Gordon Brown today attempted to seize the political initiative on climate change by calling for rich countries to hand over $100bn (£60bn) each year to help the developing world cope with the effects of global warming.
In a speech at London zoo, the prime minister said the cash offer was intended to break the political stalemate over a new global deal on greenhouse gas emissions. He said the "security of our planet and our humanity" rested on such a treaty being agreed at key UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December.
"Over recent years the world has woken to the reality of climate change. But the fact is that we have not yet joined together to act against it. Copenhagen must be the moment we do so," Brown said. "As always, this will involve a calculus of national and collective interests, with each yielding something for the common good."
Aides said the speech was intended to provide fresh momentum to the stalling political talks on global warming. In exchange for greater action on climate as part of a new deal, the developing world wants money to help it cut carbon emissions and adapt to a warmer world. Earlier this month, EU leaders postponed a decision on such funds until October.
Brown said: "If we are to achieve an agreement in Copenhagen, I believe we must move the debate from a stand-off over hypothetical figures to active negotiation on real mitigation actions and real contributions."
Under the plan, funding would begin in 2013 and rise to $100bn a year by 2020. The money would be raised from private and public sources, such as levies on international carbon trading schemes. Developing countries would be able to apply for funds for specific projects. "I would urge the leading developing countries to bring forward ambitious and concrete propositions ... that could be financed by these sources," Brown said.
Brown is expected to discuss the plan with world leaders including Barack Obama. Because the UK will negotiate at Copenhagen as part of the EU-bloc, the suggestion will have to be agreed in Brussels before it could be put forward as a formal offer as part of the Copenhagen negotiations.
The annual $100bn falls well short of what China and other developing nations have demanded in climate funding. The G77 group of nations has suggested that rich countries could hand over 1% of their GDP, a figure that British government sources consider unfeasible. "That's a totally unrealistic number. It doesn't even bring us to the negotiating table," one said.
Green campaigners welcomed the speech but were unhappy with the reliance on carbon markets to generate the necessary funds.
Greenpeace said: "Brown is right when he says the scale of the money on the table for the developing world will make or break Copenhagen. By becoming the first major leader to put a figure on how much money is needed he has shown signs of leadership on climate change that have so far been sorely lacking
Delegates from across Europe attended the conference in London, chaired by Henry Edwardes-Evans Editor of Platts Power in Europe. The main messages coming through the conference were the significant and timely need for new investment in energy infrastructure not just in the UK but across Europe to replace aging power plant and to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions. Vattenfall’s speakers spoke of their company’s commitment to achieve carbon neutrality in their Nordic operations by 2030 and across the whole of their business by 2050.
Other issues highlighted during the conference were the management of risk during project development (eg planning, cost, new technology, regulation), the need for consumers to realise that the price of electricity will have to rise and a looming skills shortage in the power engineering industry if steps aren’t taken now to invest in training and people. Whilst acknowledging the obvious challenges facing the energy sector, there was also the recognition at the conference that there are major supply chain opportunities in the current market and these will expand as the UK and the rest of Europe seeks to modernise its energy infrastructure.
Speakers at the Platts Conference included senior executives from National Grid, RWE npower, EON UK, Iberdrola Engineering & Construction, Vattenfall, Microsoft and Danish wave technology company, Wave Star Energy.
Large parts of the UK's infrastructure including energy and transport networks are vulnerable to terrorism or bad weather, a report has warned.
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) said not enough was being done to ensure such systems could keep going in adverse circumstances.
The ICE said efforts had been made to counter terrorism threats.
But the potential effects of climate change and system failures were not being taken seriously enough, it added.
The ICE took evidence from more than 70 sources, including regulators, agencies and service providers, and concluded that work to improve utility networks was "piecemeal".
It said when the Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Burghfield, Berkshire, flooded in 2007 all its radiation detection alarms were disabled.
Chief author of the report, Alan Stilwell, said: "It was only down to luck that the flood waters didn't lead to the spread of radioactive material that could have affected thousands of people and left the area near the factory uninhabitable for centuries."
The ICE said in the same year 350,000 people were left without water for 17 days when Mythe water treatment works in Gloucestershire flooded, while the Ulley reservoir near Rotherham came close to breaching and threatened the M1 motorway.
And last year hundreds of thousands of people were hit by electricity blackouts when Sizewell B nuclear reactor in Suffolk and Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife unexpectedly broke down within minutes of each other.
Mr Stilwell said: "We should be under no illusions, there are dangerous weaknesses in our critical infrastructure and utilities networks that need to be addressed.
"Well-defended critical infrastructure is central to the security and stability of the nation. We must work now to fortify our networks, or pay the economic, social and environmental price in the future."
The various agencies which deal with individual sectors and threats should be co-ordinated together - perhaps by a "Resilience Tsar" - to avoid future problems, he said.
He also argued that electricity and gas regulator Ofgem and water and sewerage regulator Ofwat should have more powers to help prepare for emergencies.
On the 22nd of June 2009, Geordie Greig the new editor of the London Evening Standard hosted a briefing for journalists at the Foreign Press Association. Over the course of his speech he covered the background to the recent sale of the paper and the strategy that he is following.
At the start of 2009 it was announced 75.1% of the London Evening standard was bought by Alexander Lebedev for a reported figure of £1 with a promise by the new owner to invest a further £25m to return the Evening standard to profitability.
The sale of the paper by the Rothermeres created a degree of consternation and intrigue as the new owner is a Russian oligarch and former KGB lieutenant colonel. Commentators and politicians raised questions as to whether the new proprietor, “a former Spy”, was deemed fit to own a news paper in the UK. Would he be a force for good or for evil? These are questions that the new editor of the Evening Standard Geordie Greig must answer day in and out about his employer.
Regardless of past histories and the career choice of Mr. Lebedev, buying the Evening Standard was an interesting move. The paper, for a long time ,had ceased to be the paper of choice among Londoners.
The editorial had grown tired and the paper was facing competition from free papers. To add to these troubles the rise of digital media and the credit crunch were adding to the falling circulation of the paper. In a sense it had lost touch and was rudderless. The paper had got itself a name for being politically partisan and biased.
So why or what could Lebedev hope to make good from such a deal?
To make it work the new owners chose Geordie Greig as the Editor in Chief of the news paper. In many ways Greig can be seen as an inspired choice with a varied career that ranges from working in local newspapers such as the South East London and Deptford Mercury news papers, moving to the Daily Mail, The Sunday Times and then in 1999 becoming the editor of Tatler for ten years.
In a wide ranging speech he covered many topics and looked confident and competent in fielding questions. The topics included: the first time he met with the Lebedevs, the strategy for the ‘new’ standard, digital v’s print media and his views on free news papers.
Greig believes that we are in a, “dual carriageway”, between digital and print media and does not see an immediate end to what he calls the “rust belt industry” of printed newspapers. One will complement the other and they will mirror and interface across the two platforms.
The re-launch of The Evening Standard he believes has been a good success and greeted by many across the spectrum. The aim was to make it more modern, more vibrant and alive and that would bring with it a new sense of engagement. He wryly notes that the re-launch took six weeks in comparison to the Guardians two years.
The advertising campaign that re-launched the Evening Standard was focused on drawing a line under the old and the new standard. The campaign focused on adverts that said ‘sorry’. ‘Sorry for not listening, sorry for being complacent, sorry for being perceived as negative’. These were all things that Greig says he and the staff at the Evening Standard knew were the problems.
He describes the malaise that the standard had found itself in as being similar to a marriage that had broken down. His key focus for the launch campaign and for the future of the newspaper is to re-engage with Londoners. This is a point that he repeated on several occasions and something as he sees as being key to the future success of the paper.
The fact that the Evening Standard had become politically biased is something that Grieg is very aware of. One of the first things he did when he started in his new position was to have lunch with Ken Livingston. The Evening Standard under his control promises to be politically independent and will watch, listen and report on politics in London in a balanced and unbiased manner.
Grieg believes that free papers have done nothing for news paper readers or media industry in London. He believes that “by giving out free papers in London you make the average reader think or question are they all the same”. The essence of debate, investigation, in depth reporting and campaigns that newspapers, like the Evening Standard, carry out are in his view, “central to the fabric to a great democratic society”.
The new management have employed three hundred new sales agents for tube stations across London. They now sell the paper later in the evening at a reduced price so more people are able to buy the paper on the way home.
His ambition for the Evening Standard is clear. He wants to make the print and the digital versions the place where people who want to find out anything about London from the city, business, news and the arts will look. He openly admits that he thinks London is the best city in the world and is a city that should be celebrated. This is what he will do in the pages of the newspaper.
Given his experience working on a different range of publications he is possibly well placed to make the Evening Standard into a news paper that will have something for all the capitals residents.
On Saturday the 20th of June the Fabian Society hosted a day-long seminar discussing the challenges that the international community has in the build up to the United Nations COP 15 Climate Change Conference hosted by Denmark from the 7th to the 15th of December.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change gave the key note speech where he outlined the challenges facing developed and developing countries to reduce carbon emissions.
In a speech that largely focused on the international challenges between developed and developing countries Miliband called for all stakeholders to get involved. Climate change as an issue is something that is not restricted to one continent or country but will affect everybody. The key to reducing global emissions will be in striking a balance where steps are taken collectively by all nations and all industries.
Text from key note address
Let me start by thanking the Fabians for organising this event.
There is no more important and no more difficult a challenge in politics at the moment than getting an ambitious agreement at Copenhagen.
I am very grateful also that we have such a wide range of organisations represented here.
But I want to argue today not just that we need a global deal at Copenhagen, but we also need to lay the ground for action not just in the next six months, but well beyond that.
Let me start with the scale of the challenge.
This week we published our UK Climate projections---they graphically lay out the risks which we know we face—here in the UK.
The most telling fact for me comes from Nick Stern—if we carry on as we are and see global warming of 5 degrees centigrade by 2100, it will mean the planet is hotter than it has been for 30 to 50 million years and humans have only been on the planet for 100,000 years.
But while it is easy to get bogged down in the science, personal experiences bring it home more vividly.
Two years ago on a Wednesday in June I saw people in my local high street in Toll Bar, Doncaster---a high street with people in canoes, plucking people out of first floor windows---raging at what had happened, bewildered and scared.
And two months ago in a village in North West in China, in Minqin, a remote part of the country, I talked to a local farmer about his battle against the pincer movement of two deserts threatening the livelihoods of 300,000 people.
For the people of Toll bar, the people of Minqin, the question is whether the politics can rise to the challenge of the science.
And what do we see?
On the one hand, we see the compelling issue of the reality of climate change and the science, and we see politicians around the world starting to rise to the challenge.
At the same time though, we can also see the compelling constraints that different governments face, from China to the United States.
China now produces more emissions than any country in the world but has 500 million people living on less than $1 a day who they want to lift out of poverty through sustained high levels of economic growth.
The United States which produces more emissions per person than any country in the world but must persuade 60 out of 100 US Senators to support legislation and 67 to support an international treaty, when the debate on climate change is less advanced than some other countries.
The 27 countries of Europe, with countries richer and poorer, all facing economic difficulties, and yet must play its part in financing a global agreement.
Every single country struggles with the gap between what is needed and what looks possible, the conflict between the demands of science and the constraints of politics.
But the task of people who want to bring about transformation in politics in this cause, as in all causes, is to find ways to overcome what seem like not just compelling but insurmountable constraints.
And that’s what I want to talk about today: how the politics we advance can live up to the science.
We need three things:
the right political argument,
the right sort of deal and
the right sort of campaign to make it happen.
First, the political argument.
If we leave climate change to a question of managerialism around targets, finance and technology, we will be sunk.
You cannot sustain radicalism for decades or even for months without an appeal to the deeper reservoir of people’s values.
At the core of action on climate change is a fundamental moral question about whether we care about the legacy we leave to future generations: about whether we think it is fair or just to take advantage of the planet’s resources as if there were no tomorrow.
The question we must pose is whether we break the bond of the human race over our time on this planet: that the earth is held in trust by each generation for the next.
This is an issue of equality, of fairness, of morality and we should say it.
As we seek to advance our political argument, we should not shy away from this and we should honestly ask people how they want to be remembered by history.
And yet at the same time, we know progressive movements only build broad coalitions, only sustain themselves if they can promise not just a better life for others but for people themselves.
So, alongside the appeal to values, we also need a message of prosperity not austerity—for China as well as for the UK.
Part of the reason I am optimistic not pessimistic about the prospects for a global deal, is that the debate about climate change has been transformed by the debate about the green economy.
Suddenly, people can see the argument that this is an essential part of building the post-recession economy—in developed and developing countries.
And we shouldn’t be embarrassed about appealing to economics: when I look at my constituency, there are committed activists on climate change, but there are also people for whom jobs for them and their families are top of mind.
People whose living standards have been dramatically improved over the last fifty years by economic growth.
People who are prepared to be part of action on climate change, but people who also want to know that they can continue to have a better life, and that the costs will be fairly spread.
And so the argument must be not for low growth but for low carbon growth and we must avoid a sense of subscribing to a no growth hair-shirtism
Of course, our appeal to self-interest should go beyond economics: the interests in better air quality, better public transport and in communities coming together, which the transition towns movement has done well.
So the political argument must appeal to people’s values and people’s interests.
Secondly, if we are to transform the politics, we have to make the argument for the right kind of deal.
And here we get to what might seem like the paradox:
that developed countries are responsible for the situation we find ourselves in.
Thirty percent of global emissions 1850-2000 are from the EU, 30% from the US and just 6% from china.
And Per capita emissions are still significantly higher in developed than developing countries: 10 tonnes per capita in the UK versus 5 tonnes in China.
Yet at the same time, when we look ahead, 75% of the predicted increase in global emissions over the next two decades come from developing countries, 50% from China alone.
So there is no global deal worth its name without developed and developing countries action.
The way to resolve what seems like a paradox is that developed countries need to accept their responsibility to take the lead: the lead in cuts in emissions, not just with goals for 2050, but tough and ambitious interim targets.
At the same time, developing countries have to show they can move from high carbon growth to low carbon growth, with growth in emissions tailing off and eventually put into reverse.
And the bridge to get developing countries from high to low carbon growth must be action on finance and technology in particular by developed countries.
If we are to ask developing countries to show substantial deviation from business as usual by 2020 and beyond, we need certain and stable flows of finance, including public finance.
We also need institutions that command their respect in the way they operate, in their accountability mechanisms and in their governance.
How can the UK play its part as a developed country in making this sort of deal happen?
We need to accept our responsibility to lead in our commitments to carbon emissions—as we have with 80% by 2050 and reductions of one third by 2020.
We need to show a willingness to take action on public finance and we will be saying more about this soon. In this context, we need to understand that it is not an abdication of responsibility to help build a global carbon market, but it is a way of helping ensure we have the scale of finance we need for developing countries.
And we need to be helping to drive forward the key technologies and sharing the know-how about them. This is why action on CCS and coal is so important. It’s not just about UK emissions, it is about pushing forward CCS as quickly as possible.
And we need to be persuaders for a global agreement consistent with the science.
We need to show that whatever the agreement we reach at Copenhagen it will help us prevent dangerous climate change—consistent with minimising the chances of temperature rises above 2 degrees.
So we need the right political case for Copenhagen. We need the right sort of deal. And to change the politics, we need the right sort of campaign too.
Why can’t Copenhagen simply be left to governments?
Because look at the great advances in the past:
Against slavery
For rights to representation in Parliament and at work
For equal rights for gay people
For freedom from racial discrimination
All of them took progressive action by government; but none could happen without progressive forces in society. What makes change happen is popular pressure.
And in fact, it’s not in the same category but let me add another successful campaign to that list, one which could only have succeeded with popular mobilisation, and in which many of you in this room played a role: the campaign on coal in the UK.
Campaigning by green organisations and their supporters has changed the politics and I am glad it has.
Unfortunately, the Copenhagen task is even bigger. And I’ll be honest: we don’t yet have the domestic or global campaign that we need.
Next week we will launch our Copenhagen manifesto, seeking to explain to the public the urgency of acting, the ambition we need, and the international co-operation that is required.
We will seek to give our manifesto as wider currency as possible.
But we need you too.
When I thought last December about how much mobilisation there would be now, with six months to go, I thought there would be more than there is.
The honest truth is: we’re behind. Outside of people who are prepared to give up their Saturdays for it, how many people know that this December is the make-or-break moment for our planet?
I do know that people care, and that the popular pressure is there waiting to find expression.
The time to influence this debate is not in December, it is this month, it is now, now when the Major Economies Forum of the top 20 countries is meeting every month, and now that countries are coming out with their proposals – Japan last week, Australia the month before.
And I look to a movement which shows as much determination to get a global deal to save the planet as it has done on UK coal-fired power stations, as much attention to the detail, as much creativity, as much imagination.
And just as we must appeal to the population at large not to be remembered as the people who didn’t act, when the scale of the problem was apparent, so we must avoid being people who lost sight of the bigger prize: the deal at Copenhagen.
So, today, I hope will produce concrete ideas about how to upscale the campaign, how to fix people’s minds on a simple ask, the equivalent of debt, aid and trade and how to build a broader coalition not just here but around the world.
Let me end on a note of optimism.
Nine months ago, some people told me that president Obama would never be interested in a bill on cap and trade in his first year in office. They were wrong.
Other people told me China would never want a deal, but I know having been there, they were wrong.
Other people told me a few months ago that Australia was far too timid and would never be part of an ambitious agreement, but now they have upped their offer.
Still people say Copenhagen is so complicated that we can’t possibly resolve the issues in time.
We can prove them wrong too.
We can get the framework we need if we advance the right arguments, if we seek a genuinely global deal and if we strive for the broadest-based campaign.
We can still help win a victory over climate change.
Tide is going out for marine energy around Britain’s coasts Robert Lea18.06.09 It is exciting the most interest in the country's tidal systems since King Canute told the waves off the south coast to desist.
And the development of technology has led the Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond to declare that his country is set to become the Saudi Arabia of marine energy, such is the power resource off its shores.But while many think of marine energy as harnessing the power of the waves that crash into the coasts of Britain, those in the know in green energy believe it is the force of tidal currents where the real renewable power potential lies.
Some of the strongest tides in the world run through the Pentland Firth, the straits between John O'Groats and the Orkney Islands through which the North Atlantic rushes into the North Sea. It is here that a vast laboratory of competing technologies is to be set up to see how marine energy - tidal current or wave - might best be used. But while waves are effectively second-hand wind power determined by meteorology, tidal currents are predictable and ever-present, dependent as they are on the gravitational pull of the moon.
The Pentland Firth is a particular pinchpoint squeezed between two land masses. Around the UK, there are other tidal "hotspots" in the Bristol Channel and around the Isle of Wight and Portland Bill, Dorset, as well as off Wales and Northern Ireland and in the Western Isles of Scotland. Yet while offshore wind with all its unpredictabilities has taken off as the Government-backed green technology of the early 21st century, tidal has been left underdeveloped, underfunded and seemingly unloved. Those attempting to prove that it is tidal energy and not wind that has the greatest potential fear that a nascent industry may be strangled at birth. Martin Wright of Marine Current Turbines (MCT), which has a commercially operational tidal energy installation in Northern Ireland that was assembled at Harland & Wolff in Belfast, explains: "If the problems were just technical, we'd be all right but we have had to fight for money every step of the way.
"This is potentially a very major, big-scale power technology but we are a cash-burning technology company operating in an environment where capital is not available."Wright says if it wasn't for companies like his putting £30 million of investors' money into proving the technology works, the Crown Estate could not have got to a position of selling off the seabed to marine energy companies - and MCT is as yet seeing no financial return. "There has been a lot of talk about the green economy creating green companies and green jobs," he adds."We have the opportunity for the UK to be for marine energy what Denmark has been to wind energy. But the fact is companies like ours are currently operating on vapour."
Exacerbating the crisis are renewables obligation certificates (ROCs), the financial incentive scheme for green companies. Latest Government finessing has made the incentives available to wind companies on a par with marine companies. "That," says Wright, "has had the unintended consequence of killing off the incentive to invest in marine for many investors who would rather put their money in the more developed wind industry." Bill Law at Lunar Energy says there is also a problem with the incentives in Scotland where, although tidal energy receives the equivalent of three ROCs, wave energy is currently getting five. "We are in discussions with the Scottish Executive over this mismatch," says Law. "We've all got the same risks, so the playing field has to be levelled to enable all the technologies to develop." Leading energy policy analyst Tony Lodge believes the industry is at a crossroads. "David Cameron heralded tidal power when he unveiled the Conservatives' Blue-Green Charter last year. "He said tapping into this free, continually renewed energy source could provide us with up to 20% of our electricity needs, and he committed to making tidal power a priority, saying: 'The next Conservative government will put rocket boosters behind this area of research'. "Though the current Government billed the recent Budget as a Budget for the Green Economy, the most reliable and predictable renewable - tidal - did not get a mention. "How often do we hear 'we can lead the world with this home-grown technology', only to see its ingenuity embraced overseas?" Battle to build tidal power stations Several rival tidal current technologies are battling it out to win contracts to build what will be the country's biggest tidal energy installation in the Pentland Firth. The straits between John O'Groats and the Orkneys are reckoned to be have among the strongest currents in the world as the North Atlantic rushes through into the North Sea. The Crown Estate, which owns the coastal seabeds, has just received 20 bids offering to instal marine-energy gear in the Pentland Firth capable of producing 300 megawatts of electricity — enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. One leading technology firm that aims to launch in the Pentland is Marine Current Turbines, which is already commercially operating an installation in the shallow but strong waters of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. Looking like a mini-lighthouse above the water, MCT's SeaGen is effectively a submerged windmill driven by the flow of water. Another much-heralded technology is that being produced especially for deep water by Lunar Energy, which is using North Sea oil and gas industry techniques to produce hardy seabed installations aiming to go to commercial trial off the Orkneys later in the year. A ROC and a Hard Place The incentives to get companies to build alternative energy projects are known as renewables obligation certificates, or ROCs. They are handed out to clean-energy providers for every unit of power —megawatt/hour (MW/hr) — that a wind farm or a tidal turbine might produce. The ROCs can then be traded, typically with polluting companies such as coal-fired power stations which have to buy ROCs commensurate with the amount of carbon dioxide they emit. In recent years, ROCs have been traded in this secondary market at an average of around £47 a ROC — a significant incentive, especially if multiple ROCs are on offer for every MW/hr generated as the current forward price of electricity is around £40 for every MW/hr produced.
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