Tag Archives: climate change

Invisible Carbon Dioxide

Two stories in the press today illustrate magnificently the size of the mountain we still have to climb to climate change awareness, let alone decisive action. First the FT writes about the resurgence of interest in coal in the UK by Australian investors, then the Guardian writes about the Labour Party’s commitment to tighten up on the rules around fracking.

Despite the fact that both newspapers regularly report on climate change findings it’s as if the issue didn’t exist as far as these two stories are concerned. As usual neither mentioned the elephant in the room – that developing more sources of carbon may be unwise (not to say insane) when there are already considerable reserves on the energy companies’ books which are unburnable if the 2degC warming limit which world leaders are committed to is going to be remotely achievable.

The decision to invest in either coal or fracking is either bad or mad. Either the world’s leaders do nothing and the investments reap rewards now at the expense of huge disruption later (PDF) or those leaders are shocked into taking practical steps to limit carbon significantly in which case the value of those investments will likely collapse.

Either way, it’s not an investment decision to be proud of.

Making hay while the snow melts

Three articles in this morning’s Observer illustrate perfectly the paradoxes surrounding the climate change debate. 

First we had this piece on England’s wettest January for 250 years. The culprit is identified as global warming:

Flooding has been identified as the most dangerous impact of climate change for the UK and is hitting harder and faster than expected, according to scientists. Thousands of homes have been flooded since December, and much of the low-lying Somerset Levels remains under water.

It went on to detail the price to be paid both in flood defence expenditures and annual flood damage which will result from increasingly erratic weather patterns.

Then there was a piece in the Observer’s New York Times supplement entitled Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change which detailed the concerns that large US corporates like Coca-Cola and Nike are now expressing about the adverse effects of climate change on their businesses. 

“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”

Finally, back in the main paper, this piece on the exciting opportunities which the melting of the polar icecap are opening up for the energy and shipping industries. The effects of climate change are being felt faster in the northern pole than elsewhere on the planet with the prospects that a northern sea route will open up and swathes of the arctic can be explored for oil, gas and minerals.

Confidence that the Arctic will become economically important is seen in the rush of countries and companies to claim a stake. Eleven countries, including Poland and Singapore, have appointed Arctic ambassadors to promote their national interests.

It is splendidly ironic that the burning of fossil fuels causes the planet to warm up so that the north pole melts and we can find more fossil fuels to burn, thus continuing the cycle. There is a wonderful comment in the comments thread of the article online which sums it up perfectly….

 And the New Yorker cartoon (above) earlier this week illustrated the short-termism appositely.

One thing is clear, until we price carbon correctly and align short term economic interests to the long term interests of the planet (and the human species) we will see more and more of this schizophrenic behaviour.

Climate change stories

There was an interesting juxtaposition of articles in the Observer this morning. The leader set the tone with a strong call for action in the face of the IPCC report. 

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its fifth assessment report on the physical science of global warming and made it clear that the continued burning of fossil fuels to run our cars, factories and electricity plants is now virtually certain to induce serious alterations to our climate. 

Then there was the piece by David King and Richard Layard calling for a world sunpower programme:

The goal would be by 2025 to deliver solar electricity at scale to the grid at a cost below the cost of fossil fuel. All countries would be invited to participate. Those who did would commit, in their own countries, to major new programmes of research, internationally co-ordinated, and to share their findings for the benefit of the world.

 In contrast, however, were two of the (very few) articles in the New York Times Observer supplement, presumably hand picked from the raft of stories which the NYT covers. The first focussed on the economic difficulties faced by Germany’s green energy policies.

German families are being hit by rapidly increasing electricity rates, to the point where growing numbers of them can no longer afford to pay the bill. Businesses are more and more worried that their energy costs will put them at a disadvantage to competitors in nations with lower energy costs, and some energy-intensive industries have begun to shun the country because they fear steeper costs ahead.

The second was a piece explaining the potential of unlocking frozen hydrates as a potential new (carbon) fuel source. 

If they can be tapped safely and economically, they could be an abundant source of fuel, especially for countries like Japan that have few energy reserves of their own.

There in the Observer (and supplements) this morning the complexity of the climate change issue was laid out. 

  1. We have a serious problem with CO2; 
  2. We know that we have to reduce hydrocarbons in favour of renewables; 
  3. But the infrastructure and economics of the oil and gas industries have the advantage and the momentum; 
  4. Renewables are costly and going it alone is fraught with perils (see Germany);
  5. A “moonshot” is therefore required.

What are the chances of this happening? The Observer leader I started with sums it up: 

What Britain urgently needs is an unambiguous statement from our government that it recognises very serious changes are now affecting our planet; that we have the will to tackle a growing global catastrophe; and that we are prepared to address difficult, unpopular truths. To date, we have heard nothing.