Diary date

Storms, floods and droughts: predicting and reporting adverse weather

• 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm on Monday 04 March 2013
• at The Royal Society, London

David Shukman, Science Editor for BBC News, in conversation with Professor Tim Palmer FRS and Liz Howell. Cynics might suggest that the trick is to place the words "global warming" or "climate change" in every second sentence. I, of course, would never suggest any such thing.

More details here.

Edinburgh SciFest shuns global warming

The Edinburgh Science Festival is all but shunning global warming this year - which is much the same as last year.  The only mention I can find in the just-released programme for 2013 is this, quite breathtakingly dull-sounding discussion group:

FAITH IN THE FUTURE: THE CHURCH AND OUR ENVIRONMENT
We cannot combat the effects of climate change without altering how we behave. With 2000 years of experience in guiding our faith and behaviour, what role could the church have to play in the future of our environment? Lesley Riddoch chairs a fascinating panel discussion with Professor Michael Northcott from the University of Edinburgh, Professor Stephen Reicher from The University of St Andrews, Dr Rebekah Widdowfield from the Scottish Government and Morag Wilson from WWF Scotland.
6pm (90 minutes) • £8/£6 • Teviot Row Dining Room
Presented by Eco-Congregation Scotland.

Click to read more ...

Coming to a courthouse near you

Hat tip to Barry Woods for this story from World Environment News:

Foreign investors in renewable energy projects in Spain have hired lawyers to prepare potential international legal action against the Spanish government over new rules they say break their contracts.

It is unclear how much claims might be worth, but international funds have more than 13 billion euros ($17 billion) of renewable energy assets in Spain and say that the government has reneged on the terms of their investment.

The Spanish Parliament approved a law on Thursday that cuts subsidies for alternative energy technologies, backtracking on its push for green power.

One can hardly blame the businesses for trying, but for the hard-pressed poor in Spain's already ravaged economy, this will be a bitter pill to swallow. When the lights start going out in the UK, we might well see a similar retreat by UK politicians and similar attempts to prevent them in the courts.

Who'd want to be an environmentalist then?

A fistful of share options

More details of Tim Yeo's conflicts of interest have become public. Guido reports that AFC Energy have given him 2.5 million share options.

The chairmanship of the Energy and Climate Change Committee is effectively in the gift of Messrs Cameron and Clegg - the whips direct MPs votes. That being the case, Yeo's continued occupation of the post tells a story about the two men's approach to clean government.

Warm letters

GWPF has published some interesting exchanges of letters. There's Turnbull and Whitehouse versus Rapley on the subject of sea level rise and Peiser versus Weintrobe too.

I was amused by Weintrobe's accusation about GWPF's nefarious intent...

GWPF’s aim is primarily to sew doubt on the findings of mainstream climate science.

...which conjures up lovely illusions of Lawson and Peiser stitching away furiously with blankets over their knees and cups of tea by their sides. It's not exactly how I imagined the great oil-funded conspiracy though.

GCSA can't tell weather from climate

Sir John Beddington is heading for retirement and has taken the opportunity of an an interview with Civil Service World to remind everyone how shaky his grasp of climate science has been.

On climate change, he admits that government investment in renewable and alternative technologies is likely to be constrained by economic circumstances. But he is adamant there is no suggestion that climate scepticism – which some detect in some of the Treasury’s activities – is infecting the policymaking process. He says: “The data is showing not just that climate change is happening, but that we are getting an increase in extreme weather. 2012 had average rainfall, but almost none in the first quarter and enormous amounts in the second half of the year.”

Let's hope the next guy is better.

A change in the shale story

PriceWaterhouseCoopers have issued a report on the impact of shale gas on the economy, which seems to take a rather different view to previous pontifications on this subject. According to BBC Business, PWC reckon that shale will add a trillion dollars to world GDP, with conventional producers like Russia being big losers. In a second story, on the Scotland pages, it is revealed that the report's authors expect oil and gas prices to be significantly depressed by a surge in shale production.

I'm sure Mr Cameron will see this as an opportunity to apply further taxes.

Update on Feb 14, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Correction: the report concerns only shale oil.

Bank of England attacks green policies

The Telegraph is reporting the comments of Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England at the launch of the Bank's quarterly inflation report. Environmental policies it seems are an "own-goal".

Sir Mervyn blamed the Government for the overshoot, claiming that the Coalition had scored an “own goal” by damaging household incomes with a range of environmental and education policies that have pushed up energy bills and tuition fees.

He said: "It's a bit of an own goal as it looks as if inflation is worse without any change in the underlying behaviour of the economy. Prices charged by utilities - to pay for green charges, green policies - are pushing up administered prices in a way that [is] ... self inflicted in terms of damage done to real take home pay."

Strangely, his remarks don't seem to have made it to the BBC's account of events.

ECC on gas strategy

The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee is taking evidence this morning about the UK's gas strategy.

The witnesses are the usual suspects - a bunch of green activists and activist academics and representatives of big business.

There are some amusing exchanges with Peter Lilley near the beginning, with representatives of the Grantham Institute and the Climate Change Committee insisting that they are open minded and indeed want to collaborate with Lilley.

Political inertia

The big news overnight was of course Obama's state of the Union address, in which he announced that he was going to get tough on climate change:

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday gave Congress an ultimatum on climate change: craft a plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the dangers of a warming world, or the White House will go it alone.

"If Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will," Obama said in his State of the Union address. "I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.

Whether he means this or not will only become true in the fullness of time. But isn't it extraordinary, or perhaps not, that none of this new evidence on low climate sensitivity seems to have made the slightest difference to the political process?

Science policy to the left of me

The Guardian has started a new science policy blog, featuring a variety of writers some of whom will be familiar to readers here. They seem to span the whole spectrum of political views, from the slightly left-wing through middlingly left wing to plain bonkers.

I wonder, however, if there is anyone in the science policy community who is more inclined to free market solutions? 

Or is this just a left-wing project?

Update on Feb 13, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The audio of the recent debate on what counts as good scientific evidence is now available.

A right royal dogmatist

Ed Davey is to speak to a Royal Society seminar today on the subject of climate change. Apparently he will argue that

the science of climate change is "irrefutable" and man is making a "significant" contribution to rising global temperatures.

Irrefutable eh? That doesn't sound like science to me. That sounds like religion.

Funny old place the Royal Society.

Update on Feb 12, 2013 by Bishop Hill

More details of the speech are at Business Green.

Davey will offer fresh assurances that the government's climate policy is firmly based on the latest scientific evidence and call on scientists and researchers to play an even more proactive role in supporting the development of the green economy.

Blimey. Some scientists are already lying to support the development of the green economy. What more does he want?

Crunch time

H/T to reader Doug for pointing out this article in the Sunday Telegraph, which looks at the reluctance of energy companies to build new gas-fired stations in the UK because of uncertainty over the future of the UK energy market. However, this bit at the bottom of the article was interesting too.

Much of RWE’s recent UK investment was in two efficient gas-fired power stations at Pembroke and Staythorpe but they “aren’t running a lot of the time” because margins were lower than had been expected. It was “hard to see” RWE investing in more gas plant at the moment, he said.

This is the problem with wind power. Because it is subsidised it gets dispatched first when available. Gas therefore gets used less. But if your gas plant is not being used a lot of the time it is not earning and you are not making a profit on it. Who would invest in new gas plant in those circumstances?

This is all getting very serious. The UK grid is barely able to meet demand now and I think I'm right in saying that a further 4GW of coal fired capacity is due to be removed from the grid at the end of March. That being the case we could start to see brownouts next winter, if not before. The only alternative is to keep coal-fired stations working.

Crunch time is coming, and it's coming soon.

Climate change fast & loose food - Josh 203

Roger Pielke Jr has a must read post on the link between the UK's horsemeat in burgers scandal and Climate change, which is both timely and clever. And it inspired this cartoon.

Many thanks Roger!

Cartoons by Josh

Bloomberg's baloney

Last week Bloomberg New Energy Finance had one of those silly "wind cheaper than everything else" articles that appear from time to time.

Unsubsidised renewable energy is now cheaper than electricity from new-build coal- and gas-fired power stations in Australia, according to new analysis from research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

This new ranking of Australia’s energy resources is the product of BNEF’s Sydney analysis team, which comprehensively modelled the cost of generating electricity in Australia from different sources. The study shows that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of AUD 80/MWh (USD 83), compared to AUD 143/MWh from a new coal plant or AUD 116/MWh from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.

We now know from bitter experience that claims of this kind are usually feature one of a handful of magic ingredients that give the answer required:

• use of levelised costs
• heroic assumptions about gas and coal prices

Climate Spectator - a site that I believe is an upholder of the IPCC consensus - has rather taken the Bloomberg article apart showing that the second bullet is the favoured option:

In terms of wind being cheaper than combined cycle natural gas, the key assumption behind that conclusion is that new gas contract prices will rise from the $4 per GJ that most power plant are paying today, to $12 per GJ for new plant.

Bloomberg's baloney is so bad that even their allies are appalled.