Climate politics – Page 190

Keep it subdued

In my review of Climate Code Red a couple of posts back I mentioned the authors’ view that one of the limitations of the IPCC system is the pressure from vested interests harboured by some countries. An interesting example of the effects of such political pressure has come to light in the New York Times.Â It concerns the exclusion from the last IPCC report of an updated diagram of climate risks, known as “burning embers”.Â The 2001 report included the diagram and the planned 2007 version of the diagram would have shown the increased level of estimated climate risks since then.

All the diagram does is illustrate in graphic form the levels of risk estimated for a number of categories such as risks to unique and threatened systems, risks of extreme weather events, and so on. There is written description of the risks, but the graphic presentation was disallowed.

Several authors of the report now say that they regret not having pushed harder to include the diagram. Some scientists thought it too subjective, but apparently the main opposition to its inclusion came from officials representing the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, who thought the colourful diagram was too incendiary.Â Â Continue reading “Keep it subdued”

Immigrant song

According to the Washington Post, “Climate fears are driving ‘ecomigration’ around the globe” [reg req’d, full text at Climate Ark, extracts at the ODT], and the example the paper chose was NASA computer expert Adam Fier and his family, who have moved to New Zealand:

…a place they had never visited or seen before, and where they have no family or professional connections. Among the top reasons: global warming.

The Post goes on to examine the phenomenon in some detail:

Continue reading “Immigrant song”

Ignorance in high places

The Minister of Energy, Gerry Brownlee, was reported on National Radio this morning as stating that the energy strategy policy of the last government is going to be altered, because it subsumed energy policy under climate change. I was appalled by what I heard and tracked down the text of his speech, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. It was. Here is the section in which he dealt with the subject:

The current Energy Strategy represents the high point of the total subsuming of energy policy into climate change policy. The whole Strategy is an idealistic vision document for carbon neutrality.

You need only read the foreword of the NZES to get a sense of this. “Sustainability” and “sustainable” are mentioned thirteen times, “greenhouse gas” is mentioned four times, and “climate change” is mentioned three times. That is all very good, but security of supply rates only one mention. Affordability is not touched on at all. Nor is economic growth.

The National-led Government believes a refocusing of the Energy Strategy is required. The new strategy will focus on security of supply, affordability, and environmental responsibility, with the overriding goal of maximising economic growth.

The Energy Strategy involved widespread public consultation. I certainly made a submission on it. It is an overly cautious, but still relatively hopeful document, carrying the subtitle “Towards a sustainable low emissions energy system.”

There is an air of ignorant complacency to Brownlee’s statement. Energy policy can’t be decoupled from climate change policy. They belong together. The whole world knows this. The new Secretary for Energy in the US, Steven Chu, is in no doubt about it. He states quite clearly that his interest in energy has grown out of his concern about climate change. But much of what Brownlee has done so far reveals how threadbare his understanding of climate change is. He has lifted the ban on fossil-fuel powered electricity generation. He has reversed the decision to ban incandescent light bulbs. He has wiped the biofuel obligation only months after it was legislated. And now this statement.

Is this an example of what John Key meant when he said during the election campaign that economic growth takes precedence over environmental policy? I wrote about that at the time.

The government needs to bring itself up to date with the science, or even with what policy makers in some significant countries (like the US) are now saying.

Right and wrong

Estimating the economic impact of climate change and climate policy is controversial — not least in New Zealand, where some economists have been happy to generate specious forecasts to serve political purposes — so it’s a relief to read an article about climate change by a leading NZ economist that gets the issue “right”. Infometrics chief economist Adolf Stroombergen’s latest piece for the Dominion Post (which I saw in The Press business section on Saturday) correctly identifies that New Zealand’s primary vulnerabilities in the near to medium term are to the effects of climate change overseas, and to the actions other countries take to address the problem.

This will come as no surprise to readers of Hot Topic, as I’ve been emphasising this point for the last two years. However, while Stroombergen’s overall conclusion may be correct, his take on some of the underlying issues is a little less sure-footed.

Continue reading “Right and wrong”

Serendipity-doo-dah

I get emails from several Oxfords, but this week’s best came from the nearest and contained a link to “a lecture you’ll find worth looking at — coffee/keyboard interface warning.” The warning was heeded and needed. The lecture, by Dmitry Orlov, given to the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco on Feb 13 as a part of Long Now’s Seminars About Long Term Thinking, is titled Social Collapse Best Practices [Long Now report here, full text at ClubOrlov]. According to Orlov, who had direct experience of social collapse in Russia after the demise of the communist system (his thesis is that the US is moving rapidly towards closing its “collapse gap” with Russia), four things are important during a collapse — food, shelter, transportation and security. But especially security:

Continue reading “Serendipity-doo-dah”