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Tim Yeo: Energy strategy is ‘short-sighted’ and ‘costly’

The MP’s attack on the chancellor paves the way for a potential backbench rebellion against the government
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By Jessica Shankleman for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 December 2012 11.52 GMT

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Tim Yeo has launched an attack on the chancellor and his pro-gas allies. Photograph: Lynn Hilton/Rex Features

Tim Yeo has this morning launched a blistering attack on the chancellor and his pro-gas allies, accusing them of embracing a “short-sighted”, “extremely risky” and potentially “costly” energy strategy.

Speaking at an event at Bloomberg’s HQ in London, the Conservative MP and Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee confirmed he would table an amendment to the energy bill that would deliver a decarbonisation target for the electricity sector.

“I will not stand by and watch the wrong decisions being made on energy policy,” he said, confirming he would propose a target range for the electricity sector in 2030 that would require “power plants to produce less than 100 grams of carbon dioxide per kWh of electricity”.

The amendment echoes proposals from the independent Committee on Climate Change, which were rejected by Chancellor George Osborne over fears such a target would block investment in new gas infrastructure.

A compromise agreement with the Lib Dems means the proposed Bill commits to revisit the issue of a decarbonisation target in 2016, but green groups and investors argued the absence of a target will undermine investment in new low carbon projects.

Yeo’s intervention paves the way for a potential backbench rebellion against the government.

Labour has said it would support a decarbonisation target and Lib Dem MPs will be under intense pressure to vote in favour of the amendment after their party conference backed the proposal. A number of green Tories are also likely to side with Yeo in supporting the plan.

Yeo said he would seek to introduce the amendment after the Bill’s report stage, which would be towards the end February.

He added that there was a “realistic chance” the amendment would be passed, given that it is already supported by the logic of the CCC, green groups, a range of businesses, and some members of his committee.

Outlining his plan, Yeo argued a decarbonisation target represented the most effective means of providing the energy sector with the investor certainty, which would help to reduce the cost of capital for green energy projects.

He also rejected arguments put forward by the Chancellor and his supporters that an increased reliance on gas would automatically lead to lower energy prices.

“Lumbering the UK economy with a centralized power system largely reliant on gas, would be like running an office using a fax machine in the age of the iPad,” he said.

“Gas does have a significant role to play as we make the transition to a low carbon economy, but it would be rash to bet the future on one fuel or energy source. It is time to upgrade our electricity system to 2.0.”

He accused “both the last UK government and the present one have been dithering and indecisive on energy and climate change policy” and argued that the attempt to end this uncertainty through the publication of the Energy Bill was being hampered by the actions of the Chancellor.

“Worryingly… the Chancellor’s new gas strategy is being interpreted by some as being at odds with this aim,” he warned. “If this interpretation gains credence it could undermine the confidence of clean energy investors and make the Government’s commitments on climate change hard to fulfil.”

He added that the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee had repeatedly expressed its support for shale gas developments in the UK, which some of the Chancellor’s allies argue will enable decades of cheap gas supplies.

But he warned that while the scale of shale gas reserves remain unknown and the viability of carbon capture and storage technologies uncertain it would be “extremely risky” to stake the UK’s energy future on gas.

“Shale gas seems to have seduced some in government into premature confidence that it is an energy panacea,” he argued. “A golden calf that can meet all of our energy needs cheaply and even revive lost manufacturing industries.

“But we must remember: the scale of recoverable reserves is not yet known and gas power stations are considerably more polluting than the cleanest forms of renewable energy currently available.

“The price of most fossil fuels, including gas, may continue rising as global energy demand increases and other countries like Japan and Germany turn their back on nuclear power. Gambling on gas could be costly.

“History will not look kindly on those who would have us fossilize our energy system by relying too heavily on gas.”

He argued that the UK now faces a “clear choice” between a high and low-carbon future for its energy sector.

“We can embrace the technology of the future, set a target to reduce our present heavy dependence on fossil fuels and upgrade our electricity system,” he said. “Or we can cling to the combustion-based technologies of the past, gamble the future on assumptions about the availability of abundant cheap gas and slow down the process of decarbonising our economy.

“Britain must look forward, or risk getting left behind.”

Responding to questions from BusinessGreen, Yeo maintained he was “proud” to be part of the growing group of parliamentary climate change campaigners that have been dubbed by Osborne as the “Environmental Taliban”.

“If that’s what he thinks, then although I obviously don’t hold any defensive brief for the actual Taliban, I’m quite proud to be part of the Environmental Taliban at Westminster.”

Yeo’s intervention was immediately welcomed by green groups. Greenpeace energy campaigner Leila Deen said: “George Osborne has tried to side-line a decarbonisation target in the Bill in order to undo UK climate change commitments and clear the way for his dash for gas.

“But the Chancellor has misjudged the public mood on this – hundreds of businesses, investors and civil society groups support the removal of carbon from our electricity sector because they know it would be good for the economy, good for household bills and good for the climate. Tim Yeo recognises the political risk of pacifying the Tory right rather than cleaning up the UK’s power sector – many other MPs will too.”

Friends of the Earth’s executive director Andy Atkins said a decarbonisation target was “essential”.

“It would give businesses the confidence to invest in clean energy, create jobs and end the nation’s crippling dependence on dirty and increasingly costly fossil fuels,” he said.

“The driving force behind rocketing fuel bills is the mounting cost of wholesale gas, with experts predicting further rises in the years to come.

“If we want to create a clean, safe and affordable energy system the government must abandon its reckless dash for gas which threatens to send the UK hurtling towards an increasingly expensive future and shatter UK targets for tackling climate change.”

Coal to challenge oil’s dominance by 2017, says IEA

Agency predicts further rise in coal use due to fall in price and failing EU emissions trading scheme, threatening green targets
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Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 December 2012 11.01 GMT

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Demand from China and India will drive the rise in coal use in the next five years, says the IEA. Photograph: Mayi Wong/EPA

Coal is likely to rival oil as the world’s biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world’s leading authority on energy economics.

One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the US.

Coal consumption is increasing all over the world – even in countries and regions with carbon-cutting targets – except the US, where shale gas has displaced coal, shows new research from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The decline of the fuel in the US has helped to cut prices for coal globally, which has made it more attractive, even in Europe where coal use was supposed to be discouraged by the emissions trading scheme.

Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, said: “Coal’s share of the global energy mix continues to grow each year, and if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade.”

Coal is abundant and found in most regions of the world, unlike conventional oil and gas, and can be cheaply extracted. As a result, coal was used to meet nearly half of the rise in demand for energy globally in the past decade. According to the IEA, demand from China and India will drive world coal use in the coming five years, with India on course to overtake the US as the world’s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter, having temporarily overtaken Australia.

According to the IEA’s Medium Term Coal Market Report, published on Tuesday morning, the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today – the equivalent of the current coal consumption of Russia and the US combined. Global coal consumption is forecast to reach 4.3bn tonnes of oil equivalent by 2017, while oil consumption is forecast to reach 4.4bn tonnes by the same date.

With the highest carbon emissions of any major fossil fuel, coal is a huge contributor to climate change, particularly when burned in old-fashioned, inefficient power stations. When these are not equipped with special “scrubbing” equipment to remove chemicals, coal can also produce sulphur emissions – the leading cause of acid rain – and other pollutants such as mercury and soot particles.

Van der Hoeven said that, without a high carbon price to discourage the growth in coal use and favour cleaner technologies such as renewable power generation, only competition from lower-priced gas could realistically cut demand for coal. This has happened in the US, owing to the extraordinary increase in the production of shale gas in that market in the past five years.

She said: “The US experience suggests that a more efficient gas market, marked by flexible pricing and fuelled by indigenous unconventional resources that are produced sustainably, can reduce coal use, carbon dioxide emissions and consumers’ electricity bills, without harming energy security. Europe, China and other regions should take note.”

That would mean producing much more shale gas, as conventional gas resources are running down in their easily accessible locations, and the relatively high resulting prices are making it more economical for companies to seek out unconventional sources such as gas trapped in dense rocks or other geological formations, known as “tight gas”. But these sources are more energy-intensive to exploit, and produce more carbon than conventional gas wells such as those in the North Sea.

In Europe, the emissions trading scheme was supposed to discourage high-carbon power generation by imposing a price on carbon dioxide emissions. This was done through issuing generators and energy-intensive companies with a set quota of emissions permits, requiring them to buy extra permits if they needed to emit more than their allowance. But an over-allocation, coupled with the effects of the financial crisis and recession, have led to a large surplus of permits on the market, that has in turn led to a plunge in permit prices. At current levels, of a few euros per tonne of carbon, there is little incentive to seek out lower carbon fuels, and coal is enjoying a renaissance in Europe.

That means one of the world’s only regulatory market mechanisms aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions is failing in its key goals.

Van der Hoeven pointed to another factor of concern with regards to climate change: the tardy development of technology to capture and store carbon dioxide underground. She said: “CCS technologies are not taking off as once expected, which means CO2 emissions will keep growing substantially. Without progress in CCS, and if other countries cannot replicate the US experience and reduce coal demand, coal faces the risk of a potential climate policy backlash.”

If there is no policy backlash, the world faces the likelihood of an increased risk of climate change, as a result of this runaway consumption of the highest carbon fossil fuel.

Pollution from car emissions killing millions in China and India

Study published by Lancet says surge in car use in south and east Asia killed 2.1m people prematurely in 2010
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John Vidal

guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 December 2012 16.04 GMT

The India Gate monument in New Delhi, enveloped by a blanket of smog. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP

An explosion of car use has made fast-growing Asian cities the epicentre of global air pollution and become, along with obesity, the world’s fastest growing cause of death according to a major study of global diseases.

In 2010, more than 2.1m people in Asia died prematurely from air pollution, mostly from the minute particles of diesel soot and gasses emitted from cars and lorries. Other causes of air pollution include construction and industry. Of these deaths, says the study published in The Lancet, 1.2 million were in east Asia and China, and 712,000 in south Asia, including India.

Worldwide, a record 3.2m people a year died from air pollution in 2010, compared with 800,000 in 2000. It now ranks for the first time in the world’s top 10 list of killer diseases, says the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.

The unexpected figure has shocked scientists and public health groups. David Pettit, director of the southern California air programme with the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), said: “That’s a terribly high number – and much more people than previously thought. Earlier studies were limited to data that was available at the time on coarse particles in urban areas only.”

Anumita Roychowdhury, head of air pollution at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based environmental group, said: “There is hard evidence now to act urgently to reduce the public health risks to all, particularly children, elderly and the poor. No-one can escape toxic air.”

The full effects of air pollution on health in Asian cities may not be seen for years, she said. “Toxic effects like cancer surface after a long latency period. Therefore, exposure to air pollution will have to be reduced today to reduce the burden of disease,” she said.

According to the report, by a consortium of universities working in conjunction with the UN, 65% of all air pollution deaths are now in Asia, which lost 52m years of healthy life from fine particle air pollution in 2010. Air pollution also contributes to higher rates of cognitive decline, strokes and heart attacks.

If the figures for outdoor air pollution are combined with those of indoor air pollution, caused largely by people cooking indoors with wood, dirty air would now rank as the second highest killer in the world, behind only blood pressure.

Household air pollution from burning solid fuels such as coal or wood for cooking fell noticeably, but not having clean cooking and heating fuels remains the leading risk in south Asia.

Fine particle air pollution in India is far above the legal limits of 100 microgramme per cubic metre. This can rise to nearly 1,000 microgrammes during festivals like Diwali.

Improvements in car and fuel technology have been made since 2000 but these are nullified by the sheer increase in car numbers. Nearly 18m are expected to be sold this year alone. In Delhi, there are now around 200 cars per 1,000 people compared with 70-100 per 1,000 population in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and director-general of the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, this week suggested the need to “demand restraint measures” in Delhi, to put a check on the growing number of cars so that there was a check on pollution.

Monbiot.com

——————————————————————————–

‘Bug-Splats’

Posted: 17 Dec 2012 11:44 AM PST

Some dead children are mourned; others are dehumanised.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 17th December 2012

“Mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts … These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.”(1) Every parent can connect with what Barack Obama said about the murder of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut. There can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the media who is untouched by the grief of the people of that town.

It must follow that what applies to the children murdered there by a deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a sombre American president. These children are just as important, just as real, just as deserving of the world’s concern. Yet there are no presidential speeches or presidential tears for them; no pictures on the front pages of the world’s newspapers; no interviews with grieving relatives; no minute analysis of what happened and why.

If the victims of Mr Obama’s drone strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms which suggest that they are less than human. The people who operate the drones, Rolling Stone magazine reports, describe their casualties as “bug splats”, “since viewing the body through a grainy-green video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed.”(2) Or they are reduced to vegetation: justifying the drone war, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser Bruce Riedel explained that “you’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.”(3)

Like Bush’s government in Iraq, Barack Obama’s administration neither documents nor acknowledges the civilian casualties of the CIA’s drone strikes in north-west Pakistan. But a report by the law schools at Stanford and New York universities suggests that during the first three years of his time in office, the 259 strikes for which he is ultimately responsible killed between 297 and 569 civilians, of whom 64 were children(4). These are figures extracted from credible reports: there may be more which have not been fully documented.

The wider effects on the children of the region have been devastating. Many have been withdrawn from school because of fears that large gatherings of any kind are being targeted. There have been several strikes on schools since George W Bush launched the drone programme that Obama has expanded so enthusiastically: one of Bush’s blunders killed 69 children(5).

The study reports that children scream in terror when they hear the sound of a drone. A local psychologist says that their fear and the horrors they witness is causing permanent mental scarring. Children wounded in drone attacks told the researchers that they are too traumatised to go back to school and have abandoned hopes of the careers they might have had: their dreams as well as their bodies have been broken(6).

Obama does not kill children deliberately. But their deaths are an inevitable outcome of the way his drones are deployed. We don’t know what emotional effect these deaths might have on him, as neither he nor his officials will discuss the matter: almost everything to do with the CIA’s extrajudicial killings in Pakistan is kept secret. But you get the impression that no one in the administration is losing much sleep over it.

Two days before the murders in Newtown, Obama’s press secretary was asked about women and children being killed by drones in Yemen and Pakistan. He refused to answer, on the grounds that such matters are “classified”(7). Instead, he directed the journalist to a speech by John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism assistant. Brennan insists that “al-Qaida’s killing of innocents, mostly Muslim men, women and children, has badly tarnished its appeal and image in the eyes of Muslims”(8). He appears unable to see that the drone war has done the same for the United States. To Brennan the people of north-west Pakistan are neither insects nor grass: his targets are a “cancerous tumour”, the rest of society “the tissue around it”. Beware of anyone who describes a human being as something other than a human being.

Yes, he conceded, there is occasionally a little “collateral damage”, but the US takes “extraordinary care [to] ensure precision and avoid the loss of innocent life.” It will act only if there’s “an actual ongoing threat” to American lives(9). This is cock and bull with bells on.

The “signature strike” doctrine developed under Obama, which has no discernable basis in law, merely looks for patterns(10). A pattern could consist of a party of unknown men carrying guns (which scarcely distinguishes them from the rest of the male population of north-west Pakistan), or a group of unknown people who look as if they might be plotting something. This is how wedding and funeral parties get wiped out; this is why 40 elders discussing royalties from a chromite mine were blown up in March last year(11). It is one of the reasons why children continue to be killed.

Obama has scarcely mentioned the drone programme and has said nothing about its killing of children. The only statement I can find is a brief and vague response during a videoconference last January(12). The killings have been left to others to justify. In October the Democratic cheerleader Joe Klein claimed on MSNBC that “the bottom line in the end is whose 4 year-old get killed? What we’re doing is limiting the possibility that 4 year-olds here will get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror.”(13) As the estimable Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, killing 4 year-olds is what terrorists do(14). It doesn’t prevent retaliatory murders; it encourages them, as grief and revenge are often accomplices.

Most of the world’s media, which has rightly commemorated the children of Newtown, either ignores Obama’s murders or accepts the official version that all those killed are “militants”. The children of north-west Pakistan, it seems, are not like our children. They have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and flowers and teddy bears. They belong to the other: to the non-human world of bugs and grass and tissue.

“Are we,” Obama asked on Sunday, “prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”(15) It’s a valid question. He should apply it to the violence he is visiting on the children of Pakistan.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/17/obama-speech-newtown-school-shooting

2. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-rise-of-the-killer-drones-how-america-goes-to-war-in-secret-20120416

3. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-23/world/35500278_1_drone-campaign-obama-administration-matrix

4. International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School Of Law, September 2012. Living Under
Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan.

http://livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Stanford-NYU-LIVING-UNDER-DRONES.pdf

5. eg http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=4043&Cat=13&dt=11/5/2006

6. International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School Of Law, September 2012, as above.

7. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/12/12/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-12122012

8. John Brennan, 30th April 2012. The Ethics and Efficacy of the President’s Counterterrorism Strategy. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy

9. John Brennan, as above.

10. International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School Of Law, September 2012, as above.

11. http://dawn.com/2011/03/18/rare-condemnation-by-pm-army-chief-40-killed-in-drone-attack/

12. http://dawn.com/2011/03/18/rare-condemnation-by-pm-army-chief-40-killed-in-drone-attack/

13. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

14. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/23/klein-drones-morning-joe

15. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/17/obama-speech-newtown-school-shooting

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Obama tightens air pollution limits

EPA to cut release of soot from power plants and diesel engines, following link to higher rates of heart attacks and lung diseases
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Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 December 2012 11.11 GMT

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Los Angeles in California, which has some of the worst air quality in the US. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

The Obama administration has set new limits on a deadly form of air pollution – and risked a backlash from industry early in a second term – by tightening restrictions on soot from smoke stacks and diesel engines.

The new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will reduce the amount of soot released from power plants, diesel engines, refineries, and other industries.

The microscopic particles are linked to early death and higher rates of heart attacks, strokes and lung diseases, such as asthma.

The EPA administration in announcing the new standards on Friday promised sweeping public health benefits. “Families from around the country will benefit from the simple fact of being able to breathe cleaner air,” said Jackson, adding that her two sons suffered from asthma.

The rules, finalised in response to a court-ordered deadline, were strenuously opposed by industry groups and by some members of Congress, setting up the stage for heightened confrontation during Obama’s second term.

The administration is expected to roll out other pollution controls, which were put on hold in an election year.

The main oil lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement: “There is no compelling scientific evidence for the policy decision to develop more stringent standards. The existing standards are working and will continue improving air quality.”

James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is the Senate’s biggest doubter of climate change, said the new rules were the first wave of “an onslaught of post-election rulemakings that will place considerable burdens on our struggling economy and eventually push us over the ‘regulatory cliff’”.

Clean air advocates praised the decision as long overdue. The air quality standards were raised only after environmental group Earth Justice sued the EPA to enforce standards recommended by its own scientific advisers.

The American Lung Association, which had supported the suit, said in a statement that the new standard would save lives.

“We know clearly that particle pollution is harmful at levels well below those previously deemed to be safe,” the statement said. “By setting a more protective standard, the EPA is stating that we as a nation must protect the health of the public by cleaning up even more of this lethal pollutant.”

The new standards will limit annual average soot emissions to 12 micrograms per cubic metre of air by the end of the decade. The level, significantly more stringent than the standard of 15 micrograms set in 1997, was in the middle of a range of 11 to 13 micrograms recommended by EPA scientists.

Microscopic particles lodge in lungs and in the bloodstream and are especially dangerous to children and older people. They have been linked to severe asthma attacks.

Jackson said the new standards would result in health savings of between $4bn and $9bn. They will cost up to $350m to implement.

About 66 counties in the country now exceed the current standards, but the EPA estimates that by 2020 only seven counties – all in California – will have trouble meeting the new air quality standards.

The agency will rely on air quality monitors across the country to check on soot levels – especially along busy roads in urban areas. People living on busy roads are at a higher risk of exposure to soot particles.

Erosion sees beach houses on the brink

By Tanya Westthorp
Gold Coast Bulletin
December 17, 201212:34PM

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•Big seas eating away at land
•Luxury homes under threat from erosion
•Residents told not to expect help from council

Erosion eats away the edge of a Nobby Beach property. Picture: Brendan Radke. Source: Gold Coast Bulletin

GOLD Coast beachfront residents have been told not to expect help from the city council to combat erosion, even if their properties are about to fall into the sea.

City councillor Greg Betts has little sympathy for residents of luxury homes along Albatross Avenue at Nobby Beach, who yesterday watched helplessly as big seas ate away the last remaining centimetres of land between them and the ocean.

“Council does work to protect public land, but it’s up to the owners to protect their own land,” he said.

“We’ve had 20 years of really good conditions where there hasn’t been erosion, and people have had plenty of time to fix up their rock walls. You really have to question why they didn’t, and now they are complaining.”

The seas, driven by huge swells combined with a 1.8m king tide, left several multimillion-dollar properties perilously close to falling into the ocean.

One home next to Nobby Beach Surf Club has only a few centimetres of sand remaining before its expensive glass-panel back fence is swallowed by the ocean.

Nobby Beach resident Leonie Conn said she had watched metres of beachfront dunes disappear in the past three years, with waves continuing to edge closer, stripping sand around her rock wall, leaving huge scarps and a sheer drop to the water.

“I’m not looking out at the waves today,” she said.

“I keep thinking, please don’t come up.”

Read more on this story at the Gold Coast Bulletin.