In 1993 I addressed the annual US-Europe coal conference with Harlan Watson, who later headed the USA’s climate negotiation team. This is the man, and the constituency, I saw that day.
Extract from The Carbon War (Penguin 2000) p 127……Watson reached his recommendations. “What should you do, you might ask? Let me make several suggestions. First, and foremost, you must put aside your differences and get properly organised to address the issue. You need to speak with one voice. Second, you must get timely, credible and relevant information to the political decision makers, to the media, and to the public at large. Third, you need to follow closely the activities of both the INC and the IPCC, and, to the extent possible, actively participate as NGOs through trade associations.” Then, finally, to the bottom line. “Do not underestimate what you are up against. In the US, it is the combined forces of the environment community and Vice President Gore and his powerful allies in the Administration. In the past, business interests throughout the world could rely on the United States to maintain sanity in the international environmental arena – this was certainly true during the Climate Change Convention process. Well, my friends, that is not the case today, and it is time to pull up your socks, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.”
Watson finished, relishing the applause.
Constance Holmes (a coal lobbyist) fixed me with her hard stare. It seemed to be my turn. The subsequent scene was best described by the Energy Daily, an industry journal, a week later. “Global warming had an apparent cooling effect at the sixth US-European coal conference last week, as industry representatives emptied out of the conference room before an address on the issue by an internationally known environmental representative. As Greenpeace’s Jeremy Leggett took the stage, attendees left in droves, leaving perhaps 30 coal industry representatives to listen to their opposition.”
After the session was over, they took me off to another room, and a press conference for the benefit of the half-a-dozen journalists covering the conference. Most of them worked for coal industry journals. Constance Holmes again took the chair, and launched straight into the question that she evidently thought would most effectively skewer me. How could the West provide the technologies necessary to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the Third World if revenues were being drained by carbon taxes?
Just watch and see how revenues will be drained if global warming takes off as the IPCC predicts, I said. And anyhow, who said carbon taxes would have a negative economic impact? The carbon-fuel industries, mostly. Many studies suggested exactly the reverse, and the tax could even be made fiscally neutral.
Harlan Watson at that point volunteered to give the trade press his view of what was motivating environmentalists in their advocacy of carbon taxes, and indeed any measures to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. The problem, he said, was that after the collapse of communism, and the exposure of command economies as recipes only for disaster, the old left had been found themselves with nowhere to go. They had elected in large numbers to switch to the environmentalists’ bandwagon.
Fighting hard to keep the flame away from the blue touch paper now, I tried to paint a picture of a representative group of my colleagues for the journalists, and show just how many million miles Watson was away from the truth. Consider the head of Greenpeace’s delegation at the climate talks, I invited them, the senior diplomat who would by now doubtless have been an Ambassador; the concerned lawyers working on a fraction of the salary they could have made in industry; the intelligent young graduates who applied in hundreds for every grinding administrative assistant’s job.
After we finished answering questions, I turned to Watson immediately. I had managed to put the flame out by now. “You were in danger of getting a bit near to your philosophical underpinnings there, Harlan,” I laughed. “Did I understand you correctly? Do you seriously think that we are all old communists?”
His shiny face was twitching as he tried to hold my gaze. “I think there are many who have that agenda,” he said in a constricted voice.
Solarcentury
The company I founded in 1998 to design and supply solar energy solutions for the built environment. Solarcentury
Solar Aid
The charity I founded in 2006, with a 5% contribution of Solarcentury profits, to help deliver solar lighting to Africa. Solar Aid
Archive for the ‘Climate’ Category
The underpinnings of climate scepticism: extract from “The Carbon War”.
February 15, 2012 Climate, CoalLibertarian thinktank bankrolls climate sceptics with millions from carbon industries.
February 15, 2012 ClimateDeSmogBlog receives confidential documents from an “insider” at the Heartland Institute, based in Chicago. Guardian: “The Heartland Institute, founded in 1984, has built a reputation over the years for providing a forum for climate change deniers. But it is especially known for hosting a series of lavish conferences of climate science doubters at expensive hotels at New York’s Time Square as well as in Washington DC. …The papers indicate that discrediting established climate science remains a core mission of the organisation, which has received support from a network of wealthy individuals – including the Koch oil billionaires as well as corporations such as Microsoft and RJR Tobacco. ….The importance of one or two wealthy individuals to Heartland’s operations is underscored by a line in the fundraising document noting that a foundation connected to the oil billionaire Charles Koch had returned as a donor after a lengthy hiatus with a gift of $200,000 in 2011. “We expect to ramp up their level of support in 2012 and gain access to the network of philanthropists they work with,” the document said. ….The documents suggest several prominent voices in the campaign to deny established climate science are recipients of Heartland funding. They include…Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses).
“The carbon bubble will burst – we must be prepared this time”.
January 23, 2012 Climate, Commentaries, FinanceBusiness Green: “This is really important. No matter where you stand in the green debate, the threat posed by the systemic over valuation of carbon intensive firms and assets is a critical issue that should concern you – really, really concern you.” …. That is the warning currently being sounded by the recently launched Carbon Tracker Initiative, which last week released its second report on the scale of the so-called “carbon bubble” and wrote to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King urging him to take action. The two reports from the group – which is backed by some high profile green thinkers and investors, including the WWF, Solarcentury chairman Jeremy Leggett, former chief scientist Sir David King, and Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith – should be required reading for political leaders, business leaders, and economists everywhere. If there was any sense of proportion, it would be at the top of the agenda at this week’s annual billionaire schmooze-fest at the World Economic Forum in Davos.”
Investors ask BoE to probe risk that fossil-fuel reserves pose “sub-prime” risk.
January 19, 2012 Climate, Coal, Commentaries, Finance, Gas, OilFossil fuel reserves listed in the City of London are “sub-prime” assets posing a systemic risk to economic stability. So warns a high-profile coalition of investors, politicians and scientists , writing an open letter to Sir Mervyn King asking him to launch an investigation. Signatories include Aviva Investors, Climate Change Capital, Conservative politician Zac Goldsmith and Solarcentury chairman Jeremy Leggett. Abatement policies could mean billions of pounds of fossil fuel reserves will rapidly lose value and cause a “major problem” for institutional investors and pension funds. Guardian: “CarbonTracker’s latest report reveals that coal reserves held by 16 London-listed companies will release 45bn tonnes of CO2 when burned, equivalent to 86 years of annual UK emissions, which are the tenth highest in the world. Most of the coal is in other countries such as Australia and South Africa.”
Richard Branson: “the absolute necessity” of investing in renewables.
January 5, 2012 Clean Energy, Climate, Commentaries, FinanceRichard Branson, in posting my latest blog on his website: “Struck by this email from my friend Dr Jeremy Leggett over Christmas highlighting the growing divide between those that believe in the absolute necessity of investing in renewable fuels and those who ignore the obvious need – preferring to focus on short term goals and profits. I believe we must keep investing in alternative fuels to help reduce our Global carbon problem. Those fearing that economic growth will be stifled by investment in renewables are wrong.” etc.
JL blog: Energy dramas for 2012.
January 2, 2012 Clean Energy, Climate, Coal, Finance, Gas, Nuclear, Oil2011 was a year of growing polarisation for those of us who long for renaissance fuelled by renewables. The Germans announced targets to run their railway system entirely on renewable energy, mostly wind,and solar. Yet BP announced it will quit solar entirely to pile ever further into tar sands, unconventional gas and the rest of the carbon status quo. The IEA pronounced that the cost of energy will rise “viciously” on a global basis without clean energy. Yet the British “Big Six” opted for so much gas that the installation rate of British renewables fell steeply: this despite conventional UK energy prices soaring so steeply that fully 1 in 4 of UK households fell into fuel poverty in 2011, up from 1 in 5 in 2010.
There were so many of these stark contrasts in the theatre of energy last year.
It seems that the closer renewables advocates get to their dream, the harder the defenders of the status quo push back the other way, notwithstanding the increasingly clear economic, environmental and social downsides. They surely are teeing up some dramas for 2012.
Not to mention interesting research material for neuroscientists interested in how dysfunctional human cultures work. Its not as though Big Energy, and their cosy nexus with conventional capital, just do these things and be done with it. They lobby for their short-term perceived interests – hard, and mostly below the radar – entraining many in officialdom and politics to their ruinous causes.
To the extent that solar energy in cloudy Britain might be a tiny-corner microcosm of a much bigger picture of the potential for renewable-powered renaissance, there is a particularly interesting drama unfolding as we enter 2012. In case you missed it, the British High Court ruled on 21st December that the UK government has acted illegally in proposing a retrospective reduction in the solar feed-in tariff. The arguments for and against were summarised that night on the BBC, here (headline and 7 mins 20 secs in for the detail). The government can appeal by January 4th, risking further humiliation in its efforts to cut back a solar market just a tiny fraction the size of Germany’s. Or it can switch tack, resurrect an industry that was creating thousands of jobs – at net economic benefit to the UK economy – in a time of dire need for such, while realigning with some its core strategic themes, not least a Big Society countering austerity-related unemployment with a domestic green industrial revolution. This will be a choice to watch as the dramas in the triple crunch of financial crisis, climate crisis, and energy crisis roll on in 2012.
Canada pulls out of the Kyoto Protocol.
December 13, 2011 ClimateJust a day after signing the Durban accord, Canada commits an act that is condemned at home and abroad. China calls it “preposterous.”
Agreement reached against expectations at the Durban climate summit.
December 11, 2011 ClimateNegotiators agree, after extended negotiations that came within minutes of falling apart, to start work on a new climate deal that would have “legal force” and require both developed and developing countries to cut emissions, terms to be agreed by 2015 and to come into effect from 2020. Christiana Figueres: “I salute the countries who made this agreement. They have all laid aside some cherished objectives of their own to meet a common purpose – a long-term solution to climate change.” But the world is still locked into 4 degrees C as things stand.
Durban Summit outcome looks gloomy with 3 days to go.
December 6, 2011 ClimateWith three days to go, it is unclear that any o the three big issues can be resolved: whether the “green climate fund” is permitted to go ahead; the future of the Kyoto treaty, which is in grave doubt; and whether there can be a new global legally binding treaty on the climate in future, or a weaker compromise. Guardian: “The IEA warns that the number of fossil fuel power stations and other energy hungry infrastructure that we build in the next three to five years may determine the whole future of the planet – because building such infrastructure, which will be around for decades to come, will “lock in” a world of high emissions.”
CO2 emissions have increased by a half in 20 years.
December 5, 2011 ClimateChina says it may accept a legally-binding outcome at Durban climate summit.
December 5, 2011 ClimateThis as ministers fly in for the second of the two weeks. There are conditions, but Chris Huhne says this creates space for a positive outcome to the summit, where the footdraggers – led as ever by the US – hope only for voluntary measures, and a deferred outcome until 2020.
Climate change investing is “a sunset industry”: FT Lex.
December 4, 2011 Clean Energy, ClimateSo says the FT’s Lex column: “the appeal, and likely returns, of climate change investing are fading fast.”
UK Conservative right is thrilled as government backs off green agenda.
December 1, 2011 Clean Energy, ClimateA senior Conservative quoted in the FT: “(Osborne) has begun to sneer at the green lobby: it’s a clever strategy within the party.” Latest casulaties: the Green Investment Bank now looks to have fallen foul of Osborne’s lending proviso: that it would only be able to borrow once debt was falling against gross domestic product. So no borrowing now until 2016.
Top 20 banks lending to coal listed by NGOs.
November 30, 2011 Climate, Coal, FinanceThree American banks –JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America – top the list of coal financiers, having between them provided at least €42bn to the coal sector since 2005. Barclays took fifth place, having lent more than €11.5bn to big coal companies in the same period.
Largest UK CCS plant opens in Yorkshire.
November 30, 2011 Climate, CoalThe plant at Ferrybridge, an SSE coal station, will capture only some of the fumes: 5 MW worth from 2,000.
US blocks flagship climate fund.
November 24, 2011 ClimateAhead of the Durban climate summit next week, the US, backed by Saudi Arabia, has still not agreed to adopt a blueprint for the Green Climate Fund. Proposed at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, the fund channels “a significant portion” of the $100bn a year developed countries have promised to mobilise by 2020 to help developing countries fight climate change.
“Rich nations ‘give up’ on climate treaty until 2020″.
November 20, 2011 ClimateThe Guardian: “Ahead of critical talks starting next week, most of the world’s leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020.”
IPCC’s first special report on extreme weather: much worse to come.
November 18, 2011 ClimateChris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group that produced the report: the message is clear – extreme weather events were more likely. “Some important extremes have changed and will change more in the future. There is clear and solid evidence [of this]. We also know much more about the causes of disaster losses.” Damian Carrington in the Guardian: “the new (report) highlights that 95% of deaths from such disasters occur in the developing world, while most of the economic losses occur in the developed world. We lose stuff, they lose their lives.”
SSE and Shell announce a CCS project at Peterhead.
November 9, 2011 Climate, GasIEA World Energy Outlook: Just 5 years to avoid irreversible climate change.
November 9, 2011 Clean Energy, Climate, OilIn the WEO’s central New Policies Scenario, renewables increase from 13% of the mix today to 18% in 2035, underpinned by subsidies that rise from $64 billion in 2010 to $250 billion in 2035. By contrast, subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $409 billion in 2010. “Oil demand rises from 87 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2010 to 99 mb/d in 2035. The WEO presents a 450 Scenario, which traces an energy path consistent with meeting the globally agreed goal of limiting the temperature rise to 2°C. Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already locked-in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories. Without further action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035. Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.” “The door is closing,” Fatih Birol says. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”
Climate change should mean a 100% renewables by 2030 target.
February 10, 2012 Clean Energy, Climate, CommentariesInterview at the Oxford Climate Forum, in Oxford university student magazine, Cherwell: “There are people who are worried about peak oil who aren’t worried about climate change. And vice versa. I’m worried about both. With both of them, at a minimum it’s about wrecking the global economy. A lot more in the case of climate change. These are high stakes issues. And both are high risk. In fact, climate change isn’t just high risk. It’s odds on certainty.” More.
Tags: Renewables