Back from his unbuttoned jacket controversy and shoddy flag waving efforts at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, London Mayor Boris Johnson has published a climate change report warning that London isn’t prepared to cope with the predicted effects of global warming, including increased floods, droughts and heatwaves.
The key findings of the report - which are, frankly, a bit of a statement of the obvious at time - include:
As the climate changes, London will experience warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, whilst ‘extreme’ weather events such as heat waves and tidal surges will become more frequent and intense.
Londoners will face an increased risk of floods, droughts and heatwaves that will endanger the prosperity of the city and the quality of life for all Londoners, but especially the most vulnerable in the city.
The strategy proposes ‘greening’ the city by improving and increasing London’s greenspaces to keep the city cool in summer, managing flood risk coming from the tributaries to the Thames and surface water flooding from heavy rainfall, encouraging Londoners to use less water and raising public awareness to flood risk.
London is well placed to help the world adapt to climate change: it has the skills and services to prepare for the predicted changes, and there is a clear economic opportunity to capitalise on this leading position.
Johnson said in a statement:
“We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future.
“The strategy I am launching today outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life - particularly that of the most vulnerable people - and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world’s leading cities.”
But, speaking to the BBC, Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones said the measures contained “nothing new” and were “inadequate”.
The draft report on London’s Climate Change Adapation Strategy is here. The document is open for consultation, with a final version due sometime next year.
Biofuels is often a controversial green subject and think tank the Policy Exchange - a favourite of Prime Minister-in-waiting David Cameron - has waded into the debate claiming that government biofuel subsidies are a waste of cash.
A new report by the Policy Exchange, The Root of the Matter, claims the money spent on biofuel subsidies would be better spent saving forests and peatlands in terms of regulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
If developed countries spent the same amount of money on preventing deforestation and the destruction of peatlands as they do on biofuel subsidies - a whopping $15bn - this would halve the total costs of tackling climate change, the report claims.
Specifically the UK government is urged to take action by doing the following:
Abandon biofuel targets and subsidies
Support immediate action to reduce peatland destruction in South-east Asia
Build capacity in developing countries to prepare for avoided deforestation
Provide financial support to kick-start pilot avoided deforestation projects
The UK government is also urged to take action on the European and international stage to bring about a change in biofuel policy. The full tome from the Policy Exchange is here.
The way nature somehow has its own calendar never ceases to amaze and impress. Examples such as the mass spawning of turtles, bats and crabs in various locations are simply breathtaking.
Having seen all sorts of wild life, such as squirrels and hedgehogs, not hibernating it’s already clear that climate change is affecting this calendar but a new survey of bird habits - The State of the UK’s Birds report by a coalition of conservation bodies, including the RSPB - has confirmed this.
Around 30,000 nests have been analysed and it seems birds such as the chaffinch and robin are laying their eggs about a week earlier than in the 1960s. Blue tits, great tits and swallows are also exhibiting similar patterns.
And it’s not just nesting, birds have also altered migration patterns and travel further to find food. This means that birds could hatch before food is available.
Matt Murphy, ornithologist for the Countryside Council for Wales said in the press release:
“Climate change also seems to be affecting the pied flycatcher - an archetypal bird of Welsh oak woodlands. They appear to be breeding earlier across a number of sites and the worry is they may eventually breed so early, they are out of sync with their major food source of caterpillars.”
The report is a collaboration between several groups including the RSPB, Natural England and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. It conclusions state that drier summers have forced species to rear fewer chicks.
It seems that climate change is allowing plant species to climb. According to research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, nine plant species native to the steep slopes of the Santa Rosa Mountains in California have shifted an average of 213 feet up the mountainside. All this in 31 years.
Since 1977, species dying out at lower elevations have begun flourishing at higher ones as the ambient conditions for their growth also moves. Species include white fur pines, California lillies and ragweed.
This study is the first to show directly the impact of climate change on a mountainous ecosystem by physically studying the location of plants, and it shows what could occur globally if the Earth’s temperature continues to rise. The finding also has implications for forest management, as it rules out air pollution and fire suppression as main causes of plant death.
Previous work has highlighted similar shifts in French mountain ranges. However, the Californian study demonstrated that the shift affected both the quick growing grasses and wildflowers and slower growing trees.
Earth systems scientist and co-author, Michael Goulden commented:
“It is clear that ecosystems can respond rather rapidly to climate change.”
The study highlights that small changes in atmospheric conditions will lead to large shifts. In this case, the change is a local one degree centigrade temperature rise.
Leaky pipes, rising bills and poor flood management are making the UK’s water companies pretty unpopular right now, and with good cause. Indeed, just today, Northumbrian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water announced price hikes 1.3 per cent above inflation.
The water sector is at the heart of some of the big environmental and climate change issues facing us all – but are the utilities doing their bit?
One example in the news this week is the ongoing row between protesters and Thames Water over the planned new reservoir at Abingdon that will cover about 4.5 square miles of farmland and cost a mighty £800m to build.
Protesters have questioned various Thames Water assumptions about the projected need for water and the ability to even fill the reservoir – the arguments for and against neatly summed up in thisDaily Telegraph article.
Surely the UK’s future water needs would be better addressed by a more serious attempt to tackle the shocking leakage records of many UK water companies along with a significant increase in investment in innovation and sustainability.
The energy-intensive operational activities of the water sector are responsible for one per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions – which shows the scale of the challenge that needs to be addressed.
The job of policing and enforcing all this falls to water regulator Ofwat which, like many UK industry regulators, doesn’t appear to have much by the way of teeth in being able to force the water industry down this path.
There’s plenty of tough talk and the right things are being said but, Greenbang’s opinion, not enough action.
A perfect example of that today is Ofwat has published a “comprehensive policy statement” on climate change and the water sector in England and Wales.
What does it tell us? Not much, actually, apart from saying how Oftwat’s policies on reducing leakage and water consumption, flood management and water bills are helping water and waste water companies “to look comprehensively at impacts of climate change ad make the right changes to their operations at an appropriate pace to benefit both consumers and the environment”.
Grrr, Ofwat may or may not have added.
Ofwat chief executive Regina Finn said in the press release:
“This policy statement pulls together in one single place, the comprehensive and wide-ranging policy actions Ofwat is taking to ensure the sector is responding to the challenges of climate change.”
The full “Preparing for the future” climate change policy statement by Ofwat is available here.
In 1961 JFK set down a challenge to the people of America to put an American on the moon by the end of the decade. No one thought it could be done but, with 4 months to spare they made it. This story was retold by Al Gore in a speech to Washington yesterday as he lay down his own challenge for the American people - to move to 100pc renewable electricity within 10 years.
There is no getting around it, this is an impressive challenge to be met. It will need the houses (Senate and Representatives) to stop bickering. It will need a vastly different type of president than Bush. And it will need the commitment, taxes and incentives to all be there but the technology is already coming through. Greenbang believes it is possible and everything from wind, wave, microgeneration, solar, basically you name it, will be needed.
As Gore states:
“This is a generational moment… we must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history… our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for human kind.”
Much criticism has flowed in the direction of the G8 following the statement released today on how the 16 leading developed and developing economies are going to tackle climate change.
The WWF’s Global Climate Initiative has labelled the statement “pretty pathetic”. But what the statement really shows is how difficult it is to get an international agreement on anything in just 3 days of talks, not a failure of collective will on the need to tackle climate change. The opening paragraph of the statement recognises that while each of the major economies of the world has a role to play in tackling climate change, some have more or a responsibility to do so and some are more able to do so than others.
While environmental groups may, quite understandably, be frustrated by a perceived lack of progress, it is better that emerging countries like China, Brazil and Korea are sitting around the same table with them than not. It is also vital that the more developed nations are able to share emerging and innovative climate change technologies with the developing economies, particularly in the field of carbon capture and storage, which the statement recognises.
That no definite agreements have been announced and that no new binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions have been agreed is disappointing, but anyone who was expecting such a conference to provide specific numerical targets and agreed actions was being optimistic to say the least.
On the other hand, it looks like the price of commodities and climate change will take priority at the G8.
The two go hand in hand now - especially now that biofuel has officially been linked to the fall in food supplies. Although that was pretty obvious to us…What about you?
“Climate change will be among the top topics at this week’s summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations, according to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who said Sunday that his country’s views were converging with those of the United States.
“Speaking jointly with President Bush, Fukuda said Japan and the U.S. have reached a “common understanding” on their responsibility to curb climate change.”
Greenbang’s wondering if she’s been getting George Bush wrong all these years. The man can’t really be as stupid as he appears - he’s just acting stupid so he can get away with all manner of evil genius tricks.
The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.
Yep, if you don’t like what you’re about to read, then just don’t open it. Surely, surely no one’s that stupid?
After the Supreme Court asked the EPA to find out whether greenhouse gases could be a threat to people or the environment (yep, they were still wondering back in the heady days of 2007) the EPA responded with its conclusions.
The White House didn’t like the conclusions. Ok. So they said they wouldn’t open it. Stupid, but whatever. Guess what they did next?!
This:
Over the past five days, the officials said, the White House successfully put pressure on the E.P.A. to eliminate large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation, including a finding that tough regulation of motor vehicle emissions could produce $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 32 years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Expect a wishy-washy version of the report some time this week.
A couple of days ago, the New York Times published an article that led with the following statement, ‘The Bush administration has worked overtime to manipulate or conceal scientific evidence — and muzzled at least one prominent scientist — to justify its failure to address climate change.”
Today, the Prince of Wales’ project to protect the rain forests has announced the results of an international survey that polled people’s understanding of rain forest destruction and the need to address these now. It appears that, if the New York Times is right, Bush has failed.
The overwhelming majority understand the link between the forests and climate change and see preserving the forests as second only to switching to renewable energy.
Being the Prince of Wales, the survey hasn’t been concocted to grab headlines. The Prince of Wales is addressing the problem by creating what should be the “largest ever public private NGO partnership. The scale of the problem demands nothing less.”
“The PRP, led by a Steering Group comprising sixteen of the world’s largest companies and leading experts such as Lord Stern, plans to use the period leading up to the UNFCCC at Copenhagen in December 2009 to find solutions to the problem of tropical deforestation. A priority will be to find financial models to value the tropical rain forests in order to establish how they can become worth more alive than dead.”
An eloquently stated, short video has also been created to describe the project, this can be found here.
Back from his unbuttoned jacket controversy and shoddy flag waving efforts at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, London Mayor Boris Johnson has published a climate change report warning that London isn’t prepared to cope with the predicted effects of global warming, including increased floods, droughts and heatwaves.
A couple of days ago, the 