New Delhi: With only three days to go before arriving at an outcome on climate change, global talks on climate change still lack clarity and could even break down over “serious” outstanding issues, says India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh.
“There is confusion and lack of clarity at this stage,” Ramesh said. “There could be breakdown on [...]
Washington: An in Zogby interactive survey, the results showed that nearly half of Americans, or 49%, say they are only slightly or not at all concerned about climate change, while 35% are somewhat or highly concerned.
The survey’s results emerge as the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen heads into its final week, amid warnings [...]
1997: Negotiators from every country in the world agree on a deal to cut the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
After years of global negotiations and more than a week of round-the-clock meetings in Kyoto, Japan, representatives agreed to a sketch of a climate treaty that came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol. The draft assigned [...]
Copenhagen: Claiming that the Danish draft proposal for an agreement on climate change threatens the success of the Copenhagen summit, G-77 group of countries and China slammed the draft.
Sudan’s Lumumba Stanislas Dia Ping, who heads the G-77 group said in context to the leak that it is “serious and unfortunate development. It is a major [...]
New Delhi: Changes in the concentration of the greenhouse gases (water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons) is usually termed as climate change.
It traps infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface, heating it, much like a normal greenhouse.This is called the greenhouse effect.
To maintain a stable temperature and climate of planet Earth, this balance [...]
A regional ministerial conference on climate change was opened Wednesday in Belgrade. The goal of the conference is to establish stronger ties between the environment policies and the energy industry sector.
This week’s guest is writer and eco-warrior Jonathon Porritt.
As the founding director of the sustainable development NGO, Forum for the Future, and, until this month, chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, when Porritt speaks about global warming people listen. The former director of Friends of the Earth and trustee of WWF came into the pod to fill in the British government’s scorecard on tackling climate change.
The astronomer Carl Sagan was a prolific scientist, pioneering the study of exobiology and astrochemistry and promoting the search for extraterrestrial life. One of his biggest achievements was Cosmos, a 13-part science documentary series first aired in the US in 1980. In it, he took viewers on a journey around the universe describing everything from atoms to galaxies and set a gold standard for science on television.
Alok Jha speaks to Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan, who was also one of the writers on Cosmos.
You can win a DVD box set of the classic documentary series by entering our competition.
Pursuing the cosmic theme, we visit a new exhibition at London’s Science Museum that shows how astronomy has influenced culture, and how it has changed our behaviour and been popularised. Exhibits include Astronomy Monopoly and a telescope built from baked-bean cans, spare car parts and coat hangers.
As ever, there’s the Newsjam which this week has details of a sharp rise in the number of animal experiments in the UK, the discovery that humans glow in the dark, and fatherhood beckons for our favourite tortoise, Loneseome George.
Stick your neck out. We’d love to hear your views on the show and the week’s science news …
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New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics
The world faces record-breaking temperatures as the sun’s activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted for the next five years, according to a study.
The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. But new research firmly rejects that argument.
The research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.
The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind’s research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.
The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind’s paper suggests. A particularly hot autumn and winter could add to the pressure on policy makers to reach a meaningful deal at December’s climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen.
Bob Henson, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said: “To claim that global temperatures have cooled since 1998 and therefore that man-made climate change isn’t happening is a bit like saying spring has gone away when you have a mild week after a scorching Easter.” Temperature highs and lows
1998
Hottest year of the millennium
Caused by a major El Niño event. The climate phenomenon results from warming of the tropical Pacific and causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. The 1998 event caused 16% of the world’s coral reefs to die.
1957
Most sunspots in a year since 1778
The sun’s activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The late 1950s saw a peak in activity and were relatively warm years for the period.
1601
Coldest year of the millennium
Ash from the huge eruption the previous year of a Peruvian volcano called Huaynaputina blocked out the sun. The volcanic winter caused Russia’s worst famine, with a third of the population dying, and disrupted agriculture from China to France.
So what do you do when someone posts a YouTube video saying you’re a crock? One way is to complain and get it wiped clean off the ‘inter-tubes.’
With surging demand for power and blackouts common across the continent, Africa is looking to solar, wind and geothermal technologies to meet its energy needs
One of the hottest places in the world is set to become the site of Africa’s most ambitious venture in the battle against global warming.
Some 365 giant wind turbines are to be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya – used as a backdrop for the film The Constant Gardener – creating the biggest windfarm on the continent. When complete in 2012, the £533m project will have a capacity of 300MW, a quarter of Kenya’s current installed power and one of the highest proportions of wind energy to be fed in a national grid anywhere in the world.
Until now, only north African countries such as Morocco and Egypt have harnessed wind power for commercial purposes on any real scale on the continent. But projects are now beginning to bloom south of the Sahara as governments realise that harnessing the vast wind potential can efficiently meet a surging demand for electricity and ending blackouts.
Already Ethiopia has commissioned a £190m, 120MW farm in Tigray region, representing 15% of the current electricity capacity, and intends to build several more. Tanzania has announced plans to generate at least 100MW of power from two projects in the central Singida region, more than 10% of the country’s current supply. In March, South Africa, whose heavy reliance on coal makes its electricity the second most greenhouse-gas intensive in the world, became the first African country to announce a feed-in tariff for wind power, whereby customers generating electricity receive a cash payment for selling that power to the grid.
Kenya is trying to lead the way. Besides the Turkana project, which is being backed by the African Development Bank, private investors have proposed establishing a second windfarm near Naivasha, the well-known tourist town. And in the Ngong hills near Nairobi, the Maasai herders and elite long-distance athletes used to braving the frigid winds along the escarpment already have towering company: six 50m turbines from the Danish company Vestas that were erected last month and will add 5.1MW to the national grid from August. Another dozen turbines will be added at the site in the next few years.
Christopher Maende, an engineer from the state power company KenGen, which is running the Ngong farm and testing 14 other wind sites across the country, said local residents and herders were initially worried that noise from the turbines would scare the animals.
“Now they are coming to admire the beauty of these machines,” he said.
Kenya’s electricity is already very green by global standards. Nearly three-quarters of KenGen’s installed capacity comes from hydropower, and a further 11% from geothermal plants, which tap into the hot rocks a mile beneath the Rift Valley to release steam to power turbines.
Currently fewer than one-in-five Kenyans has access to electricity but demand is rising quickly, particularly in rural areas and from businesses. At the same time, increasingly erratic rainfall patterns and the destruction of key water catchment areas have affected hydroelectricity output. Low water levels caused the country’s largest hydropower dam to be shut down last month.
As a short-term measure KenGen is relying on imported fossil fuels, such as coal and diesel. But within five years the government wants to drastically reduce the reliance on hydro by adding 500MW of geothermal power and 800MW of wind energy to the grid.
Not only are they far greener options than coal or diesel, but the country’s favourable geology and meteorology make them cheaper alternatives over time. The possibility of selling carbon credits to companies in the industrialised world is an added financial advantage.
“Kenya’s natural fuel should come from the wind, hot underground rock and the sun, whose potential has barely even been considered,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme. “After the initial capital costs this energy is free.”
The Dutch consortium behind the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project has leased 66,000 hectares of land on the eastern edge of the world’s largest permanent desert lake. The volcanic soil is scoured by hot winds that blow consistently year round through the channel between the Kenyan and Ethiopian highlands.
According to LTWP, which has an agreement to sell its electricity to the Kenya Power & Lighting Company, the average wind speed is 11metres per second, akin to “proven reserves” in the oil sector, said Carlo Van Wageningen, chairman of the company.
“We believe that this site is one of the best in the world for wind,” he said. If the project succeeds, the company estimates that there is the potential for the farm to generate a further 2,700MW of power, some of which could be exported.
First, however, there are huge logistical obstacles to overcome. The remote site of Loiyangalani is nearly 300 miles north of Nairobi. Transporting the turbines will require several thousand truck journeys, as well as the improvement of bridges and roads along the way. Security is also an issue as the region is known bandit country, and many locals are armed with AK-47 assault rifles.
LTWP also has to construct a 266-mile transmission line and several substations to connect the windfarm to the national grid. It has promised to provide electricity to the closest local towns, currently powered by generators.
At the end of 2008, Africa’s installed wind power capacity was only 593MW. But that is set to change fast. Egypt has declared plans to have 7,200MW of wind electricity by 2020, meeting 12% of the country’s energy needs. Morocco has a 15% target over the same period. South Africa and Kenya have not announced such long-term goals, but with power shortages and wind potential of up to 60,000MW and 30,000MW respectively, local projects are expected to boom. With the carbon credit market proving strong incentives for investment other types of renewable energy are also set to take off. Kenya is planning to quickly expanding its geothermal capacity, and neighbouring Rift Valley countries up to Djibouti are examining their own potential. As technology improves and costs fall, solar will also enter the mix. Germany has already publicised plans to develop a €400bn solar park in the Sahara.
“Ultimately for Africa solar is the answer, although [costs mean] we may still be decades away,” said Herman Oelsner, president of the African Wind Energy Association.
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama administration provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer
Some suspect foul play in the last-minute cancellation of the Big Green Gathering, but the Vestas protest might get an unexpected boost instead
News broke over the weekend that the organisers of the Big Green Gathering had finally crumbled under ceaseless pressure and demands from the local council and police, and decided not to stage the event. Bills had soared and it was deemed unfeasible for the organisation to go ahead.
The reaction, as you’d expect, is one of frustration. “The BGG is basically a gathering for people wanting to build a better world,” said Andrew Martin of Veggies. “There are workshops on green energy, ethical living, consensus-based decision-making, protesting and campaigning. I’m sure that’s got something to do with why it’s been shut down.” Veggies is a vegan catering organisations which, like some of the other organisations who regularly take part in the BGG, raises funds for environmental campaigns, including the Climate Camp.
I can’t help but suspect that the closure of the event stems from both police heavy-handedness at protests, such as at the G20 demonstrations earlier this year, and a more specific aim of undermining Climate Camp, after the police were criticised for “counterproductive” tactics. Climate Camp will be signifcantly poorer as a result of this decision (I’ve heard a confirmed figure of between £10,000 – £15,000).
The whole thing really sticks in my throat. It’s hard to imagine a festival with a more positive aim than the Big Green Gathering, which grew out of Glastonbury’s famous Green Fields and became a festival in its own right in the nineties. The aim is celebratory, and the idea that something designed to inspire and regenerate should be choked out of existence by a bunch of narrow-minded policemen and kow-towing local councillors is profoundly depressing. I may not want to spend the weekend studying alternative sewage possibilities, but I’m grateful that somebody does.
But it may be that the police are shooting themselves in the feet with this approach. In the 1990s the Criminal Justice Act united a whole slew of campaigners and party-goers in opposition and helped boost the anti-roads movement. Shutting down the BGG could potentially have the same effect.
Messages are already flying around the internet suggesting that instead of going to the BGG, people head down to join the protests outside the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight. If just a few people take up the suggestion, the police have created a whole new headache for themselves.
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama administration provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world’s weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating
Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.
The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
One particularly striking set of images – selected from the 1,000 photographs released – includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.
The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice – a record loss – were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.
Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.
“These are one-metre resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic,” said Thorsten Markus of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. “This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that’s been missing.”
Disappearing summer sea ice poses considerable dangers, scientists have warned. Ice shelves are used by animals such as polar bears as platforms for hunting seals and other sea creatures. Without them, they could starve. In addition, ice reflects solar radiation. Without that process, the Arctic sea could warm up even more. The phenomenon threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say climatologists.
The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate change. Last week the head of the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Professor Jane Lubchenco, warned that the gathering of satellite data – crucial to predicting future climate changes – was now at “great risk” because America’s ageing satellite fleet was not being replaced.
“Our primary focus is maintaining the continuity of climate observations, and those are at great risk right now because we don’t have the resources to have satellites at the ready and taking the kinds of information that we need,” said Lubchenco, who was appointed by Obama. “We are playing catch-up.”
Even before her warning, scientists were saying that America, the world’s scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite programmes run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nasa. A report by the National Academy of Sciences this year warned that the environmental satellite network was at risk of collapse.
In February, a Nasa satellite carrying instruments to produce the first map of the Earth’s carbon emissions crashed near Antarctica only three minutes after lift-off.
The satellite would have measured carbon emissions at 100,000 points around the planet every day, providing a wealth of data compared to the 100 or so fixed towers currently in operation in a land-based network.
The NOAA is under additional pressure to provide environmental data because of the re-emergence of the El Niño climate phenomenon, where warming of the tropical Pacific causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. June’s land and sea surface temperatures were the second hottest on record, and scientists are predicting this will be the warmest decade in recorded history. The last major El Niño was in 1998, the hottest year in recorded history.
The Obama administration has already taken steps to tackle America’s flagging scientific lead. The president’s economic recovery plan allotted $170m (£100m) to help close the gaps in climate modelling. The NOAA is seeking an additional $390m in its 2010 budget to upgrade environmental satellites, and help make data more available to researchers and government officials.
The Watts Up With That readers spend too much time — and too little science — trying to prove that climate change is nothing to worry about. In this video Peter Sinclair thoroughly debunks Watts and his pseudo science.
