With apologies to Longfellow, not to mention Paul Revere, I want to recount my recent, close encounters with the British here in New York. As I mentioned in passing here, I was invited to a discussion at the Consulate-General to talk about my thoughts regarding the state of play on climate change; what you, gentle readers, may be thinking; and what the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is doing and thinking.
I have had a very high regard for the work of the British, with Gordon Brown, for instance, calling out the Denialists and spearheading the critical work of finding money for mitigation and adaptation in the developing world. I have also recounted and lauded the hugely important breakthroughs on offshore wind and marine power that the Brits are pursuing. I have noted the promise represented by the new coalition government.
Chris Huhne, the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, is a Liberal Democrat and a staunch environmentalist. The Liberal Democrats’ policy paper on climate change and energy is very strong. Huhne and his party have been, I have noted with some satisfaction, dead set against new nuclear power plants for the UK Their policy paper says: “More nuclear power will soak up subsidy, centralise energy production and hinder development of Britain’s vast renewable resources. Nuclear has a dirty legacy and increases global security risks. We oppose construction of further nuclear power stations.”
Unfortunately, the exigencies of coalition politics have softened Huhne’s and his party’s opposition. The representatives from the Department of Energy and Climate Change with whom we met in New York were touting the benefits of renewables, but when I asked if nuclear was part of the mix in their laudable renewables target, they affirmed that it was. The laissez-faire attitude to nuclear that these folks evidenced was disappointing. I pointed out the main objection to nukes at this point, namely that they siphon money, energy, and engineering expertise from the eminently viable real renewable energy sources that we, and particularly the British, have in abundance. This seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Perhaps not incidentally, I’ve been thinking more about nuclear power accidents in the wake of BP’s phenomenally devastating Gulf spill. Here’s a thoughtful item from CleanTechnica on safety: Did the Nuclear Industry and Politicians Learn Anything from the BP Oil Spill?
Returning to the meeting at the Consulate-General, there was also a great touting of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an important way forward. Being the generally annoying environmentalist wet blanket that I am, I pointed out that I characterize CCS as a “red herring,” along with nuclear power and geoengineering, in my classes on climate change. It’s a diversion, a sop to the coal interests, and a massive waste of time and money. See this report from Nature News. “Clean coal” is an oxymoron.
Putting aside nuclear and CCS, the new government has some pretty good things in mind, including a full program of renewable energy feed-in tariffs, a green investment bank, a floor price for carbon and efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits, encouraging “community-owned renewable energy schemes” (aka distributed generation), and to “…work towards an ambitious global climate deal that will limit emissions.”
Gordon Brown had co-chaired the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing (AGF) but he was replaced by Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway. The UK will now be represented by Chris Huhne on this very important working group.
More tomorrow on an interesting British-sponsored event on the implications of climate change for global security.
