Green energy firms fear new feed-in tariffs will be too low
Green energy firms fear new feed-in tariffs will be too low
Campaigners fear government’s cashback offer for microgeneration will not be enough to stimulate renewables industry
- The Observer, Sunday 31 January 2010
- Article history
An offshore wind farm near Prestatyn, north Wales. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
The government will tomorrow publish the long-awaited levels of remuneration it will offer for renewable energy generated by households and communities and fed back into the national grid.
It hopes the new tariff will boost the growth of “micro-generation” by small-scale wind turbines, solar panels or hydro power. But there are fears in the renewable energy industry that the Department of Energy and Climate Change will make little or no upward adjustment to the tariff levels for clean electricity it proposed last year.
Pentagon to rank global warming as destabilising force.
Pentagon to rank global warming as destabilising force
US defence review says military planners should factor climate change into long-term strategy
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 January 2010 16.48 GMT
- Article history
A fisherman in the dried reservoir of Lam Takhong Dam, Thailand, a consequence of global warming.The Pentagon says climate change does not cause conflict but it could act as an accelerant. Photograph: Vinay Dithajohn/EPA
The Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilising force, adding fuel to conflict and putting US troops at risk around the world, in a major strategy review to be presented to Congress tomorrow. The quadrennial defence review, prepared by the Pentagon to update Congress on its security vision, will direct military planners to keep track of the latest climate science, and to factor global warming into their long term strategic planning.
More flaws emerge in climate alarms
More flaws emerge in climate alarms
- From: The Australian
- February 01, 2010
A STARTLING report by the UN climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had no scientific expertise.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its 2007 benchmark report that even a slight change in rainfall could see swaths of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland.
The source for its claim was a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was written by two green activists. They had based their “research” on a study published in the science journal Nature, which did not assess rainfall but looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. WWF said on Saturday it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.
Climate change: Sceptics fiddle while the planet burns
Climate change: Sceptics fiddle while the planet burns
- The Observer, Sunday 31 January 2010
- Article history
Robin McKie’s article “Glaciergate was a blunder, but it’s the sceptics who dissemble” (Comment, last week) brings clarity and balance to the debate about climate change science. Yes, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Himalayan glacier projection was wrong, but that doesn’t undermine the rigorous seven-year IPCC process that led to the last assessment report and it certainly doesn’t undermine the compelling evidence of the risks from climate change to food security, water supplies and biodiversity.
The facts are clear: the world is warming, emissions of greenhouse gases are largely to blame and the warming is set to get worse through the 21st century. To ignore that evidence would be foolhardy in the extreme.
Cost of UK flood protection doubles to 1bn pounds a year
Cost of UK flood protection doubles to £1bn a year
Latest data from the Environment Agency shows that more than half a million UK homes are at ‘significant’ risk of flooding
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 January 2010 17.30 GMT
- Article history
The devastating floods of summer 2007 which affected Tewkesbury cost a total of £3.2bn according to the EA. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty
More than half a million homes are at “significant” risk of flooding and the cost of protecting them will double to £1bn a year by 2035, according to the latest data from the Environment Agency (EA).
‘Disastergate’ is an excuse tor IPCC critics to dig up old academic rows.
‘Disastergate’ is an excuse for IPCC critics to dig up old academic rows
Attempts to dig up an old academic row in order to create the impression of an IPCC under siege are predictable opportunism
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 January 2010 17.56 GMT
- Article history
The recent controversy over Himalayan glaciers has led to a predictable display of opportunism by the long-term critics of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who are now digging up all of their old complaints. It is, then, hardly surprising that the Sunday Times has now drawn attention to a years-old row that now seems destined to be re-packaged by climate change sceptics as ‘disastergate’, the sequel to ‘glaciergate’ and ‘climategate‘.