GWPF | 16 Oct 2015
UK Factories Face Switch-Off To Keep Household Lights On
“The [Paris] draft is unacceptable. It is an attempt to rewrite the convention (UNFCCC) through the backdoor and does not respect the existing principles and provisions of the very convention under which the Paris agreement is to be housed. It does not reflect most of our or other developing countries’ concerns. It breaches our red-lines (non-negotiable issues) and favours some developed countries,” said a senior Indian negotiator. –Nitin Sethi, Business Standard, 14 October 2015
1) Paris Climate Draft ‘Unacceptable’, Indian Negotiator Warns – Business Standard, 14 October 2015
2) Green Madness I: UK Factories Face Switch-Off To Keep Household Lights On, National Grid Warns – The Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2015
3) Green Madness II: Households To Pay For Winter Energy Crisis – The Times, 16 October 2015
4) UK Pledges To Ax Green Energy Subsides (….In 10 Years) – Daily Caller News Foundation, 15 October 2015
5) Nigel Lawson Says Blocking Fracking Is ‘Deplorable’ – The Blackpool Gazette, 15 October 2015
6) Obama ‘Took The Wrong Side’ On Climate Change, Says Physicist Freeman Dyson – Fox News, 14 October 2015
7) France’s Top Weatherman Suspended Over Climate Scepticism – The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 2015
Factories may have to shut down on weekday evenings this winter to keep household lights on as Britain faces the worst power crunch in a decade, National Grid has warned. There is an “increased likelihood” that there will be “insufficient supply available in the market to meet demand”, forcing the UK to rely on “last resort” measures such as paying factories to power down, National Grid warned. –Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2015
Families could pay more for energy this winter as power stations invest to minimise the threat of power cuts. The retirement of ageing coal-fired stations and a reliance on intermittent wind energy have left Britain’s system more vulnerable to supply shocks than at any time for at least a decade, National Grid said yesterday. It warned that the margin of spare capacity this winter would be 5.1 per cent, compared with 6.1 per cent a year ago. Power companies will be paid up to £3,000 per megawatt hour during shortfalls. The wholesale price is about £40 per megawatt hour. —Robin Pagnamenta, The Times, 16 October 2015
The United Kingdom is pledging to end all green energy subsidies by the mid-2020s. Stephen Lovegrove, the permanent secretary of Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, said subsidies should end because “there is a cost being imposed on consumers which distorts the U.K.’s competitiveness and the [British] pound in people’s pockets when they get home.” Lovegrove is referencing the additional green energy tax attached to the bills British homeowners pay. Lovegrove’s announcement comes as 38 percent of British households are cutting back essential purchases, like food, to pay for high energy bills. Another 59 percent of homes are worried about how they are going to pay energy bills. –Andrew Follett, Daily Caller Foundation, 15 October 2015
Lancashire’s decision to block fracking in the county was “deplorable” and curbed its ability to exploit its “best possible prospect”, Margaret Thatcher’s former chancellor has said. During questions in the House of Lords, Lord Lawson said: “Is it not clear that what would be the best possible prospect for the commune of the North West and for Lancashire in particular would be the development of the immense natural gas resources of the Bowland shale? And is it not deplorable that the Labour-led Lancashire County Council has prevented this from happening so far?” Lady Williams replied: “You make an excellent point. —The Blackpool Gazette, 15 October 2015
Theoretical physicist and Democrat voter Freeman Dyson has expressed his disappointment with President Obama’s stance on climate change. “It’s very sad that in this country, political opinion parted [people’s views on climate change],” he said, in an interview with The Register. “I’m 100 percent Democrat myself, and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on this issue, and the Republicans took the right side.” Dyson also wrote a strong foreword to a report published Monday by The Global Warming Policy Foundation, which calls for a reassessment of carbon dioxide. —Fox News, 14 October 2015
Philippe Verdier, weather chief at France Télévisions, the country’s state broadcaster, reportedly sent on “forced holiday” for releasing book accusing top climatologists of “taking the world hostage.” In a promotional video, Mr Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you, because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so. We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change – a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.” –Henry Samuel, The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 2015
1) Paris Climate Draft ‘Unacceptable’, Indian Negotiator Warns
Business Standard, 14 October 2015
Nitin Sethi
“The Paris draft is unacceptable. It does not respect the existing principles and provisions of the UN convention under which the Paris agreement is to be housed. It breaches our red-lines and favours some developed countries,” said a senior Indian negotiator.
The draft of the Paris climate change agreement has left the Indian government and its negotiators upset: It ignores many submissions by developing countries, breaches India’s non-negotiable red lines and is inimical to the country’s interests at the talks, the negotiators have concluded in their preliminary assessment.
The wall of differentiated responsibilities between developed and developing countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been broken in the draft agreement. The draft focuses deeply on mitigation or reducing emissions and is shallow on issues of finance, adaptation, technology-sharing, capacity-building and loss and damage.
Developed countries have been let off easy on their existing financial obligations, without a road map to deliver on their existing obligations or enhancing future commitments. Instead, developing countries such as India have been asked to also contribute to the global climate finance pool.
The principle of historical emissions and equity has been jettisoned out of the draft agreement to bring developed and developing countries on a par. The draft dilutes the existing obligations of developed countries to transfer clean technologies. It doesn’t even acknowledge that the Paris agreement would operate under the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC.
These, among others, are the concerns that plague the draft, the Indian team has said.
Officially, the draft is called the “Co-Chairs’ non-paper, containing the basis for negotiation of the draft Paris climate package”. Though Business Standard spoke to several Indian negotiators and observers for this article, most didn’t wish to go on record.
“The draft is unacceptable. It is an attempt to rewrite the convention (UNFCCC) through the backdoor and does not respect the existing principles and provisions of the very convention under which the Paris agreement is to be housed. It does not reflect most of our or other developing countries’ concerns. It breaches our red-lines (non-negotiable issues) and favours some developed countries,” said a senior Indian negotiator.
In an interview to The Times of India last week, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had used milder words to criticise the draft, saying he was “disappointed”. Union Environment Secretary Ashok Lavasa had expressed “reservations” about the text at a recent meeting. A deeper assessment of the 20-page document through the past few days has only added to the disquiet among the Indian negotiating team.
“Agreeing to this (draft) as it is will lead to the death of the convention (UNFCCC), the end of historical responsibility and equity as we know it. It would allow for the ‘greatest escape’ by developed countries of the obligations under the convention and for an upgrade of developing countries’ obligations,” said Meena Raman of Third World Network, an observer group at the climate talks, which provides detailed records, as well as analysis, of the negotiations.
At the end of the last round of formal UN negotiations in Bonn, Germany, the two co-chairs of the talks, one from the US and the other from Algeria, were tasked with preparing a draft, based on what the countries had agreed to or not so far. The parts not agreed to are kept within brackets for further negotiations; the brackets are removed once compromise language is agreed upon by consensus among all countries.
But Indian negotiators say many contentious propositions, which breach Indian red lines and run counter to the country’s formal submissions as part of either the LMDC group or the G77+China group, are reflected without brackets, suggesting consensus where it didn’t exist between countries. At the same time, many formal and key proposals from developing countries are missing.
“The intended nationally determined contributions countries were expected to inform not just of their actions to reduce emissions, but also how they would shore up or provide finance, the need for adaptation, technology and capacity-building. The draft just picks up the mitigation bit and converts it into nationally determined mitigation actions, without differentiation between developing and developed countries,” said a negotiator.
Instead, the draft proposes differentiation within developing countries, giving some countries greater access to resources than others.
While there is a weak reference in the preamble of the draft agreement to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the principle isn’t made applicable in the operational parts of the text. The principle of equity and historical emissions, central to operationalise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for climate justice, isn’t even mentioned in the draft agreement.
Developing countries, in a rare sign of unanimity within the larger G77+China group, have consistently sought a clear road map from developed countries that they would deliver on their existing obligation of $100 billion annually by 2020 and work to increase this fund. But this finds no mention in the draft agreement.
“The provisions of the convention require that the actions of developing countries are enabled by means of implementation (finance, technology and capacity building) by the developed world. That linkage has been weakened in the draft agreement to a point of non-existence,” said another negotiator.
“If there is one group that would be happy with this draft, it’s the Umbrella group,” added another observer, on condition of anonymity. The Umbrella group is led by the US and includes non-European Union (EU) countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway and Russia. The other influential block of countries, the EU, has also criticised the draft. EU’s commissioner for climate change and energy, Miguel Arias Canete, tweeted, “This #COP21 (Paris agreement) text cannot be it. We must improve it. Positive note: shorter, readable. Negative note: unbalanced, lacks ambition & specificity, and many open political issues.”
The US hasn’t formally reacted to the draft agreement text yet.
2) Green Madness I: UK Factories Face Switch-Off To Keep Household Lights On, National Grid Warns
The Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2015
Emily Gosden
Rising risk of blackouts means factories may need to be paid to switch off on weekday evenings to keep household lights on
Factories may have to shut down on weekday evenings this winter to keep household lights on as Britain faces the worst power crunch in a decade, National Grid has warned.
There is an “increased likelihood” that there will be “insufficient supply available in the market to meet demand”, forcing the UK to rely on “last resort” measures such as paying factories to power down, National Grid warned.
The risk of blackouts will be the highest since 2007/08, even once emergency plans to reduce energy demand from businesses and fire up old mothballed plant have been deployed, analysis released on Thursday shows.
Britain’s spare capacity margin – the effective ‘safety buffer’ between peak electricity demand and available power supplies – will be just 5.1 per cent once the emergency measures are used.
Without such intervention to artificially bolster supplies, the margin would have fallen to just 1.2 per cent, the lowest in a decade National Grid confirmed.
In a report, the company said there was an “increased likelihood” that it would have to pay large businesses to switch off between 4pm and 8pm during the week.
Busineses with 130 megawatts of capacity have signed up to take part in the scheme, which is voluntary. They will be paid for taking part, even if they are not actually called upon – as happened last winter.
A further 2.29 gigawatts of power plant capacity that would not otherwise be available will be paid to remain on standby to fire up if needed.
Such action would only be taken “as a last resort in the event that there is insufficient supply available in the market to meet demand”, it said.
3) Green Madness II: Households To Pay For Winter Energy Crisis
The Times, 16 October 2015
Robin Pagnamenta Energy Editor
Families could pay more for energy this winter as power stations invest to minimise the threat of power cuts.
The retirement of ageing coal-fired stations and a reliance on intermittent wind energy have left Britain’s system more vulnerable to supply shocks than at any time for at least a decade, National Grid said yesterday. It warned that the margin of spare capacity this winter would be 5.1 per cent, compared with 6.1 per cent a year ago.
National Grid set out measures to protect supplies, which may lead to higher bills. They include temporarily cutting power to factories and paying mothballed power stations to be ready at short notice. Without these measures, the margin would be 1.2 per cent.
Power companies will be paid up to £3,000 per megawatt hour during shortfalls. The wholesale price is about £40 per megawatt hour. If National Grid is concerned about a shortage, it will issue an alert to power producers. Stations that can supply extra power will be paid the “triad price” as a reward.
4) UK Pledges To Ax Green Energy Subsides (…In 10 Years)
Daily Caller News Foundation, 15 October 2015
Andrew Follett
The United Kingdom is pledging to end all green energy subsidies by the mid-2020s.
“By the mid-2020s, we would like to see the government retreat as much as is possible from [renewable energy] subsidies, the current administration is aiming to be more discriminating about the types of low-carbon technology it wishes to support,” Stephen Lovegrove, the permanent secretary of Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, said at an event Tuesday hosted by Columbia University.
Lovegrove said subsidies should end because “there is a cost being imposed on consumers which distorts the U.K.’s competitiveness and the [British] pound in people’s pockets when they get home.” Lovegrove is referencing the additional green energy tax attached to the bills British homeowners pay.
Lovegrove’s announcement comes as 38 percent of British households are cutting back essential purchases, like food, to pay for high energy bills. Another 59 percent of homes are worried about how they are going to pay energy bills.
Green energy subsidies regularly exceed spending caps and account for roughly 7 percent of British energy bills, according to study released in July by the government.
If subsidies are not cut, the government anticipates an 18 percent increase in domestic electricity prices by 2020, which could drive up household energy bills another 5 percent.
Brits paid a whopping 54 percent more for electricity than Americans paid last year, in part due to green energy taxes. Such taxes currently cost residents and businesses an estimated £4.3 billion (roughly $6.6 billion) every year.
Environmental groups are unhappy at the prospect of no green subsidies.
5) Nigel Lawson Says Blocking Fracking Is ‘Deplorable’
The Blackpool Gazette, 15 October 2015
Lord Lawson called on Lancashire County Council to allow the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas to develop the “immense” resources it has underground.
The council in June turned down two bids for fracking for shale gas between Blackpool and Preston, a decision which was delayed from January and now faces appeal.
Communities minister Baroness Williams said Lord Lawson had made an “excellent point” and insisted fracking represented a one-off opportunity for Lancashire to become energy self-sufficient.
During questions in the Lords, Lord Lawson said: “Is it not clear that what would be the best possible prospect for the commune of the North West and for Lancashire in particular would be the development of the immense natural gas resources of the Bowland shale?
“And is it not deplorable that the Labour-led Lancashire County Council has prevented this from happening so far?”
Lady Williams replied: “You make an excellent point.
“This is a one-off opportunity for the areas of Lancashire to really maximise their assets and be self-sufficient in how they derive energy so I could not agree more with you.”
The Government has said it is going “all out for shale” and is now allowing bids to be fast-tracked through the planning process under certain circumstances as part of efforts to drive development of the industry in the UK.
6) Obama ‘Took The Wrong Side’ On Climate Change, Says Physicist Freeman Dyson
Fox News, 14 October 2015
Theoretical physicist and Democrat voter Freeman Dyson has expressed his disappointment with President Obama’s stance on climate change.
“It’s very sad that in this country, political opinion parted [people’s views on climate change],” he said, in an interview with The Register. “I’m 100 percent Democrat myself, and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on this issue, and the Republicans took the right side.”
Now retired, Dyson was a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton between 1953 and 1994. Famed for his work in quantum electrodynamics and nuclear engineering, Dyson also worked on climate studies during his career.
Climate change, according to Freeman, “is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts?”
The physicist and mathematician argues that pollution caused by fossil fuels has been conflated with climate change. “Coal is very unpleasant stuff, and there are problems with coal quite apart from climate,” he said. “Pollution is quite separate to the climate problem: one can be solved, and the other cannot, and the public doesn’t understand that.”
During his interview with The Register Dyson noted shortcomings in climate models. “What has happened in the past 10 years is that the discrepancies between what’s observed and what’s predicted have become much stronger,” he said. “It’s clear now the models are wrong, but it wasn’t so clear 10 years ago. I can’t say if they’ll always be wrong, but the observations are improving and so the models are becoming more verifiable.”
Dyson also wrote a strong foreword to a report published Monday by The Global Warming Policy Foundation, which calls for a reassessment of carbon dioxide. “To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious: that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustainer of wildlife and crop plants are enormously beneficial, that the possibly harmful climatic effects of carbon dioxide have been greatly exaggerated, and that the benefits clearly outweigh the possible damage,” he wrote.
7) France’s Top Weatherman Suspended Over Climate Scepticism
The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 2015
Henry Samuel
Philippe Verdier, weather chief at France Télévisions, the country’s state broadcaster, reportedly sent on “forced holiday” for releasing book accusing top climatologists of “taking the world hostage”
Now Philippe Verdier, a household name for his nightly forecasts on France 2, has been taken off air after a more controversial announcement – criticising the world’s top climate change experts.
Mr Verdier claims in the book Climat Investigation (Climate Investigation) that leading climatologists and political leaders have “taken the world hostage” with misleading data.
In a promotional video, Mr Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you, because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so.”
He added: “We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change – a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.”
His outspoken views led France 2 to take him off the air starting this Monday. “I received a letter telling me not to come. I’m in shock,” he told RTL radio. “This is a direct extension of what I say in my book, namely that any contrary views must be eliminated.”
The book has been released at a particularly sensitive moment as Paris is due to host a crucial UN climate change conference in December.
According to Mr Verdier, top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicised”.
He specifically challenges the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, saying they “blatantly erased” data that went against their overall conclusions, and casts doubt on the accuracy of their climate models.
The IPCC has said that temperatures could rise by up to 4.8°C if no action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Verdier writes: “We are undoubtedly on a plateau in terms of warming and the cyclical variability of the climate doesn’t not allow us to envisage if the natural rhythm will tomorrow lead us towards a fall, a stagnation or a rise (in temperature).”
The 330-page book also controversially contains a chapter on the “positive results” of climate change in France, one of the countries predicted to be the least affected by rising temperatures. “It’s politically incorrect and taboo to vaunt the merits of climate change because there are some,” he writes, citing warmer weather attracting tourists, lower death rates and electricity bills in mild winters, and better wine and champagne vintages.
Asked whether he had permission from his employer to release the book, he said: “I don’t think management liked it, let’s be honest.”
“I put myself via this investigation on the path of COP 21, which is a bulldozer, and we can see the results.”
The book was criticised by French newspaper Le Monde as full of “errors”. “The models used to predict the average rise in temperatures on the surface of the globe have proved to be rather reliable, with the gap between observations and predictions quite small,” it countered.
Mr Verdier told France 5: “Making these revelations in the book, which I absolutely have the right to do, can pose problems for my employer given that the government (which funds France 2) is organising COP [the climate change conference]. In fact as soon as you a slightly different discourse on this subject, you are branded a climate sceptic.”
He said he decided to write the book in June 2014 when Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, summoned the country’s main weather presenters and urged them to mention “climate chaos” in their forecasts.
“I was horrified by this discourse,” Mr Verdier told Les Inrockuptibles magazine. Eight days later, Mr Fabius appeared on the front cover of a magazine posing as a weatherman above the headline: “500 days to save the planet.”
Mr Verdier said: “If a minister decides he is Mr Weatherman, then Mr Weatherman can also express himself on the subject in a lucid manner.
“What’s shameful is this pressure placed on us to say that if we don’t hurry, it’ll be the apocalypse,” he added, saying that “climate diplomacy” means leaders are seeking to force changes to suit their own political timetables.
According to L’Express magazine, unions at France Television called for Mr Verdier to be fired, but that Delphine Ernotte, the broadcaster’s chief executive, initially said he should be allowed to stay “in the name of freedom of expression”.
