Friday, December 11, 2015

COP21 The Talking Continues


An audio version of this episode was published on 11th December 2015 and is available at www.susbiz.biz

This week the Energy Minister and the Prime Minister have been under fire as COP21 moves forward. While the main negotiating sessions continue, many other meetings take place as well. Mark Carney of the Bank of England has a view. The group of 77 nations  (G77) plus China has a view as well, and so do the 48 Least-Developed Countries. Caroline Lucas of the Green Party is concerned. Can we standardise climate change? Is emissions trading the answer? George Monbiot believes that that's attacking the problem from the wrong end. Jeremy Leggett is not at all happy with Minister Amber Rudd as you will learn from the latest chapter of his book, and the week will end with a massive march through the streets of Paris. I’m a member of iema and that entitles me to a daily update on the conference from the environmentalist magazine. Non-members can subscribe at  environmentalistonline.com. But we have our own man on the spot in Paris. You’ll hear from Richard Lane later on.


First of all: it’s beginning look a bit like - 99p for a litre of petrol by Christmas. The oil price has fallen 60% since summer 2014 and Goldman Sachs are still predicting the $20 barrel. This week Brent crude was at $42 and West Texas Intermediate down to $38. Since 2011 the Chancellor has suspended the fuel price escalator. In the face of falling oil prices an additional 1p on a litre of petrol or diesel would be pretty painless. But the government estimates that freezing the escalator has reduced taxation income by some £23bn over the life of the last Parliament. Isn’t that approximately twice what the Chancellor intends to take out of the welfare budget? You can make up your own mind as to whether this was the right place make cuts.

The Prime Minister and cabinet members have been criticised this week for flying to the Paris climate change talks, rather than taking the more environmentally friendly Eurostar train. David Cameron and Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd flew the short trip to the opening day of the talks last Monday. International Development Secretary Justine Greening and her team also took a flight for her short trip to the COP21 talks on Saturday
According to Eurostar, a short haul return flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle airport emits 122 kilograms of CO2 per person, compared with the 10.9 kg CO2 emitted per Eurostar passenger travelling from St Pancras to the centre of Paris. On such a short journey, city centre to city centre times are likely to be shorter by train than by air. Most of the team went back by train, so perhaps the criticism worked.

According to Independent Catholic News, Catholic campaigners have called on the UK government to heed the message of Pope Francis as the Secretary of State arrives in Paris to join the second week of the climate talks.
"David Cameron's speech last Monday,” they say, “called for a strong deal that guarantees adequate climate finance for the world's most vulnerable people and a five year review mechanism to measure and improve progress. We look forward to Amber Rudd rolling her sleeves up and getting involved to make this deal happen."

And Caroline Lucas of the Green Party has a message for Amber Rudd as well. Her open letter to the minister starts like this:
“HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENDER EQUALITY IN THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
“I am writing to express my concern regarding reports from the COP21 negotiations that the language on respect for human rights and gender equality is at risk of being removed entirely from the operative section of the Paris Agreement. Climate change represents a gross social injustice, and establishing overarching principles of climate justice, human rights and gender equality at the heart of the climate agreement will be a prerequisite for effective climate action. I urge you to ensure that the UK in particular is playing a constructive role in upholding a strong EU position on this issue.”

Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, aims to make the company "carbon positive" by 2030, using only renewable energy. He didn’t mention Amber Rudd. Well, not directly.
Speaking to BBC News this week he said he was concerned that the government's decision to remove financial support for wind and solar power would send the wrong signal. Subsidies cannot be permanent, but equally they should not be withdrawn at short notice. There is a risk that cutting subsidies sends the wrong message to investors, who are looking for stability. The government has been inconsistent. 

“We deal with 2bn consumers every day,” says Polman. “No government deals with 2bn consumers. If we are all to achieve our targets, government and business must work together.”

It seems pretty clear that without private sector support, governments will struggle.

So what’s been happening in Paris? Apart from the governmental negotiations there are many other organisations which have come to Paris to lobby and discuss climate change. A great deal has happened. For example,

Ninety businesses and 19 governments have signed up to a World Bank coalition to support the introduction of carbon prices. BT Group, EDF, Lafarge, NestlĂ©, SSE, Unilever and Veolia are among the companies joining the coalition, which will collect and share best practice, mobilise business support and convene talks with global leaders to overcome barriers to more widespread use of carbon pricing. 
They are backed by the governments of Sweden, the Netherlands, Ethiopia and Mexico, among others. Canadian environment minister Catherine McKenna announced that the country’s government, elected last month, would support the coalition. 
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim pointed to China’s plans to introduce a carbon price in 2017, and said: “Anyone who wants to do business with China will have to change the way they work.”
According to the Financial Times, the preferred solution is a cap and trade system. Such schemes already exist. EU ETS, the European union emissions trading scheme, is an example. Unfortunately, it's a bad example because it has done nothing to reduce carbon emissions. Cap and trade involves governments issuing carbon credits which are effectively a licence to emit carbon dioxide. The idea is that the cost of extra credits will put a burden on old and dirty plants, reduce their viability and lead them to be phased out. More efficient plants will need less credits and may even have a surplus to sell, giving them a financial and competitive advantage. In practice, EU ETS has been subject to fraud and manipulation. The price of carbon credits, which has collapsed to less than €4 per tonne, provides  little incentive to industry to clean up.

This week the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI) held a panel discussion on the sidelines of the Paris talks. 
Tom Bauman, co-founder of the GHGMI and chair of a technical committee working on climate change mitigation and adaptation standards at the ISO, said that it had received a large number of requests over the past 18 months for new climate change standards. 
Nick Blyth, policy and practice lead at IEMA, said that the demand for new standards was driven partly by a general increase in awareness of the impacts of climate change as well as the publication of the revised ISO 14001 environmental management standard. The revised 14001: 2015 standard requires organisations to consider the impact of the environment, including climate change, on their operations as well as their impact on the environment.
“The revised ISO 14001 should introduce more people to climate change, which will then lead them into the scope of other GHG standards,” he said. 
More than 324,000 organisations worldwide were certified to 14001 in 2014, according to the ISO’s latest figures. The high rate of use is bringing climate change into mainstream environmental management systems, Blyth added. 

The negotiations are not all about mitigation; measures to reduce or slow down climate change. They are also about dealing with the consequences. Discussions over which countries will pay for damage caused by climate change are slowing down negotiations, with the G77 plus China group issuing a new warning that the issue threatens chances of a deal.
The G77 plus China negotiating bloc, which now consists of 134 countries, including Saudi Arabia and South Africa, complained about attempts by developed countries to widen the pool of donor nations that would contribute finance. The developed nations argue that developing countries “in a position to do so” should also contribute to funds to pay for climate change damage. 
In a strongly worded statement, ambassador Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa, which chairs the bloc, said: “The G77 and China is deeply concerned with the attempts to introduce economic conditions in the finance section currently under negotiation … Any attempt to replace the core obligation of developed countries to provide financial support to developing countries with a number of arbitrarily identified economic conditions is a violation of the rules-based multilateral process and threatens an outcome here in Paris.” 

Countries most at risk from climate change joined the debate and warned that there would be no overall agreement in Paris unless a mechanism to deal with the impacts of climate change beyond adaptation is agreed.

The Least Developed Countries (LDC) negotiating bloc comprises 48 of the world’s poorest countries including many African countries and low-lying island states. Its members face severe disasters from climate change that are predicted to cause damage for which adaptation will not be possible. This is known as “loss and damage” and includes salination of agricultural land and loss of land to the sea.
Pa Ousman Jarju, minister of environment and climate change for the Gambia, said: “We do not foresee an outcome in Paris without loss and damage. It is a red line for us.”
Jarju said that the bloc had been encouraged by some of the statements by world leaders made at the start of the Paris talks, but said that this had not filtered through to negotiations. “We have seen a lot of bracketing,” he said, referring to the practice of using square brackets throughout the draft text to indicate options on the table where no decision has been reached. More about this in a moment.

Last Friday, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, launched the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to develop voluntary, consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures by companies. This would provide lenders, insurers, investors and other stakeholders with important long-term information, he said. Carney has already warned about the danger from stranded assets, fossil fuel reserves which cannot be exploited without emitting unsustainable levels of emissions and which are therefore potentially worthless.
The taskforce will be chaired by UN special envoy for climate change and former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg. It will consider what constitutes effective corporate financial transparency on climate change to understand the physical, liability and transition risks, and will review and learn from existing disclosure processes. 
Paul Simpson, chief executive of the CDP, (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), which has been working on climate change-related disclosures for investors for 15 years, welcomed the announcement. “We see it as a way of elevating our work and some of the information we collect right into the heart of financial markets and central banks. Carney is governor of the Bank of England and chair of the Financial Stability Board so that’s a much stronger angle into banks on climate than there’s been before. It will take disclosures to the next level,” he said.  

Proposals by the Treasury to scrap regulations requiring companies to report greenhouse-gas emissions in their financial reports as part of its business energy efficiency tax review were very worrying, Simpson said. But these could now be under review following Carney’s high-profile speech to the city and the creation of the taskforce, he added. 
“We very much hope that due to Carney’s focus on this issue, Osborne and the Treasury will see sense and realise that investors need this information, in fact they need more information than just GHG emissions. We’re hopeful that it will cause a u-turn from Osborne.” 
Not another u-turn, surely.

More than 100 companies including Ikea, Coca-Cola, Walmart and Kellogg have pledged to set emissions reduction targets in line with scientific assessments on how to keep temperature rises below 2°C.
Corporate science-based targets are being advocated by a coalition consisting of the World Resources Institute (WRI), the CDP, the UN Global Compact and WWF.
Speaking at a side-event on science-based targets at the UNFCCC talks in Paris, Kevin Moss, business centre director at the WRI, said typically, companies would set emission reduction targets in line with what they thought they could achieve, and then stretched themselves slightly so they knew they would meet the target.
“Science-based targets start with the principle that what we are trying to do is solve the problem of catastrophic climate change and there isn’t really a half way point to avoiding catastrophic climate change, you’re either on a trajectory to meet it or you’re not.
“If you’re making the effort to reduce emissions, it’s worth making that little bit extra effort to avoid catastrophic climate change,” he said.

A new draft agreement was announced at COP21 this week. I heard that the previous 50 pages had been reduced to 20. The copy I downloaded ran to 48 pages - still full of bracketed alternatives. For example:

. Article 2bis (GENERAL)
1. [All Parties [shall] regularly prepare, communicate [and implement] [intended] nationally determined [contributions][components] [on [mitigation] and adaptation]…

…you get the idea. And that’s just one clause. Still plenty to do before the close of business on 11th December. And I think it will take a long time to understand what the final agreement actually amounts to.

George Monbiot is a climate campaigner, a Guardian columnist and author. Last Friday he appeared on Any Questions, the BBC Radio 4 current affairs debate. He stated that the UK has a legal requirement to exploit fossil fuels, which seems totally at variance with managing emissions. I tracked this down to an article he wrote in January, referring to what is now the Infrastructure Act 2015. Article 41 of this Act is indeed headed “Maximising recovery of UK petroleum” and it requires the Secretary of State to produce one or more strategies for enabling that objective to be met. That’s the same secretary of state who is responsible for reducing carbon emissions. Also in the article, George Monbiot takes issue with the idea of reducing carbon emissions by penalising the consumer. Instead we should tax the producer of fossil fuels. In his words, “Let’s control carbon emissions at the wellhead, not the tailpipe.” Whether that will happen in Paris is open to question. For the moment a carbon cap and trade scheme seems more likely, with all its shortcomings.

I suggested last week that the US would resist any agreement that was legally binding. The good news is that President Obama said he would accept a legal obligation to review the progress towards carbon reduction every 5 years. That’s a start, but in my view reviews should begin much sooner and be more frequent. On the other hand, the Indian Environment Minister said that his country was embarking on a 10-year project and there would clearly be no need for review for 10 years. What business could set out on a 10-year plan without review? If there are any you’ve probably never heard of them because they failed in the first few years.

The latest episode of Jeremy Leggett’s book “The Winning of the Carbon War” came out this week. It’s a free download from jeremyleggett.net. It’s nearly finished. The last chapter will be out in January and will end with an assessment of what was achieved by COP21. Jeremy leads one of the original and biggest solar energy companies in the UK. He is has it in for Amber Rudd as well. Here’s a quotation from his latest chapter.
“The government is engaged in a scorched earth assault on solar now, it seems. They want no opposition to gas and oil, fracked from British shale or otherwise produced at home and abroad. They seem unembarrassable by their willingness to shovel large subsidies to shale and nuclear while torpedoing solar subsidies.
“Two days ago somebody in either the civil service or the Tory party leaked a letter from Amber Rudd to ministerial colleagues. It shows that in June, when she insisted that the UK was on track for its legally binding European commitment for renewables in the energy mix, she misled Parliament. Now she admits that the government is on course to miss the target by some distance. She suggests some shameful ways of wriggling out of the commitment, like somehow creating renewable energy credits abroad so as to claim the targets have been met.
“Today, facing calls for her resignation, she has given an interview insisting that she still has the confidence of the renewables sector. I know of no leader in the renewable sector whose view deviates much from derision. The whole spectacle has descended beyond farce.”

Well, all this is politics, horse-trading and shenanigans. Does it really matter to you, me and the man in the street what goes on in Whitehall or what gets decided in Paris? Yes, it does. Is there anything we can do about it? It’s the difference between mitigation and adaptation. Governments and global corporations can mitigate. You and I have to adapt. Having said that there are many brave people in Paris running parallel events and demonstrating their demands for a fair and effective agreement from COP21. The short-term interests of the less-than-1% cannot determine the futures of the rest of the world, they say. Next Saturday, 12th December, they take to the streets of Paris to demand that all countries should keep to the pledges made at COP21 and ideally do even better. No, I won’t be there. No excuses and I’ll probably regret it. It’s going to be part of history. I’ll be there in spirit.
One person who is there is Richard Lane, President of York Community Energy. Here’s his report:

"Basically: almost everything we're doing is wrong! The Clean Development Mechanism and the Green Climate Fund are both deeply suspect and causing the sort of popular resistance that we have seen when huge windfarms get imposed on people without their consent in the UK. The draft text of the Paris agreement only mentions the word "energy" once - that's in the phrase "International Atomic Energy Agency". The US has been fighting against the inclusion of a clause referring to the "loss and damage" due to climate change (which would of course signify the recognition of responsibility), but more recently has given way on this issue provided it is made clear that there will be no means to make them liable for any sort of reparation. The South African spokesperson of the G77 has been very outspoken, resulting in a lot of behind-the-scenes threats and pressure being applied to other G77 members to rein her in. At the moment it looks like this approach is being successful in breaking up the unity of developing countries.

"A new version of the text will be released on Wednesday 9th December. There is still hope that the final target could be 1.5degC but there is no hope of a legally binding treaty - or indeed any updating of INDCs that would get us closer to that from the current 3degC or so.

"I actually missed the daily debrief today because I was due to videocall in to the York Environment Forum meeting which nearly didn't work due to a combination of technical problems & lack of skill their end and difficult environment my end.

"I met a lot of activists in community energy - there are moves to try to connect up the community energy movement worldwide.”

More from Richard, I hope, later in the week.




Meanwhile, back at work, back in the office, are you confident of the future, or do you have a 10-year plan which means you don’t have to worry about anything for another 9 years or so? If you want a review before then, if you want to chat about sustaining your business and bolstering your competitive position for even more than the next 10 years, give me a call, especially if you’ve still got some mince pies left.
I’m Anthony Day and I’m on 07803 616877.

That was the Sustainable Futures Report. This is Anthony Day. There will be another episode next week.




Monday, December 07, 2015

COP21 - The Talking Begins

An audio version of this episode was published on 4th December and is available at susbiz.biz and on iTunes.

Yes, COP21, the Paris climate change conference, is finally here. No results expected before the end of next week so I'm going to take the opportunity to review what this conference means for us, for our businesses, for families and for our future. Also in this episode, the minister takes control of fracking, business views of the climate conference and plans for a ministry of the future.

Welcome to the Sustainable Futures Report, the new, improved and upgraded Sustainable Futures Show brought to you without advertising, sponsorship or subsidy. So I can say what I like.  And a special welcome to friends and listeners on their way to Paris to take part in the official or unofficial events surrounding COP21. It's Friday 4th December 2015 and this is Anthony Day with news, views and ideas, and by the way your news, views and ideas are very welcome and important. Please get in touch and share them. I’m at mail@anthony-day.com. 

First this week, what’s this COP21 conference all about then, and why is it important? It's the UN conference on Climate Change, it involves 195 countries and 145 of them sent their prime ministers or heads of state to the opening ceremony where they each reiterated their country's commitment to cutting green house gas emissions. It’s important to you because if these leaders take truly effective action it’s likely to drive up energy costs in the short term. They will have to put a price on carbon, which means taxing or surcharging anything which emits greenhouse gases. Petrol will be more expensive at the pump. It will cost more to heat your home. Those extra costs will be added to existing production and distribution costs. Almost anything you buy will cost more - from food to fashion, from pharmaceuticals to furniture. The alternative, according to the scientists, is catastrophic climate change: drought, famine, floods and failure of food supplies. At first this will be worst in the developing nations, but our supply chains are global. We’ll be affected by what happens in far-off countries of which we know little. To start with we’ll see higher prices. As the situation worsens we’ll see shortages. As distant nations become uninhabitable will see massive movements of refugees across the world; far, far more than the numbers causing so much argument at the moment. 

The solution is twofold - mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation to stop climate change getting worse: adaptation to cope with and control the effects that are already here. Adaptation involves financial support to the developing nations which are suffering the worst effects of climate change even though they have done little to cause it. An agreement on financial support to these nations by the developed nations will be an important outcome of COP21.

Mitigation, to stop climate change getting worse, depends on a radical change in the way we produce and use energy. Everyone can protect themselves against rising energy prices. Driving more slowly saves fuel. Turning down the thermostat and wearing an extra jumper saves gas. Insulation keeps your home warm for less. It’s more difficult with industrial processes. Bread won’t bake and chemical reactions won’t react except at specified temperatures. Perhaps the answer here is greater efficiency through economies of scale. Beyond that we have to look at new forms of supply which don’t involve burning fossil fuels. Despite scepticism, renewables are becoming more and more viable, producing 25% of the UK’s electricity for the third quarter of this year. I spoke last week about the solar power station in Morocco which stores heat in molten salt and can generate electricity 20 hours per day. Battery storage is becoming more efficient. Domestic stores are already available from Tesla in the US, Sonnen in Germany and Powervault in the UK. If you have solar panels you can save some of your energy for use at night. Energy can also be stored as heat as with the Moroccan power station, as potential energy as in the Dinorwic pump storage scheme in North Wales or stored in massive flywheels. Apart from wind turbines and solar panels, a 320MW tidal power station is planned for Swansea Bay and there is potential for geothermal energy all over the world, including parts of the UK. It’s time to invest in these new technologies. Actually, these generation technologies are not that new. It’s time to invest in developing, refining and perfecting them. It’s time to invest in storage science, like the lithium-air battery under development at Cambridge University.

The fact that the vast majority of the world's leaders took time out to travel to Paris shows they think climate change is important. On Sunday 29th November 50,000 people marched in London to show that they thought it was important too. But people marched not just in London, but all over the world. In more than 2,000 cities - a million of them. It's probably the biggest international march ever. Not in Paris, though. In view of the security situation marches were banned. Instead, people left shoes, thousands of pairs of shoes, in la Place de la RĂ©publique, to symbolise the march they would have made. The Pope sent a pair of shoes. So did UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. What do all these people want, and what's in it for you? They all want nations to work together to stop global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and thereby avoiding dangerous climate change. How are they going to do that? Good question. 

Of course the politicians have to balance short-term politics with the need to save the planet. At the opening ceremony of COP21 President Obama said

I’ve come here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognises our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it.”

“Let’s show businesses and investors that the global economy is on a firm path towards a low-carbon future.  If we put the right rules and incentives in place, we’ll unleash the creative power of our best scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs to deploy clean energy technologies and the new jobs and new opportunities that they create all around the world.  There are hundreds of billions of dollars ready to deploy to countries around the world if they get the signal that we mean business this time.  Let’s send that signal.”

He went on to say,

“I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late.  And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.  But if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won't be too late for them.”


In his speech, David Cameron asked what we would say to our grandchildren if the conference failed to reach an effective agreement.

“But they would ask us why is it difficult to reach a legally binding agreement when in 2015 there are already 75 countries …. that already have legally binding climate change legislation? …countries that are thriving with that legislation.”

“Why, they’d ask us, is it difficult to have a review after 5 years?

“Would we really be able to argue that it was too difficult?
Too difficult to transfer technology from rich countries to poorer countries?
Our grandchildren would rightly ask us: what was so difficult?
You had this technology, you knew it worked, you knew that if you gave it to poor and vulnerable countries they could protect themselves against climate change – why on earth didn’t you do it?

“What I’m saying,” said Mr Cameron, “is that instead of making excuses tomorrow to our children and grandchildren, we should be taking action against climate change today.”

Can’t argue with that.

But his grandchildren weren’t there to ask why his government has effectively banned new on-shore wind turbines, why it will only support new offshore turbines if they dramatically cut their costs, why it has cut the subsidy for clean solar energy at short notice, why it has terminated the low-carbon homes initiative, why it has modified the renewables obligation to work against renewable energy, why it has removed business start-up tax breaks from community energy projects and why it has withdrawn its financial support from carbon capture and storage, the only way of cleaning up coal and gas power stations. They weren’t there to ask why his government supports fracking, a technique for extracting carbon-emitting natural gas, either.

I expect somebody will ask those questions. Hopefully before it’s too late.

What can we expect from COP21? The majority of nations have submitted an INDC, an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution. A contribution to reducing global GHG emissions. These documents take various forms - different starting points, different end points, different percentage reductions. They have been analysed and the overall effect, if they are all achieved, will be to limit global warming to a 2.7℃ temperature increase over pre-industrial levels. That’s more than the 2℃ which is widely considered the danger level, but much better than the current trend which is rising towards 4℃ or 5℃. An overall draft agreement has been submitted to the conference. As I mentioned in a previous episode, this is really just a template. Every word, every phrase, almost every comma is presented with an alternative. This will be negotiated over the coming days and will determine how the nations will fulfil their INDCs, although not the specific measures that each nation must take. For an insight into the negotiation process listen to “Can we trust the IPCC?”, an episode of the Sustainable Futures Report from November 2014. Search on IPCC at susbiz.biz . In this episode Professor Piers Forster, one of the lead authors of AR5, explains the pressures and compromises involved in agreeing the final text of that document.

David Cameron calls for a binding agreement and we must support him on that. Unfortunately, the word is that the Americans will not accept it. This is because they believe that climate sceptic Republicans would block such a measure.

COP21 rolls on until Friday next week. Since I record these episodes at least a day in advance I won't be able to report on the final outcome in the next scheduled episode. I may possibly issue a special supplementary report early in the following week, or I may defer the next episode altogether until then.

In the meantime I suggest you have a look at “The most terrifying video you'll ever see.” It isn’t really terrifying. It’s a clear and logical examination of whether we should take action on climate change and what would happen if we didn’t. It just looks at our options: climate change is either real or not real and we have the choice to take action or take no action. It’s been up on YouTube for several years and been viewed by over 6 million people. It’s just as relevant as it was when it was first posted. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/zORv8wwiadQ 

Still to come: business views on climate change and a clear view of the future. First, fracking.

The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has announced that he will make the decision on whether Cuadrilla can frack for shale gas in Lancashire. You will remember that Lancashire County Council refused permission back in the summer. The minister says he is now calling the case in and will make the decision himself in the national interest. Not unexpected. Greenpeace are raising a petition in protest but that’s unlikely to change anything.

There was nothing in the Autumn Statement about the proposals to slash feed-in tariffs, so I suppose that we must assume that they will go ahead.
Last Friday Greenpeace sent an open letter to David Cameron in support of renewable energy and asked the government to “commit and put forward policies to support the growth of the UK renewables sector through the 2020’s, consistent with the critical role of the power sector in addressing carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act.” This letter was jointly signed by Unilever, Vodaphone, Nestle, Thames Water, BT, IKEA, M&S, Kingfisher, Tesco and Panasonic.

Other business voices were raised as COP21 started. CBI, the Confederation of British Industry, has published a report on what it would like to see from the conference. 

Rhian Kelly, CBI Director of Business Environment policy, said:

“We all know there is no easy answer to climate change. But, business and industry are part of the solution - developing innovative new products and services, and leading the way in cutting emissions, to propel us towards a low carbon future.
“Firms need confidence to invest in this future though, so the Climate Change Conference is a golden opportunity to create the long-term frameworks that businesses crave. This means a clear sense of direction, support for carbon pricing that can drive investment and getting finance and technology flowing.
“So much effort has been put into agreeing frameworks ready for Paris, we simply cannot afford to fall at the last hurdle, and delay a lasting, global plan for climate action. All businesses, especially energy-intensive industries, will be looking for an international deal which helps create a level playing field, and that keeps the UK competitive.”

“Clear sense of direction.” Let’s hope that the government one day comes to understand that short-notice changes of policy discourage investment. Maybe we should have a Ministry of the Future to concentrate on the long term. Sounds a silly idea? Ian Birrell, writing in the i newspaper, describes the Ministry of the Future which has been set up by the Swedish government to look 50 years ahead. Its head, Kristina Persson, says, “There is a need to see any dangers in time and create a narrative that holds together.” There are policies where the long view is essential. Climate change is one. Benefits, energy, pensions, health and social care all demand a long-term view.  Looking beyond the short term might have made us think twice about the interminable debt burden that is PFI. We now have a National Infrastructure Commission. That could be a step in the right direction, but we need a body with a wide perspective as well as a long view, and we need politicians who will listen. 

Meanwhile, are you taking the long view of your business prospects? Climate change, energy shortages, supply chain pressures - have you factored them into your business plan? Yes the future is always uncertain, but there’s nothing more uncertain than a future unexplored. 
Why not give me a call and we can talk through the type of things which could put your organisation at risk and decide how best to be prepared. Maybe we could talk about putting the issues into focus through scenario planning. The number is 07803 616877  or drop me an email at mail@anthony-day.com. Give me a call and a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you what I think. If you call me now we can get something in the diary before Christmas. Oh, and I’ll expect a mince pie as well. Black Friday? Cyber Monday? This is the bargain of the week. Here’s to Sustainable 2016.

Yes, that’s it, another episode of the Sustainable Futures Report in the can. I’m off to the North West sustainable Business Quarterly meeting in Manchester shortly, kindly hosted by Anthesis anthesisgroup.com at the Bruntwood Tower. I usually meet interesting people there. I’ll tell you about it. 

But for now, this is Anthony Day and that was the Sustainable Futures Report.


Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Going Underground

Published as a podcast at www.susbiz.biz on Friday 27th November 2015
Although recent episodes of the sustainable futures show might lead you to think that it's all about energy, that's certainly not the case. This week I do talk about energy, potential energy under our feet, and also about water, groundwater. Desalination, solar energy, failing monsoons, Moroccan salt and Californian almonds are also on the agenda. And the UK has abandoned plans for carbon capture and storage.


Hello. This is Anthony Day, and this is the Sustainable Futures Show for Friday, 27 November 2015. And from next month it's going to be called the Sustainable Futures Report.

Running Out
According to a report in Nature Geoscience we are running out of groundwater. Groundwater is the one third of the world’s freshwater which is below the surface of the earth. We are using it up more rapidly that it is being replaced. And less than 6% of the water in the top 2 km of the earth’s surface  is renewed in a human lifetime. Some groundwater is rapidly renewed by rainfall and is only a few months old. Other reserves of groundwater can be millions of years old.
In California groundwater from boreholes is used for agriculture. A farmer interviewed by Capital Public Radio reported that the water level in his well was falling by 800 mm each year. Not surprising when you consider that California is in its fourth year of drought. This farmer had decided to do what he could to replenish the groundwater by flooding his crops whenever there was heavy rainfall and surplus water. He was prepared to invest millions of dollars to divert floodwaters to irrigate his crops with far more than they needed so that the water would percolate away through the sandy soil and down into the aquifers. 80% of the world’s almonds are produced in California and the Almond Board is looking at flooding the plantations in order to restore the groundwater there. The problem is that not all agricultural soils are permeable and it is not clear whether all crops will accept excess water. There will also need to be canals and pipes installed to divert the floodwaters. The original farmer was growing grapevines and the excess water did not damage the crop and might even have slightly improved it. Elsewhere in California there is growing tension between farmers as they drill deeper wells in order to secure their own supplies.

The University of the United Arab Emirates reports that Abu Dhabi is likely to exhaust its groundwater completely within 15 years. At the moment 98% of drinking water in the emirates comes from desalination plants. The problem with this is that the process uses substantial amounts of energy, usually natural gas, and the hot liquid which is pumped back into the sea as a byproduct damages the marine ecosystem. Citizens of the emirates use on average 500 L per day each, which is one of the highest rates of consumption in the world. The government admits that the price of water is too low which leads people to have no concern about wasting it and they don’t bother about leaks. Raising prices could go part way to solving this problem and the Emirates are also introducing solar powered desalination plants which will not use gas and presumably will not produce CO2 emissions either.
According to the Times of India, Pune, south-east of Mumbai, is also suffering from falling groundwater levels. The 2015 monsoon was weaker than usual and some areas received as little as 50% of normal rainfall. In 2014 some 6,000 villages saw water in their wells fall by a metre or more. In 2015 this had more than doubled to 13,500 villages. Of these, nearly 3,000 saw the level fall between 2m and 3m and over 4,000 saw the level fall by more than 3m. These villages are on the brink of severe drinking water shortages. The authorities have banned deep wells in 80 locations and say they will have to recharge the aquifers, although it is not clear how they will actually do it.

All these places may be far from home, but that doesn't mean that we won't suffer water shortages in Europe. All too often our problem is too much water, rather than drought but how far do you and your business rely on water? Do you actually know where your water supply comes from? Probably yes, if you’re a farmer. Otherwise it might be worth finding out. In a future episode I plan to review the book “Let there be water” by Seth M Siegel. You can find it at sethmsiegel.com .

Unconventional Energy
Paul Younger is Rankine Chair of Engineering and Professor of Energy Engineering at School of Engineering, at the University of Glasgow. He was interviewed by Jim Al Khalili at the recent freethinking festival. He said his main concerns were keeping the lights on and keeping carbon emissions down. We urgently need to find new sources of energy. We need to find the lowest carbon alternatives and it is urgent because of continuing and increasing fuel poverty and the risk of winter blackouts. He was scathing about an energy policy which has left us with a very narrow safety margin in the event of a severe winter. Have I mentioned that before? What alternative energy sources do we have? As a geologist, Professor Younger has investigated geothermal energy and drilled boreholes deep into the earth. Anyone who has been down a coal mine knows that the deeper you go the warmer it gets. Deeper still and the rocks get extremely hot. It is possible to harness this heat to raise steam and generate electricity, but in many cases it is more efficient to use the heat as heat. Looking at the U.K.'s energy consumption, only one fifth of energy is used as electricity, 2/5 are used as heat and the remainder is used for transport. While it might be possible to use geothermal energy for combined heat and power, the main potential is for running district heating systems. This means that alongside the gas pipes, the water pipes and the electricity cables we would have a hot water main feeding the central heating of each property. It's a system which works well in other countries and if we have a source of free, zero carbon heat it's an opportunity to be seriously considered. Although test drillings have proved that the heat is there, the projects have run out of money.
In Africa, however, notably in Ethiopia, geothermal energy is providing clean, cheap electricity to communities that had little or none before.

Another potential source of energy is underground coal gasification (UCG). This involves drilling into very deep coal seams, way beyond the reach of conventional mining, oxidising the coal and extracting the gas. In fact, this gas would be more important as a source of chemical feedstocks than as a fuel. Many fertilisers, pharmaceuticals and fabrics that we all take for granted are manufactured from hydrocarbons: oil or gas. If we do use gas from this source for energy, the carbon dioxide could be re-injected into the exhausted coal seams. If everything could be done on-site then this would remove the need for long pipelines which seem to be part of the current carbon capture and storage initiatives. Current CCS plans involve piping the CO2 across the country and injecting it into caverns under the North Sea.

At least that was the plan. 
At the same time as the Chancellor, George Osborne, was delivering his Autumn Statement to Parliament this week, the Department of Energy and Climate Change was making an announcement to the London Stock Exchange. It said that the £1bn prize fund for the first company to develop commercial-scale carbon capture and storage was withdrawn with immediate effect. The pilot projects at Drax and Peterhead will not now go ahead, putting an end to four years of research and preparation. The schemes would have generated 2,000 construction jobs at Drax and 100 permanent positions, and a further 600 jobs at Peterhead. You could argue that with last week’s re-announcement of the closure of coal-fired power stations, carbon capture and storage is no longer needed. However the 25 gas fired power stations which they are planning to build will all emit greenhouse gases. Clearly they will now be emitted into the atmosphere without any form of abatement.


Going back to UCG.
Underground Coal Gasification is not the same as fracking, says Prof Younger although he believes that fracking is not as dangerous as some would claim. In his view, fracking in the United States has been carried out by unqualified cowboys, so no wonder there have been spills, escapes and pollution. If underground gasification is carried out by people with mining skills or people skilled in exploiting the oil and gas in the North Sea it can be carried out safely. After all, coal mines stretched miles out underneath the North Sea with never a leak. UGC and geothermal developments need to be done while these skills are still around, before these experts retire. Does he think it will happen? Sadly not. There will be no incentive until the population at large realises that energy and food and medicines and plastics are getting more expensive and demands that engineers find a solution. By then the only alternative will probably be to buy the technology and skills - technology invented in the UK – from the Chinese.

 The problem with unconventional energy, as with all other forms of renewable energy, is that oil is currently so cheap that it is difficult to be cost competitive, although on-shore wind is pretty close. For the moment. 

A Ray of Sunshine (lots, actually)
Meanwhile, the BBC, Daily Mail and many others report on the new solar plant about to open in Morocco. When it is complete it will provide enough power for a million people, 20 hours a day. Yes, even at night. The difference is that this is not a solar PV array. There are no panels which produce electricity when the sun shines on them. Instead there are banks of computer-controlled mirrors which track the sun and focus its rays on a heat exchanger. This transfers heat to molten salt, which in turn is hot enough to produce steam to drive a conventional steam-turbine generating set. The salt holds its heat well after dark. 
It is part of Morocco's pledge to get 42% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. The UN has praised Morocco for the level of its ambition. The UK on the other hand, a much richer country, is aiming for 30% by the same date. Of course the Moroccans don’t have George Osborne.

The Guardian explains how the whole of Europe could run on renewables, given the right distribution infrastructure. We could share geothermal power from Iceland, hydropower from Sweden, wind power from the UK and solar power from Spain. Where there’s a will there’s a way! No will, not enough vision, at the moment, unfortunately.

More Oil
If you were listening to the sustainable futures show in January you may remember that I asked you to predict the price of oil in January 2016. The oil price fell dramatically from over $100 a barrel in mid 2014 to only $47 by the start of this year. My prediction for January 2016 was $65. Today, 25th November, it’s $42, which doesn’t look good for me, or for renewables. OPEC warned this week that the price could spike. They said that they were not prepared to limit production raise prices unless other producers did the same. Their object was to maintain their market share. However the Saudi Oil minister warned that reduced investment as a result of the low price could lead to a supply shortfall which could drive up prices very quickly. According to the International Energy Agency the world currently holds stocks of oil equivalent to nearly 300 days’ net imports. This will be a buffer, but how effective it is depends on how quickly the industry can bring new supplies on stream, or - and this is surely preferable - how quickly we can we can find substitutes.

COP21
I’ve not mentioned COP21. It starts next week. Ban Ki Moon says that in the nine years that he has been Secretary-General of the United Nations he has seen first hand the consequences of climate change. He has seen the effects on the developing world and the likely effects on his grandchildren and future generations. 
“As the head of the United Nations,” he says, “I have prioritised climate change because no country can meet this challenge alone. Climate change carries no passport; emissions released anywhere contribute to the problem everywhere. Economic stability and the security of nations are under threat. Only through the UN can we respond collectively to this global issue.”

Mass demonstrations urging world leaders to come up with binding and effective solutions have been planned for months. Unsurprisingly, the French authorities have said that they cannot guarantee the safety of marchers after this month’s attacks. Indoor meetings can go ahead, but the march in Paris planned for this Sunday 29th November cannot. There will be marches in other capitals and major cities all round the world. A march is planned in Paris on 12 December to mark the end of the conference. We'll have to see whether that goes ahead or not. Apart from the marches, the world is on the threshold of something very big.

This is Anthony Day and that was another episode of the sustainable futures show. Thanks for listening. There is so much going on that again I have had to hold things over. Next time of course we will be in the middle of COP 21 the Paris climate conference and I shall certainly be monitoring that as it unfolds. That will dominate future episodes. It's all about sustainability. It’s about climate change, and energy and food and population and as you have seen in this episode, it’s about water and other scarce resources as well. The world is changing and change is affecting business as never before. It means you need to plan. You need to plan more than ever. If you're not sure how these things will affect your business, if you'd like to have a general chat on what's happening and how it may change your world, your market, your supply chain, give me a call. I’m Anthony Day and my number is 07803 616877 in the UK. Give me a call and let's talk. In any case I hope you'll be listening to next week’s Sustainable Futures Report.


 I'm Anthony Day and that's it for another week.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Ever Closer to Paris

Hear the podcast at www.susbiz.biz

This week, the heat is on for Exxon but may be off for the Swiss. When is a keystone not a Keystone? I look in detail at why climate change is important and what countries are likely to do about it at the Paris conference. And what citizens at large will do about it if they don’t. Why has a minister got a ruddy complexion? What’s a trilemma? And what’s Jeremy Leggett doing in that locked room?

Hello. This is Anthony Day and this is the sustainable futures show. It's exactly a year since I started publishing the sustainable futures show regularly every week. There are now some 50 episodes in the archive going back over the last 12 months and about the same number which were issued irregularly going right back to 2007. The Christmas edition on 25 December will review some of the highlights of previous episodes. If you want to find any of them now, just go to www.susbiz.biz and do a keyword search.

Sustainable Futures. I’ve said before that in my book a sustainable business is a business that will be here this year, next year and in 10, 20 or more years from now. It needs to manage change. Change in its environment. Change in its stakeholder expectations. Change in the market. Change in the supply chain. Change in the world.

To manage change successfully you first have to see it coming. Every week, the sustainable futures show brings you news, facts and opinions about changes in the sustainable world. My aim is to bring you everything that's important and interesting to help you manage change.

Investigating Exxon

The heat is on for Exxon. According to the New York Times, The New York attorney general has begun an investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business.
The investigation focuses on whether statements the company made to investors about climate risks as recently as this year were consistent with the company’s own long-running scientific research.

Peabody Energy, America’s largest coal producer, has also been under investigation over whether it properly disclosed financial risks related to climate change. That investigation has not so far resulted in any charges or other legal action. Investigations, which could theoretically lead to charges of fraud, are based on asset valuations. If reserves of oil and gas and coal cannot be extracted and used, then they have no value. They are stranded assets. The fossil fuel companies refuse to accept that any of their assets are stranded and therefore stand by their asset valuation. It's quite possible that all this will lead to litigation, but the likely outcome will be fat fees for lawyers and years and years of legal disputes. It's extremely unlikely to have any short-term effect on reducing greenhouse gases or climate change.

Keystone XL

A keystone is literally the last piece of stone to be slotted into a masonry arch. It locks all the other pieces firmly together. It's key, because without a keystone the arch collapses. Maybe it's by reason of its importance that the planned pipeline from Canada to Texas was named Keystone XL. The plan was to pipe crude oil from the Canadian tar sands across the United States to be refined in Texas, but this week president Obama announced that it was not viable, did not create jobs, was not vital for US energy and national security, and was too dangerous for our environment. It would not be built. Cue joyful demonstrations from environmentalists. Actually it's not as simple as that. Keystone XL is phase IV of a pipeline system which has already been in operation since January 2014, and does indeed transport oil from Canada to Texas. Phase IV, a 1200-mile pipeline which will not now be built, would have taken a more direct route and had a much larger capacity. Oil, probably less of it, will now be sent by rail instead. The oil industry is not happy, but it's probably glad to avoid such an enormous investment in this time of very low oil prices. Oil from tar sands is some of the dirtiest oil and most difficult and expensive to produce, so anything which depresses demand and keeps it in the ground is to be welcomed. 

Closing in on Paris

The big change on the horizon is of course COP21, the United Nations climate change conference taking place in Paris in December. But why is climate change important to you, your business, your family, your future? Because if climate change is allowed to continue it’s going to damage the world we live in and make life difficult; ultimately impossible. And if governments take firm action to tackle climate change it’s going to change our world and, in the short term, may also make life difficult. But at least we’ll have a sustainable future.

What if we don’t tackle climate change? 

The predictions are for more unusual weather. 

This November in the UK we are experiencing the warmest November days ever, and what’s wrong with that? Well this week the Met Office announced that 2015 would be the first year when average global temperatures reached 1℃ higher than the average before the start of the Industrial Revolution. Doesn’t sound a lot, but a rise of 2℃ is generally believed to be the threshold of catastrophic climate change. So we're halfway there.
In Europe rainfall has been unusually low. This has caused a shortage of heating oil in Switzerland. How can that possibly be connected? Well, heating oil is delivered to Switzerland by barges sailing along the River Rhine. Lack of rainfall means that the river level is the lowest it has been for four years. Some barges can no longer sail the river, and those that can are half empty so that they do not ride too low in the water. As a result there’s a shortage of heating oil and the Swiss may freeze this winter - if it ever gets cold! The trouble is that it isn't getting as cold as it used to, and that has serious consequences for the skiing industry. 
The popular wisdom is that climate change will have its earliest and most serious effects in the developing nations. Not exclusively, it seems.

The predictions are for more extreme weather. 

This is certainly affecting the developing world. In 1984 the world was horrified by scenes of starvation from Ethiopia. In 2015 the same thing seems to be happening again. The rains have failed. They planted sorghum. It failed. They planted peas. They failed. The population now relies on emergency handouts from reserves. The United Nations has warned that more than 15 million people in Ethiopia will be in need of food aid by the beginning of 2016. 

The predictions are for sea-level rise. 

As the ice-caps melt and the oceans warm up, the volume of water increases and sea-levels rise. They rise by only millimetres per year so the rise alone will take years to have an effect. Except that every millimetre rise represents millions of tonnes of extra water, and driven by the more violent storms that we see and expect, this water could  overwhelm flood defences and cause widespread damage. There are very few major cities in the world which are not on the coast or on tidal rivers.

These are reasons why climate change is important to us all, and why the nations are coming together in Paris to do something about it. 

What exactly are they trying to do at COP21? 

At the end of last month the parties issued an agreed draft document, following the meeting in Bonn. This is so far only  a framework for negotiation. It’s to provide a context for the implementation of each country’s commitments. Each country has issued  an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). The EU has made a combined commitment and the document says: “The EU and its Member States are committed to a binding target of an at least 40% domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990”

“Legislative proposals to implement the 2030 climate and energy framework, are to be submitted by the European Commission to the Council and European Parliament in 2015-2016.

"This is in line with the EU objective to reduce its emissions by 80-95% by 2050 compared to 1990. Furthermore, it is consistent with the need for at least halving global emissions by 2050 compared to 1990."

I then went on to look at the submission by the United States.

“The United States intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 per cent below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%.

“This target is consistent with a straight line emission reduction pathway from 2020 to deep, economy-wide emission reductions of 80% or more by 2050.”

So the EU is cutting by 40% over 1990 levels by 2030, but the US is cutting by up to 28% of 2005 levels by 2025. Difficult to compare. I looked into the basic figures. The US emissions in millions of tonnes of CO2 equivalent were 6,250 in 2005 and a reduction of 28% brings that down to 4,500 in 2025. Emissions in 1990 were 5,400 hence the 2025 target is 17% below the 1990 level. Sorry about all these figures. To summarise, the EU is aiming for a 40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2030, the US is aiming for a 17% reduction on 1990 levels by 2025.

As far as actual performance is concerned, the INDC - Intended Nationally Determined Contribution - of the US indicates that they are well on their way to their 2020 target of a 17% reduction (That’s 17% of their 2005 level). That does mean of course that after reducing by that 17% in the 15 years between 2005 and 2020 they are going to have to reduce by a further 11% in only 5 years between 2020 and 2025. And the last few are always the most difficult.


Turning to the EU, I’ve been reading “Trends and projections in Europe 2015 — Tracking progress towards Europe's climate and energy targets”, a report produced by the European Environment Agency. How likely is it that Europe will achieve their targets in their INDC? According to the report, not very likely. With existing measures a reduction of 27% is likely by 2030. To achieve 40% by then needs a reduction of 1.4% every year from now on. To achieve 80% by 2050, which the EU, US and everyone else claim is the aim, an annual reduction of 4.6% will be needed each year from 2030 to 2050. This in a world committed to economic growth and facing an explosive growth in global middle classes, with all the consumption that that implies.

Britain in the (bad) News

It’s not clear how the emissions reductions targets will be shared out between the member states of the EU. Britain has certainly not had a good press on emissions targets this week. The BBC compiled a report which listed the changes that the government has made to environmental legislation since it took sole power after the election last May. The government’s stated aim was to cut costs for Britain’s hard-working families. Of the 16 measures analysed, 6 were expected to reduce bills, three to have no impact and seven to increase bills. All of them except one would lead to increased GHG emissions.

This is Anthony Day with the sustainable futures show.
Still to come. The red-faced Minister. Local climate activists, from AAA to AAB and screaming from a locked room.

Minister Embarrassed 


Amber Rudd, minister of energy and climate change, was accused this week of misleading parliament about the nation’s emissions levels. "The Government does not have the “right policies” to meet its renewable energy target," she admitted. Speaking before a Parliamentary Committee, she confirmed that the Government was set to miss the EU requirement of 15 per cent of the UK’s energy consumption coming from renewables by 2020. A letter leaked to The Ecologist shows that she misled Parliament by promising the UK was 'on course' to deliver on its renewable energy targets - when in fact there is a delivery shortfall in 2020 of almost 25%.

This stands in stark contrast to her public position. On 17th September she told the House of Commons: "When it became apparent that we were way in excess of [spending limits on renewables], but were still meeting our renewables targets, it was right to limit the amount of money we were spending.” That was her justification for the dramatic cuts - up to 87% - to the subsidies for wind and solar. Her plan to fill the gap which she now recognises, relies on more biofuels, buying in green power and 'credits' from abroad - everything but wind and solar. But she now warns, that this impending failure to meet EU renewables targets puts the UK at a double risk - of legal action taken in the UK, which the government would probably lose; and of enormous fines imposed by the European Court of Justice:
"The absence of a credible plan to meet the target carries the risk of successful judicial review, and failing to meet the overall target in 2020 could lead to on-going fines imposed by the EU Court of Justice until the UK reaches the target level.”

But by misleading the House of Commons in her earlier statement, she is now certain to face demands for her resignation. And she’s the person we’ll be sending to represent the United Kingdom at the Paris conference. 

Climate Action

I went to a meeting last night of my local climate action group. There is a lot of energy, enthusiasm and some anger about the climate talks in Paris. There’s determination to make sure that something is done, but there’s fear that everything will be stitched up into business as usual by the big corporates using their influence. The meeting was rather unfocused; an overly-complex explanation of climate change, an academic with far, far more information than she could possibly get into 10 minutes and a speaker who said “UM” 135 times in his 10 minutes slot - I counted them - who failed to hold my attention. There were strong and effective presentations about the mass demonstration in London on 29th November to urge the politicians to take effective action. Many local people will be going. This could be bigger than the anti-war march in February 2003. It will be interesting to see how the police handle it and whether people will be “kettled”, penned up and prevented from leaving as has happened with more recent demonstrations. There will be another demonstration in Paris at the end of the conference, on 12th December. Many people will be going from the UK. Again, it will be interesting to see how it’s handled. And whether it makes any difference!

World Energy Council

News just in from the World Energy Council. The UK's AAA rating was cut to AAB by the World Energy Council in its annual "trilemma index", which measures countries' ability to offer secure, affordable and sustainable energy supplies. The UK fell down on the accessibility and affordability of energy supply across the population. The index also stated that current government policies may "hinder investments" in wind and solar power.  This follows criticism from the UN's chief environment scientist that I reported last month. Professor Jacquie McGlade said the UK was turning away from renewables, just as they were being embraced by the rest of the world.

That soundproof room...

I mentioned Jeremy Leggett. I’m sure you’ve been downloading his “The Winning of the Carbon War” from www.jeremyleggett.net. It's free. In the latest chapter he says that sometimes he’s “feeling like finding a soundproofed room and having a good scream.” I think we know how you feel, Jeremy.

And finally...

Well, that’s it, that’s another week. Apologies for the bits I’ve missed, the stories I’ve left out. As always, your comments, ideas and suggestions are invaluable. Get in touch and tell me what you want to hear at mail@anthony-day.com.

I’m off to a conference now.

And it’s got nothing whatever to do with energy, climate change or sustainability.

I'm Anthony Day and there will be another sustainable futures show next week. Find it at www.susbiz.biz