy intensity, or improve their energy efficiency, annually. If they don’t, they must contribute to a technology fund at $15 a tonne for carbon emissions.

“I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader,” Harper said in Wednesday’s interview.

4. Tesla pilots battery swap

Tesla is opening a battery swap station between Los Angeles and San Francisco on a pilot basis to see whether the idea goes anywhere. Zachary Shahan, the author of the linked piece, suggests perhaps not. The swap must be done by appointment and although it may be completed in less than a minute it would cost almost as much as a tank of premium. The alternative is free Supercharging for Tesla owners.

5. Technology on the move

In the same issue of RenewEconomy as the Tesla battery swap item above were three other technology announcements.

First, the ASX listed company Algae.Tec has issued rights to raise capital to build an algae biofuel plant in India.

Second, the ADF is looking to replace diesel generation with renewable energy to power Bathurst Island, north of Darwin, probably wind and solar.

Third, a solar plant that floats on water is being launched in South Korea.

6. Banks begin to take climate risk seriously

The large investor Australian Super has been asking banks about their climate change risk policies. It sounds as though banks are pretending to be more active than they really are, but it is clear that the investment landscape has changed forever. If the banks have not been actively concerned, they soon will.

Former Coalition opposition leader John Hewson, who chairs the Asset Owners Disclosure Project

is considering “naming and shaming” how the world’s 1000 biggest banks are responding to carbon risk, something it already does for pension funds.

Climate Science

Explaining the pause that wasn’t

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4732500-3x2-220

We’ve only just seen that statistically there never was a recent ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in warming when two articles show up explaining the pause that wasn’t. A key word here is statistically. No-one is suggesting that there may not be variations from time to time that do not breach the trend.

Also climatologists are always interested in understanding the physical mechanisms behind both short-term variability and longer term trends.

First, via Carbon Brief there has been a new study examining the impact of aerosols from volcanoes.

Virtually all research into the climate influence of volcanic aerosols has used satellite measurements of particulates in the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere). These satellite measurements only monitor the volcanic aerosol at heights of 15 km and above. The new paper by David Ridley and colleagues studied the amount of volcanic aerosols in portions of the stratosphere that lie below 15 km.

They found that 30 to 70% of aerosols from recent eruptions lodged below the 15 km mark. Further, these lower level aerosols had been responsible for significant cooling since 2000. Taken together with additional heat being stored in the deep oceans, the slowdown is “both fully accounted for and temporary.”

Estimated volcanic cooling from this source is not included in climate models.

A second study looks at the influence of Pacific winds on warming since the 1890s. They did this by analysing the chemical make-up of corals.

The coral record suggests, for example, that trade winds were weak between 1910 and 1940 when the Earth warmed by 0.4 degrees, and were strong from 1940 to 1970, during a period of relatively little increase in global temperatures.

Apparently the winds have been very strong since the turn of the century.

The winds in question are the trade winds that move tropical surface water from east to west. This two-dimensional image attempts to illustrate the complex pattern. Trade winds just north and south of the equator drive warm surface water westwards:

edu13-image_550x447

The water is replaced by cool water rising from the deep, which is known to affect global average surface temperatures. A simplified mechanism of how this works is given in the following:

thermocline

Knowledge of the influence of the wind on temperature variations is not new. For example, Matthew England of the University of NSW and others published a paper early in 2014 on the subject. England says of the new paper:

“This is a really important study: it confirms the crucial role of the Pacific Ocean in driving decadal climate variability at a global scale.”

The strength of the trade winds is associated with a natural climate phenomenon called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). The IPO has positive and negative phases, which switch every few decades. Lead author Professor Diane Thompson says:

“We do know that the typical lifetime of a phase of this cycle is less than 30 years, and the current one began about 15 years ago. So although the timing of that switch remains difficult to anticipate, it would be most likely to happen within the next one to two decades.”

We don’t know the future of volcanic activity, nor when the Pacific wind pattern is going to switch. What we do know is that both have been inhibiting warming in recent years.

Of course Pacific wind patterns are also associated with ENSO where El Niño years are warmer and La Niña years are cooler. A year ago Stefan Rahmstorf looked at The global temperature jigsaw where he identified a variety of influences at work. It included a graph from a 2012 paper which used a multivariate correlation analysis to take out the influence of ENSO, volcanoes and solar activity. The pink line shows observed data and the red line with those three factors removed:

Rah2012_600

The ‘pause’ effectively goes away.

The observed data (pink line) in the above graph is an average of five data sets. It is likely that two of them, HadCRUT and NOAA omitted the Arctic entirely. I’ll post again the recent HadCRUT4 hybrid data from the satellite era which Rahmstorf suggests is now the best:

trend1_600

Again a pause is pretty hard to find, especially if you ignore 1998 as a outlier year. Of course 1998 should not be ignored as it appears to have had a crucial role in transferring stored heat from the ocean to the surface. It’s worth remembering just how little of the planet’s energy is stored on the surface compared to the ocean:

GW_Components_570

Rahmstorf did predict that when we had another El Niño year a new record would be set. 2014-15 is not an El Niño, not yet, but is being heralded as the warmest ever. I’ll wait for it to actually happen before reporting on it further. Meanwhile it’s a fair bet that we will have strong warming in the next few decades.

Climate Science

The end of the warming pause that wasn’t

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The bottom line is that statistically there never was a recent ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in warming. If you ever thought there was you’d have plenty of company, but 2014 sees temperatures returning to the trend line.

At RealClimate Stefan Rahmstorf took a look at global surface temperatures since the satellite record in 1979. He used Kevin Cowtan’s interactive temperature plotting and trend calculation tool and HadCRUT4 hybrid data, which now has the most sophisticated method to fill data gaps in the Arctic with the help of satellites. This is what he found:

trend1_600

Rahmstorf then looks at some shorter intervals using more recent starting dates. He finds:

There simply has been no statistically significant slowdown, let alone a “pause”.

He then displays an analysis done for Realclimate by Niamh Cahill of the School of Mathematical Sciences, University College Dublin using a technique called change point analysis. This time GISTEMP data from NASA GISS is used from 1880 to the present. 2014 was represented by January to October data, the latest available.

The algorithm used sorts through the data looking for changes in the trend lines, which it finds automatically. This is how it came out:

TempCP3_600

Change points were found approximately at 1912, 1940 and 1970. The trend since 1970 is firmly in place.

Tamino at Open Mind took a look at the same data. People often cherry pick a starting date so using a different statistical technique he examined whether there had been any change in trend starting from any year between 1990 and 2008. Often people choose a data set that suits their argument so he ran the technique over all eight commonly available data sets.

He could find no trend change – not even close.

I repeat: not only is there a lack of valid evidence of a slowdown, it’s nowhere near even remotely being close. And that goes for each and every one of the 8 data sets tested.

He then plots the GISTEMP data from 1970:

giss2_600

It’s all happening between the trend lines. Of course there are fluctuations, but none of significance. Not yet.

For a time the Hadley data simply left out the Arctic area where there are no weather stations. Of course the Arctic is warming faster than lower latitudes and it came to a point where this mattered. Recently they’ve corrected this by using satellite data, not directly, as the satellites measure the troposphere rather than the surface. I gather the satellite data is used comparatively to infer the surface temperature across the Arctic.

Looking back over the archive, there was a study by Cowtan and Way (see RealClimate and Climate clippings 89, Item 4) which compared the HadCRUT4 data of that time with ‘filled in’ data. This is how it looks:

Cowtan-600

Notice how the heavier corrected lines make 1998 a little cooler and recent peaks a little warmer.

Even so, I recall that Ross Garnaut in preparing his report about five years ago asked two leading statisticians to examine the trends. They said the long term warming trend was still in place. Seems they were right.

Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 118

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1. Growth in CO2 slows

Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel use and cement production grew 2% in 2013 to the new record of 35.3 billion tonnes of CO2. This was about half the average for the last 10 years and less than global GDP growth of 3.1%.

2. Aradhna Tripati gets a gong

The Center for Biological Diversity presented its third annual E.O. Wilson Award for Outstanding Science in Biodiversity Conservation to Dr. Aradhna Tripati for her groundbreaking research on carbon dioxide’s role in climate change.

Tripati’s work revealed that the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are today was 15 million to 20 million years ago, when the distribution of plants and animals was dramatically different, global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees warmer, and the sea level was 75 to 120 feet higher than today. Her research suggests that the CO2 threshold for maintaining year-round Arctic ice may be well below modern levels.

Converting from Fahrenheit to Celsius and feet to metres that would make 2.7 to 5.5°C and 23 to 36 metres.

I would caution that the shape of the ocean basins may have been different, but these are alarming findings.

3. 1000-year drought history of Queensland and New South Wales

By analysing ice cores Australian scientist have found that there were eight droughts in the last millennium that lasted more than five years, with one of the so-called mega droughts lasting for almost 40 years. That was back in the 12th century.

This tends to indicate that the Millennium Drought and the Big Dry from 1997 to 2009 were not unusual.

From the official news release:

Explaining the findings, Dr Vance said the ice core analysis had significantly enhanced our understanding of a relatively poorly understood phenomenon known as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO).

The IPO describes a roughly 25-year cycle in the sea surface temperature, wind and other factors in the Pacific Ocean.

The IPO’s positive phase is closely linked with longer and more severe droughts in the United States and Australia. The risk of droughts occurring in Australia is higher during the IPO’s positive phase.

I’m not questioning the findings but how drought in Queensland and NSW can be derived from drilling ice cores in the Antarctic is not immediately obvious.

Where does this leaves global warming? The authors don’t say, but the clear implication is that severe droughts are part of the natural cycle. Warming is a given. The most recent analysis I recall is that drying along the southern edge of the continent has a climate change component. North of the Victorian border there is uncertainty.

4. Lifters or leaners?

Or backmarkers. UK PM David Cameron thinks Australia does not want to be a “backmarker” on climate change action. Global pressure will make us do more. Has he met our Tones?

Christian Downie thinks the real achievement of the Lima climate talks

wasn’t the goals set, but the fact that international talks like these make it increasingly hard for breakaway countries to ignore the issue.

John Kerry spells it out:

“If you are a big developed nation and you do not lead, you are part of the problem.”

Part of the problem indeed, and perhaps an active climate change vandal. Kieran Cooke reports that in Lima Australia was “lobbying for rules that undermine the integrity of the emissions accounting system”.

5. Antarctic sea ice

One of the conundrums of climate science has been the question of why the Antarctic sea ice has been expanding. Eric Steig at RealClimate takes a detailed look. One of the complexities is that the sea ice is expanding in some places and contracting in others. This, he says, rules out simplistic notions like an increase in westerly winds.

However, if you take into account the changes in all the wind patterns in the Antarctic you get a better match, indeed a good match.

Finally Steig says:

Not incidentally, changing winds also have a lot to do with what’s been happening to the Antarctic ice sheet (meaning the land-based glaciers, distinct from the sea ice). I’ll have another post on that later this month, or in the New Year.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Weak climate deal salvaged in Lima

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Seems the most important thing that can be said about the Lima climate change conference (earlier post here) was that it did not fail. The prospect is still there for a deal in Paris next December, but it looks like being a weak deal – a deal that does not limit warming to two degrees, a deal that will not be legally binding, and a deal that may lack some of the major participants.

The most exciting thing about the conference was that the reference to ensuring the world has net-zero emissions by 2050 is still there:

The mitigation section of the draft text states countries must aim for “a long-term zero emissions sustainable development pathway” that is “consistent with carbon neutrality / net zero emissions by 2050, or full decarbonization by 2050 and/or negative emissions by 2100.”

Giles Parkinson says this was explicitly supported by over 100 countries. Julie Bishop was not bloody-minded enough to insist that it be removed.

The phasing out of fossil fuels as a reality is now part of the conversation and capital for fossil fuel exploration and development should begin to dry up.

Once again The Carbon Brief provides a handy summary:

  • Lima Call for Climate Action outlines main aspects of a new global climate deal.
  • Keeps goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees.
  • Contains reference to ensuring the world has net-zero emissions by 2050.
  • Doesn’t clarify if a new deal will be legally binding.
  • Doesn’t give countries the power to alter other country commitments.
  • Doesn’t offer new assurances on the flow of climate finance.
  • Leaves all options on the table regarding compensation for countries worst hit by climate change.

Ambition

The principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ is enshrined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Accordingly in the Kyoto deal only the developed countries were required to limit emissions.

This time everyone is going to have to front with a climate mitigation plan, but

countries must work to ensure a 2015 deal “reflects the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”

Initial plans should be submitted by March. Australia has said that we will submit ours by June. Work has not yet begun, but it is clear that Tony Abbott himself is going to take control of the process.

The UN will do an analysis and report on the overall impact of the country targets by November. There is no chance that it will add up to a plan to limit warming to two degrees.

The EU wants ‘contributions’, once established to stand for 10 years. Some other countries favour five years, for greater flexibility.

Legally binding

The EU, some of the smaller countries and Australia want targets, once set, to be legally binding. There seems no chance that this will happen. Luke Kemp at The Conversation says that for the US to agree two-thirds of the Senate have to vote in favour. They won’t vote for a legally binding agreement and China won’t sign up unless the US does.

Frankly, I can’t see the US Senate agreeing to any kind of a climate deal in the foreseeable future, so the Paris deal, like Kyoto, may have to start without some of the major players.

Kemp says that Australia was softening its stance, so fears that Australia was playing a game to torpedo the talks seem to be misplaced.

Accountability

Each country’s official plan to cut emissions and tackle climate change will be known as an ‘intended nationally determined contribution’ (INDC). The conference could not agree whether INDCs should be scrutinised.

The EU is willing to agree to the INDC system if governments can scrutinise each country’s INDCs, and suggest how they may need to change to increase ambition. Other countries, such as China and India, are very much against such scrutiny, known in the process as ‘ex-ante review’.

Lima’s draft text doesn’t determine whether the INDCs will be subjected to official review.

I’d say forget it.

What next?

There was more, of course, including financial assistance (never satisfactory). The draft document contains as many as 11 alternative versions of the text. There is masses of work to do.

Work will continue in various working parties and in a major conference in Bonn in June. No doubt discussions will continue in other forums, such as the G20 in Turkey. The next step is to submit INDCs by March. We’ll cheat by looking at everyone else’s homework. So will the Abbottistas be proudly recalcitrant, or will we track near the back of the peloton but try to pretend we are in the middle?

Elsewhere Graham Readfearn has annotated Julie Bishop’s speech.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Two degrees

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Carbon Brief has compiled a series of three posts on the so-called 2°C ‘guardrail’ used in global warming discourse:

This post will pick out some of the highlights, but is not a substitute for reading the posts. Continue reading Two degrees →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 117

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1. Australia targeted as climate change obstacle

I pointed out that Australia is the dunce of the class on climate change according to the Climate Change Performance Index 2015.

Elsewhere the French are already considering how to cope with Australia’s and Canada’s negativity at the Paris conference next December.

2. Seeney in denial on sea level rise

That dipstick Jeff Seeney, Deputy Premier in Queensland, has directed the Moreton Council to remove all reference to sea level rise from, its planning documents:

“I direct council to amend its draft planning scheme to remove any assumption about a theoretical projected sea level rise from all and any provision of the scheme.”

The council had made provision for a possible 0.8-metre rise in sea level by the year 2100. Seeney says:

“I am prepared to protect the property rights of Queenslanders in other council areas should this issue arise again.”

Who is going to protect them from him? The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) is seeking legal advice.

Seeney claims the issue has nothing to do with climate change! Denial doesn’t come clearer than that!

3. West Antarctic melt rate has tripled

A NASA study has done a thorough analysis of the land ice melting in the Amundsen Sea Embayment where the glaciers are melting faster than any other area of Antarctica.

SuppA-W-Ant-300x260

The rate of loss accelerated an average of 6.1 gigatons per year since 1992, but now the rate is increasing by 16.3 gigatons per year.

The total amount of loss averaged 83 gigatons each year over the whole period, that’s the equivalent of losing the weight of Mt Everest (not just the ice on it) every two years.

4. Warmer seas could cause faster melting of Antarctic ice

A separate study has found that the seas around Antarctica are warming, which could increase ice shelf melting.

Ice shelves float, so the melting does not cause sea level rise, but they buttress the land glaciers. Take away the ice shelves and the glaciers flow faster.

5. New large scale battery storage in Germany

Belectric and Vattenfall have opened new large-scale battery energy storage system at the Alt Daber solar power plant in Germany. The facility uses lead-acid batteries.

For the system to be economical without any financial support, costs will have to come down by around a third.

6. Solar and wind energy backed by huge majority of Australians

Solar and wind energy enjoy strong support from the Australian public, with 80% of people putting them both among their top three energy choices in a poll for the Australia Institute.

By contrast, coal and coal seam gas were chosen by 35% and 38% of those polled as being among the best three future energy sources.

A separate review of medical literature by the Australia Institute debunked the fear that wind power damaged people’s health, finding “no credible evidence” directly linking exposure to turbines with negative health effects.

Nine out of 10 people said they wanted more solar energy.

Six in 10 people said they were concerned about the impact of coal and coal seam gas on the landscape.

7. UNSW researchers set world record in solar energy efficiency

Solar researchers working at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) claim to have produced a system that converts over 40 percent of incoming sunlight into electricity, thereby taking the title of highest solar efficiency for a photovoltaic system ever reported.

“This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity,” said UNSW Professor Professor Martin Green, Director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP).

8. The end of coal as we know it

And oil for that matter.

Graham Readfearn in Lima at the climate Conference of Parties has found these items in the negotiating text:

Parties’ efforts to take the form of:

a. A long-term zero emissions sustainable development pathway:

Consistent with emissions peaking for developed countries in 2015, with an aim of zero net emissions by 2050; in the context of equitable access to sustainable development;…

Consistent with carbon neutrality/net zero emissions by 2050, or full decarbonization by 2050 and/or negative emissions by 2100;….

He understands they were put there by Norway, the Marshall Islands, Sweden and the AILAC grouping of countries consisting of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and Panama.

Andrew Robb Bishop have noticed and are complaining. It will be interesting to see whether the statements stay.

Readfearn finds that a move for a zero emissions target is growing and Malte Meinshausen explains that it is inevitable if we are serious about staying within two degrees.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Australia the dunce of the class on climate change

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Australia ranks 57 out of 58 countries in the The Climate Change Performance Index 2015, heading only Saudi Arabia, which is not classified as an industrial country. Australia has dropped 21 places since the last survey a year ago.

There are reports in The Age and The Guardian. From the latter:

Australia has been named the worst-performing industrial country in the world on climate change in a report released at international negotiations in Peru.

The climate change performance index ranked Denmark as the best-performing country in the world, followed by Sweden and Britain.

Among the world’s top 10 emitters, Germany was ranked the highest at 22. Australia was second bottom overall, above Saudi Arabia – which was not classified as industrial.

The report states: “The new conservative Australian government has apparently made good on last year’s announcement and reversed the climate policies previously in effect. As a result, the country lost a further 21 positions in the policy evaluation compared to last year, thus replacing Canada as the worst-performing industrial country.”

This map from The Guardian gives an overview:

World map_cropped_600

Clearly Europe is the best performing region. Here are the top dozen ranked countries:

Country rankings_cropped

No countries were coded dark green for “very good”. This means according to the report’s criteria that no countries are performing well enough to limit global emissions to two degrees. Because the top three places were left vacant you have to subtract three from each ranking to find the actual rank placing. Eleven of the twelve countries coded “good” were European.

Here are the 10 heaviest emitters in order of ranking:

Large emitters_cropped_600

The ten worst countries are, from the bottom, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, Russia, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Japan and Malaysia.

The index covers the performance of countries across five areas – the level of emissions, the trends in emissions, energy efficiency, renewable energy policies and the approach to climate change at national and international levels.

The report has been compiled each year since 2005 by Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch. The Australian Conservation Foundation assisted with the Australian information.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Lima climate change conference update

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The UNFCCC Conference of Parties (now 194 countries, I think) has reached the midway point. I’ve compiled some news coming out of the conference in the style of Climate clippings.

Here’s the UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres in action:

Figueres speaks_500

1. The first five days of the Lima climate change conference

Mat Hope sums up at The Carbon Brief.

    1) The need to get a deal is being talked up

There is an upbeat feel as the Paris conference next December looms, where a deal is scheduled to be cut.

    2) Expectations are being managed

They hope to complete a draft text at Lima, but it is only a stepping stone.

    3) The US-China climate deal means the spotlight is on India

With the US, China and the EU making positive pledges, eyes now turn to India. So far they have been true to form, grumbling that the developed countries should do more and provide finance for adaptation.

    4) Record temperatures and typhoon threat are framing the conference

In Copenhagen in 2009 it was freezing. At Lima the atmospherics a quite different with looming record world temperatures and typhoon Hagupit making its way towards the Philippines.

    5) Old divisions persist

The EU wants countries’ pledges to cut emissions to be legally binding. The US is adamant that this can’t be the case as it would then have to ask Congress to ratify the deal.

A group comprising Saudi Arabia, China, India and 30 other ‘like minded nations’ continues to call for more transparency in the process. The group has used such pleas as a delaying and blocking tactic at previous negotiations.

2. Australia drags the chain at Lima

Australia has distanced itself from the Cartagena Dialogue, a group of 30 or so “progressive” countries Australia helped found five years ago seeking an “ambitious, comprehensive, and legally binding regime in the UNFCCC, and committed, domestically, to becoming or remaining low carbon economies.” You’re right, that’s not Australia now.

Giles Parkinson thinks that Australia’s main aim is to keep selling coal. That’s why Andrew Robb is there as Minister for Trade.

Effectively and, from Robb’s tweets and other evidence, in fact Australia is channelling the thoughts of their favourite thinker, Bjorn Lomborg:

who as others have pointed out has made quite a nice career casting doubt on the seriousness of climate change, arguing the problem is overstated, and concluding that on a cost-benefit analysis there is no need to do anything. That pretty much sums up current Coalition government policy.

3. China fingers Australia

One point of permanent discontent has been that developing countries would like more effort to be put into the Green Climate Fund designed to help them to adapt and mitigate climate change. China has called the $9.7 billion contributed so far by 22 countries as “far from adequate”.

In doing so China has fingered Australia as a climate bludger. Australia’s policy is to contribute nothing. So far the GFC

has received funding pledges of $3 billion from the United States, $1.5 billion from Japan, $1 billion from the UK and France, $900m from Germany as well as pledges of at least $100m from Sweden, Italy, Norway, Holland, South Korea, Switzerland and Finland. It has even received a small contribution from New Zealand.

Even Canada has stumped up $300 million.

The original pledge at Copenhagen in 2009 had been $100 billion per year by 2020 from public and private sources.

4. Newsweek report

One thing they are discussing is the form of each country’s pledge of climate action to be submitted in draft by march 2015. The only way they will agree on anything is to use the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ adopted in Copenhagen. This leaves countries to make it up as they wish, which means different base and target dates.

This makes comparisons difficult.

They also have yet to decide whether the basic division of Annexe 1 used in the Kyoto agreement will be retained. With Kyoto only the developed Annexe 1 countries made pledges. The US wants to eliminate subcategories. Brazil has proposed three concentric circles:

In the innermost circle, developed and Annex I Parties would commit to absolute, economy-wide mitigation targets. In the next ring, developing countries would commit to economy-wide targets that are relative to national gross domestic product, business-as-usual emissions trends or population size. In the outermost ring, the least-developed countries would commit to objectives on reducing emissions that are not economy-wide.

I’m betting on one undifferentiated blob, because they won’t all agree on anything else.

Similarly on whether pledges should be legally binding, they’ll never agree, because the US will point blank never agree to it, and all countries must agree for a decision to stand. Perhaps the New Zealand option of making reporting legally binding, but not the content of the contributions themselves, will get up.

5. Ban Ki-moon singles out Canada

Meanwhile UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has told Canada to get its finger out and start setting goals. Leadership is expected of G7 countries.

6. The bottom line

Emily Williams writing in the Santa Barbera Independent points to the sad truth – the proposals coming forward, the US-China announcement notwithstanding, “would mean ‘game over’ for the planet and the most vulnerable communities.”

The pressure is for an agreement, any agreement, to avoid “Nopenhagen” in Paris. Her article carries this image of young protestors in Lima:

protesters_Lima_COP2014_t479

Perhaps this image would be more appropriate:

Head_in_Sand_500

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Climate clippings 116

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1. Super high speed rail

train_japan_maglev_500

The Japanese have run an actual train with people in it at 500 km/h. The Chinese have built a train which can theoretically run at 1800 mph by encasing it in a vacuum tube.

It looks as though high speed rail could become a real alternative to air for intercity travel.

Thanks to John D for the headsup.

2. World’s first power-to-liquids production plant opens

The world’s first power-to-liquids (PtL) demonstration production plant was opened in Dresden on 14 November. The new rig uses PtL technology to transform water and CO2 to high-purity synthetic fuels (petrol, diesel, kerosene) with the aid of renewable electricity.

The article does not say how efficient the process is, but presumably less so than using the electricity directly.

3. World Bank focus on clean energy

The World Bank has traditionally been one of the world’s largest funders of fossil fuel projects. Now it:

will invest heavily in clean energy and only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need”…

No doubt this policy stems from the bank’s commissioned report Turning down the heat.

4. Why the Peru climate summit matters

Hope has been injected into the Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, scheduled to run from 1 to 12 December by the recent US/China agreement. The optimism stems as much from the fact that the two largest emitters in the world are finally working together as the level of ambition. The EU has also recently pledged to cut emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030.

Countries will be working on the text of the draft agreement for Paris in 2015.

Countries are expected to put forward their contributions towards the 2015 agreement in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) by the end of March [2015]. These will then be used to craft the Paris treaty. The Lima gathering will help provide guidelines and clarity for what these INDCs must entail, especially for developing countries still reliant on fossil fuels to meet fast-growing energy demand needed to achieve developmental goals. These options could range from sector-wide emissions cuts to energy intensity goals to renewable energy targets.

We’ll be represented during the second week by Julie Bishop and Andrew Robb, a climate change denier. Seems Bishop went bananas when she found out, and Robb doesn’t want to be there anyway.

Giles Parkinson reports that we’ve sent a delegation of 14, the smallest in 20 years and probably not enough to be actively obstructive as we were in Warsaw last year.

5. 2014 looks like hottest on record

This is how it’s shaping:

wmo-years-590x390

Record hot years are often El Niño years. This year is a neutral ENSO year so far.

That’s so far; there is at least a 70% chance that El Niño will be declared in the coming months, according to the BOM. Looks like a hot, dry summer.

6. Germany’s largest utility gets out of the fossil fuel business

On Sunday, Germany’s biggest utility E.ON announced plans to split into two companies and focus on renewables in a major shift that could be an indicator of broader changes to come across the utility sector. E.ON will spin off its nuclear, oil, coal, and gas operations in an effort to confront a drastically altered energy market, especially under the pressure of Germany’s Energiewende — the country’s move away from nuclear to renewables. The company told shareholders that it will place “a particular emphasis on expanding its wind business in Europe and in other selected target markets,” and that it will also “strengthen its solar business.”

E.ON will also focus on smart grids and distributed generation in an effort to improve energy efficiency and increase customer engagement and opportunity.

“With its decision, E.ON is the first company to take the necessary steps from the completely changed world of energy supply,” German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, said Monday.

7. The inconvenient truth of EU emissions

The Commission and European Environment Agency’s Progress Report on climate action says:

according to latest estimates, EU greenhouse gas emissions in 2013 fell by 1.8% compared to 2012 and reached the lowest levels since 1990. So not only is the EU well on track to reach the 2020 target, it is also well on track to overachieve it.

Kevin Anderson is not impressed:

The consumption-based emissions (i.e. where emissions associated with imports and exports are considered) of the EU 28 were 2% higher in 2008 than in 1990[1]. By 2013 emissions had marginally reduced to 4% lower than 1990 – but not as a consequence of judicious climate change strategies, but rather the financial fallout of the bankers’ reckless greed – egged on by complicit governments and pliant regulation.

Then he really gets stuck in:

In the quarter of a century since the first IPCC report we have achieved nothing of any significant merit relative to the scale of the climate challenge. All we have to show for our ongoing oratory is a burgeoning industry of bureaucrats, well meaning NGOs, academics and naysayers who collectively have overseen a 60+% rise in global emissions.

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

The folly of two degrees

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Back in 2011 David Spratt took a look at where we were in relation to temperature rise and the Holocene. At 2000 we were at 0.7°C above the pre-industrial temperature. This happens to coincide with the Holocene maximum:

Holocene_thin-blue-line 600

Spratt says James Hansen warns that at 0.7°C the ice sheets start to become unstable, so in terms of sea level rise alone we are entering a danger zone. Since then the temperature has risen ~ 0.15°C.

From this point of view the 2°C guardrail looks hazardous in the extreme. Continue reading The folly of two degrees →