Michael Meacher MP

The debate between the 3 parties on the environment was a showpiece of falsehood and dissembling:

Q1  Would a Tory Government build another runway in the South-East?   Tory answer: No.   The truth: They could still wriggle past this by expanding a smaller airport like Luton.

Q2  The pledge to cut electricity emissions cannot be met without new nuclear power stations.   The truth: the UK is required by a mandatory EU regulation to achieve at least 40% electricity generation from renewable sources of energy by 2020, and that would make the building of more nuclear stations superfluous.

Q3  The Tories state they will build new nuclear reactors without public subsidy.   The truth: None of the big electricity generators will build any more nuclear without some (large)  hidden or indirect subsidy from the taxpayer.

Q4  The Tories say they favour an expansion in renewables.   The truth: Dozens and dozens of applications for wind farms have been turned down by Tory Councils.

Q5   The Tories accept that climate change is caused by man-made emissions.   The truth: A majority of Tory Parliamentary candidates have made clear they do not accept this or that the Government needs to do anything urgently about tackling climate disaster.

However depressing the Copenhagen summit has turned out to be, it’s not the end, it’s not even the beginning of the end. The atmospheric climate does not wait upon politicians or international agreements. It is a raw elemental force that will exert its power in climate turmoil of increased intensification and frequency without let-up unless and until its causes are mitigated and reversed. There are two possible outcomes. Either the destruction and pain that this remorseless process will eventually impose on human civilisation will in the end enforce global action on the necessary scale and magnitude to arrest it, or a high proportion of the 9bn human race by 2050 (which the eminent British climate scientist, James Lovelock, believes could be as high as 90%) will not survive because of the massive loss of croplands, the decimation of other species, poisoned air and water supplies, and the ravages of disease and war. The real issue now, as it has always been, is how far nations and their leaders have to suffer the latter before they will seriously embrace the radical transformation of human society that will deliver the former.

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The ignominious debacle at the Copenhagen summit, so soon on the heels of the global bailing-out of the banks, sends an unforgettable message about who rules the world, in whose interests they act, and how utterly indifferent they are to the powerless. Global leaders have contributed, in grants or loans or guaranteed, at least $3-4 trillions to save the banks from the consequences of their own folly, yet this morning could only commit to $30bn (just 1% as much) to protect developing countries from climactic catastrophe which the latter did not cause but the global leaders largely did. High-flown talk about saving the planet was exposed for the hypocrisy it was as all the requirements to save the planet – emission cuts targets, mechanisms of enforceability, verification, transparency – evaporated into thin air. In the end the conference was shown to be a charade of 2 years of earnest preparation, 2 weeks of non-stop negotiation, and 1 day of reality when the US did a private deal with the big developing country leaders as though the rest of the world didn’t matter. And that’s the rub – in the eyes of the US and China, they (we) don’t.

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If there is a deal in Copenhagen, which almost certainly won’t be until tomorrow, that’s not half of it. All the big countries seem committed to a political deal of sorts, but then the obvious question is whether it will be sufficient to save the world from the worst impacts of extreme climate turmoil. On that the signs are worrying. The leaked UN analysis of the progress of the talks suggests that the cuts offered so far would still lead, pace the claims of the main participants, to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C above pre-industrial levels, and the Stern economic review of climate change for the UK Government indicates the effects of this would be drastic. Nearly 200 million more people would suffer severa coastal flooding, nearly 600 million more would risk hunger, and a staggering half of all species would face extinction – a scything through biological ecosystems which will eventually undermine survival prospects for the human race itself. Why this is so dangerous is that even keeping the temperature rise down to 2C would still radically reduce crop yields worldwide both through increased flooding and intensified droughts, and would still only give species, including homo sapiens, a 50:50 chance of avoiding devastating climate catastrophe.

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‘Four minutes to midnight’, ‘possible we will not get an agreement’, ‘uphill struggle’, ’3 days to shape the future of humanity’ – all good copy for the media to keep the tension high. But actually par for the course at this stage in international climate change negotiations, as repeated conferences over the last 10 years that I’ve attended regularly show. The demandeurs – in this case the developing countries who want £100bn or more per year from the rich countries to tide them over adaptation to climate change, plus bigger emission cuts (at least 30%) by the developed world – keep their cards close to their chest right up to the last moment (almost certainly the 24 hours after the last scheduled day) in order to maximize their gains. But this time there are complications. The US, the world’s biggest polluter, can’t commit to a copper-bottomed emissions cut offer until the details are ratified by a vote on their Climate Change Bill still stuck in the Senate till at least January-February. The G77 (the developing countries led by China) won’t commit to cuts till the US dies first. Nor will they agree to a date when they themselves start cutting emissions if it inhibits their growth. An then there’s fraught disagreement about whether to stick to a legally binding Kyoto Protocol format or a looser series of voluntary agreements.

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Two issues are dominating the Copenhagen summit – whether all the big nations across the world will sign up to emission cuts on a sufficient scale to make keeping the rise in global temperatures to below 2C a realistic possibility, and whether the rich industrialised countries will contractually commit to provide developing countries with sufficient funding (which the former estimate at £100bn a year by 2020 and the latter at £250bn a year) to enable them to achieve adaptation against the ravages of climate catastrophe for which they are not responsible. But there is a third issue which will not be a deal-breaker at Copenhagen, but which post-Copenhagen may well become the single biggest issue of contention in the continuing international negotiations (which will last throughout the whole of this century). That is the issue of aviation emissions where subterfuge, official collusion, regulatory laxity, and downright cheating are already clearly visible. Disappointingly this even extends to Britain’s new Climate Change Committee which hitherto has shown itself commendably robust. Its latest report on air travel however is full of unlikely assumptions, false models, and preferential excuses which do not do its reputation, or the environment, any service.

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Sadly the row over the UEA leaked emails continues to distract attention away from what really matters at Copenhagen, namely the size of the carbon reduction commitments now made by all the biggest countries which collectively, if all delivered, would get the world tantalisingly close to the target required to avoid the worst effects of climate change. A UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) report just out states that these commitments would bring down global emissions to about 46bn tonnes a year by 2020, whereas the scientists warn that emissions should not exceed 44bn tonnes a year if severe sea level rises (which could inundate whole countries) and extreme temperatures (parching farmland and forcing the migration of millions of environmental refugees) are to be avoided. Today’s announcement by China, now the world’s biggest polluter though in per capita terms still well below the US, that its carbon emissions will peak between 2030-40 is the most encouraging news so far – if true. There is a catch though – these are all political declarations. Will they actually happen?

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Saudi Arabia has just today informed the world that the hacked-into emails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) show that the idea that global warming comes from man-made activities is a complete myth. Well, what a surprise! The country with by far the biggest repositories of oil in the world, 252 billion barrels’ worth, has confirmed that 98% of the world’s scientists who believe there is overwhelming evidence of such a connection are all wrong. Having said that, however, having dismissed the Saudi oil kingdom and their confederate allies, Exxon Mobil and their tiny group of paid scientists, for the colossal vested interests that they are and worthless as a source of independent evidence, it is nevertheless true that the UEA emails are deeply shocking. Even if they have been obtained illegally and some taken out of context, it is still damning that they appear to show attempts to prevent scientific data being released, to prevent publication of work by climate sceptics and freeze it out of the UN official IPCC report, and even to destroy material subject to FOI requests. All of that is unforgiveable. But the idea that it somehow undermines the whole edifice of climate change science is absurd and derisory.

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With only a week to go to the start of the formal negotiations in Copenhagen, the central issue may not be whether some inter-governmental political framework is agreed, but what mechanisms are put in place to deliver carbon emissions. There has been a great deal of talk about likely outcomes: a legally enforceable international agreement (virtually impossible now), or a broad political framework which needs to be as wide-ranging and specific as possible (but is more likely to turn out limited and unspecific), or an agreement between key countries to give a lead (perhaps a US-China understanding supported by the EU and India), or a patchwork of domestic commitments by all the major countries (which has largely been offered already) – or of course a car crash (which cannot be ruled out). But there has been very little focus on the instruments for whatever is agreed, yet that is just as important, and perhaps even more so. So how should the necessary action be delivered?

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The ingenious Obama proposal to offer a provisional US figure for carbon emission cuts just might, might just, save the Copenhagen summit from deflating embarrassingly. Obama can’t pre-empt a final Congressional decision in January or February at the earliest, but he is at least doing the next best thing. All the other big industrial countries have offered emission reductions, though with huge variation in carbon-cutting ambition, but without America, the world’s biggest per capita polluter, this precarious package will collapse. With a proposed US offer of some 14-20% below 2005 levels (a 17% cut has already passed the House of Representatives), subject to later ratification by Congress, the US offer, especially if Obama himself were to attend, might just be enough to get an political framework agreed. But the drama of this should not be over-stated. This summit isn’t, never was, a final, once-in-a-lifetime, conclusive deal to save the world, as some media have portrayed it. It is rather one step along the way of tedious, aggravated, semi-continuous, draining cross-global negotiations – but still undoubtedly an important one. But it’s not Kyoto Mark 2. Does that matter?

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The one-in-a-thousand-years event at Cockermouth and Workington, as Hilary Benn has described it, starkly reveals the cataclysmic power of natural phenomena in their more extreme manifestations. Torrential rainfall of 12.4 inches within just 24 hours is unprecedented in England, and combined with waterlogged ground and swollen rivers had produced another natural disaster. There have been precedents: the East Midlands flooding a decade ago which swamped 7,000 homes, the recurring floods around Tewkesbury, Carlisle, Hull, Doncaster, and parts of the fenlands gradually yielding to the sea after 400 years of drainage. It would be unwise automatically to ascribe all of these events to climate change since severe flooding has frequently occurred in the past when climate change was less apparent, e.g. at Lynmouth on the south coast in 1953. Bu the increasing frequency and ferocity of these irruptions does suggest that something more is happening over and above the natural variability of the climate. These latest floods cary a warning like the canary in the mine. So what should we do about it?

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Bowing to the inevitable over a postponement of a legally binding global package for the next stage of tackling climate change is all very well, but the price of failure – or another elastic deferral – can be severe. Nature does not hang about waiting for politicians. And postponement sends out its own baleful message – that this is off the agenda for the time being and urgency and priority take a back seat. This can ricochet unhelpfully across the world, not least to those points of greatest resistance such as the US Congress. It can also weaken the resolve of other big and important countries, including China, India, Japan and Brazil, who might be discouraged from taking gthe painful decisions so deperately needed within a comparatively short timescale. The ultimate danger is that the whole global drive for meaningful, decisive and sufficient action against climate change begins to unravel. Falling back into the comfort zone of untrammelled economic growth and an unyielding power structure based on the dominance of the Washington Consensus is all too easy, but medium and long-term risks calamitous consequences.

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Three isssues are still, with only a month to go, holding up a deal at the Copenhagen summit – the level of carbon emission cuts that each country will commit to, the level and source of funding for developing countries to help them cope with climate change impacts, and the passing of a US bill through Congress which binds the world’s biggest polluter to a deal. As a decade ago, the real block is the last one, with the US so far unable to commit to a figure for its cuts which would be legally binding. On the first point, as a decade ago, the EU has taken the lead by committing to a 20% cut by 2020, and a 30% cut by that date if a deal is done at Copenhagen. The EU has also agreed a £90bn package for developing countries for mitigation and adaptation against the effects of climate change, with up to half provided by taxpayers and the remainder by the private sector. But It is still undecided how the contributions by EU countries will be determined, whether by GDP or emission levels (‘polluter pays’ principle) or some other rationale. The developing countries however are not impressed and are threatening a walk-out at the summit.

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The campaign for everyone to commit to ruducing their carbon footprint by 10% by 2010 is something we should all certainly support. Its great merit is to bring home to people, each of us, what impact our various activities have in generating climate change emissions, what practical ways there are to reduce these, and that this matter is extremely urgent. A third of all MPs have now signed up to this, and if a third of all adults in the country – about 15 million people – could be informed about this and persuaded to take action, it could have a significant impact in helping to achieve Britain’s carbon reduction targets. The main sources of these emissions are power generation, transport systems, industry and private households. It is this last category, which is hardest to reach and to regulate, that this campaign is aimed at. And there are signs that it’s really catching on. But, desirable as it is, it needs to be seen in the contaxt of the whole picture.

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The latest book by Britain’s foremost climate scientist, James Lovelock, predicts that within the lifetime of many of the world’s population the Earth will switch to an ultra-hot state in which 90% of the human species will die. Climate change deniers will of course dismiss this as the rantings of an extremist, but the argument for this conclusion is set out with a systematic and relentless logic which cannot be readily set aside. He conclusively demonstrates that the conventional climate models used by the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) vastly underestimate the severity of the problem because they deal only with the physics and chemistry of the air and oceans, and leave out life’s impacts on climate altogether. In place of the simpliste IPCC models which predict smooth linear changes and which the politicians glibly assume will enable change to be managed acceptably, the Gaian model captures the dynamics of the real Earth where rapid, unpredictable and violent change is not uncommon.

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