UN body: IPCC talking out of hat

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has made an announcement on extreme weather this morning, which is sure to attract a lot of attention:

Drought, floods and other extremes of weather have become more frequent and severe in the past 30 years and pose a rising threat to food security in developing countries, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday...It said they were occurring almost twice as often as in the 1980s, hampering efforts to eradicate hunger and poverty.

This is a pretty major leap for the FAO, because it directly contradicts the IPCC, which says there is low confidence in there being any global change in droughts and hurricanes and makes only the mildest statements about extreme rainfall (it is silent on floods). The alleged doubling in extreme weather events is nowhere to be found in the IPCC report.

It's rather remarkable to see one arm of the United Nations effectively saying that another one is talking out of its collective hat, particularly just before the Paris Summit begins.

Climate Neutral

The UN climate people have got their tentacles everywhere.

 Bonn, 20 October 2015 - The Brazilian Embassy in London hosted a special event today to mark the launch of Climate Neutral Now, the UN-led initiative for increased voluntary climate action, which took place during New York Climate Week in September.

The London event discussed how individuals, companies and governments can contribute to a climate-neutral future by measuring their carbon footprints, reducing emissions where possible, and offsetting the rest with UN-certified emission reductions (CERs), while at the same time investing in sustainable development projects in developing countries. Keynote speakers included representatives from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Brazilian government and the private sector.

Participants at the event heard inspiring examples, such as the successful experiences of the Brazilian government in using CERs to offset carbon emissions from major events. A short film commissioned by the UN climate change secretariat on offsetting the 2014 World Cup’s carbon footprint was also screened. See below.

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UNESCO wants green activists in the classroom

UNESCO has published a report into Climate Change Education around the world. It's rather sinister, in a bleakly bureaucratic way.

It starts off innocently enough. In the section on England, we learn that the Conservatives are not quite on message, having shifted the focus away from "sustainability" and towards economic growth. I'm not even sure I don't detect a degree of concern from the authors when they talk about the government having brought about a shift "towards science, technology, engineering, mathematics, innovation and management competencies".

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Notes from a conference, part II

More from Cameron Rose, who is attending a business and climate conference in Brussels.

The Big Fat Carbon Price (see the end of yesterday's post) was the subject for the first discussion, surprise, surprise. Tony Hayward was the man to watch. He is chairman of Glencore, a mining company, and CEO of an Anglo-Turkish company called Genel Energy. He was once BP CEO. Here are the key points I noted:

• 'Fossil fuels provide 82% of world energy but in 30 years the IEA expects it to be a percentage in the early 70s.' (Not much reduction there, then)
• 'The emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been a mess and we are now left with a dysfunctional energy market.' (Not afraid to speak plainly.)
• 'If the objective is to change behaviour it must be at the point of use. We need to eliminate subsidies.'
• 'The abatement of a tonne of CO2 from a coal power stations should be treated the same way as for other, new technologies.'
• 'China and India must complete their industrialisation.'

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Notes from a conference

This is a guest post by Cameron Rose.

Just thought I'd share my brief diary from the Business and Climate conference at the UNESCO building in Paris on 20th/21st May 2015.  It is in the lead up to COP21 in December and I'm a delegate this week.

Arrived late and missed the opening warm-up from Christine Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. The businessman in the next seat told me there had been nothing new from her.

Wed 20th PM.  I was in time to catch the second half of the 'Energy' thematic session, where there were six CEO-level panelists plus the Norwegian Minister of European Economic affairs.  I learned the following (perhaps a True/False quiz would be appropriate):

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10 old climate change controversies - Josh 290

Alice Bell has posted an interesting collection of articles on what she terms 'new' climate change controversies. They seem fairly well established sceptic topics to me - perhaps she has been reading the wrong sort of blogs. But it did make me think that the Road the Paris is looking rather sceptical in its approach. Maybe the message is finally getting through.

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Carbon sinking - Josh 275

A cartoon marking the St Paul's Institue 'Climate Action' post here. 

Cartoons by Josh

More strong stomachs required

Josh points us to this video of Christiana Figueres speaking at St Paul's Cathedral. I haven't had the chance to look at it yet, but Josh says it is pretty appalling.

This house would stop the annual UN climate summits

The Oxford Energy Society is to hold a rather interesting debate on 28 May. The motion, 'This house would stop the annual UN climate summits' is interesting enough, but take a look at the two teams:

Proposition

Dr Benny Peiser
Director, Global Warming Policy Foundation

David Rose
Writer, The Mail on Sunday

Prof Myles Allen
Leader, ECI Climate Research Programme

Opposition

David Symons
Director, WSP Environment and Energy

Fiona Harvey
Environmental Journalist, The Guardian

Dr Chukwumerije Okereke
Reader in Environment & Development, University of Reading

That should set the cat among the pigeons.

Science at the crossroads

Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, is interviewed at Yale360. Her views on science and public policy are startling to say the least.

It is the most inspiring job in the world because what we are doing here is we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn’t a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it’s a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.

Didn't they once call this "scientific socialism"?

World government

Some time ago a journalist told me that many of his colleagues were so keen on environmentalism because they wanted to see a world government. I thought it was a bit kooky at the time and didn't really give it too much thought.

Interesting therefore to see Richard Black's article today, in which we see environmentalism being used to push just such a world government agenda. The idea appears to be that poor countries should be able to vote to transfer money from rich countries to themselves.

I expect our politicians to be fully in favour.