Britain's New Realtiy Show: Austerity

In 2007 Britain’s national debt was 44% of GDP and the cost of insuring the debt incurred by the British Government was app. £5,000 for each £10 million of securities they issued. In 2014 Government debt in the UK will be 75% of GDP and the current cost of insuring £10 million of the securities needed to underwrite the debt is £72,000. The Government is in trouble and relies on the Bank of England to print money (euphemistically called “fiscal easing”) so as to manage its debts. It is threatened with a lowering of its debt rating by the debt rating agencies, who are concerned that, sometime soon, Britain may default on its debt.


But the challenge of reducing debt while encouraging an economic recovery is becoming a focus for the election, likely to take place in early May of this year. Britain has over 2 million unemployed and some one third of adults receive one form or other of welfare payments. There are two million children in Britain growing up in homes where no-one works. 7.5% of GDP is now spent on welfare provision.


What options does an incoming Government have in terms of reducing its debt load while stimulating the economy. Not many.


Option 1: The first is to cut programs in this vast welfare state while at the same time raising taxes. This is the option favoured by the Conservative Party. Its Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has indicated that cuts will begin in its first week in office, should the party win the election. However, for reasons of political expediency, it has already protected some key budgets – especially health. Labour has also indicated that they will seek to reduce public spending in a “measured and planned” way – seeking to contrast their way of cutting with that of the Conservative Party. Their strategy – freeze public spending at 2011 levels for five years. This does not take full account of the fact that there are structural problems with the UK government budget – there is a permanent gap between spending and income of some £90 billion.


Option 2: The second option is to encourage inflation, which would wipe out the value of the debt, making it easier to pay off. Such a strategy has consequences. It doesn't just wipe out debts, it wipes out people's hard-earned savings and increases the number living in poverty, expanding welfare and creating additional government spending. It also leads to sizeable wage claims and labour unrest.


Option 3: Is to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Britain did this in 1976 when Dennis Healey was Chancellor and Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. Healey asked the IMF for a £2.3bn bail out, saying unemployment and inflation were at exceptional levels – with unemployment notably lower than they are now. The IMF does not just loan funds – it does so with conditions, usually associated with severe public spending cuts and wage constraints in the public sector.


Option 4: Britain could just default on its debt. Not pay it. Other countries have done that in the past, but rarely have these been G8 countries. The immediate impact would to make borrowing by British based organizations, especially public ones, both more difficult to obtain, more expensive in terms of interest rates and insurance against non-payment. While this openly mentioned in policy discussions, all parties mention it and dismiss it in the same sentence. Britain’s credit rating, already under constant “watch” status, would be lowered.


Whatever actions are taken by whichever government wins power in May, it is not likely that Britain’s debt will be under control and back below a “safe” level (40% of GDP) until 2032, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies. This assumes significant tax rises, cost cutting and inflation are all part of the strategy. Any independent assessment dismisses the current governments forecasts as too fanciful. Some analysts suggest that it may take until 2040 to bring spending back in control.


Austerity will be the catchphrase that Briton’s will hear more and more of over the next twenty five years. Yet when Gordon Brown came to power, thing looked very different.

Not a Great Start to the Year for the "Warmists"

It has been a bad start to the new year for those who are concerned that action needs to be taken now to forestall the impact of climate change in the future. The `warmists`` – those who are convinced that the science of “closed”, that the action plan has to be massive reductions in CO2 emissions globally coupled with a strong push for green energy - are in retreat.

First, Climategate –the affair of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia – refuses to die down. The emails are being used in a law suit against the Environmental Protection Agency to try and prevent it from enacting regulations to control CO2 emissions. As more and more people work through the emails, more and more issues are brought to the surface. Al Gore’s protestations about them as being “irrelevant to the real issue” is no longer heard, as many now see other issues with the data and the quality of the science.

Second, the implications of the debacle at Copenhagen rumble on. The UN is sidelined in follow-up discussions as the US, China and India seek to cut a deal before the G20 meeting in Canada this coming summer, ignoring the position taken by the EU and the UN as well as the developing world. The “major polluters” want control of their fate. This is not what others had in mind.

Third, the US is backing off commitments made at Copenhagen to work to find $100 billion to support developing world’s climate change adjustment. Secretary of State Clinton is suggesting that little of this $100 billion will be ``new` money and the developing nations are crying `foul``.

Fourth, the Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been accused of a major conflict of interest with his business dealings in green technology companies benefiting from the position the UN takes on climate change and the need for clean energy. While Dr Rajendra Pachauri is not paid for his UN work (other than travelling expenses), he is increasingly using his position to advocate policies which directly benefit companies he is a director of. The IPCC summarises the science of climate change, its impacts, and possible countermeasures. It enables politicians to make informed decisions. The IPCC is not permitted to recommend any course of action. Dr Pachauri, a railyway engineer, denies the conflict but the evidence is mounting that it is real. The fact that Al Gore, Chairman of an investment company that directly benefits from climate change, gets away with similar duplicity does not make the conflict of interest any less serious.

Fifth, and its only early in the new year, the UN IPCC is backtracking on a major claim. In its fourth assessment released in 2007, the IPCC claimed that the Himalayas could be ice-free by 2035 due to global warming. This has been used by many as an example of why action is needed urgently, as has the `sinking of the Maldives`. The ice free by 2035 claim is not supported, in turns out, by any peer reviewed science and most scientists who have studied the glaciers in the region completely disassociate themselves from this claim. Yet the IPCC defends it.

The claim is based on a comment made in a newspaper. Yet whenever the IPCC is under attack, the defence is always that everything it reports is based on peer reviewed science. Clearly not the case. It is the case, however, that author of this comment is a colleague of Dr Pachauri and they have together sought to raise significant funding on the basis of this claim.

Yesterday, however, Dr Pachauri began to distance himself from his own past statements. In an email to Reuters he said "We are looking into the issue of the Himalayan glaciers, and will take a position on it in the next two or three days." `This follows the release of a major study by the Indian Government suggesting that they could find no link between global warming, CO2 emissions and the state of the glaciers in the Himalayas. A messy situations – one that connects the conflict of interest issues with the quality of science issues raised by Climategate.

Finally, in President Obama’s agenda in the period between now and the mid-term elections in November, climate change and energy security (these two policies are inextricably linked) is being pushed further away from the floor of the Senate. While the Environmental Protection Agency is pushing ahead with its regulation of CO2, the cap and trade legislation and other components of the climate change bill are so far from everyone’s mind as to be almost forgotten. The debacle at Copenhagen was a taste of what is to come in the Senate.

This time last year, the `warmist` were riding here, predicting great success at Copenhagen and refusing to debate the `science``, which they claimed was settled. It clearly is not and now there is a vacuum in terms of policy and action plans. Many campaigners believe that progress is being made, but the evidence to support this view is hard to find. It will be interesting to watch what happens next in the global fight against climate change.

Obama's First Year

Barrack Obama is becoming expert at managing disappointment. Whether it is health care (still not finished), climate change and energy (not yet started and already back-tracking from Copenhagen), Guantanamo (closure delayed), the war on terror (half-hearted) or homeland security (not very secure), the man who declared just a year ago ‘yes we can’ is now saying ‘maybe’ more often. Even the relief efforts in Haiti are faltering.

He is also loosing traction. Two Senators have announced their retirement, weakening the position Obama has in the Senate. More are expected to follow. It is widely thought that the democrats will not do well in the mid-term elections in November and most blame Obama for the difficulties the party faces in these election. Even Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts looks vulnerable.

So what went wrong?

First, the expectations of Obama – the first black President, incredibly articulate (especially after the sometimes-incoherent George W Bush) – were so high that it was impossible for him to fulfill them. Oprah, on the day after his election, indicated that she thought the world was now changed. The Nobel Committee, in a moment of theatre, awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize before he had time to settle into the Oval Office. The “yes we can” victory speech appeared to promise more than any President could ever deliver. Obama set himself up for a fall.

Second, Obama underestimated the challenges of the job. When he arrived at the Oval Office, the economy was in shambles, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were in some confusion, momentum on climate change was stalling and the republicans had established a reign of non bipartisan politics – across the aisle agreements, while nice in theory, rarely happened in practice. He underestimated the extent of raw “politics” associated with every move he would make.

Third, he has shown a lack of real leadership. Though on television almost every day, the real work of laying out a policy platform and then working the phones and contacts to ensure allegiance and alliances has not happened. On health, he outlined a broad framework and let the House and Senate go at it. On climate change, the same thing. The result is that Nancy Pelosi was allowed to run the House, and she became a lightning rod for dissident democrats and reluctant republicans.

Finally, Obama has overplayed his popularity to the point where many Americans are now simply fed up of seeing him. Whether its on Leno, Letterman, CNN or some other show, he is a very visible President. Each time he appears, he loses support – “Oh not Obama again!”. His popularity ratings are the lowest in modern times for any President at the end of their first year. One headline in the Huffington Post suggest that Charles Manson, the satanic mass murderer, has a better chance of winning the next Presidential race.

When Oprah interviewed him and asked him to give himself a year end-grade, Obama gave himself a B+ (A- if health care passed). He was alone in this assessment. The best grade awarded by others is a C+. Most think he has failed his first year – especially those ten million now unemployed.

Obama could well be a one term President if, and it is a very big “if”, the Republicans can find a reasonable candidate to run against him. The prospects of this happening are slim. No one is emerging at this time who can provide a reasoned, compassionate and effective opposition. Obama may win a second term by default – the fault being with the republicans. If they are foolish enough to consider Sarah Palin, they may just hand Obama his second term.

To redeem himself, Obama needs to spend less time on media releases and TV appearances and more time on substantive work on policy. He needs to forge alliances across the aisles for key decisions that need to be made on the economy, the future of energy and the cuts to spending needed to pay down the deficit – the largest in American history. He needs to change his key advisors, especially his economic team, and create bipartisan momentum for economic change and development. Finally, he needs to find ways of focusing the democratic effort on lowering the rhetoric and increasing the work-rate, especially in the Senate.

A Very British Coup Attempt

In a remarkable day in Westminster, an attempt was made today to oust Gordon Brown as Prime Minister of Britain and the Leader of the Labour Party. Two former cabinet ministers – Geoff Hoon and Patrician Hewitt – used an email to see if they could create the momentum required to force a vote amongst sitting Labour MP’s on Brown’s leadership. This very British coup so near to a general election is unprecedented in parliamentary history and it looks to have failed.

By the end of the day all of the potential leadership contenders – Alan Johnson, David Milliband, Jack Straw, Lord Mandelson, Ed Balls, Alistair Darling – had come out in support of the Prime Minister. Only those who attempted a similar move last summer appear to support the Hoon-Hewitt coup. These rebels include Barry Sherman, Charles Clark and Frank Field – all former cabinet members. Parliamentary Labour Party chairman Tony Lloyd says the plot has "not gone anywhere" among backbench MPs, many of whom are standing down at the next election, now expected May 6th 2010.

Gordon Brown saw off a similar move headed by Charles Clark last summer when, with some humility, he spoke with passion to the Labour MP’s promising a vision for the future and real change. At the time, the Labour Party was close to twenty five percentage points behind the Conservatives in pre-election polling. As of yesterday, the Labour Party was less than ten points behind, despite a faltering economy, massive government spending debt and pending spending cuts.

Hoon-Hewitt argue that a leadership ballot would, once and for all, put the leadership question to rest and clear the air. If Brown won the ballot convincingly, they suggest, then the voices of opposition to him within the party would be silenced and create unity in the run up to the electorate. The rules of the Labour Party require a ballot of all party members – not just MP’s – to determine the leadership of the party.

The Conservative Party, as is clear from several shadow cabinet commentaries on radio and television simply cannot believe their luck. They are using the Hoon-Hewitt move as a vehicle for demanding an earlier election – March rather than May. They are also using it to challenge the ability of the Labour Party, now in serious financial trouble, to govern the country when it cannot manage itself.

While the “noises off”, as one cabinet Minister called the coup attempt, are likely to rumble on for the next few days, the challenge seems to have died out. Politics as usual within the Labour Party.

Best Dressed Man?

It is official. Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, was awarded the title of the worst dressed man in Britain by GQ Magazine this week. It’s the least of his worries. More serious is the fact that the Labour Party he leads is going into a general election in May with hardly any funds. The party has been forced to scrap a planned manifesto meeting of its National Policy Forum on cost grounds and has around £7 million ($13 million) to spend on a four week campaign, expected to take place in late April for a vote on May 6th.

In 1997, when Blair led the party to an overwhelming victory, it had substantial funds donated by a range of private companies, trade unions and individuals. Now most of its funding is coming from trade unions, who expect certain policy positions to be taken in return.

The Conservative Party, widely tipped to form the next Government, even if it is a minority government, has some £25 million ($42 million) at its disposal, with more funds likely to arrive as the election call is made. In the battle for advertising space, TV commercials, manifesto distribution and candidate support, the Conservatives are already significantly ahead and have momentum.

Meantime the Liberal Democrats, who have had no real funds since the second world war, have a great deal of what has come to be known as “hung” capital. If, as some commentators expect, the race is closer than was expected and there is a hung parliament, the Liberal Democrats could hold the key to power. By reaching a basic agreement with one party on the key issues, they could offer support to a minority government, probably led by David Cameron. While Nick Clegg protests that he has no interests in being a second fiddle player, that is what he will be. When the results are in, the horse trading will begin.

Last week Gordon Brown lavished praise on the Liberal Democrats, while before Christmas David Cameron made another overture to the Lib Dems, highlighting areas of agreement between their parties on issues ranging from constitutional reform to civil liberties. The courtship is on.

The period between now and March will be the period of the phony war when the parties “test run” election platforms, slogans and strategies. The real campaign will start in March. But the phony war will be interesting, since the fundamental shape of the campaigns will be established. As this develops, the media will begin to form their view of the election and its likely outcome and the polls will show the reaction of the electorate. As things stand, Cameron is not doing as well as he should be doing if he expects to win an outright victory. Time will tell if he can pull significantly ahead to capture the prize of a majority government.

Scanners or Profiles?

The attempt to detonate a bomb concealed in the underwear of a passenger on a flight to the US as it was passing through Canadian airspace has caused a new wave of security measures for flights into the US from world-wide destinations. Airport security staff now routinely pat down passengers and there is talk of the deployment of full body scanners. These measures are theatre – they would not have detected the explosives carried by the would-be bomber.

The full body scanners will detect small metal objects, but will not detect plastics or liquids – the core components of the Christmas bomb. Patting a person down, particularly when it becomes a routine, is also unlikely to detect liquids in small quantities. The substance of the bomb was just three ounces of a dry powder distributed in the front of a pair of underpants. The “trigger” was a liquid held in a plastic syringe.

The measures now in place show that the response to a threat is to increase the extent of theatre in the hope that the show of deterrence will be sufficient to deter terrorists. The evidence is that the terrorists just get smarter.

There are a growing number of voices that say that the real answer here is to start profiling likely terrorists and make more effective such measures as “no fly lists” developed on the basis of profiling or past convictions. Those concerned with civil liberties will challenge such profiling as an infringement of human rights – as they are already arguing with respect to the full body scanners. The trade off’s here are best calculated in terms of preventing terrorism and enabling appropriate and efficient access to air travel.

Most security measures in place at airports are about appearances, not about the reality of preventing terrorism: the bomber passed through security at a major airport and was on a no-fly list.

Noble Causes, Science and Public Policy

(This blog post is written following a reading of Science and Public Policy – The Virtuous Corruption of Virtual Environmental Science by Aynsely Kellow, published by Edward Elgar in 2007. I strongly recommend this book. The arguments below are largely based on it).

Some of the claims made by respected scientists with respect to the environment and climate change will, with the benefit of hindsight, look ridiculous. Let us just cite one example from amongst many. Sir David King, former Chief Scientist for the UK Government, said in 2004 that “Antarctica is likely to be the only habitable continent by the end of the century”.

What leads these scientists to make such claims is the increasing reliance, especially in the environmental sciences and climatology, on computer simulations largely based on scenarios. Given that randomized control trials of environmental change or climate change are not possible, researchers have moved increasingly to simulators and models which depend for their data not on observations, though some are used in the building of models, but on assumptions. Such models now dominant some branches of science and their results, as opposed to the results of direct observation are seen as ``superior``. One example of this is the preference for the models which show continuous global warming in this century, whereas the direct observations suggest that the global temperature has been cooling for some time.

E.O Wilson’s biodiversity loss assumption, which newspapers escalate routinely as indicating a loss of between 50,000 and 100,000 species each year, is another example of the model being seen as preferable to actual data. Wilson has claimed that some 27,000 species are lost each year. The claim is based on a simple mathematical equation, not observation. The equation looks at the probability of biodiversity within a geographic area and then makes assumptions about what will happen in that area if its character of that area is changed (e.g. through deforestation or flooding) and what species may survive and which will not. It is a scenario, not a prediction and certainly not a fact. Direct observations of actual locations suggest that species loss is less than three species, not accounting for the hundreds of new species found each year.

Computer models are complex. They rely for their veracity on equations which show the relationships between variables, generally driven by regression and multi-dimensional scaling. Such equations in turn depend on interpretation of a theory – a theory of the relationship, for example, between the sun, sun spots, clouds, CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, the tilt of the planet, ocean currents, the effective of the oceans as heat and CO2 sinks, the impact of volcano’s and so on. Only when these equations are built and the relationships between the variables established following a theory does actual data come into play.

These data often have to be manipulated to take into account a variety of concerns – partial data is manipulated to gain completeness, data sets are adjusted for errors in both collection and transcription, outliers are often excluded and so on. In climate science, for example, actual temperature measurements are adjusted to take into account the location of the thermometers which measure temperature. Such adjustment involves decisions about what is expected, which are in turn influenced by assumptions.

One of the ways in which those building models verify their model and its veracity is not by comparing its output to observed data – for example, comparing the scenarios developed in the IPCC assessment reports which what then actually happens – but by comparing the output of one computer model with that of another computer model. This is rather like comparing two computer simulated basket ball games between the Lakers and the Bulls and then and determining who really won as opposed to comparing a computer simulation of this game with a real game between the two teams. Part of the reason this is done is that computer models of climate, for example, have yet to accurately simulate actual events.

Let us take an actual example. Computer models of global climate are used to develop a scenario for deaths from disease – as the planet warms, the theory goes, so diseases normally associated with extreme weather events increase. This leads the World Health Organization to claim that there are already 160,000 deaths each year directly because of global warming – the figure coming from a computer simulation and the counting of all extreme weather events as being due to global warming. The actual evidence is that deaths from extreme weather events has declined as the planet has warmed – 73,700 in the period 1970-79 and 42,200 in the period 1995-2004.

What leads scientists to make such claims and predictions? There are several different explanations, none of which question the beliefs or conviction of the scientists concerned. They all focus on the corruption of science as a process in favour of science as a tool in the pursuit of a noble cause.

Noble cause corruption is a standard topic in the philosophy of science. The idea is simple. The cause is seen by those who support the cause as vitally important and one that society needs to act on – a failure to do so could, in the view of supporters, have serious consequences. Every tool – the media, political influence, film and television, investment etc – should be harnessed to support the cause so that action is taken. Science is one of the tools.

This view of science as a tool in the service of a noble cause is not, then, new. It is fundamentally a Marxist view of science as an instrument of ideology. It is a view advocated by Feyerabend, an anarchist philosopher of science writing in the late decades of the last century. Feyerabend sanctioned the introduction of theories that are inconsistent with well-established facts if they lead to an advancement of social understanding or a noble cause. Feyerabend also advocated that science should be subjected to democratic control: not only should the subjects that are investigated by scientists be determined by popular election, scientific assumptions and conclusions should also be supervised by committees of lay people – something we see now in action at the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change whose Summary for Policy Makers is written by lay people on the advice of some selected scientists, sometimes containing information and texts written over the objections of those scientists.

The idea that science is “poetic inventiveness that is story telling or myth making – the invention of stories about the world” in pursuit of a noble cause, as Sir Karl Popper observed, is not new, but has achieved a remarkable poignancy in our current politics. Though not new, it is now very problematic. Proposals are being made, “based on the science”, that will fundamentally change the developed world through decarbonising the means of production – essentially, the government will seize control of the means of production through its regulation of carbon dioxide – is the noble cause done in the name of saving mankind from him or herself.

Governments claim that there is a scientific consensus, when there clearly is not – look at the disputes in the scientific literature and the work of the Non Governmental International Panel on Climate Change. They claim that 4,000 scientists endorsed the IPCC fourth assessment in 2007, when only some 2,000 scientists were involved in that assessment, with only 20% of these (around 400 persons) “deal” or had some connection with climate science – meaning that most did not. They claim that sceptics are the mouthpieces of the oil industry, when many of the IPCC scientists have also benefited from oil grants and cash or grants from parties with vested interests.

Further, while a large group of scientist may support a particular view of some matter in science, it does not make them right. A large group of scientists were wrong about the geological formation of continents, about the human papilloma virus (HPV) and its links to cancer and may well be wrong about the nature of multiple sclerosis. Science is not about consensus; it is about evidence and theory – always subject to falsification.

It is time for us to restore some balance into the scientific study of climate and the environment, to fund science differently and to challenge the role played by the gatekeepers of science. Science is itself under threat.

Gordon Brown's New Years Wish

Gordon Brown, now in the last three months of his tenure as Prime Minister of Great Britain, is doing something remarkable. He is narrowing the gap between him and his political rival – David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party. Commentators now generally talk of a “hung parliament” in which neither the Labour nor Conservative parties have a majority. The general election, according to most pundits, will likely be in March and must occur before the end of May.

The latest opinion polls, which just last April showed close to a twenty point lead for the Conservatives, are now showing just a nine point Conservative lead with Labour gaining some momentum. Given the way seats are distributed and the massive majority Labour currently has, nine points will not be enough to unseat the Government. Gordon Brown’s New Years wish will be to get this poll difference down to five or six points, closer to the margin of error in polling.

The British House of Commons has 646 seats, with the Conservative Party currently holding just 193. Some 94 seats belong to third parties – Liberal Democrats, Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, Irish independents and others. To win, David Cameron has to secure an additional 128 seats – something that requires a massive swing away from Labour to the Conservatives and a reasonable turn-out at the polls. At the 2005 election Conservatives polled only three percentage points less of the vote than Labour did, but their tally of seats was 157 smaller.

A hung parliament causes an interesting constitutional challenge for the Queen. She has to decide who to call as her Prime Minister. By convention, she would seek a continuation of the present Government until such time as it became clear that the Prime Minister no longer could rely upon the support of the House. At this point, she would then offer the position to whoever could command the largest sustainable support from the other parties in the House of Commons. Given the momentum Cameron and the Conservatives would have created to create a hung parliament, some sort of coalition to sustain a minority government would likely occur.

Over the last 100 years, some 34 years have involved coalition or minority rule. If anything, the multiple-term governments of the Tories throughout the 80s and 90s and Labour in the 90s and 2000s have led us to forget this fact. Coalitions are also commonplace throughout Europe. In Britain, hung parliaments tend to be short-lived and contentious. We may have more than one election in 2010.

The crucial factor in determining the election outcome will be electoral turn-out. Some are suggesting that, disaffection with the politicians following expense scandals, the over use of half-truths in explaining various policies and events, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all may lead to a high turn-out representing voter disapproval for the work of the current government. Others, pointing to these same factors, suggest that the turn-out will be very low showing voter disaffection with politics in general and politicians in particular. A low turnout generally favours the Conservatives, but, such an advantage will not be enough to secure an overall Conservative victory. Large turn-outs have traditionally favoured Labour, but there have been occasions when turnout was high and Labour lost. History tells us, however, that voter turnout is higher when the result of the election is in doubt – people feel that their vote may actually count for something.

A large number of MPs - some one hundred and nineteen in total, with seventy six Labour MP’s amongst them - are retiring. This is the largest number to retire since 1945 and the list includes many former cabinet Ministers and prominent politicians who had strong personal following in their constituencies. The list includes well known characters like Bob Marshall Andrews, Clare Short, John Prescott, Ruth Kelly and Anne Widdecombe. This may “free” voters who supported the individual rather than the party they stood for and give them “permission” vote differently in the election.

The issues in the election are clear. There are four. First , the need for a restoration of trust in the political process and politicians, lost during the lead up to the Iraq war and extended by the expenses scandal – Briton’s now are rightly questioning the way politicians think, act and understand their role. Second, the economy and the need for Britain to move out of recession, reduce unemployment and lower government debt. Third, the Iraq and Afghan wars are seen as costly in terms of lives and unnecessary in terms of purpose – Britons want Britain out of these wars. The final issue is less tangible – it is about restoring the pride people have in being British and championing Britain. There is a sense of “loss” of identity taking place which many are anxious about – politicians need to address this.

There are dangers lurking in the election. The most significant being the British National Party (BNP). This neo-Nazi party has had some electoral success with two members elected in by-elections in 2009. The election of these two MP’s, which is largely related to the British identity issue, shocked many and has given serious cause for alarm. These xenophobic nationalist are promoting policies of hate and isolationism which many find offensive, yet others see them as “standing up for being British”. The chattering classes do not quite know what to do about the BNP. It is possible that they will gain ground, especially if turnout is high.

It will be an interesting time between now and election night. Gordon Brown will be in his element as a street fighter, ideologue and spin-master. His New Years wish of more favourable polling may come true, but the election is the ultimate poll and he is still likely not to be Prime Minister come June.

Canada to Lead on Climate Change - Whether it Wants to or Not

The one thing we can learn from the Copenhagen debacle is that the UN process for securing global alignment around climate change is dead, though attempts at resuscitation will occur twice in 2010 – death can be denied.

Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, recognizes this and is seeking a new form of global government to deal with climate change. He is looking at the newly invigorated G20 as a means for achieving this. This means Canada holds the torch for the future of the planet.

What should the G20 meeting focus on? The first thing it can do is end the work of the IPCC. The revelations of the ties its Chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has to business interests and the Climategate scandal all now point to it being a corrupted organization. It is also deceptive – claiming that there is a consensus in “the science”, when in fact there is not. It is also deceptive in that it chooses to ignore actual measurement in preference to computer models, since the latter present gloomy scenarios which then encourage governments to act. Just as the Stern economic analysis of the costs of climate change mitigation was a political document written to enable specific political action, so the IPCC is now a political lobby group which ensures that the “science” confirms to the politically correct position with respect to the science of climate change.

The second thing it can do is to recognize reality. Developed nations, including the US, Britain, Canada and the rest of the EU are not going to cut emissions by anything like the numbers either they suggest or the “science” demands. For example, Brown’s offer to cut UK emissions by 42% by 2020 (just ten years from now) is simply nonsense. The “warmist” science suggests that a cut of 40% by 2020 and 90% by 2050 is needed to stand a fifty-fifty chance of holding temperature gain down to 2C – requiring a massive reinvention of the world’s economy. Its not going to happen, period. While reducing emissions may well be desirable, the 18% cuts currently on the table will not stop climate change but will have significant economic consequences – higher energy and food prices, slowing down economic growth and creating massive need for subsidy for energy systems leading eventually to higher taxation.

The US and Canada have this right – reduce emissions as best one can while protecting economic growth. A 4-5% cut in emissions on 1990 levels is do-able and meaningful, especially if followed by other reductions once appropriate technologies become available.

That’s the third thing the G20 should do: focus much more energy and resources on technology development and technology transfer. The real task is to develop technologies which, by their nature, use less fossil fuels for energy generation and distribution, transport and economic activity. Accelerating the development of the hydrogen economy, looking at new sources of renewable energy, accelerating the adoption of regulation which requires CO2 capture and storage, carbon taxation to fund technology investment – all mechanisms which could reduce emissions in pace with the emergence of effective technological alternatives. Adaptation is a more productive strategy than emissions reduction targets – something Canada has been advocating for years.

The fourth thing that the G20 can do is to spend time thinking about how technologies developed in the developed world can quickly, effectively and economically be transferred to the developing world. This requires a technology transfer strategy of Marshall Plan proportions as well as a liberation of intellectual property regimes, which currently make such transfer expensive. It requires money and a systematic approach – it will not occur by happenstance.

The final thing that the G20 can do is to stop thinking about “reparations” due to the developing world and link any funding to these emerging economies to verifiable installations of technology. Giving money to Africa is a proven method for guaranteeing corruption – just ask Robert Mugabe. Better to link funding to technology adaption, installation and utilization than to simply measure CO2.

Canada has an opportunity to change the focus for the climate change conversation at the G20 in the summer of 2010. It needs to start positioning this thinking now if it is to be truly influential in redirecting the energies of the parties during the year.

Got a Light?

CBC News has found that in some cases compact fluorescent bulbs (C.F.L.s) can have the adverse effect of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, depending on how consumers heat their homes.

Physics professor Peter Blunden at the University of Manitoba said C.F.L. bulbs are certainly more energy efficient than older incandescent bulbs.

But in cold-weather climates such as Canada’s, Blunden said older incandescent bulbs do more than just light our homes. During the long winter months, they also generate heat. The new C.F.L. bulbs, on the other hand, produce minimal heat so the loss has to be made up by fossil-fuel burning gas, oil or wood to heat your home.

“To some extent, the case [in favor of C.F.L.s] has been oversold” because of the offset in higher heating costs, he said.

A New Approach to Climate Change Negotiations

Just six months ago, the Copenhagen Climate Change summit was being regarded as a key moment in history – the moment when world leaders would sign up to a new agreement which would begin the seriois work of reducing CO2 emissions and decarbonizing the global economy. Phrases like “a tipping point” and “a pivotal moment for mankinf” were commonly used to refer to the summit.

Noting that Copenhagen was meant to be the final stage of a two year process and that there had been many meetimgs of the parties in the two year negotiating period, the design of the Copenhagen process was intended to finalize a document, develop action plans and have world leaders sign up to the commitments made by their negotiators on the last day. The design was predicated on the idea, developed by the Danish hosts, that there was already alignment on the key principles, and a draft agreement was submitted early in the proceedings.

It soon became clear that it was a disaster. Of the two hundred and ten statements in the draft agreement, one hundred and ninety two were in dispute by the third day of the summit. After this, thing got worse rather than better. Unlike other summits, the G20 nations found that they were no longer in control of the agenda or the process. African states, small island states and the least developed countries stood up for themselves and challenged the basics of the agreement. They refused to be brow beated by powerful nations – they stood their ground. At one point, five competing draft agreements were ciculating and different factions were in or out of the process. Many seasoned journalists covering the summit made clear that they had never seen anything like it – chaos, confusion, despair.

At the end of the summit, amid more shambles and discord, the summit ended without an agreement. The agreement now been spun by some is in fact an agreement between five of the one hundred and ninety two nations present at the summit. These five nations – the worlds biggest polluters and South Africa – see the agreement as a statement of intent. It is not binding, not enforecable and has many conditions attached. The summit itself chose to note it rather than reject it – there was no possibility of acceptance.

So what now? As far as the UN is concerned, it is busy organizing the next summit for Mexico in December 2010. They will try again to secure an agreement on CO2 emission reductions, funds for developing nations, technology transfer and intellectual property and the verification and governance mechanisms required to enforce what they hope will be a legally binding agreement. Talks have failed, so let us have more talks is the mantra.

Others, like Bjorn Lomberg, the skeptial environmentalist, are suggesting that its is time to change the fundamental focus for negotiations. Rather than focus on a global, legally binding agreement on CO2 emisisions, he suggests that the focus should be on technology and mitigation efforts. Rather than live out the fantasy of “stopping climate change”, we should instead focus at the international level on dealing with the effects of climate change, whileat the same time reducing emissions through national and bilateral agreements. He is not saying “don’t cut emissions”, but rather he is promoting the idea that climate change is something that has to be managed through investments in innovative technology and adaptation.

This is an unpopular view, sincemany have bought the fantasy that action now can stop climate change. The religious belief in CO2 reduction as mankinds only chocie is now invested in so heavily, in more ways than one, that shifting the basis for the conversation is politically and economically difficult. Nonethless, it is what it needs to happen if the world is to make progress.

No Deal at Copenhagen

You will read that an accord has been reached at Copenhagen and will hear President Obama, Gordon Brown and others say that “it is an important step, but there is more to do”. Don’t believe them.

After a long gruelling session lasting until the early hours of the morning, the UN Conference of the Parties meeting in Copenhagen simply “noted” the accord reached by several countries (US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa), with many countries deciding to reject it outright. There is no deal at Copenhagen.

Obama’s intervention has lowered the bar, stalled real development and made securing a deal more difficult. The accord reached by the five nations is not legally binding, sets no targets for emissions, allows India and China to increase their CO2 emissions, lets the US “off the hook” with a 3-4% cut in emissions on 1990 levels, weakens commitments previously made to transparency and verification of CO2 emissions reductions and commits some modest funds to developing countries ($10 billion a year from 2010) and suggests that, if there is a global agreement on binding emissions reductions, developing nations will seek (not offer or guarantee) funding of $100 billion annually to developing nations.

The five nations also committed to developing their national plans for emissions reduction such that the planet will not warm above 2C. This is also meaningless is the absence of a global agreement. It is also flying in the face of the G77 countries demand that the target be set at 1.5C, though the agreement indicated that the overall target will be reviewed again in 2016 when all of the signatories to yesterdays accord will be out of office.

The conference rejected a proposal to dramatically reduce deforestation in exchange for significant funding, following objections from countries which practice deforestation. This effectively killed the only positive development from the Copenhagen Summit which was a comprehensive and focused approach to sustainable forestry worldwide.

There will be another summit in 2010 in Mexico. While many thought that the date of this conference of the parties (the third in this round of talks) would be brought forward, no such plan has been announced.

The spin being given to this accord is remarkable. One would think something truly important had just happened, especially if one listened to Gordon Brown. Following an absurd offer that Britain would cut emissions by 42% by 2020 – an offer backed by no plan, no funds and no political will – Brown is now claiming a great deal of the credit for securing the accord in Copenhagen. When serious commentators and analysts start taking the deal to pieces, as they are now doing, he may want to distance himself rather than attach himself to the accord. It is so seriously flawed and means nothing in terms of climate change that it will come back to bite him. The Daily Express is already labelling the British Prime Minister a “climate change nut”.

Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, played his cards smartly. He was on hand, part of the final stages of the negotiations, not visible when the accord was announced and got back to Canada as quickly as possible. He will not be tainted by Copenhagen. While Canada is often accused of stalling and blocking negotiations, he at least was not a signatory to an accord which will come to be seen as a nonsense.

Some fifteen thousand delegates from over one hundred and ninety countries spent twelve long days together and we got nothing. This was their third meeting. It is time for a completely different approach to this issue. Holding another meeting in Mexico to get nowhere makes no sense, unless these meetings represent the ultimate foil for permitting business as usual, which is exactly what the accord reached by the five nations in Copenhagen permits the world to do.

The Copenhagen Debacle

President Obama, working with Gordon Brown and a collection of some twenty three other leaders, are working on a binding political agreement at Copenhagen.

Just pause for a moment and ask: what is a binding a political agreement? It is an agreement that is binding until the parties return home from Copenhagen. There is no such thing as a political agreement that people are bound to – ask Joe Lieberman or Jack Leighton. This is just one of the imaginative post-modern political rhetorical flourishes we are about to bear witness to.

Another is a repeat of the commitment, made by the G8, G20 and the Commonwealth, to hold the rise in global temperature to no more than 2C by the end of the century. This is already a problematic statement, since we are currently headed for 3.5C, according to a leaked briefing document from the UN, even after the 18% emissions reductions already committed to by nations attending the Copenhagen summit. Also problematic is that some one hundred and thirty nations have indicated that they will only sign up to a 1.5C commitment. Finally, such statements are only meaningful if there are significant, legally binding commitments to take specific action. No such statement is in the current draft document which Obama, Brown and others are trying to finalize.

The draft also includes the previously agreed proposal for industrialised countries to raise $10bn a year for three years to help poor countries adapt to climate change, between 2010 and 2012 and reaffirms the Clinton commitment to seek to raise $100bn a year by 2020. The document does not explain how this money will be raised, from whom, with what complete set of conditions and whether the $100 bn will be new money or existing money, repurposed for reparations and mitigation. Canada has already indicated that, while it will contribute, there will be no new funds.

There are no commitments in the draft document to any specific emissions targets – leaving it up to each country to determine its own path. The US, for example, will not sign up to a legally binding treaty which requires them to do anything on the emissions side. The US has committed to cut CO2 emissions by 3% on 1990 levels by 2020 – they were asked to commit to between 20% and 40% cuts. Obama may not even secure this modest cut in a bill in the Senate, which has postponed dealing with this issue until the spring or summer of 2010.

Also not clear is the mechanism for “transparency” (which just last week was being called verification). The document makes vague references to this requirement for accountability, presumably so as to create the wiggle room for China to sign up, even though they see any attempts at independent verification as a challenge to their sovereign rights to govern. What the document says is that developing countries should report on emissions reduction actions every two years, although other countries can ask for further evidence.

Environmental campaigners see all of this as a “nothing” agreement. There is nothing in this agreement that was not in existence before Copenhagen. Politicians know that this is pure chimera – seeking to create the illusion of something significant when in fact it is all fluff and mirrors. They will fly home later today and “spin” their achievement of a binding political agreement, which will unravel while they are in mid air. It is, in a word, a debacle.

(You can read the draft text here)

No Deal is Better Than a Bad Deal

Algerian envoy Kamel Djemouai, who speaks for 53 African nations, expressed the views of many inside and outside the Copenhagen summit today when he said: "No deal is better than to have a bad deal, particularly for Africa”. But the pressure is on for something to be done so that the world leaders, now arriving in droves, can sign something tomorrow.

The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference of the Parties is the fifteenth such conference and the cumulation of two years of negotiations. These began in Bali in 2007, moved to Poland the following year and were supposed to culminate in Copenhagen. It now looks likely that many of the key issues will be postponed for further negotiations through the G8, G20 and then another negotiation in Mexico in six months time.

A small victory was won today by the developing nations. All along they have been arguing that what is required is the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol, given that the current phase ends in 2012. They have won this argument, at least from a procedural point of view. The summit now has two tracks – one for those Kyoto signatories (including Canada) and one for those nations (US for one) who either did not sign up to Kyoto or wish to revoke their commitment to the Kyoto.

The US, through the work of its Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, has offered to provide assistance in solving another problem. The problem is that the developing nations have been demanding a sizeable fund – they asked for between $500 billion and $800 billion a year – for reparations for climate change damage and for support for the growth of their economies, while making investments in renewable energy. Clinton has offered to work with others to secure a $100 billion annual fund by 2020. She has not offered to provide these funds, only to work with others to develop the fund. But there are conditions. One is that there should be complete transparency in assessing C02 emissions and the impact of fund investments in seeking to secure lower emissions. The other condition is that the attempt by the US, working with others, to corral $100 billion annually, is that there is a strong accord on climate change – something currently not at all evidence. The US has said it will “pay its share”, but has yet to make clear just what its share is. While many are reading this as a concrete promise, it is a clever piece of rhetoric. The US will “try” only “if” is not a strong commitment.

The developed world is not budging on the 2C target for the targeted limit for increases in global temperature, despite the resolute demands from many nations that the target be 1.5C. Even the African Union, led on this occasion by Ethiopia, has accepted the 2C target. There also appears to be the basis of an agreement on forests and reforestation, again dependent on new funds.

What is not agreed on is what the emissions targets will need to be under Kyoto 2.0 or the parallel agreement or what counts as an acceptable mechanism for achieving recognized reductions. The summit has postponed, but not ruled out, the use of carbon capture and storage as a mechanism at this time.

So, fraught, tense, fast changing, the conference remains without a real focus on a single strategy and is already split into two camps – Kyoto 2.0 and not Kyoto. There is no real deal on emissions, only a vague promise to keep temperature rises down to no more than 2C, which in itself requires a 40% cut in emissions by 2020 to provide just a fifty-fifty chance of achieving this modest goal. Right now the emissions “offers” on the table amount to around 18% by 2020.

So overall, whatever the communiqué that is signed, the world looked at the future and failed to act.

Did I Shave My Legs for This?

My favorite country and western album and song title is “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” – Deana Carter’s 1996 successful album. Watching the debacle at Copenhagen reminded me of the song.

The delegates have basically found themselves unable to reach agreement on the basics. They cant agree on the target they are trying to reach in terms of global temperature, on the emissions reductions required to meet the target, on compensation and funding for the developing world or in intellectual property and technology transfer protocols. They are close to an agreement on the future of the forests of the world.

They also can’t agree whether the deal will be within or separate from Kyoto, what the governance structure will be and what monitoring will be required. They have postponed an agreement which would recognize carbon capture and storage as an acceptable means for reducing CO2 emissions.

After fifteen of these meetings, you would think that the basics would be nailed down by now and the question would be who will sign up. But no, we are still at the Climate Change 101 level and nowhere near the graduation point. It is no wonder that the chief negotiator, Connie Hedegaard, resigned on Wednesday.

Delegates now sit around and wait for a breakthrough. All eyes are in Barrack Obama, with many hoping that he will come with deep pockets and make dramatic new emissions reduction commitments – 40% in 1990 levels by 2020 would be needed to create the drama required for a breakthrough. But the Whitehouse is signaling that no new money and no new emissions announcements should be expected.

Plans are already underway for a repeat meeting in Mexico in six months time to try again. Meantime, protesters are unhappy at the delegates, the police and, well, their lot in life and their protest get more and more urgent and violent.

Did I shave my legs for this? I don’t think so.

Appearance and Reality

There is a new kind of politics which has emerged post Bush (41) and John Major which involves what might be termed a post-modern view of facts. Politicians and the chattering class have abandoned the idea that there is an independent reality “out there” which can be independently verified and assessed. The new political epistemology moves us from truths that can be proven and verified or falsified to narratives that can be constructed.


Lord Mandelson, the British cabinet Minister (for the third time) and ex EU Commissioner, speaks of the need to “create the truth” - of building a story that is compelling and enables the government to develop policies, positions and activities and take strong action. For him, narrative has the appearance of reality. The old dictum that “comment is free but facts are sacred” (C P Scott, editor at one time of The Guardian) is no longer the case, since in many cases (school standards, emission reporting, global warming, number unemployed) facts are “fitted” to the narrative. Even such simple things as the tracking of temperature from monitoring stations across the world are “adjusted” to fit the narrative of climate change.


What happens when this occurs is that Government lives in a parallel universe from those of us who still think that there is an independent reality out there that can be verified and that we seek to understand through science. They pursue policies – whether about climate change or schools, health care or grizzly bears – which are based on their own narratives and their own “fitted” data.

A case in point. The idea that climate scientists have, by some process, reached a “consensus” and that 4,000 of them have agreed on “the science” is an example of this kind of narrative based claim that cannot be verified by reference to facts. The figure of 4,000 scientosts comes from a press release from the UN/IPCC and is a media invention – it refers to how many people were involved in the IPCC process, not all of whom are scientists and very few of those who are happen to climate scientists. We cannot verify, however, their “views” about the science or the extent to which they would be willing to agree with all aspects of both the scientific documents in the IPCC or the Summary for Policy Makers. We do know, however, that not all of them supported the “science” and that several have called the process by the which the Summary for Policy Makers. Yet the 4,000 scientists claim is now established as if it were fact, and that is all that matters.

Equally, it is very clear that there is no consensus about the science. There is a dominant view, in part created by the usual process of gate-keeping access to publications and the very significant research funding available. But “dominant” and “only view” are not the same thing.
Science is not a democratic enterprise. It is a process of discovery based on evidence, theories and analysis. It just takes one compelling piece of evidence to disrupt the dominant view – just look at the history of science to see how important this observation can be. It is also worth noting that consensus does not mean correct. The current scientific dominant view about climate change is what it is – a view. It may or may not be correct.

The more dramatic area in which the new politics is becoming blatant is in the action plans for achieving the policies intended to reduce C02 emissions and “stop” climate change (another example of an illusion posing as a possibility).

The idea that one can reduce emissions in Canada by paying for a forest (which may or may not be planted and may or may not survive) in some other country or that we can trade carbon credits and this will reduce emissions is so obviously absurd, yet it is now part of the political reality (read myth).


Another example is the idea that emissions reductions will create Green Jobs. This rhetoric is rife, especially in the Obama administration. But the actual experience is very different. Spain is a case in point. Spain has a great many wind farms. By 2010 Spain will have 20,000 megawatts of installed capacity. Even in 2009 at the peak of the winds in February it was able to generate 11,800 megawatts – 29% of the energy requirements of Spain on a particular day (meaning that the turbines were working at 69% of their capacity). Spain ranks third in the world for wind power. Ahead of Spain are Germany, at nearly 24,000 megawatts of capacity, and the United States, at No. 1, with over 25,000 megawatts. Wind power has grown in Spain because of subsidy – also the case for solar power. In the case of wind, subsidy is market price (regulated by the Government with a requirement that the energy companies must buy wind power) plus 90% of the market price for a period of fifteen years, when it drops to 80%. In the case of solar power, the subsidy is 575% of the market price for twenty five years, when it falls to 460% above market. Contracts are underwritten by the Government at an annual cost of (app) €28.6 billion. It is not surprising, then, that the Government’s 2008 target for growth in installed capacity for renewable power of 371 megawatts was beaten by the actual new capacity created – 2,934 megawatts. The Spanish government has now capped growth.

A recent economic analysis from the Juan Carlos University in Madrid suggests that, rather than creating the 50,000 jobs the Spanish government claimed would be created, the net green jobs created are closer to 15,000. Most of these jobs are associated with construction, since few are required once construction is completed to maintain and manage the wind and solar installed capacity. What is more, renewable energy has led to lost jobs elsewhere (especially when coupled with the impact of the European Carbon Credit Trading System – cap and trade). The study just mentioned suggests that the net costs of creating a single sustainable green job are app. €500 million. It also suggests that, for every green job created, some 3.9 jobs are lost in other sectors – someone has to pay for this subsidy level.

Cap and trade is another of these cases where the rhetoric and reality are two very different things. The claim is that cap and trade for CO2 is the primary mechanism by which the world will achieve its targeted emissions. There is no convincing evidence that cap and trade in and of itself will lead to this result. It has yet to happen in any jurisdiction that operates cap and trade.

So when we look at Copenhagen and its outcomes, we should distance ourselves from the language and the rhetoric and look at evidence. After all, this is what we scientists do.

Last Chance Saloon in Copenhagen

Heavy snow and -12C temperatures will blanket Copenhagen over the next few days. This will nicely match the fog and gloom permeating the conference rooms and plenary policy sessions. Copenhagen is in danger of being a failure.

Something will be pulled out of a hat at the last minute, but it will not be the climate change strategy that was talked about in the lead up to this summit. We can expect compromise and trade offs all around, but whatever happens is likely to have little real impact on the earths global temperature rise over the next one hundred years.

Most informed observers now look to the US to salvage something from this summit. In particular, if the US steps up with significant funds to compensate developing countries for the pollution of the atmosphere and if it can commit to lowering emissions beyond the already declared level, then others may be willing to move and make additional compromises to get a two track deal – Kyoto for most and an alternative for others.

They will also agree to hold another meeting in 2010 to try and resolve remaining issues – another attempt (this is the fifteenth conference of the parties, not the first) is likely to perpetuate the current disagreements, but with a clearer understanding of the extent and exact nature of the differences between the parties.

However you look at it, none of this is good. George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian, captures the despair many climate change activists feel about Copenhagen. His message is simple – we deepened our understanding of the future, we better understood what is expected of us and we made a deliberate choice, through our representatives, to avoid dealing with it. We went further: we substituted surrogate decisions (offsets, cap and trade) for the real decisions – dramatically lowering emissions.

While the skeptics may see the outcome as “satisfactory” and many citizens appear disinterested, serious commentators will now observe that the ability of governments to work together on a challenge that affects the world is so weak as to be a cause for serious concern.

If there is to be a deal, it will have to emerge during Wednesday for the momentum to be created for signature by the majority of countries present. At the time of writing, this looks like a stretch. Watch this space.

US NOW IN THE LINE OF FIRE

Ministers and world leaders are beginning to arrive at Copenhagen and several are already dismayed by the lack of progress on key issues both in the lead up to Copenhagen and at the summit itself.

Ed Milliband, the British Minister, and Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Britain have both urged delegates to set aside differences are reach out for an agreement. Mr Blair recognized that the talks are most likely “one of the toughest negotiations that international leaders will ever have been involved in.” He also acknowledged the so-called Climategate scandal. He said “that the science around climate change is not as certain as its proponents allege”, but he went on to say “ it doesn’t need to be. What is beyond debate, however, is that there is a huge amount of scientific support for the view that the climate is changing and as a result of human activity.” Using the precautionary principle was appropriate, he observed, and he urged action now.

Meanwhile, China has signaled a challenge to the US both in terms of its emission targets and its willingness to provide finance to China, India and other countries for adapting to climate change. The chief negotiator for China want the US to go far beyond its commitment to cut emissions at 3% below 1990 levels and to offer substantial sums for adaptation by less developed countries, including China. He rejected the US negotiators position announced last week that China was not eligible for such funds.

China was also instrumental in the walk out on Monday by 130 countries, focused on process issues and the decision to abandon Kyoto. The Danish leaders at the summit confirmed that Kyoto was still on the table – something that will also displease the US.

So all eyes are now on the US and Barrak Obama, who arrives in Copenhagen on Friday. His lead Secretary of State for Energy gave a speech which was treated with some incredulity by most of the delegates. He used as examples of leading edge and breakthrough technologies things that have been in use for ten or more years. For examples, sensors that can measure the emission levels and heat footprints of any property – in use in the EU for a decade. It appears clear to many that, despite some gifted people and much improved rhetoric, the spirit of George W Bush is alive and well.

Something will happen between now and Friday. But it will have little to do with climate change.

Copenhagen Suspended as One Hundred and Thirty Nations Walk Out

The developing nations group known as the G77, which actually represents some one hundred and thirty nations, as well as the small island states walked out of the Copenhagen Summit today in protest over the way the talks are progressing.

They did so for two reasons. First is their fear that the developing nations are putting the Kyoto Protocol to one side and instead focusing on a completely new agreement. Only the Kyoto Protocol provides the framework for legally binding emissions targets – something they see the developed nations seeking to avoid.

The second reason is more about process – they are concerned that the developing nations are playing a game of brinkmanship, leaving key issues to the last few days so as to steamroller developing nations into an agreement they see as detrimental. They fear that key decisions will be made by G20 leaders on the final day of the summit.

The Kyoto Protocol is problematic for several of the developed and developing nations. First, the US Congress has failed to support it. Second, the treaty has not been signed by China or India and they have made clear that they have no intention of doing so, seeing it as a road-block to their rapid economic development. Third, the treaty fails to deal with some of the issues now on the table and would need substantial re-writing.

The walk out is a dramatic tactical move by the developing world, who are making their presence strongly felt in Copenhagen. “They will not be treated as pawns in a giant game of global chess”, said one spokesperson.

Other countries are reacting angrily to this development. “There is so much yet to do and now we are spending our time pleading with these nations to come to the table”, said Australian Senator Wong, who is working on securing the return of the walk out countries.

A new proposal is floating as a result of informal discussions held on Sunday. There is a suggestion that there be a "twin track" approach, whereby countries with existing targets under the Kyoto Protocol (all developed nations except the US) stay under that umbrella, with the US and major developing economies making their carbon pledges under a new protocol. This may appease the G77 and bring them back to the table.

It is expected that negotiations will begin again later today or early tomorrow.

The Science of Climate Change

The science of climate change is, as we know, complex. There are many different disciplines involved in understanding both the physics and geography of climate change as well as its impacts on people, the environment, oceans, plants and animals. No one can claim to know everything there is to know about climate and its impact.

What we are dealing with is a range of probabilities – different scenarios for the future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, has developed a range of different scenarios for the future of the climate which in turn take into account a variety of “inputs” (data) and assumptions (models and theories) about how climate works. The IPCC does not offer predictions about the future – it has never done so. It offers some different models. Also, the IPCC, by mandate, is primarily concerned with understanding the role of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere and its impact on the climate. When it was established, the IPCC was given this mandate: to assess: “the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change” – by mandate it has a given theory of climate change.

Science is a complex enterprise in itself. It is dynamic. Scientists develop ideas which they explore and test until their ideas are robust enough to form a theory. Other scientists are attracted to one theory over other competing theories – there are always competing theories – until there is a “generally accepted view” that the science of a given aspect of our universe is understood, within the limits of currently available knowledge. But as we learn more and understand more, then formerly established theories or ideas change. It takes one compelling study with independently verified data for a currently held view to unravel. While it may take time for the former theory to decline and the new theory to emerge as the new dominant view, this is how progress occurs in science.

For example, though the precise causes of multiple sclerosis are not known, it has been generally accepted until recently that it is an autoimmune disease whereby the body attacks its own cells or tissues. In the case of MS, the target of the attack is myelin - the protective sheath surrounding the nerves in both the brain and the spinal cord. These nerves become scarred and it's this damage which interrupts the normal transmission of the central nervous system, so producing the symptoms of the disease. Some 2.5 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with MS.

In November 2009, however, a cardiologist has shifted the thinking about the disease in a radical way. Observing, from ultrasounds and MRI analysis, that all the MS patients he saw had veins that were finding it difficult to evacuate blood from the brain, leaving iron deposits in the brain, he suggested that simple surgical procedures could remedy this position and ease the symptoms of MS, if not provide the basis of a new understanding of the aetiology of MS. Dr. Paolo Zamboni, Director of the Centre for Vascular Diseases at the University of Ferrara (Italy), uses angioplasty on the veins to remove blockages and accelerate the rate at which blood circulates in the body, most especially as it is evacuated from the brain. Doing so has had major consequences for the patients he has treated. This is not to say that Professor Zamboni is right and the “consensus” is wrong, only that there is now a new framework which requires exploration since it offers both a seemingly effective treatment for some patients and a new and very different explanation of the disease.

The idea that man is the primary cause of climate change through the extensive emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is a theory of climate change - one among several. No reputable scientist disputes that climate change is occurring. The so-called sceptics differ with others as to the causes of climate change, arguing that other factors – water vapour, the sun, ocean current, el Ninio to name some – are also to be understood as factors. There are several reasons why understanding the underlying causes of climate change is important. The first is that we need a deep understanding of the dynamics of climate change so as to increase our understanding of climate: the science of climatology, which is in its infancy, needs a robust and evidence based understanding of climate dynamics. The second is more about public policy – if the current dominant theory is correct and CO2 is the primary cause of climate change, then we can act to reduce CO2 emissions and “de-carbonize” our economies. The problem is that doing so changes our economies in fundamental ways and requires massive investments and multilateral political action globally – both difficult to achieve. There is a third reason why this debate between man made vs other explanations is important, which is to inform our understand of the link between science and public policy.

Roger Pielke Snr., a well established scientist who has worked extensively on the climate change file, has suggested that there are basically three core hypothesis at play in the scientific community engaged in work on climate science. These are:

The Total Sceptic Position: Human influence on climate variability and change is of minimal importance, and natural causes dominate climate variations and changes on all time scales. In coming decades, the human influence will continue to be minimal.

The Emerging Position: Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and involve a diverse range of first- order climate forcings, including, but not limited to, the human input of carbon dioxide (C02). Most, if not all, of these human influences on regional and global climate will continue to be of concern during the coming decades.

The IPCC Position: Although the natural causes of climate variations and changes are undoubtedly important, the human influences are significant and are dominated by the emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is C02. The adverse impact of these gases on regional and global climate constitutes the primary climate issue for the coming decades.

The claim by many is that the “science is settled”, by which they mean it is settled around the IPCC position. This claim is based on all sorts of evidence, some of it very scant. Foe example, it is claimed that 4,000 scientists agreed with the IPCC fourth assessment report released in 2007. This is a fabrication. Some 4,000 people, around 2,580 scientists, were asked to contribute or review materials for the assessment. Not all agreed with the assessment – in fact, one quarter of reviewers made negative comments about the sections they reviewed. We do not in fact know how many scientists agree with the IPCC assessment – the question was never actually asked.

The reality is that most of the peer reviewed scientific literature favours the emerging position over the IPCC position. It is also the case that very little of the literature favours the sceptic position (though it is worth noting that some does and it comes from respected figures in physics and climatology).

Scientific analysis therefore needs to take into account and give more serious consideration to the other factors that have a bearing on climate change. These include the role of oceans as “sinks” for CO2, the role of ocean currents, naturally occurring events (earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions), the sun and sun spots, other green house gasses (especially water vapour), the tilt of the earth and so on. All are know to have some impact.

By focusing on CO2 and the IPCC theory, the public policy is based then on what is known as the precautionary principle. While most scientists recognize that the sources of climate change are complex but that CO2 is an influencing factor, the public policy we are asked to adopt is that it is a sufficiently significant factor for us to act to reduce its impact on what are perceived as negative risks from climate change (there are benefits of climate change also to be considered).

Thomas Friedman, writing in the New York Times, captures this issue succinctly. He observes:

What we don’t know, because the climate system is so complex, is what other factors might over time compensate for that man-driven warming, or how rapidly temperatures might rise, melt more ice and raise sea levels. It’s all a game of odds. We’ve never been here before. We just know two things: one, the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years, so it is “irreversible” in real-time (barring some feat of geo-engineering); and two, that CO2 buildup has the potential to unleash “catastrophic” warming.

When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.

He is not suggesting that the science is settled, only that the two dominant hypothesis about climate change both have CO2 as a significant factor. Friedman goes on, however, with this:

If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.

But notice that science is not suggesting these actions, only that CO2 is a factor and that action to reduce CO2 may (a fifty-fifty chance if the reductions are severe enough) have an impact on the climate. Science is the back-cloth to public policy, not the driver. Climatologists have nothing to say about the extent of “reparations needed by developing nations to compensate them for slower growth and decarbonising the growth they do have – that is a political and economic question.

Economics is a science, requiring artistic license. The economic analysis of alternative energy sources, biofuels and clean energy regimes is an important feature of our understanding of adaptability to climate change. But psychology is also important – another science – in helping us understand why individuals do or do not act to decarbonise their own life styles and that of their communities (a sociological question). The leveraging of these sciences in furthering our understanding of adaptive processes has yet to take place – they have not had the benefit of the $9 billion global annual R&D expenditure on climate change. It is time they got a larger slice of the pie.

If the emerging hypothesis is also better understood, more of our effort needs to go into understanding the dynamic relation between all of the variables associated with climate change, not just a select few. The climate models on which many of the IPCC scenarios are based are in their early stages of maturation. It is time for new energy and a broader base of scientists to be engaged in developing them further.

Very few areas of science are ever settled – so called “closed” areas of science – almost all areas of science are open to debate, conjecture, new analysis. The secret to good science is transparency, quality analysis (including excellent statistical techniques, sometime lacking in the climate science – e.g. the “hockey stick” of Michael Mann), openness to debate and challenge and a respect between scientists. The recent Climategate emails suggest that these principles of good science have not always been the benchmark used by those who should know better. But we should not let Climategate distract from the task of understanding what is happening, why and for this to help us better understand what we can do.