A Labour/Lib Dem coalition seems like the best solution for the country, with the understanding that there will be another election in the near future.

Gordon Brown has to go. The vast majority of the electorate will be fuming if he remains as Prime Minister. Labour should negotiate a coalition on the basis of a new interim leader (and phrase it as this, not as a permanent PM). David Miliband seems best placed for this.

The Liberal Democrats need to have the balls to stand up for electoral reform and proportional representation. They should not form a coalition unless they get a commitment to a referendum on PR. This will be their only chance of breaking through the two-party system for the foreseeable future, if at all.

In order to save face as they form a coalition (and not just look like the lapdogs of Labour), the Lib Dems must make another demand in exchange for their support, and that is for Vince Cable to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. According to polls, this is exactly what the public wants, and given his credentials and general robust analysis of the financial crisis, the markets should also react well to this.

As for the Tories, they will obviously not take the formation of the above coalition easily. But as long as the Lab/Lib bloc make it absolutely clear that the idea is to have a period of stability before another election then the Tories can’t complain too much. They will, however, fight tooth-and-nail to avoid electoral reform because of how much change it would bring to the political system (ironic considering their campaign rhetoric). The challenge for the Lib Dems is to navigate these choppy waters successfully.

To have a referendum on PR, followed swiftly by another election, would be a massive shift in UK politics, and may be a complete pipe dream. But I honestly think that an explicitly interim government, with a strong, capable and popular Chancellor, is an attractive option for the political system as a whole.

DECC’s policy on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) for coal-fired power stations is all backwards. The policy has been devised around the following lines:

1. burning coal produces lots of CO2 (more than any other power source)
2. we want to try and reduce CO2 in line with our legal commitment to do so
3. coal-fired power stations are important to our existing energy infrastructure and the economic interests aligned around it
4. in theory it should be possible to store CO2 under the ground instead of continuing to release it into the air
5. the privatised energy market makes it hard to regulate effectively without bolding setting new policies that are not in line with ‘free market’ principles
6. let’s say that CCS is definitely possible, and pay some of the energy companies to develop it
7. let’s really hope that somehow it becomes economically viable for these projects to move beyond a demonstration phase (but we can’t actually say how we’d enforce that viability because of 5)
8. let’s ignore the fact that we’ve already committed to definitely reducing these emissions (because we want to keep expanding aviation) and base our policy on “hoping that it will be economically viable”

If it was a rational policy precisely targeted at mitigating CO2 (so that we can avoid the massive economic cost of climate change), rather than mainly keeping power companies happy and  not disrupting ‘the market’, the policy decision-making process would look much more like this:

1. burning coal produces lots of CO2 (more than any other power source)
2. we want to try and reduce CO2 in line with our legal commitment to do so
3. we need to massively change our energy infrastructure starting now in order to reduce CO2 enough
4. let’s put a moratorium on all new coal-fired power stations until CCS has been demonstrated as technically feasible
5. let’s fund proven low carbon technologies such as off-shore wind to the same MW capacity as the new coal stations in 4.
6. let’s concurrently demonstrate CCS works commercially (in one power station in the UK)
7. when 6 is complete, consider allowing new coal power stations with CCS fitted to be built, but only if this is a cheaper option than continuing to expand other proven low carbon technologies like wind
8. ensure that during 7 consideration is taken of the cost of buying and burning coal vs wind (which is free)

At the moment, DECC’s web page on CCS includes the following phrase:

In the event that CCS is not on track to become technically or economically viable, an appropriate regulatory approach for managing emissions from coal power stations will be needed.

This demonstrates that “regulation” and CCS technology are being looked at in separate spheres, and that policy is currently being devised on the basis of economic stability, rather than carbon reduction.

This doesn’t bode well for the destabilising effects of having to rapidly decarbonise the power sector if CCS is proven technically impossible (unlikely) or economically unviable (very likely in the absence of regulation). It would give a much clearer signal to the market if CO2 reduction was the bottom line right now, rather than putting it off.

At first I thought that the article had some merit, but then I went back and read this comment, which made me laugh, and makes absolute sense, so I thought I’d reproduce it here:

As a scientist, a technologist and a lifelong optimist, can I take this opportunity to distance myself as remotely as possible from this abject nonsense. This is not in any way a useful or even coherent response to doom-mongering.

Does the adage “necessity is the mother of invention” mean anything to you, Mr. Wainwright? The problem is already understood and the ingenious solutions are already under way. Suggesting we should artificially delay this process to demonstrate our faith in the inventiveness of future generations is utterly barking. It shows no understanding of how scientific advance and invention happen. It shows no grasp (or admission) of the human capacity for prudence and revolution. It is scientifically illiterate and politically reactionary. It is a sop to people who want to deny the problem or want to shirk their responsibility for it. It bears no relation at all to McEwan’s optimism. It is a truly pishpoor piece of journalism.

Stick to romanticising the lake district. You are so far out of your depth here that the bubbles aren’t even visible from the surface.

A few things struck me.

First of all, I was surprised that Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation was represented as the only NGO. Given that all other witnesses questioned were formally linked to the CRU or the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), I thought it was odd that what is effectively an anti-global warming lobbying organisation was given such credence.

Having said that, it was nice to see some of the more ridiculous claims by Lord Lawson answered comprehensively. For example, he asserts that ‘one single tree’ has been used by climate scientists who use tree rings to trace historical temperature records (outrageously reported by the Telegraph here). This was clearly rebuffed as part of the hearing, which was refreshing. Whether anyone who believes statements by Lawson and others like him will ever see the hearing is doubtful given how selective climate ’skeptics’ seem to be in the information that they take in.

But the most interesting thing I observed in the hearing was when Dr. Phil Jones (head of the CRU and author of some of the most controversial emails) was being questioned by one of the panel about what constitutes ’standard practice’ in academic practice. The questioner (who was generally quite hard on Dr. Jones) felt that it was wrong for the full data and computer programs behind scientific papers not to be made available at the time of publication.

Jones made it clear that all scientific methods were clearly documented in the papers, and that it wasn’t standard practice in the field to make all data available when publishing a paper (therefore clarifying that he wasn’t at fault for not doing so from the outset). But he eventually agreed that it ‘might be a good idea’ for all data and computer programs to be made available as standard practice when publishing papers (as opposed to the status quo, where data sources are cited but not actually ‘attached’ with the papers).

It strikes me that taking a coordinated approach to online dissemination of data would help with this issue. For a tiny research unit the size of the CRU (who have a full-time staff of three) it would be much easier to point directly to a URL (the modern equivalent of a footnote) with standardised and transparent data sets accessible rather than collate and re-publish all relevant data-sets themselves. This is exactly the kind of thing that Tim Berners-Lee has been advising the UK Government on (’opening up’ data) and also why the company I work for (AMEE) has built AMEE Explorer.

The discussion of ’standard practice’ (see around 1 hour 11 mins into the video of the hearing) seems key in the debate about how climate science can be fully transparent, and I’d like to see some leadership from academic institutions (perhaps research councils) and Government (through the ICO) about how to enable this transparency without massively increasing the Freedom of Information request burden on research units such as the CRU. Hopefully the committee will conclude something along these lines.

As someone who works to help encourage a reduction in carbon emissions because of the overwhelming scientific evidence proving that human activity is causing potentially catastrophic climate change, I felt rather affronted by Hoggart’s assertions that somehow I am an irrational ‘believer’ of some sort. The implication is that because I am trying to do something about reducing emissions, that means that I am blind to any evidence that might be presented that truly questions the scientific consensus. I feel rather frustrated to be patronised in this way.

But more than that, I’m just plain confused about what Hoggart means when he says he is a ‘climate change agnostic’.

Does he mean he is undecided about whether or not the climate is changing at all? Well, even without human activity accelerating the warming trend, the climate would be changing in one way or another as it has done for millons of years, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean that.

Does he mean that he is undecided about the world warming? This would be quite a radical position, as even the most vehement commentators concede that the observed temperature record since mass industrialisation began is accurate.

Presumably he means that he is agnostic as to whether or not humans are causing this rise in temperature. I’m going to work on that assumption and try and clarify what he means by using some basic scientific principles (I’m not a scientist but I got my GCSEs and I think the concepts that require discussion here are simple enough).

Firstly, burning fossil fuels (e.g. coal) releases CO2. To call that into question would require a radical rethink of the foundations of pretty much all physics and chemistry. There are lots of very simple experiments which prove it.

Secondly, CO2 is a warming gas. If you were to take two test tubes filled with air, and increase the concentration of CO2 in one of them before shining a bulb on both, the temperature would increase in the one with higher CO2 concentration because of the insulating properties of the gas (”Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas as it transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared and near-infrared“). Again, this is a pretty basic foundation of physics/chemistry and the experiment is simple to conduct.

So before it’s even necessary to begin consulting the vast body of evidence collected in scientific journals, I have a working hypothesis that at a macro-level our atmosphere will behave in a similar way to the gas in the test tube in the above experiment. This is my “null hypothesis”: the default position that I will believe until I am offered compelling evidence to contradict it.

What Hoggart seems to be saying is that he won’t accept this null hypothesis. Instead, he will remain agnostic. And whilst remaining agnostic about some basic tenets of science, he has the tenacity to suggest that global warming may be “an irrational belief designed for a rationalist world”. I’m sorry, am I missing something? Where on earth does the irrationality come in?

What I think is a far more likely explanation for Hoggart’s position is that he is, like most of us rational beings, terrified by the prospect that humanity may be rapidly destroying the ecosystem upon which we depend. But unlike myself, who is prepared to take a big gulp and concede that it’s looking pretty likely that this is the case (i.e. as likely that smoking causes lung cancer, or HIV causes AIDS), he hasn’t quite got enough courage to fully confront it. I cannot see any other reason that an intelligent human mind would be able to produce such a paradoxical statement that it is the people who accept the majority view of science who are the irrational ones!

In any case, phrasing it in terms of religious belief (which is exactly what Hoggart does when he proclaims himself an agnostic) is massively over-simplifying the issue. Of course our climate is hugely complex, and there have clearly been errors in various studies, but at no point has any evidence been presented that contradicts the null hypothesis above (in fact pretty much all the evidence supports it and this has definitely not changed in recent months, despite the errors identified). So unless Hoggart admits that it is a spiritual belief of some sort that breeds his agnosticism, I cannot see any justification for such a position.

We may discover at some point that against all the overwhelming odds that a world in which we have much higher concentrations of CO2 is still liveable. For example, scientists’ predictions about the behaviour of natural carbon sinks in a warmer/higher CO2 world may turn out to be wrong, as this is clearly a difficult thing to predict.

Or a technological leap forward could mean that we can grow food without relying on the natural carbon cycle as it currently stands, we adapt to extreme weather by developing sufficiently hurricane-resistant buildings, and we are able to desalinate water enough to withstand widespread drought etc.

It could also be argued that short-term well-being and happiness trump long-term considerations for our race as a whole, and therefore that we should carry on roughly as we are regardless of man-made climate change.

Discussing global warming and our need to act (or not) along these lines would be fine, because it’s a rational debate and one which allows all sides to utilise the valuable knowledge built up through centutries of progress in scientific and philosophical thought..

But to actually try and flip the script so fundamentally that it’s the people who accept the general tenets of the science as the irrational, faith-driven voice in the debate is utter insanity, and I can only conclude that Simon Hoggart is a nutter.

I don’t know really but not anywhere national or parochial. Somewhere more fun but more dangerous. A universal consciousness but all filtered through the limitations of the English language. And post-WW2 advertising. Hmm…

Dear Ashley,

I read your article with interest. Whilst it is interesting to read a recap of the prevalent theory of capitalist growth as applied to China and the US, I find it disappointing that so much conventional economic theory is taken as fact, when the last two years have shown us that things are far less predictable than ‘we’ thought.

For example, you state that

“By 2030 it [China] is likely to have eclipsed the US as the world’s top economy. Brazil will overtake France and Britain to become the world’s fifth-largest economy by 2025 at the latest”

Reading this reminded me strongly of the economic determinsm associated with Karl Marx’s writings and the notion that economic forces are independent of human activity. What happens in reality depends on what politicans and their electorates/citizens (both Western and Chinese) choose to do just as much as economic theory dictates it.

Besides, there is a hole in your argument, and the argument of the economists who project the growth of the Brics in the way that you report, because the historical growth on which the projections rely depend on China’s surplus fuelling the Western and particularly US growth. The twenty year trajectory for China overtaking the US seems ludicirous in light of this fact – isn’t there a better way to measure these figures? Just because its US GDP, its China’s money! They hold all the cards. China could choose to reduce its surplus now and take over the US economy almost immediately, notwithstanding the protectionism that would likely result.

The tone of your article was not bold enough to paint the picutre in these stark colours. This is understandable in a sense; we all know what panic can do to economically stability, and you wouldn’t want to contribute to it.

However, it would have been nice to have a different take on the theme of economic interdependence, which you fluttered towards at the end.

Instead of assuming that the interdependence would be based on conventional consumption-based economic growth in China’s domestic economy, we could choose to internationalise renewable power generation and increase economic efficiency through energy demand reduction. China’s suprlus could fund these efforts almost exlcusively and rise to economic prominence that way. This is what we need to be working towards and suggesting, not simply implying that “further economic stability would be nice, please China, consume more whilst we pay off our defecits”. That’s way too meek, especially for the Chinese.

Yours

Jamie

1. Climate change caused by burning fossil fuels causes the melting of ice caps, which in turn disrupts the gulf stream, the key element of the weather system that makes Northern Europe a temperate climate.

2. Europe suffers plunging tempeartures and burns lots of fossil fuels to keep warm.

3. See 1.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries are split between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1. Non-Annex 1 countries are those in the ‘developing world’ (including newly-industrialised economies such as China and India) and under Kyoto do not have any binding emissions reductions targets. Because of the historical responsibility of the developed world for the vast majority of emissions, this was seen as a fair situation, and most NGOs have focused more on the lack of credible cuts for developed countries (and the absence of the US from Kyoto at all) rather than address the prickly problem of China shooting up the league table of big emitters in the twelve years since Kyoto was passed.

A huge question for Copenhagen is whether or not developing countries will be included in one global cap on emissions. Whilst this is screamingly obvious in terms of the science (without a mechanism to reduce and reverse growth of China and India’s emissions then we’ll still have catastrophic climate change even if the West goes carbon neutral), it poses a challenge for those calling for climate justice. Why should any developing economy have to limit its emissions growth given that the massive share of cumulative emissions (i.e. the total emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution that has steadily added to the concentration of CO2 to current dangerous levels) will still be on the developed world’s side of the carbon accountant’s ledger for decades to come?

It is a tough question. I saw Naomi Klein speak last night, and she made a big point of highlighting the moral imperative of ‘reparations’ for past damage; repairing the mistakes of the past and grounding all action on climate change in an unambiguous and exhaustive ethical framework. The audience of NGOs welcomed her proclamations with open arms, enthusiastically endorsing her praise for the conference delegates from the global South for speaking with clarity and moral authority.

What Naomi didn’t address was what she saw as the practical steps forward for the conference. Or to put it another way, how to translate the need for ‘climate justice’ into a deal that not only compensates the disenfranchised victims of climate change, but also entrenches the global emissions cuts that science dictates. She and various other speakers I have seen in the last few days have lambasted developed countries for offering inadequate financial aid to the developing world, but not tackled the crucial sticking point of whether recipient countries will be mandated to follow a route of low carbon development rather than pursue carbon-intensive economic growth as the West has done so far.

In a similar vein, a lot of climate change activists I have spoken to (and am indeed friends with) are ‘anti-carbon trading’. In the UK, the media-savvy and increasingly popular Climate Camp is a vocal opponent of the concept. However, on the page of their website that discusses its short-falls, there is no mention of alternative proposals apart from ‘keeping fossil fuels in the ground’.

Fossil fuels should clearly be kept in the ground (some estimates predict that if we burn just 25% of what is left in the ground we pass the two degrees tipping point) but it would be nice to be clear on the mechanism for ensuring that will happen. One way to do it would be to auction permits to pollute (rather than allocate them for free as currently) in line with a global cap (all current carbon trading takes place under a series of regional caps with a lot of leakage). It’s not at all clear whether the ‘anti-carbon trading’ position of activist groups allows room for these kind of proposals, and it is incredibly frustrating.

One of the biggest gaps in the negotiations and in the NGOs’ approach to influencing them is in the realm of finance. Developing country governments want to secure substantial aid in the short-term in the form of trusted ODA mechanisms and we now have the all-too-predictable pledging of amounts of cash from developed country governments to try and detract from the lack of a credible framework for delivering emissions reductions.

Pledging cash from national budgets rather than creating a pot of money from auctioning permits to pollute does nothing to incentivse carbon reduction. And NGOs have willingly fallen into the trap of trying to get developed countries to commit more cash from their already stretched budget deficits instead of confronting other awkward questions such as how the governance of any central fund would work. Being ‘anti-carbon trading’ in the nebulous sense in which a lot of activist and NGO groups are does not help further this debate.

What we have is a diverse group of activists who are calling for a ‘fair and ambitious deal’. This is good for media messaging, and I applaud the solidarity in that sense. But for those inside the movement there seems to be a lot of confusion under the surface. Violent groups within a largely peaceful gathering have turned protests into a police versus protestors sideshow, and the NGOs who have the opportunity to build substance into the protestors’ demands are failing to articulate a common position on how ‘climate justice’ maps to a deal framework that is in line with the science.

It’s clear that Copenhagen will not be producing anything of substance, and we can all agree on that. But if we are to move forward in constructively building on the pressure that is currently being exerted on world leaders, we need to agree on a hell of a lot more.

Yesterday, Tuvalu put forward a key proposal that called for Copenhagen to have a binding agreement that included large developing country (China and India) cuts, in contrast to the Kyoto approach. This is an interesting development because lots of developing countries want a continuation of Kyoto in case the new treaty bulldozes the financial benefits they have seen from it. But small island states like Tuvalu understand that unless there is something much more radical then they will be literally underwater.

NGO groups who have traditionally been quite forthright about the division between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ (including China and India in the latter group) are now seemingly supporting Tuvalu. As I write this, there is apparently a vote taking place that determines whether or not Tuvalu’s proposal for Copenhagen to including a binding treaty for emissions from all countries, will be accepted by member states. This is potentially a big political shift.

But what I want to focus on is economics. Finance is the key thing that could unlock a deal that could truly deliver carbon reductions. And not many people seem to be talking about it. What I have gleaned so far from key players and commentators is this:

• the UK, Mexico, Norway and Australia have co-published an ‘unpaper’ on finance
• the Danish Text calls for climate change financal aid to be delivered by a body other than the UN (see my previous post below)
• George Soros has written a Comment is Free post suggesting that funds from the IMF could unlock vast amounts of money

The co-paper from UK etc. does not have much substance. It says lots of quite nice things, such as moving to a ‘programmatic’ way of funding mitigation (one of the key failings of the Clean Development Mechanism is the massive bureauracy of a ‘project-based’ format where all projects have to be assessed independently), but it doesn’t put much meat on the bones. The link to Norway’s proposal is definitely welcome but there is one key explicit concept missing (perhaps because of political expediency) and that is as follows:

AAUs should be auctioned, and the revenue raised put into a central fund along the lines of Mexico’s proposal

Talking about the fund as if national governments are going to fund it from ‘normal’ sources is pointless, mainly because of the massive budget deficit in a lot of developed country governments (not least the US and UK). George Soros makes this point in his Guardian post, and this is why he suggests the unlocking of IMF funds, but he doesn’t mention the auctioning of AAUs.

I think that taking money from the IMF could work well in the absence of national committments, but that the logic of auctioning of permits is so strong that it has to be discussed as well. Not only is it an obvious way to raise cash, but it massively incentivises carbon reduction. I’m pretty shocked that it’s not being discussed more already, and I very much hope that the UK, Mexico, Australia and Norway will be furthering this agenda as the talks continue.