The Failure of Political Leadership on Climate Change

Despite 26 years of international negotiations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these emissions have been steadily rising. It is clear that world leaders are incapable of committing themselves and their nations to the required measures. I witnessed this first hand last Thursday when I watched Wales' First Minister dodge question after question on whether he would take the necessary action.

Right: Carwyn Jones, Wales' First Minister.

A brief history of climate change and global negotiations

In June 1988 politicians and scientists attending the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in Toronto concluded that "humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose  ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war." The conference recommended a 20% reduction by 2005. At this point the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350 ppm.

In November that year the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has its first meeting in Geneva and was charged by the United Nations with assessing the state of scientific knowledge on climate change, evaluate its impacts and come up with realistic solutions. In August 1990 it produced its First Assessment Report. Subsequent reports have only changed the detail, not the general conclusions.

At the Rio Earth Summit, two years later, 154 nations took responsibility for the overwhelming majority of emissions and pledged to "aim to stabilize" those emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. But the Kyoto Protocol wasn't ratified for a further five years. It bound 38 industrialized countries (called Annex 1 countries) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. Concentration of CO₂ has now reached 358 ppm.

Later, President Bush made sure the United States never ratified the agreement and Canada withdrew in 2011. In 2012 an agreement for a second commitment period has never entered legal force.

In July 2009, G8 countries agreed that 2 degrees Celsius of average global warming above pre-industrial levels is a limit which should not be exceeded, but this would mean reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2050 and emissions from developed countries should be reduced by 80% or more. It is agreed that global emissions must peak and then decline rapidly within the next five to ten years for this to be achieved.

In November of that year the Copenhagen Accord was signed to endorse the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, but it is not a legally binding document. Concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere then reached 388ppm.

Now we are looking towards a legally binding global agreement next year, when concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere will be 400 ppm, but it will not take effect until 2020, and then it will still take some time for any effects to kick in.

Meanwhile, concentrations of greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere continue to increase:



It's for this reason that I'm extremely pessimistic that it is possible for national leaders, whose agendas are all short-term, whose interests are local and subject to lobbying from special interest groups, have the courage or capacity to show the required level of leadership. Even Obama's recent efforts fall far short of the true level required.

Carwyn Jones plays the politicians' game



The basis for his extreme pessimism was confirmed for me last Thursday. I had been invited to give evidence to the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister in Wales about progress made to date in implementing the Welsh Government’s 2010 Climate Change Strategy for Wales. In particular, how actions to tackle the causes and consequences of climate change are being implemented by all departments of the Welsh Government and how this work is being co-ordinated and monitored.

Right: the Welsh Government’s 2010 Climate Change Strategy cover

Wales as a nation has a non-binding target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 3% per year to 40% of 1990 levels by 2020 in policy areas of over which it has control (some powers are not devolved but still held in London, such as control over transport spending and energy generation). This compares to the UK overall target of 34% reduction by 2020. Additionally, Wales is almost unique in the world by having the duty of government to take due account of sustainable development written into its constitution.

These facts alone would lead one to suppose that Wales was serious about tackling climate change. But let me tell you what happened in those meeting and committee rooms of the Welsh Government offices in Cardiff Bay on the afternoon of Thursday 26 June.

The first half of the event consisted of three members of the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister quizzing members of the Climate Change Commission for Wales on what they thought the Committee should be asking Carwyn Jones (who is leader of the Welsh Labour Party).

The Commission's members represents a huge body of expert opinion from other organisations such as the Carbon Trust, the Energy Saving Trust, Sustrans, the Federation of Small Businesses, National Resources Wales, WWF, the One Planet Council, and even young people represented by the youth parliament known as Funky Dragon.

There was no shortage of extremely sound advice given to the Committee members. The key points were as follows:

1. The First Minister should take overall responsibility for the climate change agenda, which he currently does not have, in order to show leadership and make sure that all government departments work together to achieve the targets;
2. He should set statutory targets rather than the current non-binding ones;
3. He should benchmark the current level of emissions in different sectors, by end-user;
4. He should quantify by default the climate change impacts of all new developments as part of their impact assessment. In particular, reference was made to a proposed £1.5 billion new extension to the M4 around Newport;
5. He should create a programme of action that would detail how the different sectors would act to reduce overall emissions, which currently does not exist.

There were many other excellent suggestions about land use, transport, education, planning, building regulations and renewable energy. If they were all put in place, Wales would be a beacon of low carbon sustainable development.

This part of the event concluded and the members of the Committee then withdrew to a Committee Room where they proceeded to quiz the Minister. Many of us stayed to watch the proceedings from the viewing gallery.

What happened? Well the first thing to note is that the Committee scrutinises the First Minister on many topics and few of its members are experts on climate change. The second is that as officials, it was clear that they somewhat lack the passion and commitment that the Commission on Climate Change members have. For these reasons they are not equipped to respond to the First Minister's rebuttals with knowledgable counter-arguments or with the necessary level of emotion. Urbane mandarins, their language is couched in measured and leisured terms.

Carwyn Jones was able to refute every suggestion without significant censure.

1. He refused to take ultimate responsibility and show leadership on climate change as a cross-cutting topic because, he said, "there are many cross-cutting topics and I can't take responsibility for all of them. I leave climate change for others."
2. He refused to set statutory targets for carbon reductions on the basis that the government does not have control over transport and energy spending.
3. On the question of the M4 relief road he trotted out the line that cars in traffic jams will emit more greenhouse gases than having them freely moving. Yet, as Paul Pearson pointed out that evening, the consultancy document on the project never even calculated the total comparative carbon budgets for the options under consideration.
4. On the question of why building regulations for the energy efficiency of new homes are being watered down, he said it was because Wales needed more new houses and the big building firms had told him that it was too expensive to make them low or zero carbon. Yet I know several developers who can build affordable zero carbon homes - but clearly Carwyn is not aware of them and nor were the members of the Committee.

Shortly after this, in despair, I walked out. Wales has an opportunity to shine on the world stage by showing leadership on climate change beyond that being shown in England by the Westminster government. But Carwyn Jones is not up to this challenge.

The environment minister who created Wales' climate change strategy, Jane Davidson (right), has sadly left government now. She was the driving force behind several policies that championed sustainable development. Unfortunately Wales no longer has any one of her calibre and commitment in government.

But Carwyn Jones is no different from virtually every other leader of a nation state in the world, as the history of climate change negotiations shows. The fear of missing short-term other targets for housing, jobs and the economy, makes them ignore the bigger picture. They do not have expert advisers on hand – or refuse to give sufficient weight to their advice – to help them understand the multiple economic as well as social and environmental benefits of taking the requisite actions. Instead they respond to the demands of industry lobbyists and a public largely unaware of the issues and potentials.

So, is it possible for the world to act to reduce and turnaround the seemingly inexorable growth of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? Increasingly there are calls from the business sector and leaders of cities for action, but for my part, I fear all this will result in action that is too small and too late. They just do not have the economic and legal clout. I believe what is really required is for people to be paid to leave carbon in the ground – because if there is money to be made then they will take it out and sell it – but this obviously will not happen.

Barring a miracle, within 300 years sea level will have risen by up to 10 metres, the ice caps will have melted, the equatorial areas of the planet will be uninhabitable, and humanity will have suffered a population collapse. The prediction made by the scientists meeting in June 1988 will have been shown to be correct. I do hope I am wrong.

The new IPCC AR5 report: How should leaders respond?

Now that we have unequivocal evidence from the eagerly awaited Fifth Assessment Report from the International Panel on Climate Change that the planet is warming and human beings are responsible, how should  political leaders respond?

At the presentation by the IPCC panel in Stockholm this morning, we heard that "Human influence on the climate system is clear: since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over previous decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased."

There has been much talk from sceptic circles that the recent hiatus in global warming means that the scientists have got it wrong.

But this hiatus was explained by the panel as being due to the oceans absorbing heat from the atmosphere. This is temporary. Thomas Stocker, one of the co-authors of the report, said that: "The ocean is taking most of the heat from the air (93%), but it is not saving us". He added that "warming will continue under every scenario available".

There are four scenarios considered in the report, depending on what action we take. They indicate a range of possible temperature increases over the rest of the century from 1.5°C to 6°C. But Stocker warned: "The low band only comes in if quick action is taken to stop carbon emissions. If no action is taken we will be in the high scenario band."

It does not mean that the danger has been averted. Quite the contrary. It is therefore vital to take action as soon as possible.

A climate sceptic in the audience who asked question, David Rose from the British Mail on Sunday newspaper, was given a lesson in basic science because the panel felt he clearly did not understand it.

He asked how long the warming hiatus would continue before the panel admitted that their models might be wrong. He was patiently told: "Your comment is based on a misunderstanding of how the models work. Just because there is temporary unpredictability it does not mean that longer trends are unpredictable. Climate models show absolute consistent agreement with all of the long-term observed trends."

2000 to 2010 saw highest temperatures of any decade in the records. According to the World Meteorological Organisation's Secretary-General Michel Jarraud, scientists are giving even more warning of extreme climate events.

The panel urged policymakers to listen because the review process for the report is as rigorous as it could possibly be. 110 governments contributed to it, with 831 authors and editors synthesising reviews of 9,200 scientific publications since 2007 and integrating 54,000 comments on these papers.

This means that the scientific consensus is overwhelming. Being certain of the global trends, scientists now need to do more research to improve predictions on local and regional levels.

So how should leaders respond?

One of the particular issues highlighted was water use. Stocker said that: "Often people focus on temperature rises but, although important, local variations and underwater cycles are also vital, which impact on the water resources".

It was emphasised at the launch that action taken now will be cheaper than action taken later when conditions have worsened. This is exactly what was urged by Lord Nicholas Stern in his 2008 report.

The Summary for Policymakers says that: "The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions".

This means that to be resilient, cities and regions, and the land areas from which they source the water and their food, need to be far more water efficient and to implement strategies to manage excessive rainfall.

For those cities vulnerable to sea level rise the report says that "under all scenarios this rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971-2010".

Over the next 80 years the rise could be between 40cm and 63cm (3ft6"-5ft). Together with predicted storm surges this guarantees increased flooding unless action is taken.

Oceans will acidify as they uptake carbon from the atmosphere, affecting marine sources of food.

"Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of carbon dioxide are stopped," the summary concludes.

Cities and regional and local authorities are in a better position than national governments to show leadership and respond more quickly to the challenge. Because they have control over planning and services locally they can choose to implement adaptation measures.

They also have a vital role in communicating the urgency of the situation to their citizens with local campaigns. Responding to the threat of climate change can be a source of pride for a city or region and its inhabitants and also improve quality of life.

Besides taking action to substantially and quickly reduce emissions of climate-warming gases, cities must also take steps to protect themselves: planting trees, using carbon-absorbing concrete instead of Portland cement, planning to reduce car journeys, making buildings as energy efficient as possible and generators of renewable energy, encouraging urban horticulture, using sustainable urban drainage surfaces.

This represents a business opportunity. There is room for cities to partner with industry to meet this challenge.

Tell me what you plan to do in responding to climate change.

How do you think we should respond?

IEA chief says scrap fossil fuel subsidies or face catastrophe

As academics warn the world could exceed "safe" temperature levels in our lifetimes, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged the world to slash hundreds of billions of dollars of fossil fuel subsidies or face catastrophe.

Fatih Birol, speaking in an interview with EurActiv, says that the "$409 billion equivalent of fossil fuels subsidies in place around the world "encourage developing countries - where the bulk of the energy demand and CO2 emissions come from – [towards a] wasteful use of energy” and calls for their abolition.

He says that cutting these subsidies in major non-OECD countries is “the one single policy item” which could help decrease the rate of increase of global warming, so that it stays within "safe" limits.

These limits are estimated to be around 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The likelihood of dangerous warming

Two papers, to be published in the latest edition of the journal Nature are warning that emissions could reach much higher temperatures during the lifetimes of many people alive today.

This could mean that "large parts of Eurasia, North Africa and Canada could potentially experience individual five-year average temperatures that exceed the 2 degree Celsius threshold by 2030 -- a timescale that is not so distant," one paper says.

Two degrees was the maximum limit set at the Copenhagen COP15 UNFCCC summit in 2009, and was reckoned to equate to a concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of 450 parts per million (ppm).

It is considered just about bearable, but with considerable costs.

Many consider this level itself to be dangerously risky and would prefer the limit to be 1.5 degrees Celsius, which equates to 350ppm.

The papers find that "most of the world's land surface is very likely to experience five-year average temperatures that exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2060" at the current rate of increase.

A 3.5 degree increase would cause “irreversible impacts”, such as the mass extinction of an estimated 40%-70% of the world’s species and rendering the equatorial belt largely uninhabitable, according to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change.

The New Zealand scientists say that only if emissions are "substantially lowered", will the two degree threshold possibly be delayed by "up to several decades".

The second paper, by Zurich's Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Hadley Centre of the Meteorological Office, calculates that to achieve a greater than 66% chance of limiting temperature rise by this amount, global emissions will probably need to peak before 2020 and fall to about 44 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020.

Reducing fossil fuel subsidies

This puts Birol's call into perspective.

Speaking in advance of the release of the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2011 report on 9 November, he said that it will say that cutting fossil fuel subsidies would "help renewable energies such as solar and wind power to get a bigger market share".

The IEA's analysis finds that “the door for a 2 degrees trajectory may be closing if we do not act urgently and boldly,” Birol said.

The report examines seven scenarios. "“In our central scenario, seven countries introduce some form of carbon pricing which brings us to a 3.5 degree trajectory,” he explained.

“But if we want to keep the temperature increase to 2 degrees, many more countries need to do so. The most important condition is that there’s coordinated international action in place.”

The world in 2008-10 was subsidising fossil fuels by almost 13 times more than renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and biofuels, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Fossil fuels received $557 billion compared to $43-46 billion for renewables.

Rather than going down, fossil fuel subsidies are increasing. The IEA expects them to reach $660 billion, or 0.7% of global GDP by 2020.

Reducing the subsidy would cut energy demand by 4.1% and CO2 emissions by 1.7 gigatonnes, with consequent increases in energy efficiency and more investment available for renewables.

Most of the subsidies are actually in the less developed countries, trying to compete with the developed ones.

Green Climate Fund

The United Nation's committee responsible for designing the £100bn fund which developing countries will use to help them tackle climate change before 2020, has produced its draft proposals, but not to unanimous agreement.

This fund was agreed at the COP15 and COP16 summits in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun, Mexico (2010) and discussion of the draft will be a highlight of this year's summit in Durban, South Africa, beginning in six weeks.

However, the United States and Saudi Arabia have reduced their support for the overall design of the fund.

The draft was welcomed by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"The Committee ended its work by submitting for consideration and approval in Durban both a draft instrument for the Green Climate Fund and recommendations on transitional arrangements to get it launched quickly," she said.

Developing countries are generally satisfied with most of the wording, especially that the fund should have its own legal status and independent secretariat, but disagreement remains over access to the funds, including the need to minimise the involvement of the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank.

Pa Ousman Jarju, chair of the Least Developed Countries negotiating block at the UN climate change talks says: “Enhanced direct access would allow more devolved decision-making to reflect local and national concerns and it would enable countries to integrate the funding into their national plans and strategies for dealing with climate change.”

For these reasons, Trevor Manuel the former finance minister of South Africa, who co-chaired the meeting on administering the fund with Kjetil Lund of Norway, called the outcome "sub-optimal".

Germany said that the committee’s failure to formally agree a design “will likely result in not having the Green Climate Fund this year or the next”.

Former chief of the UN climate change convention Yves de Boer has also criticised the fund.

He told the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative event in Washington, DC last Wednesday, that the GCF “is going to be governed by a bunch of climate change negotiators, rather than by a lot of people that understand economics.

“The whole debate is around grant-based finance, instead of about how you catalyse significant funding, and basically the approach is to keep the private sector out - to the extent that you can - rather than to make this a consortia of public and private financing.”

The U.S. negotiators agree with him. They want developing countries as well as developed countries to contribute to the fund and for the private sector to be able to engage more. They also questioned the section on the fund having its own juridical personality.

But developing countries are suspicious. They believe the engagement of the private sector would open the potential for funds to be diverted away from developing countries towards developed countries’ companies and financial institutions, bypassing their governments.

If finally agreed, the fund will be used only for mitigation and adaptation initially, while many developing countries also want to use it for technology and capacity building, the very tactic which the IEA's Birol is calling for.

IEA chief says scrap fossil fuel subsidies or face catastrophe

As academics warn the world could exceed "safe" levels in our lifetimes, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged the world to slash hundreds of billions of dollars of fossil fuel subsidies or face catastrophe.

Fatih Birol, speaking in an interview with EurActiv, says that the "$409 billion equivalent of fossil fuels subsidies in place around the world "encourage developing countries - where the bulk of the energy demand and CO2 emissions come from – [towards a] wasteful use of energy” and calls for the abolition.

He says that cutting these subsidies in major non-OECD countries is “the one single policy item” which could help decrease the rate of increase of global warming, so that it stays within "safe" limits.

These limits are estimated to be around 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The likelihood of dangerous warming

But two papers, to be published in the latest edition of the journal Nature are warning that emissions could reach much higher temperatures during the lifetimes of many people alive today.

This could mean that "large parts of Eurasia, North Africa and Canada could potentially experience individual five-year average temperatures that exceed the 2 degree Celsius threshold by 2030 -- a timescale that is not so distant," one paper says.

Two degrees was the maximum limit set at the Copenhagen COP15 UNFCCC summit in 2009, and was reckoned to equate to a concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of 450 parts per million (ppm).

It is considered just about bearable, but with considerable costs.

Many consider this level itself to be dangerously risky and would prefer the limit to be 1.5 degrees Celsius, which equates to 350ppm.

The papers find that "most of the world's land surface is very likely to experience five-year average temperatures that exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2060" at the current rate of increase.

A 3.5 degree increase would cause “irreversible impacts”, such as the mass extinction of an estimated 40%-70% of the world’s species and rendering the equatorial belt largely uninhabitable, according to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change.

The New Zealand scientists say that only if emissions are "substantially lowered", will the two degree threshold possibly be delayed by "up to several decades".

The second paper, by Zurich's Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Hadley Centre of the Meteorological Office, calculates that to achieve a greater than 66% chance of limiting temperature rise by this amount, global emissions will probably need to peak before 2020 and fall to about 44 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020.

Reducing fossil fuel subsidies

This puts Birol's call into perspective.

Speaking in advance of the release of the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2011 report on 9 November, he said that it will say that cutting fossil fuel subsidies would "help renewable energies such as solar and wind power to get a bigger market share".

The IEA's analysis finds that “the door for a 2 degrees trajectory may be closing if we do not act urgently and boldly,” Birol said.

The report examines seven scenarios. "“In our central scenario, seven countries introduce some form of carbon pricing which brings us to a 3.5 degree trajectory,” he explained.

“But if we want to keep the temperature increase to 2 degrees, many more countries need to do so. The most important condition is that there’s coordinated international action in place.”

The world in 2008-10 was subsidising fossil fuels by almost 13 times more than renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and biofuels, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Fossil fuels received $557 billion compared to $43-46 billion for renewables.

Rather than going down, fossil fuel subsidies are increasing. The IEA expects them to reach $660 billion, or 0.7% of global GDP by 2020.

Reducing the subsidy would cut energy demand by 4.1% and CO2 emissions by 1.7 gigatonnes, with consequent increases in energy efficiency and more investment available for renewables.

Most of the subsidies are actually in the less developed countries, trying to compete with the developed ones.

Green Climate Fund

The United Nation's committee responsible for designing the £100bn fund which developing countries will use to help them tackle climate change before 2020 has produced its draft proposals, but not to unanimous agreement.

This fund was agreed at the COP15 and COP16 summits in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun, Mexico (2010) and the draft will be discussed at this year's summit in Durban, South Africa, beginning in six weeks.

However, the United States and Saudi Arabia have reduced their support for the overall design of the fund.

The committee tasked with the design work has met four times, and completed its work last week.

Examination of the draft will be a highlight of the Durban talks.

The draft was welcomed by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"The Committee ended its work by submitting for consideration and approval in Durban both a draft instrument for the Green Climate Fund and recommendations on transitional arrangements to get it launched quickly," she said.

Developing countries are generally satisfied with most of the wording, especially that the fund should have its own legal status and independent secretariat, but disagreement remains over access to the funds, including the need to minimise the involvement of the Global Environment Facility and the World Bank.

Pa Ousman Jarju, chair of the Least Developed Countries negotiating block at the UN climate change talks says: “Enhanced direct access would allow more devolved decision-making to reflect local and national concerns and it would enable countries to integrate the funding into their national plans and strategies for dealing with climate change.”

For these reasons, Trevor Manuel the former finance minister of South Africa, who co-chaired the meeting on administering the fund with Kjetil Lund of Norway, called the outcome "sub-optimal".

Germany said that the committee’s failure to formally agree a design “will likely result in not having the Green Climate Fund this year or the next”.

Former chief of the UN climate change convention Yves de Boer has also criticised the fund.

He told the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative event in Washington, DC last Wednesday, that the GCF “is going to be governed by a bunch of climate change negotiators, rather than by a lot of people that understand economics.

“The whole debate is around grant-based finance, instead of about how you catalyse significant funding, and basically the approach is to keep the private sector out - to the extent that you can - rather than to make this a consortia of public and private financing.”

The U.S. negotiators agree with him. They want developing countries as well as developed countries to contribute to the fund and for the private sector to be able to engage more. They also questioned the section on the fund having its own juridical personality.

But developing countries are suspicious. They believe the engagement of the private sector would open the potential for funds to be diverted away from developing countries towards developed countries’ companies and financial institutions, bypassing their governments.

If finally agreed, the fund will be used only for mitigation and adaptation initially, while many developing countries also want to use it for technology and capacity building, the very tactic which the IEA's Birol is calling for.

Planning permits for new generators need not take account of carbon emissions

The Government has ruled that the Infrastructure Planning Committee, which oversees all nationally strategic developments and will make the decisions on whether proposed developments should be given the green light, need not take into account the carbon impact of a particular plant before deciding whether to approve it.

The finalised Energy NPSs have been published by DECC, and, though yet to be debated in Parliament, provide a framework for planning and approving an expected £100bn of new energy infrastructure, including 33GW of new renewable energy capacity.

But in its response to the consultation on the NPSs the Government says that deciding on the impact of a development in relation to the UK's carbon budget "is a matter for wider Government intervention in energy markets, not a planning issue."

Five of the NPSs cover specific technologies: fossil fuels; renewables; gas supply and gas and oil pipelines; electricity networks; and nuclear. There is also an overarching energy NPS.

The latter sets out how the new system is compatible with the Localism Bill, retains the consultative approach (both on the NPSs and the consultation of local people in individual applications) and the transparency of the IPC system while increasing democratic accountability through returning the final decision to ministers.

The Nuclear NPS confirms eight sites across the country as suitable for new nuclear power stations by 2025 and lays out plans for how radioactive waste will be managed.

A Fossil Fuel NPS allows for carbon capture and storage to be fitted to new gas plants, as well as coal.

DECC also published yesterday new research into noise from wind turbines, and said it discussing with the Institute of Acoustics the establishment of a working group to develop best practice guidance for planners, developers and local communities.

‘Climategate’ review clears scientists and replicates their results

The long-awaited third review of the co-called 'Climategate' affair chaired by Sir Muir Russell has cleared the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) of any wrong-doing.

The scientists at the heart of the matter, particularly Professor Phil Jones, have been cleared of any attempt to mislead or manipulate data or display bias. The report concludes, "we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt."

The review team also tried to replicate the CRU's results using publicly available data which critics had said was not possible. This confirmed the conclusions of the IPCC and CRU that average global temperatures are increasing.

Background

In November 2009, approximately 1000 e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit

(CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) were hacked into by climate sceptics and published on blogs.

CRU is a small research unit which over the last 30 years has played an important role in the development of climate science, in particular in their work on developing global temperature trends.

The leak happened in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks last November and were partly responsible for a rise in perceived scepticism of the reality of global warming. The results of those climate talks are widely held to have been disappointing.

It's therefore vitally important that the science behind the IPCC's verdicts on climate change is held up to rigorous scrutiny and perceived to be robust.

But scientists have been their own enemy too often in this respect. So besides urging the to be more open, the Review urges them to learn to communicate and defend themselves better.

The 'blogosphere' has been the principle arena for attacking their work. The

Review team therefore "simply urges all scientists to learn to communicate their work in ways that the public can access and understand."

But also "scientists should be supported to explain their position, and ... a public space can be created where these debates can be conducted on appropriate terms, where what is and is not uncertain can be recognised".

The Russell Report's conclusions

In a nutshell, the report says:

• there's no evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments

• CRU was not in a position to withhold access to land station temperature data or tamper with it

• no evidence of bias in the selection of stations for evidence

• no evidence to support that implication that CRU s work in this area shouldn't be trusted

• there was no subversion of the peer process

• the phenomenon of “divergence” in expressing the uncertainty associated

with reconstruction is not hidden and that the subject is openly and extensively discussed in the literature, including CRU papers

• the way that data derived from tree rings is described and presented in Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 is not misleading

• the references in a specific e-mail to a "trick" and to "hide the decline" in respect of a 1999 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report figure show evidence of intent to paint a misleading picture, we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the IPCC Third Assessment Report), the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading.

However on the negative side:

• CRU should have made available an unambiguous list of the stations used in each of the versions of the Climatic Research Unit Land Temperature Record

(CRUTEM).

• CRU’s responses to reasonable requests for information were unhelpful and defensive

• Ruusell urges CRU to follow "the conventional scientific method of checking and seeking to falsify conclusions or offering alternative hypotheses for peer review and publication".

The question of replication

A chief criticism of CRU was that it did not make available the raw data collected from the weather-monitoring land stations, which it used to produce its report. Nor did it make available the computer code used to crunch these numbers.

To test this, the Review team tried to replicate the process adopted by CRU themselves.

They found three sources of data that are publicly available and would be known to scientists working in the field. They were able, using a competent programmer, to write their own code in just two days to process this data.

They then ran the data through the process and compared it to the results obtained by CRU and to the results published in the IPCC’s 4th report.

What is significant is that all four lines - shown below - more or less tally.

In other words, the data is publicly available, easily processed, and produces graphs showing temperature increases that corroborate each other.

They note that it doesn't even matter that some of the land stations are urban and may be influenced by the 'heat island' effect – another criticism of CRU by sceptics like Benny Peizer. The overall trend of temperature change is still upwards, rising with the same degree of statistical variation.

The need for openness

However the Review does say that CRU should have been more open - a view expressed also by the House of Commons science and technology select committee in their report on 31 March. That report concluded that "Professor Jones has in many ways been scapegoated as a result of what really was a frustration on his part that people were asking for information purely to undermine his research."

But the Russell Review says "Without such openness, the credibility of their

work will suffer because it will always be at risk of allegations of concealment

and hence mal-practice."

Frustrating as it is, it is part of his job to deal with such enquiries, or at least that of the UEA who should have responded to the freedom of information requests, not CRU, as the Select Committee observed.

Lord Oxburgh's subsequent "international panel" review examined "the integrity" of CRU's research and that also cleared the unit.

"We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the CRU and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it," the review concluded. "Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups, their internal procedures were rather informal."

Given the global importance of this work it’s clear that groups such as this must be better resourced and supported to carry it out thoroughly.

Bali: good to talk, but hold your breath 'til '09

The IPPC report issued at the weekend was the last warning salvo fired by the scientific community at heads of government before the next round of significant talks between them over what to do about climate change when the Kyoto agreement runs out in just over four years' time.

In the 'Washington Declaration' agreed on February 16, 2007, Presidents or Prime Ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa agreed in principle on the outline of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

They envisage a global cap-and-trade system that would apply to both industrialized nations and developing countries, and hoped that this would be in place by 2009.

At these talks, to be held from 3-14 December in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, it is doubtful whether anything meaningful will be achieved, a source close to the British team which has been out there preparing for the talks for some time, has told me.

However, useful horse-trading and line-drawing will be done.

The British position is essentially that the timing is right for a significant breakthrough in a couple of years, but that we have to wait and hope that Bush's successor will be more onboard.

If it's Hillary Clinton, then it's assumed she will sign up to carbon reduction targets, taxes, and trading.

The next United States presidential election is scheduled to be held on November 4 next year.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who will host the talks, commented on the IPCC's pronouncements by singling out the United States and China, the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases, which have no binding goals for curbs, as key countries in the process.

"I look forward to seeing the US and China playing a more constructive role starting from the Bali conference," Ban told a news conference. "Both countries can lead in their own way."

Ban said he had just been to see ice shelves breaking up in Antarctica and the melting Torres del Paine glaciers in Chile. He also visited the Amazon rainforest, which he said was being "suffocated" by global warming.

"I come to you humbled after seeing some of the most precious treasures of our planet - treasures that are being threatened by humanity's own hand," he said.

"These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie," Ban said. "But they are even more terrifying, because they are real."

The summary says human activity is causing rising temperatures and that deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are needed quickly to avert more heat waves, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.

The scientists and officials from the 130-state Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) boiled down the findings of three reports of more than 3,000 pages issued this year and said ths time it hadn't been watered down.

"The strong message of the IPCC can't be watered down - the science is crystal clear. The hard fact is we have caused climate change, and it's also clear that we hold the solution ... in our hands," said Hans Verolme, Director of environmental group WWF's Global Climate Change Programme.

Sources close to the discussions said the US had tried to change or even remove a key section of the report which lists five main reasons for concern about the effects of warming.

"This has been a very tough week and we've had to debate and defend everything we wanted but the draft report that we submitted has remained intact and has even had additions made in terms of emphasis and even facts that have come to light," IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri told Reuters.

"When you're on strong scientific ground, you don't yield any ground. We have to make sure that scientific truth is not supressed."

Summary of the findings

• "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."
• "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in ... greenhouse gas concentrations" from human activities.
• Global total annual greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have risen by 70 percent since 1970. Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, far exceed the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
• Temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cms and 59 cms (seven and 23 inches) this century.
• Africa, the Arctic, small islands and Asian mega-deltas are likely to be especially affected by climate change. Sea level rise "would continue for centuries" because of the momentum of warming even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilised.
• "Warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible". About 20-30 percent of species will be at increasing risk of extinction if future temperature rises exceed 1.5 to 2.5 Celsius.

Five reasons for concern

• Risks to unique and threatened systems, such as polar or high mountain ecosystems, coral reefs and small islands.
• Risks of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.
• Distribution of impacts - the poor and the elderly are likely to be hit hardest, and countries near the equator, mostly the poor in Africa and Asia, generally face greater risks such as of desertification or floods.
• Overall impacts - there is evidence since 2001 that any benefits of warming would be at lower temperatures than previously forecast and that damages from larger temperature rises would be bigger.
• Risks or "large-scale singularities", such as rising sea levels over centuries; contributions to sea level rise from Antarctica and Greenland could be larger than projected by ice sheet models.

Solutions/costs

• Governments have a wide range of tools -- higher taxes on emissions, regulations, tradeable permits and research. An effective carbon price could help cuts.
• Emissions of greenhouse gases would have to peak by 2015 to limit global temperature rises to 2.0 to 2.4 Celsius over pre-industrial times, the strictest goal assessed.
• The costs of fighting warming will range from less than 0.12 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) per year for the most stringent scenarios until 2030 to less than 0.06 percent for a less tough goal.
• In the most costly case, that means a loss of GDP by 2030 of less than 3 percent.

What is the IPCC?

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 by the UN Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization to give governments scientific advice about climate change.
• Run from Geneva, it draws on work by about 2,500 climate scientists from more than 130 nations and has issued three reports so far this year, totalling more than 3,000 pages. The previous set of reports was in 2001.
• The IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore.

What is the summary?

The IPCC condenses the main findings of three reports earlier this year:

• In February, the IPCC squarely blamed mankind for global warming. It said it was "very likely" or more than 90 percent probable that human activities led by burning fossil fuels had caused most of the warming in the past half century.
• It said warming was "unequivocal" and projected a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise by 1.8 to 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2-7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.
• In April, the IPCC outlined the likely impacts of warming and said rising temperatures could lead to more hunger, water shortages and ever more extinctions of animals and plants.
• It said crop yields could drop by 50 percent by 2020 in some countries and projected a steady shrinking of Arctic sea ice in summers.
• By the 2080s, millions of people will be threatened by floods because of rising sea levels, especially around river deltas in Asia and Africa and on small islands.
• In May, in a third report on confronting climate change, the IPCC said costs of action could be moderate, or less than 0.12 percent of global gross domestic product a year, but that time was running out to avert the worst effects. The toughest scenario would require governments to ensure global greenhouse gas emissions start falling by 2015.

Previous reports

• The IPCC's first report in 1990 outlined risks of warming and played a role in prompting governments to agree a 1992 UN climate convention.
• In 1995, the IPCC concluded that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate", the first recognition that it was more than 50 percent likely that people were stoking warming. The report paved the way to the Kyoto Protocol, now the main UN plan for curbing warming.
• A 2001 IPCC study said there was "new and stronger evidence" linking human activities to global warming and that it was "likely", or 66 percent probable, that humans were the main cause of warming in the past half century.

Those IPPC scientists are arguing again

This week, delegates from more than 140 countries and scientific experts on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are going line-by-line through a draft summary of the scientific understanding of climate change, and what can be done to slow the gradual warming of the Earth in Valencia, Spain.

The report is due to be released this Saturday.

There is conflict in the group, as there should be. Reports of individual scientists dissenting in their interpretation of the data and form of words are filtering out. But they have issued a statemet saying they are determined that their fourth report this year will not be watered down and exclude vital information under pressure from nations own domestic agendas, as has happened.

The scientists acknowledge their previous reports have been conservative and had a poor track record of predictions. Temperatures have risen faster than they have predicted.

The assessment reports are widely acknowledged as the most authoritative compilation of climate science available, largely because of the rigorous process of peer review.

But its thoroughness takes time and this means it lags behind the latest research - two or three years.

Sceptics will always say that environmental groups and lobbyist can't be trusted with the facts. But what about the two U.S. security institutes who issued a joint report this month - The Center for Strategic International Studies (co-chaired by an ex- chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations) and the Center for a New American Security (President: former Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies)?

They compared predictions of climate change by the panel and other researchers in the last two decades with changes that actually occurred, and found the scientists had consistently fallen short.

Part of the reason was the lack of data, but also that the scientists shied away from controversy and wanted to avoid being discredited as "alarmists". That's left to the likes of WWF.

Next month governments meet in Bali, Indonesia, to start negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, using the IPCC's evidence.