Climate politics – Page 60

Going renewable doable by 2050, new analysis suggests

A new study published in Energy Strategy Reviews this month affirms that sourcing 95 percent of our energy from sustainable sources by 2050 is possible, using already available technologies. The authors are from the Dutch renewable energy consultancy Ecofys. Their paper includes technical detail, but the general salient points are well identified and clear to the non-expert reader. Familiar themes are sounded and buttressed with careful and sensible analysis.

Efficiency and electrification are two key requisites on the way to the 2050 goal. The scenario proposed by the study envisages a slightly lower power demand in 2050 than in 2000, even allowing for established forecasts of population growth and GDP growth. It surveys demand under three sectors – industry, buildings and transport – indicating in each case the prospects of much lower demand from the application of efficiency measures as compared with current business as usual (BAU) practices. The electrification which plays an important part in lowered demand occurs primarily in the buildings and transport sectors.

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Arctic code red: uncharted territory

Nearly four years ago I reviewed Climate Code Red by Australians David Spratt and Philip Sutton. Even then the authors spoke of the recently released 2007 IPCC report as too conservative in its predictions. Here’s how I described their position:

The authors lament the limitations of the IPCC system, ascribing them partly to pressure from vested interests harboured by some countries, partly to the long process of gathering the information from published material and the early cut-off date for reports, and partly to scientists being uncomfortable with estimates based on known but presently unquantified mechanisms. It adds up to a process so deficient as to be an unreliable and even misleading basis for policy-making.

They instanced particularly the diminishing Arctic sea ice and its amplifying consequences, the possibility of faster disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet, the vulnerability of the West Antarctic ice sheet and the likelihood of much higher sea rise than anticipated, as well as widespread species and eco-system destruction.

That was four years ago. In a recent striking article David Spratt reacts to the increased loss of Arctic summer sea ice by re-emphasising and extending the message that the science frame has changed considerably since the 2007 IPCC report. Climate changes and impacts are happening more quickly and at lower temperatures than expected, and he details some of them. He quotes Kim Holmen, Norwegian Polar Institute international director, saying that the big sea-ice melt of 2012 is “a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago”. It “has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us”.

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The Climate Show #28: transglobal overground (with added ice)

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The boys are back, and they can’t stop talking. Glenn’s got his studio set up in London, Gareth’s Waipara internet connection is still marginal, but what was meant to be a ten minute proof of international connectibility turned into a 40 minute extended rumination on Glenn’s arrival in London during the wet summer and extended hay fever season, the record-setting Arctic sea-ice melt and what that might mean for the coming northern hemisphere winter and climate in general, the defeat for New Zealand’s climate cranks in the High Court, and the soon to be obligatory plug for Gareth’s new book…

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NZ Herald’s turn to offer propaganda as opinion – De Freitas’ links to cranks hidden from readers

The new “compact” NZ Herald has taken a downmarket tabloid approach to informing its readers by running an opinion piece about the recent courtroom defeat for NZ’s climate cranks by prominent climate sceptic and Auckland University geographer Chris de Freitas, without explaining de Freitas’ long history of association with the cranks he’s defending. In the article, de Freitas overstates the uncertainties associated with temperature records, even going so far as to imply that the warming trend over the last hundred years might be “indistinguishable from zero” ((“Temperature trends detected are small, usually just a few tenths of one degree Celsius over 100 years, a rate that is exceeded by the data’s standard error. Statistically this means the trend is indistinguishable from zero.”)). He also overplays the importance of temperature series to policy-makers — a line straight out of crank litigant Barry Brill’s playbook, and self-evident nonsense.

Despite this transparent partiality, the opinion editors at the Herald credit him like this:

Chris de Freitas is an associate professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland.

But, as the Herald opinion team well know, de Freitas is much, much more than a mere associate professor in the School of Environment. He has a track record of activism against action on climate change that stretches back two decades. Here, for the poor misled readers of the new Herald‘s opinion pages is a handy, cut-out-and-keep guide to de Freitas’ long history of climate denial activism.

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Rio Tinto Alcan NZ plays godfather: nice aluminium smelter you got, be a shame if something happened to it…

The Godfather Simon Johnson argues that Rio Tinto Alcan NZ (NZ Aluminium Smelters Ltd), the owner of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is “Godfathering” the smelter, its workforce, the Southland economy, the NZ electricity market, Meridan Energy and the poor critically endangered slow-breeding kakapo, as well as “Godfathering” the NZ emissions trading scheme to get excessive free allocations of emissions units.

Let me introduce a new term to climate change blogging. Godfathering. It’s a bit like Grandfathering, which is a recognised jargon term from emissions trading. But different. Grandfathering in an emissions trading scheme (an ETS), is giving the emission units for free to the existing emitters in the ETS on a historic pro-rata calculation. The number of units given represents the desired cap on emissions ((Alternatively the units could be sold by auction to emitters which is logical if we treat the units as shares in a public commons owned by the Government on behalf of citizens.)).

Of course, our ETS is not so simple. If our ETS just applied simple “grandfathering” as outlined, then it would have a real cap, it would not allow importing of unlimited international units, and it would be impossible for any emitter to receive more units than their emissions.

That’s not the case under the NZETS, at least for some emitters. In 2010, NZ Aluminium Smelters Ltd, which is roughly New Zealand’s third largest point source of greenhouse gas emissions, was a net seller of units, not a net payer. Their free allocation of units was 135% more than the units they needed to surrender for their emissions.

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