Industry headlines

One of the world's leading climate change experts, Sir Nicholas Stern, has warned countries such as Australia will face future trade barriers unless it moves to a low-carbon economy. In a speech to the National Press Club yesterday, Lord Stern said the world should embrace what he called the ''new industrial revolution'' of cleaner technologies and renewable energy. Click here for full story

A study by a computer scientist at the University of Toronto suggests that the computer models used to predict climate change may be undermined due to a lack of programming expertise. Steve Easterbrook at the University's Department of Computer Science, has had his paper, Climate Change: A Grand Software Challenge, accepted by the 2010 FSE/SDP Workshop on the Future of Software Engineering Research. In the paper, he suggests that because many climate prediction software modelling tools are built by climate scientists rather than software engineers some of the resulting software has room for improvement. Click here for full story

In a special Radio 4 series the BBC's Environmental Analyst Roger Harrabin questions whether his own reporting - and that of others - has adequately told the whole story about global warming. Roger Harrabin has reported on the climate for almost thirty years off and on, but last November while working on the "Climategate" emails story, he was prompted to look again at the basics of climate science. Click here for full story

Dry water might sound like an oxymoron but the concept is pretty straightforward: encapsulate microdrops of water in silica (otherwise known as common sand) to form a substance that looks like powdered sugar, then sit back and watch the fun. Though it was first discovered in 1968, the unique properties of dry water are only recently being recognized as an important tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Click here for full story

The tipping point for climate change, after which many of its most destructive effects will become irreversible, strongly suggests that atmospheric CO2 must be reduced from its current level of 390 ppm to "well below 350 ppm‚ significantly closer to pre-industrial concentrations of 285 ppm," according to a recent report by Beyond Zero Emissions, an Australian nonprofit organization. Click here for full story

Last week's climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany reportedly marked movement backward on international climate cooperation. This does not seem to bode well for a successful outcome for the major climate negotiations scheduled for this November and December in Cancun, Mexico. However, five new factors since last year's climate negotiations in Copenhagen suggest that a good outcome in Cancun is at least still possible. Click here for full story

Councils in the UK should do "absolutely nothing" to tackle climate change unless a stringent global deal on reducing carbon emissions is reached through the United Nations, which includes developing as well as developed countries – according to Lord Lawson, writes Dean Carroll. Click here for full story

Swedish Environment Minister lays out his county's approach to climate change negotiations and argues a collaborative approach would put pressure on US and China to agree to a legally binding global climate agreement. Click here for full story

A 20km pipe designed to spray a shield of sulphate particles into the stratosphere could be deployed to mitigate the potentially devastating effects of climate change. The team involved with the SPICE (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) project has received £1.6m from the EPSRC to test the feasibility of constructing what some in the research community have refered to as a ‘garden hose to the sky’. Click here for full story

Climate change threatens to undo years of work to tackle poverty in developing countries, a report warned. The study by Forum for the Future and supported by the Department for International Development (DFID) said strong, urgent action was needed in poor countries to address the impacts of climate change alongside efforts to boost economic development. The report said international aid should not be blind to climate change, ignore measures which help poor countries adapt to its effects, or continue to promote high-carbon development. Click here for full story

The European Union could obtain 92% of its energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2050 while cutting carbon emissions by 95% compared with 1990, according to a report. An extra €2tn (£1.7tn) worth of investment would be needed by the middle of this century but that could easily be outweighed by €2.65tn of fuel cost savings, argues Greenpeace International and the European Renewable Energy Council.   Click here for full story

The Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund, or Geeref, mainly invested by the European Union, will put 10 million euros ($12.5 million) in a private Chinese fund, the EU’s energy commissioner said.“China is one of the world’s leading countries in terms of renewable energy investment,” Guenther Oettinger said at a media briefing in Shanghai today. Click here for full story

The IEA has just launched a new edition of Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP). The study presents updated scenarios from the present to 2050 that show which new technologies will be most important in key sectors and in different regions of the world for achieving the goal of halving global CO2 emissions by 2050. Click here for full story



Responding to today’s publication of the Committee’s progress report, Gaynor Hartnell, Chief Executive of the REA said:
“UK emissions may have reduced because of the recession, but when the economy pulls back the floodgates will open unless we invest in energy efficiency and renewables now. Heating accounts for 47% of emissions, and the Committee’s modelling assumes the expected renewable heat policy kicks off on 1^st April next year.  We are awaiting confirmation that this will be the case.  Decarbonising our heating through renewables is not only the cheapest means of delivering our legally binding renewables target, but it’s the one where most progress is required.  Delay will only cost us more.”

 Click here for full story



Britain needs to build twice as many wind farms every year, put more than a million electric cars on the road and insulate every home in the country in order to meet ambitious legally-binding climate change targets, Government advisers have warned.

Under new laws brought in by the previous Labour Government, the UK is committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 34 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020. Click here for full story

The world's forests must be protected if dangerous levels of climate change are to be prevented, the head of the Forestry Commission said. Tim Rollinson said that forests were being lost and degraded at an alarming rate. The Commission's director-general was speaking ahead of a major conference beginning in Edinburgh. Click here for full story

Julia Gillard ought to be wary of climate change. Not because it might wash away coastline or dry up our farms - although it might - but because it has claimed the scalps of three party leaders in Australian politics. If she does not treat the issue carefully, there is every evidence that hers could be next. Click here for full story

The U.N. science body on climate change, accused of ignoring its critics and allowing glaring errors to creep into its work, announced Wednesday that a broader range of experts will write its next report on global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change included more women and scientists from developing countries, but also selected authors with a wider range of backgrounds than previously — partly in response to recent criticism that earlier groups refused to address dissenting views. Click here for full story

Four experts from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) will be among the lead authors of the Fifth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due for publication in 2013-2014, the IPCC announced yesterday in Geneva. The report will provide the first full global update of the climate change knowledge base since 2007, when the IPCC published its Fourth Assessment Report and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Click here for full story

WWF says negotiators at UN climate talks in Bonn have missed some important goals, while showing a much stronger performance than in previous rounds. “In order to win the low carbon world cup we’ll have to score a number of important goals in the very near future, such as reaching an agreement on adaptation to climate impacts and on ways to stop deforestation”, said Kathrin Gutmann, Head of Climate Policy, WWF Global Climate Initiative. Click here for full story

On the final day of this two-week session, a new text emerges - which is likely to form the basis of the most difficult negotiations between now and the end of this year's UN climate summit, in Cancun, Mexico, in December. If you want the official title, it falls within the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action under the Convention. Click here for full story

The British public is less concerned about climate change than it was five years ago, but more people think companies should take greater responsibility to tackle it, according to a survey published today. The independent nationwide poll, which compares climate change findings with a same survey in 2005, also reveals there are increasing levels of concern among the British population about energy security and that people are much more in favour of renewable energy, although support for nuclear has increased. Click here for full story

Simon W Holden, an associate in the London, UK, office of international law firm Faegre & Benson LLP, reports on how the UK is attempting to lead the way in the fight against global warming. Click here for full story

The Government will fail to meet a key climate change target to generate more electricity from wind farms despite spending £265 million of taxpayer's money, according to spending watchdogs. In 2000 the last Government set a target of generating 10 per cent of electricity from renewable energy sources like wind, wave or solar by 2010. But a report from the National Audit Office said the target is likely to be missed this year, despite direct government grants of £265 million to help energy companies develop the new technologies. Click here for full story

New research theorizes that if global warming continues at its current pace, Earth's temperatures could exceed livable limits for humans in the future. Scientists at Purdue University and the University of New South Wales calculated the highest possible "wet bulb" temperature that humans can withstand and found that this temperature could be exceeded in future climate scenarios. Click here for full story

Plaid Cymru has accused the three main UK parties of ‘virtually ignoring climate change as they indulge in petty squabbling’. Plaid said that in a hung parliament they would push for powers over energy production and conservation to be devolved to the National Assembly. This would help Wales to develop an Environmental Action Plan, targeting carbon emissions and creating green jobs. Click here for full story

Climate change - some have said it's the elephant in the election room. The thing that every party claims to really care about, but none seems to want to talk about. Maybe so, but for 90 minutes on Monday, Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Green representatives went head-to-head on the issue in front of bodies such as Greenpeace, Oxfam, Christian Aid and the WWF. Click here for full story

A historic climate change deal would be put at risk by a Conservative government because of the "injustice" of the way they would fund the battle against global warming in developing nations, David Cameron is warned. Click here for full story

This week's massive climate conference in Bolivia played host to a geographically diverse group of diplomats from the US, well-versed in advancing tough negotiating postures, and working within a framework of international treaties often not worth the paper they're printed on. The US delegation didn't come from the state department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the department of energy. Yet one delegate was given central billing in the inaugural event that kicked off the conference earlier in the week. Click here for full story

An increasing number of British farmers say they are unaffected by climate change, a survey found on Friday. British public belief in climate change in general has sagged in the aftermath of disclosure of errors made by a U.N. climate panel report. Some 62 per cent of a poll of 414 farmers said they were unaffected by climate change, up from nearly 50 per cent who said last year that they had not felt its effects. Click here for full story

Disappointment greeted the Labour environment manifesto today as experts from all quarters suggested there was nothing new, it was too cautious about cutting climate change emissions, and there was not enough detail about policies they liked. Buried in section 8 of the party's manifesto, however, was a radical statement which might also herald a very different time ahead if Labour is elected to government for a fourth term. Click here for full story

According to Craig Scott Goldsmith, author of the new book, “UNINHABITABLE a case for caution," “We will need to start preparing for the symphony of catastrophes that will befall us in our bid to adapt to life at 3.6 degrees on average warmer. It appears that the back room agreement at the Copenhagen summit of world leaders on Climate Change was to try and contain temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and to stabilize C02 at 550 parts per million (ppm) or less by 2050. Click here for full story

Climate change negotiations remain in the mire after the first meeting since Copenhagen showed rich and poor countries are still not ready to trust each other. More than 180 countries are gathered in Bonn to discuss a way forward after the last United Nations meeting in the Danish capital ended in chaos. But initial talks ended in recriminations and there was little progress on deciding the best way to stop global warming. Click here for full story

Kings Place, the multi-tenanted office building which houses the Guardian and Observer, has signed up to the 10:10 campaign. The agreement comes just seven months after the Guardian helped launch the campaign to unite British society behind one simple idea: that the UK has the capability to achieve a 10% cut in CO2 in 2010. Click here for full story

One of the best-kept secrets of British politics – although it is there for all to see on a Government website – is the cost of what is by far the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament. Every year between now and 2050, acccording to Ed Miliband's Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), the Climate Change Act is to cost us all up to £18.3 billion – £760 for every household in the country – as we reduce our carbon emissions by 80 per cent. Click here for full story

The UK has today (31 March) kick-started a renewed push for a global climate deal as the Prime Minister co-chairs the most significant climate meeting since Copenhagen. The UN Secretary-General’s High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance to be held in Downing Street, will involve four heads of government, two finance ministers, Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser Larry Summers, and other key figures such as George Soros and Nick Stern. The group will look at how the world will deliver on its commitment to provide $100bn of public and private finance a year by 2020. Click here for full story

Today (31 March) the UK Government became the first in the world to publish plans that will set out how every major department will address the challenge of climate change in the UK. The Carbon Reduction Delivery and Adaptation Plans detail each department’s commitment to minimise the damage of climate change, by reducing emissions and by preparing for inevitable change in the UK climate. These plans are being published alongside a single overview of what Government is doing: Climate Change: Taking Action – Delivering the Low Carbon Transition Plan and preparing for a changing climate. Click here for full story

There has been a curious by-product of the attempts being made by the University of East Anglia to whitewash last November's embarrassing leak of documents from its Climatic Research Unit. Since it set up not one but two supposedly "independent" inquiries into the "Climategate" affair, climate sceptics were intrigued but not entirely surprised to find that almost all their members were committed, even fanatical advocates of global warming, and hence unlikely to be over-critical of the CRU's bizarre record. Click here for full story

Energy Trends and Quarterly Energy Prices publications are published today 25 March by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Energy Trends covers statistics on energy production and consumption, in total and by fuel, and provides an analysis of the year on year changes. Quarterly Energy Prices covers prices to domestic and industrial consumers, prices of oil products and comparisons of international fuel prices. A separate press release covering greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions is also being released by DECC today. Click here for full story

Commenting on today's publication of the final estimates of UK greenhouse gas emissions, Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Joan Ruddock, said: "Today's provisional estimates for 2009 greenhouse gas emissions are very promising and show a continued decline in greenhouse gas emissions of 8.6% during 2009. We already know from our 2008 figures that we are well on track to exceeding our Kyoto target of 12.5% below 1990 levels and are making good progress towards our first carbon budget target in 2012. Today's results indicate that we are still moving in the right direction.” Click here for full story