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News & Views From the Front Line

Friday, 5 March 2010

TED: The Science behind a Climate Headline

This TED talk was given last summer before the CRU/IPCC furore and it gives an insight into how painstaking the science behind climate predictions actually is.

Labels: climate change, ted

# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:04  0 Comments

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Reminder - Webinar tonight

Date: 23 Feb 2010
Time: 5pm GMT
To register click here.

Labels: climate change, low carbon economy, webinar

# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:27  0 Comments

Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Free Webinar: Climate Change and Business Success

Date: 23 Feb 2010
Time: 5pm GMT
To register click here.

I'm co-presenting this Earthcast (hosted by my publishers Earthscan) with Paul Lingl and Deborah Carlson from The David Suzuki Foundation and authors of Doing Business in a New Climate. The webinar will focus on the challenges and opportunities that climate change poses for businesses of all sizes.

Labels: climate change, gareth kane, green business, webinar

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:33  0 Comments

Tuesday, 19 January 2010

IPCC Red Faced Over Glacier Statement

I'm extremely angry with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Their job is to assess the state of the science across a wide range of aspects and provide a digest for policy makers and others. In general their analysis errs on the conservative side. Both the loss of sea ice and the rise in sea levels are happening much more quickly than the IPCC prediction. So it came as a great shock that a statement buried in their last report that the Himalayan glacier system could all but disappear by 2035, depriving 40% of the world's population of drinking and irrigation water, turns out to be very unlikely to be correct.

The actual mistake appears to have arisen in the World Wildlife Fund report which was being quoted by the IPCC - they accidentally attributed this to an expert group of glacier scientists when the 2035 date comes from a New Scientist interview with a single scientist. What makes me cross is:

1. why a statement of such impact was not sourced directly from a peer reviewed scientific paper? The WWF may have messed up, but they're a pressure group not a scientific body. I actually wonder if it was left in by mistake during drafting - if it had been reliable, the statement would surely have been a headline fact, not an obscure comment buried in the text.

2. why did the IPCC chairman dismissed the representations of the Indian Govt on this matter as 'voodoo science' rather than checking the facts first? I suggest he should seriously consider his position.

3. Of course the denial industry is having a field day, blowing it out of proportion, and trying to bring down the science as a whole. But for the rest of us, we should be able to trust the IPCC to get these things right and, as with the rest of their work, err on the side of caution where there is uncertainty.

4. While I've never personally quoted 2035, I've used the wider Himalayan case as an example in my talks and courses as it is a human story rather than one featuring polar bears. Given the resulting hoohah, I'm going to have to use other examples as I don't want to get bogged down in debunking myths and splitting hairs.

So what is the true situation? I've had a quick rummage through various documents, books and official websites and what I can gather is:

1. The Himalayan glaciers do appear to be retreating as temperatures have risen by 1°C in the region. This is in line with a serious reduction in glacier mass around the world, but, strangely given their importance, the Himalayan glacier system has not been well studied.

2. This melting is already impacting on the surrounding populations through flood risks and reduced flows in rivers - this is likely to get worse if temperatures continue to rise.

3. The ice sheet is so huge it probably won't disappear for a couple of hundred years.

I've updated the climate change FAQs on the resources page to substitute other, peer reviewed, impacts to avoid confusion. Looking on the bright side, if the 2035 prediction had been correct, it would probably have been game over.

Labels: climate change, Himalayan glaciers, ipcc

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:43  0 Comments

Friday, 18 December 2009

Crunch time in Copenhagen

Looking on from afar, it is hard to judge how the climate change negotiations are going - for every 'breakthrough' story there is a counterbalancing 'deadlock' tale. But today is the day that all the world leaders are going to have to face reality - can they agree or can't they? The biggest driver now will be face - which world leader wants to have been seen to have stood in the way of success?

I'm always an optimist, so here's my worst case scenario...

1. Not getting an agreement does not stop individual action on a national level.

2. The political capital of having so many of the world's leaders turn up makes that local action much more likely. This is now a mainstream issue, not one for environment ministries.

3. The discussions have brought home some inconvenient truths about who is responsible for climate change (rich nations) and who's feeling the pain most (poor nations). A world where Tuvalu can take on China is the sort of world where I want to live.

4. Not even the best efforts of the denial dinosaurs, CRU e-mail hack and all, could impact on the process*.

5. Business can lead where Governments fear to tread. The increased awareness amongst the general public will boost green markets, lower resistance to innovations and reduce tolerance of high carbon behaviour. Green performance is already a source of competitive advantage and it will become more so.

If, through some unlikely last minute breakthrough, a legally binding agreement is made, then it is game on. High carbon businesses will soon become fossils, low carbon business will boom. I'm an optimist, I live in hope!


* If you want a bit of festive Friday fun, watch Ian Plimer, darling of the denial circuit, squirm as his "science" comes under scrutiny on Australian TV.

Labels: climate change, climate change denial, copenhagen

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00  0 Comments

Friday, 4 December 2009

How to settle the climate debate...

A bit of fun for a Friday to get us ready for Copenhagen next week* - "Al Gore" and "Christopher Monckton" have a rap battle to settle the climate debate for once and for all.

* I was actually invited to Copenhagen, but didn't fancy drifting around the cocktail circuit pretending I'm more important than I am!

Labels: climate change, copenhagen, fun

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00  0 Comments

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Copenhagen's hotting up...

You can always tell when things are coming to a crunch when the game gets dirty. If you are reading this blog, then you are probably aware that the University of East Anglia's IT system has been illegally hacked and e-mails between the UEA's Climate Research Unit and other climatologists leaked onto the web. This has thrown the climate change sceptics into a frenzy of outrage/delight and boosted the conspiracy theories about international socialism creating the climate change hoax to enslave the people... but if you look at the e-mails objectively, in context and with a sense of perspective, it's a load of fuss over nothing.

The timing is of course important as it brings the sceptics and deniers back into the media just when they want to be there. The same thing happened with the first Earth Summit in 1992 and around the Kyoto Protocol discussions a few years later. These attempts to muddy the waters are deliberate to protect vested interests and are to be expected, but their influence has been waning as big business shifts away from the denial camp and starts to engage proactively with the issues. A shift to morally and legally dubious tactics such as hacking could be seen as a sign of desperation.

On the other hand, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the 'global binding deal' approach is the wrong one. It is very unlikely that such a deal could please people in Idaho and Indonesia, or Birmingham and Brunei. It also feeds the fears of those the deniers are trying to influence - people don't like being told what to do by some remote entity. There must be a model of flexible interlocking national programmes where each country can set, and vary, its own targets and programmes, with mechanisms to cover trade between them. Then we could have, in the words of Elvis, a little less conversation, a little more action.

Labels: climate change, climate change denial, copenhagen

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00  0 Comments

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Is there a peak oil cover up?

Until recently I've been agnostic about 'peak oil' - I've been in the "we'll only know when it happens" camp, but as the issue has moved steadily from the fringe to centre stage, I've started siding with the peak oil brigade. Last year International Energy Agency Chief Economist Fatih Birol stated that production could "plateau" by 2020 and a recent report by the UK Energy Research Centre concluded that a peak could occur before 2020. But then yesterday The Guardian reported allegations that the IEA has been exaggerating the future reserves of oil under pressure from "the US". One insider stated "we've already entered the peak oil zone".

There is one good reason for this cover-up (if that's what it is) - to stop panic buying and even resource related conflict, but I suspect that denial and inertia are the dominant drivers. In particular, the oil industry has a massive vested interest in avoiding talk of a peak. If reserves are seen to be depleting then shareholders will dump their shares - the 2004 reserves scandal nearly did for Shell. The sensible thing to do would be to diversify quickly into new energy technologies. The sort of cash that Big Oil could pump into renewables and efficient technology could drive us quickly to a low carbon economy, resilient to both climate change and peak oil, but instead they seem wedded to pursuing expensive and destructive forms of oil extraction like tar sands. If I were an investor, I'd start backing a different horse - and indeed investment in renewables exceeded that of fossil fuel exploration in 2008.

There's a great political opportunity here. The resistance to cutting carbon emissions in the US and elsewhere is mainly based on a suspicion of the political motives of the green lobby ("an excuse to raise taxes", "eco-communism", "red-green alliance" etc). If the world wants to maintain its standard of living once oil has peaked, we'll need those low carbon technologies anyway, irrespective of your views on climate change evidence. John Kerry has been promoting the business opportunities green innovation to persuade reluctant US politicians to sign up to President Obama's climate change bill. Maybe he should ask them "what will your voters say if you let the pumps run dry?" instead.

Labels: barack obama, climate change, iea, peak oil

# posted by Gareth Kane : 15:18  0 Comments

Monday, 26 October 2009

WRI's plot of global greenhouse gas emissions

The World Resource's Institute (WRI) has released this wonderful graphic of where the world's greenhouse gases came from in 2005 (in terms of human activity rather than by geography). Click here for the large version. Note that the gases are expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent rather than by weight, so they can be directly interpreted as contribution to climate change.

I could pore over this for hours!

Labels: climate change, greenhouse gases

# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:29  0 Comments

Friday, 16 October 2009

Business Opportunities in Climate Change Adaptation

I was running a CSR workshop with a major international engineering firm yesterday. Given the traditional engineers' reactive (and sometimes reactionary) approach to such 'soft issues' (I'm an engineer - I can say this!), their proactive, progressive attitude was a breath of fresh air. Interestingly enough, as well as the business opportunities we identified in climate change mitigation (cutting emissions), we discovered they were well placed to exploit opportunities in climate change adaptation - adapting to the inevitable changes that are already in the system.

Adaptation is going to become more and more important. If someone has cooling or refrigeration plant, it is going to have to work harder and become more expensive unless you can develop innovative new solutions. Resilience to rising sea levels, floods and extreme weather events will require new engineering solutions (or relocation). Heathcare services will have to adapt to new patterns in the spread of diseases. All these changes are business opportunities for someone.

Labels: adaptation, climate change, csr, workshops

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:57  1 Comments

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

A Bumpy Road to Copenhagen... does it matter?

There's an awful lot of expectation on the COP15 climate change talks at Copenhagen in December. The big carbon emitters have been circling each other like suspicious dogs, sniffing the air and waiting for who is going to move first.

Yet, when it comes to national action, China, India, France, the UK and President Obama (if not the US Senate) have all declared they are ready to act. Germany and the Nordic countries are well ahead of the game. So, going back to the views of Hermann Scheer, do we really need an international agreement? Or should we not just get on with it.

Well, yes it would help, but it wouldn't be a disaster if it failed or was only half successful. So maybe we should lower our expectations and the hype. There is a Plan B.

I preach to my clients. "Don't procrastinate, act!" You can do all the baseline and strategy work in parallel, but what is important is that you get moving, start building momentum and demonstrating results. We could do the same at a national level - individual action in parallel with international negotiation. It doesn't need to be an 'or', it can be an 'and'.

Labels: climate change, copenhagen

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:47  0 Comments

Friday, 18 September 2009

The last wilderness

On Tuesday night I was invited to a fundraiser to send a young man, Joe Spedding, on an expedition to the Antarctic as part of the 2041 campaign to maintain the continent as the Earth's only untouched wilderness and draw attention to climate change. 2041 is the year when the international agreement to preserve the Antarctic is up for renewal.

The talk was by Robert Swan, the founder of 2041 and the first man to walk to both poles. The tales of derring do, determination and hardship were at times overwhelming, and Swan got rather brutal first hand experience of two global environmental issues. On his South Pole trek in 84/85, the walkers' faces blistered and peeled far more than had been expected. It was only while they were there that the hole in the ozone layer was discovered. On the walk to the North Pole five years later, they found sea where they expected ice - evidence of climate change - which as a scientific phenomena was only just emerging at that time from academic studies into the public arena. Amongst his myriad other claims to fame, Swan now owns the only private building on Antarctica - an educational building powered entirely by renewables. His life is now dedicated to the global environment.

Joe Spedding saw Swan talk about these experiences when he (Joe!) was just 11 years old. 11 years later and he is fulfilling his dream to travel to Antarctica - the aim of the trip is to train him and others as environmental ambassadors and leaders. As one of my formative environmental experiences was an expedition to the Ecuadorian rainforest in 1993, I'm a sucker for this sort of thing and was happy to make a contribution. Pity I can't go too!

Labels: 2041, antarctica, climate change, ozone depletion, robert swan

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00  0 Comments

Wednesday, 8 July 2009

Global or Local?

There are reports today that the Copenhagen process to agree a post-Kyoto global climate change agreement will stall as China and India will not play ball.

I'm currently reading "The Solar Economy" by maverick German MP Hermann Scheer. A full book review will follow, but he argues that Kyoto style agreements are simply an excuse to delay action and end up with the lowest common denominator as a result of the inevitable compromises. Scheer argues that nations would be much better off acting alone, acting quickly and acting ambitiously. I'm beginning to understand his point...

Labels: carbon emissions, climate change, copenhagen, hermann scheer

# posted by Gareth Kane : 11:10  0 Comments

Friday, 26 June 2009

Obama's big moment

Barack Obama is about to put his climate change bill to Congress (the news story in this month's Low Carbon Agenda was a little premature). It has been battered, swollen with compromises and slightly watered down, but given this is the home of Big Oil, big cars and big bellies we are talking about, it would be unreasonable to expect even the saintly Obama to execute a handbrake turn in this mother of all economic supertankers. A key moment, and one which will resonate around the world.

Meanwhile the UK Government is working up a strategy for financing the shift to the low carbon economy for the Copenhagen conference later this year. Details are a bit sketchy so far, but it appears to be based on a form of contraction and convergence. Cynics may suggest that they need to focus on national leadership as well as making international noises. But overall, there is the impression of building momentum for a post-Kyoto settlement and one which will really deliver.

So, if dawn breaks on a brand new low carbon world, will you be ready for it?

Labels: barack obama, climate change, copenhagen, low carbon economy

# posted by Gareth Kane : 10:09  0 Comments

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

More free resources

I've just added two new free resources on the Resources page:

1. Climate Change FAQs for Executives - a quick guide to the science of climate change.

2. Terra Infirma Brainstorming tool - useful for developing green solutions.

There's more in the pipeline.

Labels: brainstorming, climate change, resources, terra infirma

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00  0 Comments

Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Some Ideas to Chu On...

While the last year has seen Barack Obama hogging the limelight of US politics, his new Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel prize-winning physicist, has been emerging as a refreshingly honest and practical voice to combat climate change. Unlike most politicos in his position, Chu is more concerned with results than process.

His calls for flat roofs to be painted white (to reflect more solar energy back into space without contributing to climate change), his embracing of ideas such as 'negawatts' - energy you don't use, and his energetic participation in bike-to-work day have really endeared him to me, but green groups are not so sure. He has been attacked for changing his mind on permitting coal fired powerstations and has slashed funding for the hydrogen economy. His focus instead has been on energy efficiency and biofuels.

But his biggest challenge will be to win over his fellow US politicians in Congress - resistance to carbon reductions is fierce and entrenched, with Rep Joe Barton declaring recently "Carbon dioxide is natural - you can't regulate God". Quite.

Good luck to him!

Labels: climate change, energy efficiency, hydrogen economy, Steven Chu

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:01  0 Comments

Friday, 22 May 2009

The key to understanding climate change

In my opinion, much of the confusion and public uncertainty over climate change is a lack of understanding of the difference between weather and climate.

Labels: climate change, weather

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:13  0 Comments

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Book Review: Blueprint for a Safer Planet by Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern's 2006 eponymous report has been credited with taking the climate change debate out of academic and green circles and into the 'real world' of economics (given what has happened to the world economy since, there is some irony in it being seen as more 'real' than the piece of rock we're all sat on). This book builds on that report to present a way forward to "a new era of progress and prosperity" as the tagline of the book would have it. It is clearly written for the benefit of those attending or sending delegations to the crucial Copenhagen COP15 conference later this year which will attempt to form a post-Kyoto international climate change agreement.

Stern's main point is that climate change is market failure on a grand scale. By fixing the market - putting a realistic price on the value of carbon and providing an effective trading mechanism - the economy can decarbonise itself, protect forests and go some way to dealing with global inequalities. It is the first point which is most controversial. Stern argues that to discount future costs of climate change is unethical despite it being common practice for most forms of investment (discounting accounts for the fact that if I offered you £10 today or £11 next year, you'd probably take the tenner right now). This is a question I naively asked 10 years ago on an academic environmental economics forum. I sat back while several eminent contributors started slinging increasingly puerile insults at each other across the ether, and unsurprisingly Stern got quite a bit of stick for this aspect of his original report. Personally, I'm with him on this - if we're going to take the intergenerational equality aspect of sustainable development seriously, then we can't discount the negative impacts that later generations are going to face.

My only criticism of the book is its readability. The sentences are long and have multiple subclauses, the paragraphs are rarely enlivened by either bullet points or metaphors and there is a lack of recap or summary at key places to help the reader. The chapter on ethics and discounting is particularly poor on this front which is a shame as this is where the reader needs to concentrate most. While this may not be a problem for the two-brained bureaucrats it is aimed at, it turned what should have been a very informative read into a real chore. I've since read Vince Cable's excellent book on the current economic situation ("The Storm") in a fraction of the time and retained much more of the content.

So, overall, this is an exceedingly important contribution to tackling climate change and it should be on the reading list for everyone involved in COP15. It's just a shame it wasn't more accessible for the rest of us.

Labels: blueprint for a safer planet, books, climate change, low carbon economy, nicholas stern

# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:41  0 Comments

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Never Google "Climate Change"...

I've been refreshing my climate change slides for a couple of forthcoming workshops - one with NHS directors and the other for staff from a leading international engineering firm. And it's taking me deep into the murky world of the blogosphere.

The scientific consensus on climate change is clear. The scientific community is somewhere between 97 and 99% certain that man-made carbon emissions are responsible for a significant change in climate and, if this continues, the impacts on the earth will be huge. The political world is waking up to this consensus, and with the US, Australian and Chinese leaderships really leaping on board, there is a great chance of a significant international agreement in Copenhagen later this year.

But in a huge number of blogs and comments on forums and newspaper articles, these scientists, politicians and green activists are labelled "warmists", "alarmists" and "socialists" who are trying to curtail free enterprise and raise taxes (the greens retaliate with the loaded term "denier"). Therefore the scientific consensus must be a conspiracy with research funding only going to those who toe this political line (ignoring the fact that the scientific world has been struggling to get politicians to take note of climate change for decades).

So why are all these people convinced that there is a great swindle going on? Well...

1. Climate change really does threaten a lot of vested interests. From the fossil fuel executive to the couple who like their city-breaks to the man proudly polishing his SUV every Sunday, somebody is telling them they can't do what they want to do.

2. The science is complex once you get past the basics, leading to apparent anomalies which can be seen as a case against - I know people who are convinced it isn't happening because we had a two-week cold snap in the UK this winter, when there was a heat wave in the other hemisphere at the same time.

3. There is no quality control in most of cyberspace and no barrier to entry (many of the "deniers" lack even a degree level qualification in a related topic). Discredited 'facts' keep bouncing back from repeated rebuttal, conspiracy theories thrive and falsified data and graphs magically appear.

So, the moral of the story is: listen to the experts - those who have published peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject - and never, ever google "climate change".

Labels: climate change, consensus, denier, science

# posted by Gareth Kane : 05:20  0 Comments

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Swine & Sustainability

OK, now it appears safe to do so, let's have a look at the probable origins of swine flu. We take a natural system - the pig - and industrialise it - breeding for maximum production and rearing them in huge numbers in unnatural conditions. Such a system maximises the opportunities for disease to flourish, so we dose them in antibiotics, but the bugs have the same desire to survive that we all do, so they mutate and adapt. The industrial system can only be made more productive by exporting it to countries where costs are lower, standards are lower and, for the same reasons, the local health infrastructure cannot cope with the results of the recipe for pandemic we have created. And guess what we get?

We appear to have been lucky this time - this flu spreads quickly but apparently doesn't have the proteins necessary to cause widespread death, but I get the impression that this is down to luck rather more than anything else.

All our environmental problems come from the same root cause - we are happy to exploit the natural resources around us (land, oxygen, animals, plants, fossil fuels, minerals etc, etc) without worrying about the sustainability of supply of those goods and services ie how they fit into the planet's natural cycles. One of the godfathers of the permaculture/organic farming movement, Masanobu Fukuoka, famously said:

"If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork."

This disregard for the physical realities of the piece of rock we inhabit can lead to slow(ish) degradation like climate change and sudden disasters like pandemics. It is down to human nature that we fear the latter much more than the former, even though the impacts are often fleeting.

But both tell us we have to learn to respect the natural limits of the planet we live on - this is what we call sustainabilty. That will take ingenuity, innovation and some restraint. But we can, and must, do it.

Labels: climate change, sustainability, swine flu

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:59  0 Comments

Friday, 24 April 2009

Another Al Gore Movie

Labels: al gore, climate change

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:06  0 Comments

Thursday, 26 February 2009

Earth Hour switch off 8:30pm 28 March 2009

If you'd like to make a small symbolic gesture of your commitment to tackling climate change, just switch off your (non-safety related) lights for an hour on 28th March. Millions of others around the world will be doing the same.

Labels: climate change, earth hour

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:00  0 Comments

Thursday, 11 December 2008

Lord Smith on climate change and the CCC report

In this podcast from edie, Chris Smith, Environment Agency Chairman talks to the Environmental Industries Commission. Unlike the usual blandishments you get from the 'great and the good', there is some greath stuff in here, including a brief review of the Climate Change Committee's recent report detailing the ways the UK can meet a 80% cut in carbon emissions.

Speaking of the CCC report, I have only had a chance to quickly scan through the 500 plus pages of dense analysis, but I've copied the graphs showing proposed cuts below. What I find strange is the lack of contribution from industry given that so many of our industrial processes are incredibly energy inefficient. The report puts this down to limited 'low or no cost options', but given the costs of the massive decarbonisation of electricity generation required to fulfil this scenario, I believe that some of that money might be better spent driving down demand.

Labels: adair turner, climate change, energy, environment agency

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:49  0 Comments

Friday, 17 October 2008

Never work with children or animals...

Yesterday I was doing some pro bono work to persuade 120 twelve-year-olds of the joys of engineering and, in my case, that engineering and a passion for the environment could go together. The event was organised by the North East Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) and sponsored by the Institute of Engineering and Technology. I am a member of both.

Labels: climate change, training

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:00  0 Comments

Thursday, 8 May 2008

Grey and Green

I gave a presentation on climate change to the Ponteland chapter of the University of the Third Age (U3A) yesterday. A very interesting and interested audience of more than 100 active older people. It was probably the only audience with whom you can't try and be provocative by suggesting they would struggle with voluntary simplicity - they can remember wartime rationing.

It was also the first time I trialled my half-baked, half pinched "pyschology of climate change" model with a live audience. This attempts to explain the different mindsets of the deep green (George Monbiot) and climate sceptic (Nigel Lawson) sides of the argument and why they both think the Government is mad. It stood up to explanation, so I'm going to keep it!

Labels: climate change, presentation, sceptic

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:37  0 Comments

Monday, 10 December 2007

Bleak News from Bali

UK political orthodoxy has two main tenets when it comes to climate change: "yes, we can fix it, if only the Americans/Chinese/this month's scapegoat do their bit" and "technology will be the answer". The first of these has been holed below the water by two eminent sources:

1. At the Bali conference, the UK's Chief Scientific Advisor David King saying that some climate change is inevitable as we have acted too late.

2. A study has shown that the UK's Carbon footprint is much bigger and rising faster than the Government has claimed. This is because much of our footprint is from overseas sources providing for our lifestyles which the Government doesn't count.

Neither of these should be a shock. Almost every national climate change strategy recognises that adaptation (to the effects) is as important as mitigation (stopping the next lot happening). Issues such as flood defences/drainage, health provision and emergency response plans come under the adaptation banner. On the second point, I've been banging on about this for a long time - just because we've offshored most of our dirty industries and much of our leisure industry, doesn't mean we can neglect their carbon emissions. I've personally made this point to a number of top politicians including David Milliband (when he was Environment Sec), Chris Huhne and John Gummer.

As for technology, we need some immediate step changes in take up to make any difference.

Labels: bali conference, carbon footprint, climate change

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:25  0 Comments

Friday, 23 November 2007

Brown admits 60% carbon cut may be inadequate

With all the furore over Northern Rock and the loss of 25m people's personal data, you may have missed a significant speech on climate change by the Prime Minister this week.

Like Tony Blair before him, Gordon Brown has never been accused of being particularly green. But, for the first time, he acknowledges that current targets may not be enough and says he will take soundings on a 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050. He also affirmed a commitment to Europe's target for 20% of energy to come from renewables - a pledge the Government had been trying to wriggle out of just a few months ago.

Apart from this, there was little to chew on - more carbon trading, more offshore wind, a home information service and various vague references to technology. In other words, plenty of commitment to action, without really saying what that action will be.

Oh, yes, for the headlines, he pledged to phase out single use plastic bags - well that will deliver 0.1% cut all on its own...

Labels: carbon targets, climate change, gordon brown, plastic bags

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:59  0 Comments

Wednesday, 21 November 2007

Green Dragons?

It was great to see Max McMurdo get some cash backing for his Reestore eco-design business on last week's Dragons' Den. The funny bit was Peter Jones, he of the towering ego, slating the Bin the Bin product for using plastic carrier bags and thus being 'un-green'. This is coming from a man whose hi-carbon lifestyle, and that of his moneyed buddies, is displayed in all its glory in the opening credits. Plastic bags are thought to contribute 0.1% of the average person's carbon footprint - and probably 0.01% of Mr Jones'.

I'm being a little hard on Peter Jones (revenge on behalf of all the hapless entrepreneurs he's toasted over the years) as this sort of misconception is pervasive. Survey after survey suggests that the general public think that recycling more will stop climate change - few understand that the food they eat and heating their homes are their biggest direct contribution.

Reestore isn't the first attempt at green investment from the Dragons. Last season, all five dragons invested in the Standby Saver which allowed TVs and other household goods to be switched on and off at the mains, avoiding the temptation to leave them on standby. However the deal floundered after the show on the security of the patent on the device, but another investor stepped in and the inventors apparently never need to work again. Just goes to show there is money in green entrepreneurship after all.

Labels: climate change, dragons' den, green products

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:07  0 Comments

Wednesday, 17 October 2007

Supermarkets Start Putting Words into Practice

Six months ago, you couldn't open a newspaper without one supermarket supremo or another launching a programme to make their chain more sustainable. Well the National Consumer Council (NCC)'s annual study of supermarkets' environmental performance has found that many of the UK's top food retailers have improved their environmental performance in the past year.

Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer moved up a grade to join Waitrose at the head of the league table with a B rating. Asda and Tesco have both moved from a D in last year's table to a C, while Morrisons and Somerfield improved their scores from an E to a D. The Co-op retained its D rating. None of the eight top food retailers achieved an A, or excellent, rating. The full report can be found here.

So why is this sector so important? Well the food we eat is responsible for one third of our impact on climate change. It's not just air miles either - in the UK, supermarket lorries travel the equivalent distance of going to the moon and back every day.

But what is encouraging is the shift from plans to action. Maybe next year one of the big sheds will hit the 'A' grade.

Labels: climate change, food miles, supermarkets

# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:02  0 Comments

Friday, 12 October 2007

Oil price at record high - is this the beginning of the end?

With the BBC reporting that oil prices are staying near the record high set in September, the 'peak oil' debate has started again.

'Peak Oil' is the theory that we are nearing the economic limit of oil exploration and extraction, beyond which the cost of extracting the fuel will soar. Estimates of when the peak will occur range from now (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas) to 2037 (US Govt advisors). Others reject the idea that peak oil is happening at all, such as Deborah White, senior energy analyst at Societe Generale in Paris (quoted by the BBC) who said "We don't endorse the idea at all."

The difficulty is that the oil & gas supply is a function of many different factors: politics (see Russia switching off Ukraine's gas supply in 2005), economics, geology (where the gas & oil is and in what quantities) and technology (what was uneconomic last year could be economic today). Apart from the geology, these factors are interrelated, unpredictable and may combine in unexpected and sudden ways.

If it is happening, we will be forced to decarbonise our economies swiftly. The only problem is, we won't probably know until long after it has started. If it isn't, then we should do it anyway for climate change and security of supply reasons.

Labels: climate change, oil prices, peak oil

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:32  1 Comments

Wednesday, 29 August 2007

The Winds of Change...

When watching footage of this month's Climate Camp, I couldn't help thinking it could be the mid-nineties all over again with the dreadlocked hordes descending upon a perceived environmental criminal armed only with some scaffolding poles, handcuffs and a vegan cookbook. Back then it was the roads, now it’s the skies.

The outcomes of such direct action are never immediate. Whether the topic is the environment, world poverty or war, protesters tend to lose the battle, but win the war. The bypass protesters of the 1990s undoubtedly changed Government road building policies forever, third world debt is being taken seriously to a greater or lesser extent, and I doubt the UK will be standing side by side with the US if they attack Iran. So what effect will the Climate Camp have?

A recent Government survey suggesting that 50% of Brits still don’t believe that their lifestyle is having an effect on the climate. Until very recently, politicians were happy to pontificate on standby switches, efficient lightbulbs and phone chargers left plugged in, but got nervous when asked the difficult questions. But this week the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats published quite radical proposals on the environment and sustainability.

Such big changes provide both big opportunities and big threats to business. Those who are flexible enough to change without losing their business nous will survive, but the dinosaurs and the naive will be left behind.

Will the Climate Camp change the world? Possibly, but more likely it was the sign of things to come.

Labels: climate camp, climate change

# posted by Gareth Kane : 12:47  0 Comments

Monday, 30 July 2007

Now the rain has gone...

While I must repeat the mantra of "no one weather event can be directly attributed to climate change", the recent floods across England have shifted the emphasis from climate change mitigation (reducing the likelihood of rising temperatures) to its less glamorous cousin, adaptation (reducing the impact of those raised temperatures).

The first thing we have to do is stop siting new developments in places susceptible to flooding. The Housing Minister's statement on the Today programme last week that "it is unrealistic not to build on flood plains" must have raised howls of incredulity from the soggy households of the West Midlands and Yorkshire, and her logic is baffling under any circumstances. Flood plain. The clue is in the name.

The next thing that has to be done is to slow down and reverse the concreting of our country so rainwater does not run off so quickly. There are plenty of proven technical solutions from permeable hardstanding to full blown Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. Unfortunately the latter take up a large amount of space and cannot be easily shoehorned into existing towns and cities.

Lastly we have to provide physical protection to key infrastructure under threat from flooding. The problem with barriers is they have a tendency to shift the problem elsewhere and this must be taken into consideration.

There is evidence that climate change impacts lag carbon emissions by about 50 years, so even if we went zero carbon right now, we're stuck with changing weather patterns for the foreseeable future. It looks as if we will be hearing a lot more about adaptation in the months and years to come.

Labels: adaptation, climate change, flooding, suds

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:21  0 Comments

Monday, 9 July 2007

Industry not exploiting carbon reduction business opportunities

A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit has found that industry is not yet exploiting the business benefits of carbon reduction. The conclusions of the report are:

● Business is not keeping up with the changing public mood. 50% have no intention in reducing their carbon emissions in the next 3 years.

● Business is reacting to reputational risk, not exploiting business opportunities.

● Companies do not expect the costs to be high - most expect measures to have no or a low net cost.

● Companies starting out on carbon reduction face a steep learning curve.

● Government regulation is the single largest factor in shaping how companies address carbon issues.

Given all the coverage climate change has had recently, these are worrying results. They suggest that despite the opportunity for quite a bit of gain for relatively little pain, industry still needs to be forced into reducing their carbon footprint. Simply aiming for mere regulatory compliance like this is a very expensive hobby as legislation will continue to tighten for the foreseeable future. The alternative is the sustainable business mantra of "beyond compliance" but this message obviously isn't getting through yet.

Labels: carbon footprint, climate change

# posted by Gareth Kane : 14:46  0 Comments

Monday, 25 June 2007

9 out of 10 consumers don't believe your green claims

A survey by Consumers International last week made grim reading for those companies trying to prove their green credentials - only 10% of consumers believe industrialists when it comes to climate change, compared to 50% who trust green campaign groups and 60% who trust scientists.

Certainly many of the more radical green campaigners seem to be setting the pace. George Monbiot has spent many column inches criticising biofuels on the grounds they will compete with food production, and the next thing we see is 75,000 Mexicans on the streets protesting that they can't afford tortillas because US bioethanol production is driving up the price of vegetable oil.

Business needs get its voice back in regard to this debate, but the only way it can do this is to make sure what it says is backed up by what it does. For example, Shell organised a recent environmental summit, but ended up being publicly lambasted by most of the big environmental groups for boasting about their relatively modest green projects while quietly expanding their "carbon-intensive tar sands operations in Canada" and "failing to put out its illegal flares in Nigeria". Shell tried to talk the talk and ended up with egg on its face - they now need to walk the walk.

Labels: climate change, consumers, green claims, Shell

# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:29  2 Comments

Wednesday, 13 June 2007

Al Gore loosens up

Apologies to those who have seen this on my personal blog, but I think it is worth posting here too for those who haven't seen it.

It is effectively a mini sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth". Funnier, less schmaltzy, more solutions-oriented than its big brother, this is definitely worth a look.

Labels: al gore, an inconvenient truth, climate change

# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:11  0 Comments

Sunday, 10 June 2007

London 2012 - The Greenest Games Ever?

With all the furore over that logo, attention has been distracted from the business opportunities relating to the delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games. Well, if the Olympic Delivery Authority’s sustainable development commitments are anything to go by then it certainly will be a green games:

• Aiming to minimise the carbon emissions associated with the venues through a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide by 2013.
• 90% of demolition material to be reused or recycled and at least 20% of materials used to be recycled.
• 40% reduction in the demand for potable water in permanent venues and a 20% reduction target for residential development.
• Aspiring to transport 50% of construction materials, to the Park by water and rail.
• Protecting and enhancing the biodiversity and ecology of the venue locations.
• Maximising timber from sustainable sources with all timber used from known, legal sources, with clear supply chain evidence.

This sets a challenge for everyone looking for a slice of the action. And with £4bn of contracts going, these games will be the biggest single public procurement exercise in the world, ever.

In the bidding documentation, "the Environment" is listed as one of the five key criteria against which bids will be assessed, with particular reference to waste minimisation and energy use - and the criteria above will be expected to be read across into contracts as appropriate. Anybody wanting to bid will certainly need to get their environmental credentials in order.

Labels: climate change, design, energy, green procurement, olympics, waste

# posted by Gareth Kane : 15:52  0 Comments