EUROPE'S ISOLATION DEEPENS AS JAPAN JOINS CANADA'S KYOTO SCEPTICISM

The Harper government could find itself with a new climate change ally next week as the world gathers in Nairobi, Kenya, to review the United Nations treaty on climate change and its Kyoto Protocol. Although environmentalists have accused the minority Conservatives of turning Canada into an international outlaw for abandoning its Kyoto commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Japan has submitted a proposal to the upcoming conference that could weaken the agreement in its next phase.

Kyoto requires industrialized countries to collectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by about five per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. But Japan is suggesting intensity targets be considered for the future, without penalties for countries that fall short of their commitments. "We should not rely on penalties to be imposed on countries that fall short of their commitments," reads the Japanese submission. "Instead, we must construct an enabling framework that assists countries that are willing to achieve their GHG reduction targets." Emissions can rise under intensity targets since they're linked to economic growth.

"Japan is in a tough situation because they're one of the countries that's having a real challenge meeting the targets they've set for themselves and so is Canada," Environment Minister Rona Ambrose said in an interview Friday. According to the latest UN figures from 2004, Japan's greenhouse gas emissions were 6.5 per cent above 1990 levels, while Canada's emissions have risen by nearly 27 per cent. However, most European countries are on track to meet their targets and are pushing for tougher commitments beyond 2012. Ottawa is not expecting to set any absolute reduction targets for the next 15 years.

Under Kyoto, industrialized countries are allowed to buy overseas credits on an emissions trading market to help them meet their commitments if they fail to do so through domestic measures. Companies in European countries are already doing so, but the future value of carbon credits is up in the air since there's no deal on mandatory targets beyond 2012. Ottawa has rejected the option of shipping public money overseas. "We are going to be setting an intensity target and build on that target to make it stronger and stronger and more stringent, so that when the technology is available, we can move directly into hard caps on greenhouse gases," said Ambrose, who is planning on attending the last week of discussions before the conference wraps up on Nov. 17. "That's an approach that many other governments take, particularly those that are energy intensive countries that deal with the unique challenges that Canada faces, being a large energy exporter."

Ambrose added Canada is already ahead of a lot of countries since it's proposing mandatory regulations on its industry instead of voluntary agreements. However, the government has criticized Kyoto and intends to push for a thorough review of all aspects of the agreement. "Everyone recognizes that Kyoto was the first good step in the right direction, but we've identified a lot of challenges in the last few years, so this is what Nairobi is about," said Ambrose, who is co-chair of the negotiations.

Although the Conservative government's position on Kyoto has faced mounting international criticism from European leaders such as French President Jacques Chirac, environmentalists say Japan's new proposals are no better. "It would be a weakening of Kyoto after 2012, if the Japanese had their way on this point," said Matthew Bramley, director of climate change policy at the Pembina Institute. "We've got weak penalties right now, we need to be going in the direction of strengthening them, not weakening them. That's clear."

Bramley praised the European Union for setting a goal in its submission of limiting the average increase global temperatures by no more than two degrees Celsius, that would require worldwide reductions in greenhouse gases by 15 to 50 per cent by 2050. "I'm disappointed that Canada is still not acknowledging the environmental limits that have to be respected, particularly in terms of temperature," he said. "The EU is doing that. the EU is advancing the debate in a helpful way."

He said Canada's decision to not honour its Kyoto commitments could also make it harder to convince developing countries such as China and India to come on board and accept targets of their own.

The countries must conclude their current review of what is working or not working with the Kyoto Protocol before they can start negotiating the next phase. "A setback would be to see a lot of sterile discussions on process, and no real sense of moving forward towards an agreement on Kyoto phase two," said Bramley. Ambrose will help open the conference on Monday through a taped video message.

Source






ENERGY WATCHDOG DOUBTS CARBON TRADING WILL WORK

The world's leading energy watchdog gave a lukewarm response to the call by the Stern Review for a global carbon trading system as the way to tackle climate change. The Independent Energy Agency said yesterday it doubted that the scheme would gain sufficient agreement by world governments to be viable. Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist, said he believed the right formula was a mix of increasing energy efficiency in industry and transport, a shift to renewable technologies, and a major investment in nuclear power in countries where it was "acceptable". He said following this path would deliver massive reductions in CO2 emissions as well as meeting the IEA's goal of ensuring governments maintained security over their energy supply.

A carbon market could be part of the answer, but he added: "I don't easily see how easy or how difficult it is to have a global trading framework world-wide with different economic development levels and different policy choices."

Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, proposed three key policies - putting a price on carbon through trading or tax, boosting low-carbon technologies and encouraging people to change their behaviour. Mr Birol's comments are a hint that Tuesday's IEA World Energy Outlook will not put carbon trading at the top of its list of priorities to tackle the emission of harmful gases by the energy sector.

Source






GREENIE SKEPTICISM ABOUT BIOFUELS

Earth Track is pleased to announce the release of "Biofuels: At What Cost? - Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel in the United States." The report is the first of six country studies of government subsidies to ethanol and biodiesel to be released by the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) over the next 3-6 months.

The US report provides the most comprehensive survey of subsidies to biofuels to date, cataloging hundreds of government programs that support virtually every stage of production and consumption relating to ethanol and biodiesel. Key findings:

-Subsidies at the state and federal level are at record levels. Because production levels are increasing at double-digit rates and most subsidies are linked to production (and do not phase out even at high oil prices), the level of subsidization is also growing very quickly. The vast majority support corn-based ethanol, despite the relatively moderate benefits of this particular fuel cycle in terms of fossil fuel displacement and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation.

-County and local subsidies frequently supplement state and federal support. Many county and local governments also subsidize the biofuels industry, though systematic data was not possible to assemble.

-The policies are not well coordinated, and sometimes work at cross purposes. All indications are that subsidies are being piled on top of one another without policy makers having a clear idea of their potential impact on the environment and the economy. Yet the potential for waste on a grand scale and some spectacularly perverse environmental outcomes is large. Water depletion and loss of grasslands are two impacts showing up with increasing frequency.

-Subsidies to biofuels are growing rapidly. Based on 2006 production levels, annual subsidies are between $5.1 and $6.8 billion per year for ethanol and $0.4-$0.5 billion for biodiesel. The high rate of new production is expected to increase these levels to $6.3-$8.7 billion for ethanol and $1.7 to $2.3 billion for biodiesel in the next 2-3 years.

A number of factors suggest even these values are actually on the low side. First, assumptions for 2006 production used to generate our subsidy values are well below the levels now predicted for the year. Second, the fuel-share of crop-based subsidies is based on multi-year historical averages, minimizing the impact of a doubling of corn subsidies in 2005. Third, poor data on state consumption of both biodiesel and ethanol suggest state excise tax exemptions are underestimated by a fairly large margin.

-Subsidies per unit energy output are extremely high. Subsidies per unit energy produced are extremely high, ranging from $9.60 to more than $17 per million Btus (MMBtu). Subsidies per unit of fossil fuel displaced are much higher (over $30 per MMBtu for ethanol and over $20 per MMBtu for biodiesel), reflecting the fact that both corn-based ethanol and biodiesel fuel cycles rely on substantial fossil-fuel inputs. Historical data compiled for the study indicated that throughout the 1980s, subsidies to ethanol per unit energy produced were higher than any other energy source. Biodiesel was neither subsidized nor produced in commercial quantities during that time frame.

-Biofuels subsidies are a very high cost approach to reduce GHG emissions. Although biofuels offer some GHG mitigation benefits, the gains are moderate and quite expensive. Even under the most optimistic estimates regarding GHG displacement from corn-based ethanol, the cost per metric ton of CO2 equivalent displaced is well over $500. This could purchase more than 140 tons of carbon offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

-Hypothetical cellulosic case still indicates high cost strategy. Even if one assumed all current production were yielding cellulosic ethanol rather than corn-based (cellulosic has a much more favorable fossil fuel and GHG displacement ratio), subsidies were still quite high: more than $10 per MMBtu of fossil fuel displaced; and more than $100 per mt CO2 equivalent displaced.

-Proliferation of subsidies to all transport fuels should stop; alternative strategies deployed. The report concludes that there is an urgent need to examine the claimed benefits from biofuel subsidies, and to compare them with the costs of meeting the same goals in other ways. It recommends a cessation of all new subsidies to transport fuels (including oil), and an effort to phase out existing ones quickly. Any remaining subsidies should be opened to competition to make them more efficient for the taxpayer, and more tightly aligned with environmental objectives of fuel diversification.

More here





Got a problem? Blame global warming!

From allergies to maple syrup shortages to yellow fever: apparently every contemporary ill is caused by climate change -- as Prof. Brignell shows below:

‘It’s all them atom bombs what’s doing it.’ That is what the old dears used to say in the event of unusual weather when I was growing up in the back streets of Tottenham in north London. There is something deep in the human psyche that requires a cause to be identified for every effect. Presumably this has an evolutionary advantage: man the toolmaker was able to turn abstract concepts, such as consequence and purpose, to his benefit.

Mind you, even in those far off innocent days they did not fly into a panic, as now, over a mild October. They just enjoyed it. They even had a term for it – Indian Summer. What a fine example of ratchet reporting we have seen in recent weeks, with almost every British newspaper showing horror pictures of… late flowering gardens. Yet they studiously ignored the fact that this has been the year without a spring, when the tree blossom was a month late (see these pictures from my website, Numberwatch, as illustration).

That instinct has been a gift for the shamans of each age, ours no less than those that went before. Now carbon, the very stuff of life, has been cast in the role of original sin and its dioxide, absolutely essential to the existence of life on earth, condemned as a pollutant. Just as deviation from the strictures of the gods resulted in calamities such as floods and earthquakes in the past, so our new godless religion decrees that every disaster and minor discomfort arises from our engagement in industry, progress and the pursuit of well-being.

When I began to compile the complete list of things caused by global warming (see below), I was only too aware of the facile dismissal that was casually levelled at my complete list of things that give you cancer: ‘He made it all up!’ So, I only included things for which I could provide a link. That list of over three hundred items is still growing daily, thanks to the efforts of number watchers around the world, and contains some remarkable and delightfully contradictory examples. A new raft of entries has now come in from the Stern Report. These include notably an increase in gender inequalities with men migrating and women subject to impoverishment, forced marriage, labour exploitation, trafficking and natural disasters. You could not make that up – it is beyond satire.

What is not a cause for jocularity is the evidence that all this provides for putrefaction in the groves of academe: for most of these excesses emanate from university departments, and are by people rejoicing in the debased title of professor. Not only does it illustrate the pathetic race to grovel before the priesthood of political correctness, who have seized control of research funding all over the world, it also reveals a loss of that sense of proportion that was once the backbone of experimental science.

The telling phrase ‘lost in the noise’ has simply got lost in the noise. Only a quarter of a century ago, if anyone had claimed that a temperature change of 0.6 degrees Celsius would cause such a drastic change in precipitation that it would in turn trigger earthquakes, it would have been met with universal howls of derision. Now it is just par for the course and any derision would be censored by editors of newspapers and even, heaven help us, scientific journals.

What is it about humanity that provokes this addiction to scaremongering? In the seventies, when the scare was global cooling, there was still a residue of that scepticism that was the legacy of British philosophers.  From the Bacons, through the likes of Locke, Hume and Russell, to the magnificent climax of Popper’s statement of the principle of falsifiability, the scientific method was painfully established, only to be abandoned in a few short decades. The method was essentially sceptical, as Thomas Huxley put it:

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

All gone, alas!

A complete list of things caused by global warming:

(Each list item is linked to a news story. However, this list has been compiled over a period of time, so some links may no longer work.)

Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  ancient forests dramatically changed, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety,  algal blooms, Arctic bogs melt, Asthma, atmospheric defiance,  atmospheric circulation modified, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased,  bananas destroyed, bananas grow, bet for $10,000,  better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, Britain Siberian, British gardens change, bubonic plague, budget increases, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north,  cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping,   cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion,  Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat,  destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities,  diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people,  ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early spring, earlier pollen season,  Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth to explode, earth upside down,  Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing,   evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation,  logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas,  walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan,  elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout,  wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, less, not polar bears), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, famine, farmers go under, figurehead sacked, fish catches drop,  fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, floods,  Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA),  footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, glacial retreat,  glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop,  greening of the North,  Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome,   harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, heat waves,  hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, high court debates, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases,  insurance premium rises, invasion of midges,  island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful,  lawyers’ income increased (surprise, surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, Lyme disease,  Malaria, malnutrition,  Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, more bad air days,   more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking,  mountains break up, mountains taller, mudslides,  next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India,  nuclear plants bloom,  oaks move north, ocean acidification, outdoor hockey threatened,  oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts,  plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north,  polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic,  polar bears drowning, polar bears starve,  polar tours scrapped, psychosocial disturbances, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice yields crash,  rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers raised, rivers dry up, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease,  salinity reduction, salinity increase,  Salmonella, salmon stronger, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, sex change, sharks booming, shrinking ponds, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall reduction,  societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed, taxes, tectonic plate movement, terrorism, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees less colourful,  trees more colourful, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out,  West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced,  wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California),  wine industry disaster (US),  wine - more English, wine -German boon, wine - no more French ,  winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, Yellow fever

***************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

Comments? Email me here. My Home Pages are here or here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

*****************************************