"Scottish pioneers of climate justice"

Alex Salmond - A proud "pioneer of climate justice"

Scotland´s First Minister Alex Salmond has suggested that 2012 should be the "year of climate justice". Consequently, the Scottish parliament has had the "first ever parliamentary debate" on "climate justice".

The World Development Movement blog enthusiastically summarizes the debate:



As SNP MSP Marco Biago said: “I am drawn to the World Development Movement’s phenomenal statistic—which I have no reason to doubt—that the UK emits more carbon dioxide in one year than Bangladesh has emitted in its entire history. When we have spent 200 years polluting our way to prosperity, the issue becomes not noblesse oblige—helping because we can help—but helping because we caused or contributed greatly to the problem, so we have an obligation to help.”

Politicians also recognised Scotland’s historic responsibility as one of the countries that created the modern world, with its reliance upon coal and oil for fuel. The image of the Scot as pioneer of old who ‘in coffee shops and taverns up and down the Royal Mile... put together the ideas that underpinned the modern world and the industrial revolution’, and who should now become a pioneer of climate justice, was a nice one promoted by Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie.

And as the Labour MSP Neil Findlay put it: “Scotland has been a world player in so many fields in past centuries, and I hope that over the next ones we will be seen as pioneers whose actions have environmental justice as a core philosophy, unhindered by balance sheets, corporate greed and further exploitation.”

Importantly, Neil Findlay also picked up on WDM’s concept of climate debt, saying:
“The World Development Movement argues that we in the west have accrued an adaptation debt because of our contribution to climate change internationally. It is calculated that our share of that debt is £22 billion over 40 years. I am not arguing that we immediately write a cheque to settle that, but it is morally right that we develop policies that try to repair some of the damage that we have inflicted. We should provide expertise and capability to assist countries in the developing world.”

The debate was also an opportunity for Stewart Stevenson ( Minister for Environment and Climate Change at the Scottish Government) to announce a new ‘climate justice fund’ that will help people in poor countries to adapt to climate change.


Meanwhile The Scotsman is reporting about "development movement" in the real world:

‘Twenty years of austerity’ for Scots public spending

SCOTLAND’S battered economy will remain flat throughout the first half of this year and public finances face an austerity chill of almost two decades before spending returns to its pre-recession high, the country’s chief economist has warned.         
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The study predicted spending cuts would last longer and have a far deeper impact than first envisaged. Some £51 billion will be lost from the Scottish budget – a third higher than the £39bn forecast last autumn. The cumulative loss would build up year on year and mean an 18-year austerity chill in spending. Holyrood’s budget would start to rise again in 2017-18, but it would be 2027-28 before it got back to its pre-recession high of 2009-10.
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Unemployment also showed little sign of picking up, with the rate in Scotland having more than doubled from about 4 per cent before the recession struck to almost 9 per cent.

Twenty years of austerity and spending cuts is on offer for the people of Scotland - and paying the £22 billion "climate debt", of course, comes on top of that. Perhaps we should congratulate the "Scottish pioneers of climate justice"?

(image by wikipedia)

Schwarzenegger announces the creation of a virtual world of overpriced energy

The former Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday announced in Geneva the creation of Sustainia, "a virtual world featuring sustainable solutions", with himself, the two other superwarmists Connie Hedegaard and R.K. Pachauri, and eternal UN sustainability queen Gro Harlem Brundtland in the driving seat:

Sustainia will be a model of the world showing what it could be like if currently available technologies and concepts to reduce emissions were put in place in cities, homes, energy stations and transportation systems. Sustainia is built on the technology behind the virtual world Second Life.

Anders Eldrup, CEO of the Danish DONG Energy, "a main partner in Sustainia" explained the thinking behind Sustainia (which is a Danish idea):

The idea behind the world, Eldrup said, is "to illustrate for ordinary people, consumers and companies how a more sustainable society could look."
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"It is possible to make significant changes over a rather short period of time," Eldrup said. "We want to broaden that to make other companies, cities and people take part in this change."
Developers are already working on Sustainia, and the world is set to launch between June and October. Once it's up, anyone will be able to visit it, inhabit it and participate in it as a sort of virtual construction site. Eventually the world is to host lectures, presentations, workshops and tours.


As the CEO of the the largest power producer in Denmark, with market shares of 49% for electricity production and 35% for heat production, Elderup was, without doubt, the right person to speak about what it means when "currently available technologies and concepts to reduce emissions" are "put in place in cities, homes, energy stations and transportation systems".


Elderup´s own Dong and the other Danish energy companies charge the highest household electricity prices in the world - about four times as expensive as e.g. Ontario (9.23 US cents/kWh) and five time as expensive as Washington (7.66 US cents/kWh) - because of energy taxes and subsidies to wind energy.


Thus, there is no real need to create a virtual "Sustainia", because a real version of it already exists -  in Denmark. However, a change of name might be useful; why not call it e.g. Expensivia, or perhaps even more fittingly, Stupidia.

A proud warmist

D.R. Tucker, former conservative freelance writer turned warmist, is probably not feeling quite comfortable among his new greenie friends, because, like all new converts, he seems to have a need to reassure himself : Say It Loud, I'm Warmist and Proud!:

To be a "warmist" is, in short, to be a concerned citizen. An advocate of responsible capitalism. An idealist in the best sense of the word -- since one cannot be a true idealist without convictions and a commitment to facts.
To be a "warmist" is also to reject blind ideology -- which is why the conservatives and libertarians who insult "warmists" are engaging in explicit projection. In truth, these conservatives and libertarians are the ones who have sworn allegiance to ideology over facts, who have chosen irrationality over reason. They are the ones who cannot understand that there is no dignity in dogma.
What was once an ignorant insult is now a point of pride. The term doesn't bother me in the least anymore. Now, to the ideologues, I say:
Damn right, I'm a "warmist." Got a problem with that?

As to Tucker´s "commitment to facts", this is how he described how he was "defeated by facts" last year:

I’m very fortunate to have acquaintances in the environmentalist movement, and I began discussing my concerns with them last fall. One friend recommended that I read the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggesting that it might resolve some of the questions I had about the science behind climate concerns.
I began reading the report with a skeptical eye, but by the time I concluded I could not find anything to justify my skepticism. The report presented an airtight case that the planet’s temperature has increased dramatically (“Eleven of the last twelve years [1995-2006] rank among the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature [since 1850]”), that sea levels have undergone a dramatic and disturbing increase since the 1960s



No "blind ideology" here. Just the plain facts!

No matter what happens in the real world, "the planet´s temperature has increased dramatically" if an IPCC report is your bible.

Fish are growing 30% faster thanks to global warming

Tuna sandwiches will not disappear even if the globe would warm up

Great news for the fishing industry; fish are growing faster in warmer waters:
Stephan Munch, fisheries ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has won a prestigious $150,000 award for his research:

Studying fish in the laboratory, Munch found that raising them at higher temperature made their offspring grow 30 percent faster. "This suggests that there's a possibility for rapid responses to climate change," he said.

These climate effects have implications for marine conservation and management plans. Munch wants to gain a large-scale view of how these changes are affecting fisheries. He hopes to create a free online tool to enable management bodies and scientists to predict marine population responses.

It is good to know that fish are responding quite nicely, should the oceans really begin to warm. 30% more fish to eat in a world with a rapidly growing population is no bad thing.

(image by wikipedia)

Where are the solar powered Australian underpants we have been waiting for?

In  Australia opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb has been criticizing the Australian Research Council´s lavish funding of climate change related research. Here are a couple of examples:

- "Sending and responding to messages about climate change: the role of emotion and morality" by a Queensland university, which secured $197,302.

- A study to determine if birds are shrinking, which got $314,000

Mr. Robb added:

"Australian Research Council criteria has been extended beyond the scientific, the innovative and the practical to include some real airy-fairy stuff. Which means less money for more worthwhile research."

The Australian Research Council has responded by claiming that "the study into climate change emotion was an important psychology project". Indeed.

A quick look at the ARC´s website showed that this is not the first time climate change related projects have been favoured by the Research Council.

Here is an example from 2008:

"The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, today announced funding of nearly $90 million for researchers in Victoria to conduct 292 research projects that will produce significant national benefit.
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Some of the projects funded include developing portable and compact solar cells that may be incorporated in fabrics opening the solar cell market to the clothing industry, storm activity in the Arctic and implications for rapid climate change"

It would be interesting to know what happenened to the "portable and compact solar cells incorporated in fabrics" that were supposed to revolutionize the Australian clothing industry. Has anybody seen the solar powered Australian clothes we were promised? During the arctic cold spell here in Europe this winter I would certainly have been happy to own a pair of solar powered Australian underpants!

No future for failed wind energy in the UK

Matt Ridley gives us some useful facts about wind energy:

To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine — despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide.

If wind power was going to work, it would have done so by now. The people of Britain see this quite clearly, though politicians are often wilfully deaf. The good news though is that if you look closely, you can see David Cameron’s government coming to its senses about the whole fiasco. The biggest investors in offshore wind — Mitsubishi, Gamesa and Siemens — are starting to worry that the government’s heart is not in wind energy any more. Vestas, which has plans for a factory in Kent, wants reassurance from the Prime Minister that there is the political will to put up turbines before it builds its factory.

This forces a decision from Cameron — will he reassure the turbine magnates that he plans to keep subsidising wind energy, or will he retreat? The political wind has certainly changed direction. George Osborne is dead set against wind farms, because it has become all too clear to him how much they cost. The Chancellor’s team quietly encouraged MPs to sign a letter to No. 10 a few weeks ago saying that ‘in these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines’.

Let´s hope that George Osborne´s view will prevail in the UK!

Will "Shari´ah compliant suduk financing" save the world from catastrophic global warming?

Shari´ah law forbids lending money for gain.That is why Aaron Bielenberg of the Abu Dhabi based Clean Energy Business Council is now promoting  "Shari’ah compliant, clean energy investment opportunities" for the "Islamic community".  The new financial instruments, "Green Suduk Climate Bonds", are also promoted by the HSBC´s "Islamic arm":

“There is a lot of pent up demand (for suduk)," agrees Mohammed Dawood, the head of capital markets at HSBC Amanah, the bank’s Islamic arm.

The Energy & Environmental Magazine has more on this:

A new type of financing is being developed to encourage millions of pounds worth of long-term investment in green technology, in particular from the Islamic community.
Hundreds of billions of pounds worth of investment in green technology is required around the world to create the low-carbon future. However, many projects are unattractive to some investors because of their long-term nature.
Also, Shari'ah law forbids the lending of money for gain, yet many green energy projects are required in Islamic nations, such as Saudi Arabia, and yet there is a surplus of cash held in the Muslim world waiting to be utilised.
All three challenges are being tackled by the development of a type of bond called Green Suduk Climate Bonds.
The Climate Bonds Initiative, the Clean Energy Business Council of the Middle East and North Africa and The Gulf Bond and Sukuk Association are today launching a Green Sukuk Working Group, which will use market expertise to promote the issuance of sukuk for the financing of climate change investments and projects, such as renewable energy projects.
The Working Group is inviting participation from other organisations interested in the potential of green sukuk financing.
Suduk are financial certificates, or the Islamic equivalent of bonds, which are structured to comply with Shari’ah Islamic law, which prohibits the charging, or paying of interest.
To give an idea of the potential, Standard & Poor estimates that 20% of banking customers in the Persian Gulf and Asia would now choose an Islamic financial product over a conventional one with a similar risk-return profile.
Because the lending of money in Islamic culture has a moral dimension, rather than a financial one, then there is a good fit with the ethical aspect of green financing.
Aaron Bielenberg of the Clean Energy Business Council, a non-profit, non-governmental association established in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, said that projects in the region are desperate for finance.
“There is a significant and growing number of projects, for example renewable energy in the Middle East, that are ideally suited to sukuk investors," he said. "This group will help investors more easily identify Shari’ah compliant, clean energy investment opportunities.”


"Suduk financing" - "although probably not "Shari´ah complient" - is actually nothing new to Europe. That´s what the European Central Bank has been concentrating on recently. And there have been more than enough takers for the ECB´s (practically) interest free loans. So, probably Mr. Bielenberg´s "Shari´ah compliant" financial instruments will be a success in the Islamic world, too. However, one wonders  what business opportunities HSBC´s "Islamic arm" sees in the "Shari´ah complient" interest free "suduk financing"?

And by the way, the huge European and U.S. subsidies to "renewable" energy projects are in reality a kind of "suduk financing", extremely popular among "green investors" in western countries. Fortunately, however, many governments have now realized that it is time to cut this enormous waste of taxpayers´ money.