More Biofuels Madness and the Pathetic G8

Let’s look at what happened in the last week or so.
On 4th July, The Guardian obtained an internal report from the World Bank estimating that biofuels have caused world food prices to rise by 75% (it seems I was far too optimistic on that previously).

On 5th July Gordon Brown gave an interview to The Guardian, in which he said he was going to tell the G8 nations that the problems of climate change and international development should not be sidelined by the credit crunch.

On the 7th July he launched a campaign to drastically reduce food waste in the UK, in an attempt to combat the escalating world food prices.
The very same day, the Government announced that they will be continuing with the requirement to have 2.5% biofuel in all transport fuel, although the planned percentage increases over the coming years will be reduced.

So let’s just recap. We are told to stop wasting our food on the grounds that we need to do everything possible to restrict food price increases, and on the same day we are told biofuels are going to continue to be in our fuel for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that they cause food price escalation, and starve millions.

A few days later, after the widely reported multiple-course lunches at the G8 summit, the issue of climate change seems to have passed the Leaders’ lips. Maybe between courses 6 and 7? It can’t have taken much longer than that, because they made minimal progress. Not even that.

The attempted 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 agreed by the G8 is the only thing that hit the headlines. The UK Government is already supposed to be thinking about a 60% cut by 2050 (in the Climate Bill which seems to have been lost without trace – maybe they left it in a taxi, or on a train). It’s commonly accepted now that an 80% cut is what we really need, with lots of educated voices saying 90% or 100% cuts are required, if not more.

The G8 announcement was so lame that even the head Economist of the Governments own Carbon Trust said it was crap – “an abrogation of responsibility” , as well as a whole host of the usual groups like Greenpeace etc. stating the obvious about it being a great let-down.

So it seems that, yet again, large international talks have come and gone, and all it that came of it was that our mighty world leaders agreed that something should probably be done sometime. But not any time soon, and certainly not with scientifically determined goals.

In the meantime, the Met Office tells us that spring is now arriving 6 days early in the UK , and satellites are showing that the vast Wilkins ice shelf in the Antarctic is collapsing. In winter.

Flying low

Let’s talk about planes. Pretty cool things aren’t they. Big hunks of metal that somehow fly around in the sky and can take us from place to place very quickly.

It won’t surprise you to hear that I don’t like planes much, and I try very hard to avoid using them where possible. The responses that I get to this can be annoying (if I’m in a particularly bad mood), amusing, but generally not all that surprising. “The plane’s going anyway, you might as well get on it”, “Green consumerism won’t save the world” etc. etc.

Let’s think about that for a minute. Yes, the plane is going anyway. If I never take another flight for the rest of my life there will be plenty of people to take my place. Numbers of flights will increase dramatically, it will contribute to the drastic rise in temperatures worldwide, and people will die as a result. So if it’s going to happen anyway, why bother? There are two reasons.

Firstly, I will hate myself for it. It’s a very selfish reason, but it’s true. I will feel bad. It will piss me off that I did it, knowing that I am ultimately contributing to a humanitarian disaster, however small this contribution may be.

Secondly, it has an effect on other people. It engages people in the issue. It provokes a response, even if that response is negative. My seemingly drastic action might bring someone to realise what a big problem we face.It might even make them think twice when they are next flying to Paris instead of going on the train. It might only make them think “What a self-righteous little twat!”, but if I stick to my guns, at least they will take me seriously.

So, for this second reason, I will be having an effect. A very small effect, but an effect nonetheless. And what if 10%, or 20% or 50% of people decided to do the same? Then obviously, there would be a big effect. Planes aren’t going to fly around empty (well some might – see here) – it isn’t profitable, and if there isn’t demand, then there won’t be supply either.

It might be obvious, but it’s not the plane I don’t like. It’s the way the plane works. Pumping out lots of gasses that are heating up the globe. If we could find a way of getting from London to New York in a few hours without contributing to our own demise then I’d be the first on the plane! I’d save up and get a private jet! But we can’t (see here), and unless by some miracle that happens you won’t see me on many more planes.

Notice that I haven’t at any point said that I will never fly again. Strong-willed though I am, and annoying though it will be, I know I will get on a plane sometime in the next few years. It would be unrealistic to expect the world to stop flying altogether. But how about getting rid of needless short-haul flights? A huge percentage of flights from the UK could easily be made by other, less destructive, means.

The mentality surrounding the issue is slowly changing. It used to be very difficult to admit to people that I didn’t want to fly. It would prompt an uncomfortable pause in the conversation, followed by comments of a veiled pity. A kind of patronising “Oh don’t worry, you’re young and naïve. You’ll understand that you can’t win in the end” type conversation. This sometimes still happens. But more often now the pity and disbelief is replaced by an often false admiration. “Well done you” or sometimes, “If only we could all do that”. It’s now commonly sociably acceptable to appreciate the problem, but it is not yet commonly sociably acceptable to actually do anything about it.

This mentality is a microcosm of the global warming problem itself. The same goes for coal power and driving around in unnecessarily polluting vehicles. We need to stop treating it as something that wacky ‘greens’ or ‘environmentalists’ do, and realise that it’s something that is practical, and that if we don’t do it then we are just hastening our own demise.

I don’t expect people to stop flying. What I do expect, is that people who fly have thought about whether they could use an alternative, or if their trip is more important than the consequences of their actions. It’s not a lot to ask.

At the next election are you going to vote? If you are - then why? Why bother?! It won’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

If you’re not, then why not? Is it because you don’t believe you could change anything? Well you can. And you should.

A taste of things to come

As world food prices escalate and the connection to biofuel generation is made with increasing frequency in the media, there is a growing sense of ‘I told you so’ with regard to the disaster of biofuels. But it isn’t quite that simple.

Yes, food prices are going up at a huge rate. Yes, demand for biofuel is reducing production of food-producing crops, which are so desperately needed by the world’s poor. But biofuel is not the main cause. (Not yet anyway).

As Graham Watson MEP said recently, “While it is true that biofuels increase demand for crops and displace food production the reasons for the recent food price rises are many and varied”…….going on to say that……”World population growth, poor growing conditions linked to climate change; loss of agricultural land for industrial use; commodities speculation; and changing eating habits all contribute to the current crisis” (1).

Escalating food prices have long been predicted to result from increased biofuel use, which is one of the main reasons for calls to stop their use in their current form. Faced with a sudden rise in food prices internationally, there have been people queuing up to draw the link to biofuel, catalysed by the requirement for all fuel in the UK to contain at least 2.5% biofuel, introduced on 15th April, which is supposed to rise to 5% by 2010 (Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation Programme – see ref.2).

Blaming biofuels for the food price escalation might not be such a bad thing. If a link is made between biofuel and food prices over the coming weeks, misguided or not, it may reinforce calls for biofuel growth to be restricted to only those rigorously vetted as reducing emissions with no adverse effects on food sources etc. This would certainly help in the long term to avoid the disaster that widespread unregulated biofuel use would undoubtedly generate in years to come.

As usual, the UK Government clearly understands they are doing the wrong thing, but are taking a while to actually do anything about it. They have announced a review of biofuel use, and Gordon Brown has said that if they find they need to “change their approach” to biofuels, they will also push for changes in EU requirements (3). This all sounds very sensible – now could you hurry up a bit Gordon? After all, you can’t pretend you didn’t hear people telling you this was going to happen.

The world may look back on this time as a ‘cruel to be kind’ phase, as it may help avert a larger-scale problem that would have been encountered had we not seen this happen and gotten rid of biofuels sooner rather than later. But we aren’t there yet. We need to capitalise on this and make sure that the Government learns from its mistakes. Scientists don’t warn about likely catastrophes for fun.

But back to the problem in hand – food prices. Apart from not using biofuels what else can we do? Well in the short term we can try and reduce our meat and dairy consumption, but like many of the measures to combat climate change that require will power, and realistically it is extremely unlikely that enough people will stop eating meat to make a real difference. And even if they did, it’s likely that it would only make a small dent the food scarcity. People will continue to feed animals to eat, and on the other side of the world people will go hungry. It’s a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless (4).

In the long term we need to try and make sure we do all we can to prevent catastrophic climate change, as this will lead to many more crop failures, precipitating a much bigger problem than we have on our hands at the moment. It is true that in some parts of the world crop yields may increase with a certain degree of global warming, but you cannot pick and choose effects, and as usual the global poor will be hit hardest.

And yet, for now anyway, the world continues on with minimal fuss. You will finish reading this and go back to whatever else you were doing. Checking emails. Watching TV. Cooking dinner.

This world food price increase is a disaster for millions of people. It should be seen as a warning – a small taste of things to come if we do not act on climate change while we can.

References
1. Food price rises: Biofuels only a small part of a bigger problem. - Graham Watson MEP, 22nd April 2008. Found here.
2. About the RTFO Programme – Department for Transport Website.
3. Brown’s biofuels caution welcomed – bbc.co.uk, 22nd April 2008, found here.
4. The pleasures of the flesh – George Monbiot, April 15th 2008, found here.

Tony Blair to solve Climate Change!

Last week ‘The Reverend’ Tony Blair announced that he had been working with a group of climate change experts since he left office, and that he thinks the problem is extremely urgent (1). He said that failing to act on climate change “would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible” and that the UN is “the right forum to reach the global agreement” . He then popped off to Japan, India and China to have a little chat with them about it all.

It’s not the only problem Blair is trying to help solve at the moment – he’s also Middle East Peace Envoy on behalf of the US, Russia, UN and EU, advisor to the insurer Zurich and investment bank JP Morgan (who will probably be wanting all the advice they can get at the moment), and seminar speaker on “faith and globalisation” at Yale University (2,3). Not to mention trying to encourage investment into Rwanda (2).

Oh, and there is always the ‘Tony Blair Faith Foundation’ that will be launched later in the year (3). I can’t wait! I saw someone in Westminster the other day with a t-shirt saying “WWBD? (What Would Blair Do?)” Well, judging by his recent actions he would probably either a) invade, or b) save. Both while smiling.

You can imagine the conversation at the Reverend’s breakfast table.
Cherie – “Can you pick the kids up tonight? I’m going to be a bit busy.”
Tony – “No sorry, solving Middle East crisis tonight.”
Cherie – “How about tomorrow?”
Tony – “Nope, sorry. Wednesday is Rwanda night with the boys.”
Cherie – “How about we go away this weekend to relax?”
Tony – “Cherie, I’ve told you before, I save the world at weekends! Saturday is climate change and Sunday is a day of rest, unless God has a job for me.”

The Reverend’s climate change record isn’t as bad as Mr.Brown’s, but then that’s not really saying much is it. Blair is generally recognised for helping to get climate change the attention it deserves in the international political arena, and that is one thing he seems to be good at. He will be working to his strengths with this trip, doing what he does best – smiling from ear to ear and speaking with……..as……..many……..pauses…….as…….humanly…….possible…..to try and add sincerity to what he is saying.

The only problem in Blair’s climate mission seems to be the target. He said that “A 50% cut by 2050 has to be a central component”, but anyone who listens to discussions of emissions targets will know that isn’t enough. Even Mr. Brown has admitted that the climate change bill may have to be tightened to 80% by 2050, and many people believe that cuts of 90% or more may be required to avoid the worst of the catastrophes in the pipeline. Hopefully Mr.Blair’s tactic is to get everyone on board and working towards 50% and then try and persuade them that actually it will need to be more at a later date. It would be a much harder sell if he was pushing for 80% or more straight away.

But leaving the Blair’s plans aside for a moment, there was precious little cause for optimism this week in the news. The World Glacier Monitoring Service announced that glaciers around the world had record levels of ice loss in 2006 (4) and aerospace giant EADS announced that they are planning a commercial plane to take space tourists up 100km from Earth (and expect demand to be enough to warrant building 10 of them a year) (5). I’m guessing they won’t be solar powered. How can we pretend we are concerned about climate change when plans like that are still being drawn up?

Not to mention the announcement from Shell this week that it is going into Canadian tar sands in a big way to try and aid it’s falling oil production (6). Extracting oil from tar sands produces even more carbon dioxide than petroleum extraction, and as the oil giants invest heavily in this method, the chances of us avoiding the very worst effects of climate change slip further from our grasp.

The Reverend is well aware of the challenge we face. “If the average person in the US is, say, to emit per capita, one-tenth of what they do today and those in the UK or Japan one-fifth, we’re not talking of adjustment, we’re talking about a revolution.” He said, speaking in Japan.

If Mr. Blair can help to get the international agreements and targets that are desperately needed then that would be a great thing. Let’s face it, we need all the help we can get.

References
1. ‘Blair to lead campaign on climate change’ – Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, 14th March 2008.
2. ‘Blair wants ‘climate revolution’’ – bbc.co.uk, 15th March 2008.
3. ‘Former British Prime Minister Blair to Teach at Yale’ – Yale University News Release, March 7th 2008.
4. ‘Glacier ice loss at record levels’ – Geoffrey Lean, The Independent Online, 16th March 2008.
5. ‘Space planes ‘to meet big demand’’ - Jonathan Amos, bbc.co.uk, 17th March 2008.
6. ‘Shell pushes into Canadian tar sands to arrest falling production’ – Danny Fortson, The Independent, 18th March 2008.

A Green Budget?

Mr. Darling’s first budget was this week, and days before he announced it there was lots of speculation about a big green, tree-hugging, hippie-loving budget coming our way. Reading the section on these issues entitled “An Environmentally Sustainable World”, I think the verdict from Environmentalists is likely to be ‘Improving, but could do a lot better’.

The first announcements are car taxes. From next year it’s going to cost you £425 to tax your car if it emits more than 255g CO2 per kilometer, and from 2010 the ‘most polluting cars’ will have a first-year rate of £950. There will be reductions in tax for cars emitting 150g CO2 per km or less and discounts for ‘alternatively fuelled cars’(1).

Unfortunately, I doubt this will be enough to stop people from buying heavily polluting cars, but it might add a small amount of pressure on car manufacturers too, which has to be a good thing. It’s hardly the £2000 tax that had been speculated in the press(2) - if these taxes increased year-on-year then I think we might be getting somewhere - but it’s a start.

Next up was tax on fuel. It is increasing above inflation, which is going to piss a lot of people off, but is likely to have a pretty minimal effect on emissions on its own, if any. People need to get from A to B, and if their only option is a crappy, expensive bus or an unreliable, expensive train, then they are going to pay for petrol no matter how much it costs.

Which brings us on to public transport. If you can find it. Of the 20 pages in the chapter, six lines of text are given to public transport. Am I the only one that finds that a bit alarming? Apparently the Secretary of State for Transport will soon publish a document on ‘the reform of bus subsidy’ to include carbon emissions and technology proposals. Something tells me it’s not going to exactly revolutionise our public transport, but we’ll see.

And then there comes the dreaded B word. Biofuels. You can almost hear the collective sigh from the environmentalists across the nation (see previous post on biofuels).

But hold on, this may not be as bad as it first appears. Although the Government is still planning on using biofuels as a big part of it’s climate change strategy, there is going to be a study of the “wider economic and environmental impacts” and the Chancellor and several other senior Government figures have written to the EU to outline what they believe should be the principles governing EU policies on biofuels. These include ‘robust sustainability standards’, making sure they are reducing emissions, and ensuring they take into account the indirect effects of biofuels.

If this rhetoric is not followed up with strictly controlled regulation of biofuels sourcing and use, then we are in for big trouble. But if these are put in place to make sure they are reducing overall emissions and not causing an escalation of food prices etc. then it might be a small help.

There is lots of reiteration of general Government policies – carbon pricing, investing in new technologies etc. but the only real news is that all non-domestic buildings should be zero-carbon by 2019 - adding to the previous announcement that all new homes should be zero-carbon by 2016. (This is a great start, but I suspect the Government hasn’t even begun to think about the huge change and investment required for this to actually happen.)

And of course there is always the news that there will be Government intervention if retailers don’t do something about plastic bags – which, although undeniably a good thing, is not going to have a significant effect on global warming.

If you thought that sounded vaguely encouraging, think again. The next sections on aviation and energy supply are as lame as you would expect from a Government that is planning to expand airports and build lots of new coal power plants. No wonder Charles Clarke (former Home Secretary) thinks that the Governments action on climate change is embarrassing(3).

The ‘greenest’ budget yet? Probably. But future budgets will need to be a lot better than this unless we want Downing Street to be underwater in the future.

References
1. Budget 2008, Chapter 6 – “An Environmentally Sustainable World”. This can be found here.
2. Budget to target cars with new taxes – Ben Russell,The Independent Online, 10th March 2008.
3. Clarke attacks Brown’s ‘embarrassing’ green policies - Hélène Mulholland, The Guardian Online, 6th March 2008.