Climate change news – latest: Fracking protesters freed and Scottish Power goes 100% renewable
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The government's climate change advisers have been tasked with setting out a strategy that could see the UK bring its carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
Such a target would be in line with the ambitious targets laid out in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent report, which revealed unprecedented changes were needed across society to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Meanwhile, one of the UK's biggest energy suppliers has completely dropped fossil fuels in favour of wind power - setting the agenda for the nation's future power supply - and the three activists jailed for protesting against fracking have been freed.
Here you can follow the latest climate change news from the UK and around the world after scientists urged nation's to take action last week.
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Many have criticised the decision to feature Ebell in light of the guidelines that recently emerged in which the BBC admitted it had got climate change “wrong too often”, advising its journalists they “do not need to include outright deniers” in discussions because scientists accept man-made global warming is a fact.
In response to the criticism, a BBC spokesperson said:
The BBC does not dispute the science. We acknowledge the weight of scientific consensus around climate change and this underpins all of our reporting of the subject. This does not mean, however, that we should never interview someone who opposes this consensus, especially if they are influential in the political debate about how to tackle climate change. There are times when it is editorially appropriate to hear from a dissenting voice.
BBC Director-General Tony Hall spoke last night at the inaugural Society of Editors Satchwell lecture, explaining:
Our impartiality does not mean that we strike some sort of false balance - but that we reflect all contributions to a debate, and give each of them their due weight. So no equivalence between the climate change sceptic - and the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion. But no exclusion of viewpoints because they’re generally felt to be beyond the pale. We won’t give in to pressure to silence dissenting voices - nor allow those voices to be seen as mainstream.
The final word for the day goes to Will Gore: "We may not be able to hold back the tide – and at present the outlook looks pretty bleak: but for goodness sake let’s at least try."
The heatwaves that swept across Europe and much of the northern hemisphere this summer were a wake-up call for many. Scientists found that climate change had increased the probability of these hot spells, and predicted that they will become more likely in the future.
The effect climate change will have on weather and natural disasters in the future will vary enormously from place to place, as the Met Office’s Professor Richard Betts pointed out:
Limiting the rise in warming to 1.5C avoids many, but not all of the worst climate impacts seen at 2C or above. For example, vulnerability to food insecurity increases in many countries as our world warms. An increase in global temperature is projected to cause more flooding in some areas and more drought in others. Both increases and decreases in rainfall are generally larger at 2C global warming than at 1.5C.
The renewable energy industry is predictably welcoming of the IPCC’s conclusion that the world needs to massively invest in clean power.
Executive director of trade association RenewableUK Emma Pinchbeck said:
This report warns that the dangerous effects of climate change will hit us sooner than most people had thought, unless we take much faster, much deeper action to limit potentially devastating global temperature rises by slashing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
The report also calls for annual investment of around $2.4 trillion in the global energy system between 2016 and 2035. This is a great economic opportunity for our country and for consumers.
The success of renewable energy in the UK is the result of political leadership to encourage investment in technologies such as offshore wind, in which we lead the world. But we can’t rest on our laurels. As well as generating more clean electricity using cheap technologies like onshore wind, and fully commercialising our innovative wave and tidal industries, we need to see much greater progress on decarbonising the heat and transport sectors
I'm signing off for the day, but stay tuned for a few more responses to today's report. I hope everyone is feeling suitably invigorated to go out and take on climate change.
The day of the report was seen protesting against fossil fuels by groups such as Greenpeace and Fossil Free UK, who took the opportunity to point out how incompatible many fossil fuel policies are with the guidance scientists have produced.
Scientists broadly welcomed the IPCC's findings, describing the report as "frightening", "revolutionary" and "extremely important".
Professor Euan Nisbet, an earth scientist at Royal Holloway University of London, said:
The report shows the frightening consequences of allowing global warming to go more than 1.5C above pre-industrial norms. There are very strong reasons to try as hard as we can to keep below this level. If warming goes further, the implications both for the biosphere and for human economies are very dangerous.
Professor William Collins, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said:
This report is extremely important in showing the need to restrict climate change to 1.5 degrees, and showing that it is possible to do so provided very significant steps are taken to reduce our emissions. Reducing CO2 alone won’t be enough to achieve the 1.5 degree climate target; the IPCC show that it is essential also to reduce other strong greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide that have large sources from agriculture and waste treatment.
Professor Corinne Le Quéré , Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, said:
For the UK, this means a rapid switch to renewable energy and electric cars, insulating our homes, planting trees, where possible walking/cycling and eating well (more plants/less meat), and developing an industry to capture carbon and store it underground. It also means adapting to the growing impacts of climate change that are felt here, particularly to the increasing flood risks from heavy rainfall and from sea level rise along our coasts. The solutions are already here.
There has been some uncertainty about how shipping and aviation - two massive sources of greenhouse gas emissions - are affected by the Paris climate agreement of 2015. According to experts the new IPCC report should clear up any doubts, as the authors make clear that every emissions source must be dealt with if we are to stave off 2C warming.
Carlos Calvo Ambel, manager for analysis and climate with European NGO federation Transport & Environment, said:
Without cutting aviation emissions there is no way the world can avoid dangerous climate change. We've been ignoring this issue for too long. ICAO has proposed letting aviation off the hook by allowing it to buy so-called offsets. The scheme is not only incredibly weak, it is also fundamentally at odds with the Paris Agreement which requires all sectors to decarbonise. Europe urgently needs to take measures to put the sector onto a decarbonisation pathway. The time for greenwashing is over.
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