More science with Guardian characteristics

From today's business pages:

This week, as we near the end of a year expected to have been the warmest on record, more than 130 governments and 25,000 officials will meet in Paris to discuss how the rise in temperature can be limited to 2% above pre-industrial levels.

As Stern said, the risks of pushing past 2% to a roasting 4% or 5% are now that much greater and more needs to be done in the coming decades than he expected.

Coming so soon after last week's centrigrade/farenheit debacle, this seems to be turning into something of a specialism for Guardian hacks.

Quote of the day, renewables edition

[Politicians] have helped persuade us to spend billions on technologies that are never going to make much difference.

Dieter Helm on the state of the climate

A royal conversion on the road to Damascus

The Guardian has a short piece in which various prominent fellows of the Royal Society discuss what they think new president Venki Ramakrishnan should do with his term of office, which kicks off soon. Most of it is rather dull, but Martin Rees's comments were interesting:

The Society should offer the public (and politicians) the best scientific assessment of controversial issues, without downplaying the uncertainties. Its policy work is crucial - and it’s good that Claire Craig, a scientist who is now one of Sir Mark Walport’s deputies, is joining the Society to head up this area of its work.

But when engaging with broader social or ethical issues, I think the Society should be wary of advocacy and should instead present options. It should encourage scientists to participate more actively in public debates on (for instance) responses to climate change, and the ethics of gene editing. But it shouldn’t take a collective stance on topics where there are seriously divergent views among experts, as well as non-experts.

Click to read more ...

The COP ritual

GWPF's campaigning arm has just released a completely brilliant paper reviewing the COPs. I say this with some authority, since I compiled the text, although to be fair most of the brilliance is provided by Josh.

Do take a look.

Bill Gates and the strings he attaches

I seem to detect something of a theme emerging ahead of the Paris conference, namely the idea of technological solutions to climate change. There has been something of a buzz on Twitter in recent days, and today comes an announcement that a bunch of eco-minded billionaires are calling for a big spending spree on energy technologies. The group is headed by Bill Gates and they are offering up some of their own money, but with strings attached:

Led by Gates, about 20 private business leaders have signed on to the initiative, making their pledges conditional on governments also pledging more money, said a former U.S. government official who is familiar with the plan.

This is rather odd. If the planet is under threat, and these guys have money burning a hole in their pockets, surely spending it on tech fixes is the right thing to do regardless of what the government does? Why does it only become the right thing to do if much poorer people, who may have different and more immediate priorities, are forced to contribute too?

Update on Nov 30, 2015 by Bishop Hill

David Attenborough says we need a "universal plan" with lots of scientists developing renewable energy sources. Top down "solutions".

Sir David Attenborough: "If you can put a man on the moon in ten years," you can create cheap renewable energy https://t.co/gQIJas0Lrr

— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 29, 2015

Greens fade to grey

No comment required.

Lean times for the green blob

Some years back I was discussing the state of environmental coverage in the media with someone from the Telegraph. I commented that I thought it was very strange that the Tele had taken Geoffrey Lean on as a correspondent given that his views were pretty much anathema to most of its readers.

"Ah, that's simple" I was told. "He's not there for the benefit of the readers but because green advertisers want him". This made perfect sense at the time.

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The Times does climate

Respected professor, or international laughing stock?The Times has a trio of articles on climate this morning, from Mark Lynas, from Matt Ridley, and from science editor Tom Whipple. Matt Ridley is doing the good news on global warming, Lynas is doing the "right wing people must do as I say" thing. But it was Whipple's piece that caught my eye. This was because he opened by shooting himself smack bang in the middle of his foot. As a way of getting attention this is hard to beat.

He achieved this feat of public relations when he described a Royal Society meeting and

...a talk by a respected professor who expected the summer collapse of Arctic ice before 2020. The problem, for those listening, was that this same professor had previously given different dates — 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016.

Yes folks, he means Peter Wadhams, who I think it's fair to say is not actually much respected at all - he is actually seen by both sides of the climate debate as a bit of a noodle. Whipple does seem to have cottoned on to the fact that Wadhams was wildly wrong, but he seems to be under the impression that he will be right in the near future. I'm not sure how convincing this is.

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Our biggest problem is poverty

This is a guest post by Ralf Bodelier, translated from an original in Dutch.

Indur M. Goklany is one of the most influential climate analysts in the world. 'If we want a better world, we must continue using the cheapest form of energy.  For the time being that is the burning of oil, coal and gas'. Last month he published ‘Carbon Dioxide. The Good News’.

He was part of the climate negotiations for the United States in the run-up to the UNFCCC, and he was there at the birth of the mighty IPCC - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He participated in several of the five assessment reports of the same IPCC. But two decades ago, Goklany (70) distanced himself from the 'climate alarmists'. He was one of the earliest champions of adaptation, arguing that it made more sense than mitigation (or emissions reduction). He developed the notion of “focused adaptation”, whereby you address current day problems that would/could be exacerbated by climate change.  Early this October he published "Carbon Dioxide. The Good News', a long article about the benefits of more CO2 in our atmosphere, including a plea to the world to not decarbonize too fast. ‘Since the 1980s, we’ve been hoping that clean solar and wind energy will break through', Goklany says.  ‘However, their share of energy worldwide still doesn’t exceed one and a half percent.’

Click to read more ...

Yeo investigated for perjury

The Times is reporting (£) that Tim Yeo is being investigated for perjury, after his libel case against the Sunday Times was thrown out last week.

Good week at the office Tim?

Cartoons by Josh Calendar 2016

Buy it here!

The Calendar has cartoons from the past year, mostly on Energy, Environment and Climate Change topics. 
This year there are also political cartoons and caricatures.

The price of the Calendar is £19.50 and includes postage in the UK. 
If you are ordering from outside the UK I will email you any additional postage when you order.

The calendar is 28 x 44 cms (A3) in size, spiral bound with a hanger, and beautifully printed on 170gsm silk paper.

Please note: The calendars will be printed next week and deliveries will start the week beginning 8th December.

Finally, many thanks to all the readers and commenters at BishopHill and especially to our host - most of the cartoons would not have been drawn without you!

Cartoons by Josh

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.

COP this - Josh 353

H/t Stewgreen for the BBC article "COP21: Public support for tough climate deal 'declines'"

Reading the article it looks like the decline in support is pretty much worldwide - see their graphic below.

Next up: the Calendar!

Cartoons by Josh

[Image updated: many thanks to our host for a much better (and funnier) Chinese translation.]

Osborn jumps the gun - and gets deleted

Guest post by David Holland

By chance I happened upon a guest blog post by Tim Osborn a few days ago.   Its not the way I found it, but if you google "david holland site:climate-lab-book.ac.uk" it is at the top of list today.   If you click on the link you get an error message but, as I write this, if you click the down arrow after the link you see the cached version, as of 15 November, which apart from my comment copied below is, I think, how it was when I last saw it.

Tim was reporting on the fact the First Tier Tribunal had upheld the Met Office refusal to disclose any and all historic Zero Order Drafts of any IPCC assessment.   I will let BH Readers comment upon the post, but I did not object to it, as I thought Tim came off second best.   Perhaps someone leant upon Ed and maybe on balance it could have been wise to snip any comments that were inappropriate.   However, to remove without trace of it, a published controversial blog is emblematic of the concerns I have with climate science.   Only squeaky-clean consensus views get, or remain, published.  

On 18 November, the Upper Tribunal agreed to hear my application for permission to appeal, which will be heard in London next year and I will let you know date and venue when I have it.   My comment at Climate Lab Book, which was made after the cached copy, is:

David Holland November 22, 2015 at 6:29 pm
Tim,

It might be a bit soon to signal the end of requests for environmental information on the IPCC assessments. The MO case could end up as marking the end of routine refusals.   As I am sure you know that the First Tier Tribunal decisions are not binding and this case has yet to be heard by the Upper Tribunal, the decision of which is binding upon the parties in the UK, but can considered by the Compliance Committee of the Aarhus Convention, which has previously reprimanded several Parties including the UK

The UK transposition of the Convention and Directive into UK law is in error in some important respects such as the ‘emissions rule’, and the application of the regulations.   There can be no dispute but that the raison d’être of the IPCC is to relate human emissions of CO2 to global temperature.   In its 2012 report to the Council and the European Parliament, the Commission described the ‘emissions rule’ as the “legal presumption that the public interest served by disclosure prevails if the request relates to emissions into the environment”.

BBC still handing free airtime to greens

Readers will be much amused by the BBC's latest antics, launching a whole season of programmes promoting the climate change agenda on the World Service.

I listened to the one from the Philippines. It takes me back a few years to when the BBC was handing over the airwaves to environmental activists without a moment's compunction.

Nothing much has changed by the looks of it.

And funny that it should happen on the watch of Tony Hall, the man whose idea the 28gate seminar was.