Recent opinion polls in the UK and elsewhere show that governments have failed to convince the public about the received wisdom on climate change: it's very bad, it's all our fault and we have to rejig the global economy to fight it. In a survey conducted for the Times, just 41% of people agreed that 'it is now an established scientific fact that climate change is largely man-made'. And only 28% believed that it is 'far and away the most serious problem we face as a country and internationally'.
The Science Museum has been running a campaign called PROVE IT!, in which they asked people to sign up to the statement 'I've seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they're serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen'. Visitors to the museum gallery were overwhelmingly in favour: 3,408 counted themselves in, while 626 disagreed. But on the website, after allowing for initial multiple voting (largely from the 'yes' camp), 2,650 were counted in and 7,612 counted out. Hardly a resounding message to send to the negotiating team.
It seems that the public just refuses to get the correct message, and it's likely that 'climategate' and the recent scary TV ads have reinforced scepticism. The problem is that, short of voting UKIP, the electorate has no way of influencing policy at the next election: both Labour and the Conservatives are officially fully signed up to the climate change agenda.
But this may not always been the case. It's fascinating to see that, in Australia, the opposition Liberal party replaced their leader, Malcolm Turnbull, by Tony Abbott, on the basis that he would not support the goverment's Energy Trading Scheme bill (which has now been duly rejected for the second time by the Senate). If, as expected, Kevin Rudd now calls a snap election, it will be equally fascinating to see what the Australian electorate thinks. It must surely only be a matter of time before a major political party in an EU Member State backs away from a hardline policy on emissions: despite appearances, most parties contain significant numbers of doubters. Then we can see whether there is truly a democratic mandate for radical carbon dioxide emissions reduction policies.
Energy experts are focusing on next month’s climate change summit in Copenhagen. Given the complexity of the issue - notwithstanding the need to guard national interests - a far-reaching deal emulating that at Kyoto is an unlikely outcome. Much attention will surround the stances adopted by the US and Chinese Governments, which between them account for 40% of global greenhouse gases.
In the case of the US, any agreement to bring about major emission reductions would need Senate approval. The Chinese situation is also fraught with difficulty given that its economic growth rate remains robust. Whilst emission reduction figures will be widely debated, the issue of new nuclear-build cannot be ignored. As a general environmental principle, more nuclear investment will reduce the need for renewable generation capacity, whose development in most countries remains very challenging.
However, recent events have seriously dented the prospects for new nuclear-build projects, including the current weakness of world gas prices, and especially those in the US. The recession was a key factor in bringing down oil prices but, more recently, the deferred linkage between oil and gas prices has frayed: new gas recovery systems from shale sands in the US are partly responsible. In the nuclear sector itself, there has been a raft of bad news, including cost and time overruns along with technical concerns about the new designs.
Hence, if new nuclear-build fails to take off, there will be increased demand either on the renewables sector if the case for large emission reductions prevails or on gas-fired generation if security of supply becomes paramount.
In view of all the uncertainty on general economic issues, on new nuclear-build and on the future of gas supplies and prices, will Copenhagen deliver anything more than solemn and binding undertakings?
Following the 'hack' of the Climate Research Unit, at UEA last week David Aaranovitch and George Monbiot have written quite different pieces that attempt to answer the questions it raises. The former continues in the vein of a fervent climate change supporter by sweeping the questions under the rug, the latter is contrite yet still needs more evidence to prove that perhaps the climate change science is partly flawed. (For an excellent round up of discovered flaws see Bishop Hill, more here). The accusations of foul play will continue to pour onto the net over the coming weeks, but they won't have any effect.
The self-proclaimed gods of climate change abatement meet in Copenhagen next month in an attempt to thrash out a Kyoto II type deal. To the assembled there is no questioning of the science: the climate is indeed warming. We have seen rulers like this before attempting to stop the tide from coming in: we know they get their feet wet. Within climate science currently there are many different arguments over what may cause the earth to warm: solar cycles, carbon dioxide emissions, clouds, the affect of the oceans trapped heat, even volcanoes. All contribute to the global climate, some more so than others e.g. water vapour. Yet politicians are solely concerned with one thing: CO2.
Consider the effect that sulphur dioxide has when it reaches the stratosphere following a massive volcanic eruption. It is well documented that afterwards the climate is changed both globally and locally. In the short term. Surely if politicians want to have an effect be it long or short term then putting sulphur dioxide in the stratosphere is a cheaper and more efficient way to go. Politicians have become blinded by the media spotlight and are failing to consider all sides of the argument. As we shall see in Copenhagen next month, when the Canutes will attempt to stop the sea from rising, the ice from melting, the rain from falling etc. They are doomed to failure and with it, they will drag others into poverty, and further hinder our progress.
London to Birmingham: who can get there the fastest? Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party are racing to see who can build a high speed railway between these two cities before the other; on paper. The Labour party are pulling out of the station with the announcement that it is to be a key manifesto pledge. The Conservative party have made promises that they will also look to build a high speed rail link in the UK, connecting London to Birmingham and on to Manchester and Leeds. Not since the mid 19th Century has this country seen such competition between two 'rail companies'.
This government has just spent £8.8bn upgrading a railway line between London and Glasgow. Upgrading it so it can run at the same speeds as before, but with better signalling. Then there is the Channel Tunnel rail link that took over 11 years to build. From its Parliamentary act in1996, to fully opening in 2007. It cost £5.2bn and covers 68 miles or £85.138m per mile. Labour claim that to get to Birmingham it will take them 8 years, but work wouldn't start until 2017. Birmingham is about 112 miles and if similar costs occurred then the total cost to us to build the railway would be £9.5bn. But of course as with everything a politician touches, the cost to us keeps on rising.
Political parties should not be promising to build railways; high speed or otherwise. Any party that promises to spend other people's money will do so without due care. What they should be promising in their manifestos is that if a private party (or parties) wish to build a high speed rail line then they would ensure it gained royal assent. The cost to us all is negligible, even more so if it fails.
Standing on a crowded tube this week, something occurred to me: why do they bother heating the London Underground? Since the tube is underground and full of people, it doesn’t get that cold. More to the point, anyone taking public transport will at some point have to walk outside. Presumably, they will have dressed accordingly and will be wearing jackets, coats, scarves and so on. So why turn the heating on full blast, and pump carriages full of air so hot passengers would feel uncomfortable in shorts and a t-shirt? Surely not heating the tube would save a lot of money, make travelling on it far more pleasant, and even reduce emissions (assuming one cares about that sort of thing)? It seems like commonsense to me, but maybe I’m missing something.
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Continuing with the transport theme, is it really necessary to close so much of Westminster to traffic for the Queen’s speech? As far as I could tell, more or less all the roads within half a mile of Parliament were shut on the day, making it just about impossible to get anywhere. Meanwhile, a number of main roads stayed closed all week, filling alternative routes (like Great Smith Street, home of the ASI) with a constant stream of noisy, slow moving traffic. What’s most annoying is that the whole thing is a pointless charade anyway. Everything the Queen announces to Parliament has been leaked to the press in advance, and most of it will never become law anyway. The pomp and circumstance of the occasion may be nice for tourists, but for the rest of us it’s just a pain.
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Finally, one of the things you notice when you’ve got a traffic jam outside your window is how many buses drive around virtually empty. We often hear that buses ease congestion by fitting more people into less space, but I can’t believe that’s true outside the rush hour. Once you take account of how much road space is reserved solely for the use of buses, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were causing congestion, rather than reducing it.
Amidst considerable brouhaha, the market reacted positively to BA’s long-delayed merger with Spain’s Iberia, on an effective 56%/44% basis. Not surprisingly, opposition to the merger has arisen, both from Virgin, who still recall BA’s role in the grounding of Laker Airways, and from the loquacious Michael O’Leary of Ryanair.
BA itself has many other challenges on its plate, ranging from the sharp plunge into losses, expected strikes and ongoing debate about its planned alliance with American Airlines. However, its worsening pension deficit – at an estimated £3 billion and above its current market value – represent a real impediment to completion of the Iberia deal.
Prudently, Iberia included a get-out clause in its market statement – ‘Iberia will be entitled to terminate the merger agreement if the outcome of the discussions between BA and its pension fund trustees is not, in Iberia’s reasonable opinion, satisfactory because it is materially detrimental to the economic premises of the proposed merger.’
Despite the hours of legal time devoted to drawing up this convoluted sentence, it remains opaque. Clearly, though, Iberia could walk away. Moving to its asset base, BA inherited its key asset – 41% of the slots at Heathrow, which drives its valuation. Without them, its core business class operations at Heathrow simply could not function.
Mindful of the £22.5 billion raised from the sale of 3G spectrum in 2000, could the Government not auction the very valuable slots at Heathrow, both to raise funds and to generate more competition?
Of course, BA would vigorously oppose such a policy even if it were phased in over a deferred period. There are also highly complex legal issues relating to slot ownership both in the UK and in the EU.
But does – and should - BA have effective ownership of over 40% of Heathrow’s slots sine die, unless it chooses to sell them?
Compared to the banks, it's pretty small beer, but now the government has nationalised the east coast rail franchise, National Express has given up on it, and it has been excitingly re-named East Coast, and the equally excitingly, the transport minister Lord Adonis is now running it. Otherwise, it's the same timetable, prices and routes.
This is, of course, exactly how rail franchising is supposed to work. Services are put out to tender, and are run by private companies, but if one of them comes a cropper, the government steps in until another provider can be found. The only trouble is that the government has been stepping in rather a lot lately. Not because the private sector is inherently flaky, but for a couple of other reasons. First, the government screwed the operators down too hard on price. Many of them already had made considerable investment in the rail industry and were not prepared simply to write it off. So they paid over the odds. Then boom turned to bust (thanks, Gordon) and their figures started to look a bit sick. Second, the government drew up its franchise agreement so ineptly that when the chips are down, it is far cheaper for an operator to fold than continue operating a service. Step forward, the taxpayer. Frankly, it's no way to run a railroad.
Also in this weekend's news, Stephen Byers, the transport minister who bankrupted the private rail infrastructure company Railtrack, saying it was too inefficient and expensive – only to replace it with Network Rail, which is even less efficient, completely unaccountable, and forty times as expensive – is stepping down at the next election. Thank goodness. There are very, very few people I take a dislike to, even if I disagree with them politically. But this over-promoted polytechnic teacher and political careerist is one. Roll on the next election, I say.
Earlier this month, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) made a raft of announcements, including six draft national policy statements on energy planning issues; the identification of no less than 10 sites for new nuclear-build; and a framework for developing clean coal plants. After 12 years of Government indecision on key energy issues, policy initiatives are coming out in droves as the decks are cleared ahead of the General Election.
Yet, the prospects for new generation investment, except for gas-fired plants, are not bright. On the nuclear front, new nuclear-builsd are heavily dependent on EdF, which has just recruited a new Chief Executive, Henri Proglio: his priority is to cut EdF’s c£23 billion of net debt. Already, EdF’s Constellation Energy investment in the US is under review. Certainly, there is no guarantee that new nuclear-build in the UK will remain high on EdF’s investment priorities - given that no revenues would accrue before 2018. (Memo to Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron’s Chief of Staff – get the boss to meet Proglio sharpish).
The German joint venture for UK new nuclear-build between E.On and RWE looks somewhat flaky, especially as E.On’s net debt has reached £40 billion. Moreover, the recent German election result gives both companies far better nuclear prospects in their homeland. DECC’s great green hope has always been Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), but - despite Vattenfall’s 30MW Schwarze Pumpe oxyfuel demonstration plant in Germany - the technology is many years from full-scale deployment. The costs, too, are very uncertain.
Hence, the outlook for new UK coal-fired generation looks grim especially since all such plants with a capacity of over 300 MW will now need full CCS installation at the outset. With renewable generation projects experiencing serious fund-raising pressures and long-term gas supplies being subject to real uncertainty, closing the UK’s widening energy gap looks very challenging.
On the day that the world remembered and celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall, Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in The Times reflecting on the magnitude of the event. Dwelling on the historical crossroads we faced before the fall of the wall, he claimed in the that “climate change is the new wall that divides us from our future", insisting that a paradigm shift is needed to deal with it.
Gorbachev’s enthusiasm for targeted worldwide action isn’t based purely on his fear of melting icecaps. He claims that “world citizens are demanding that action is taken to tackle climate change and redress the deep injustices that surround it", and that a “breakthrough in our values and priorities is needed". Once more, the concept of global warming has been hijacked by those with an ulterior motive. For Gorbachev, addressing climate change is a convenient vehicle for the politics of social equality and communitarian values. It is sad to see Gorbachev using the fall of the wall – a symbol of economic and political freedom – to encourage increased government regulation and restriction.
Those with a particular political outlook have long used climate change as an excuse to peddle their own interests, using apocalyptic visions of a charred earth caused by our own selfishness and greed, in order to radically change our way of life and forfeit economic progress. Politicians of all stripes also use the global warming hype to bolster their standing amongst the public, and more damagingly, increase government control of the economy through regulations, taxes and subsidies.
Climate change, if a problem, will require scientific solutions. As such, it will need to be dealt with through schemes such as large-scale geo-engineering projects. It has no political or moral solution. In his article, Gorbachev states that “There is the wall between those who heed the scientific evidence, and those who pander to vested interests." It is ironic that it is often those proclaiming the severity of climate change that possess the most ulterior motives.
Recent opinion polls in the UK and elsewhere show that governments have failed to convince the public about the received wisdom on climate change: it's very bad, it's all our fault and we have to rejig the global economy to fight it. In a survey conducted for the Times, just 41% of people agreed that 'it is now an established scientific fact that climate change is largely man-made'. And only 28% believed that it is 'far and away the most serious problem we face as a country and internationally'.
Energy experts are focusing on next month’s climate change summit in Copenhagen. Given the complexity of the issue - notwithstanding the need to guard national interests - a far-reaching deal emulating that at Kyoto is an unlikely outcome. Much attention will surround the stances adopted by the US and Chinese Governments, which between them account for 40% of global greenhouse gases.
Following the 'hack' of the Climate Research Unit, at UEA last week 
London to Birmingham: who can get there the fastest? Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party are racing to see who can build a high speed railway between these two cities before the other; on paper. The Labour party are pulling out of the station with the 
Amidst considerable brouhaha, the market reacted positively to BA’s long-delayed merger with Spain’s Iberia, on an effective 56%/44% basis. Not surprisingly, opposition to the merger has arisen, both from Virgin, who still recall BA’s role in the grounding of Laker Airways, and from the loquacious Michael O’Leary of Ryanair.
Compared to the banks, it's pretty small beer, but now the government has nationalised the east coast rail franchise, National Express has given up on it, and it has been excitingly re-named East Coast, and the equally excitingly, the transport minister Lord Adonis is now running it. Otherwise, it's the same timetable, prices and routes.
On the day that the world remembered and celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall, Mikhail Gorbachev