aiti – a gathering storm - by Richard... Thursday, January 14, 2010

aiti – a gathering storm - by Richard... Thursday, January 14, 2010

"Haiti is particularly vulnerable to climate shocks due to poverty, weak government and lack of infrastructure." So writes Oxfam in an expensive, recently-produced report on the effects of climate change and the need for adaptation measures.

It is rather a pity – if not a tragedy – that they did not spend a little more energy, time and money on urging better earthquake precautions.

But that is the curse of the developing word. Billions are being spent on "climate mitigation", with a goodly proportion of the money pouring into the pockets of NGOs and "think tanks", to produce endless reports, and numerous expensive conferences on how to deal with the perils of climate change.

But while the NGOs and their fellow-travellers get fat and rich speculating over the consequences of a hypothetical threat, the poor get poorer – and now they die. Still, I guess Oxfam will not be holding a climate change conference in Haiti any day soon.

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

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Garbage for brains - by Richard...

"The Met Office has admitted that it failed to warn the public of the heavy snow that brought swaths of Britain to a standstill on Wednesday," writes Matthew Moore and Nick Collins for The Daily Telegraph.

Forecasters conceded that they did not spot the widespread snow storms that caused transport disruption and a surge of weather-related accidents until it was too late. They were "taken by surprise" by how much of the country was affected on Tuesday night.

Even when the full extent of the threat was realised, flaws in the Met Office's bad weather warning system meant that the public were not adequately informed. Severe weather warnings were not issued for London & South East, the West Midlands and the North West until the early hours of Wednesday morning, leaving train operators with little time to ensure lines were cleared.

Barry Grommet, a Met Office forecaster, said: "We put our hands up and concede that we did not expect the snow to spread so far east, and with the intensity that it did."

The office had issued snow advisories – which are one step down from warnings – for Surrey and Berkshire around 11am on Tuesday but did not release a higher alert because the amount of snow forecast fell just below the required threshold.

"We are in a situation where some of the advisories did not get picked up and were not presented strongly enough," Mr Grommet said. "In these circumstances we need to sit around a table and look at the thresholds to see if they should be made more flexible." Thus, the system will now be "reviewed," we are told.

So, the short-term forecasts – when it really matters – are garbage, and the warning system is inadequate. Then, as we already know to our cost, the seasonal forecasts, with their "barbecue summers" and "mild winters" are fantasy.

But don't worry, boys and girls. Their long-range forecasts, for 2030 and beyond are spot on. These geniuses know exactly what the weather is going to be like in 2050, 2060, etc. Their computer models have told them so.

When thinking of suggestions as to what they can do with their computers and computer models, unspeakable things come to mind.

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

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A taste of things to come - by Richard...

I gave something of the flavour of ityesterday, but did not really convey the real extent of the economic and human damage being done locally by this freezing weather.

The Times gives a national overview, telling us that potholes in their thousands are emerging as the cold spell continues, with road user groups calling yesterday for emergency funding to help councils to repair them. Hundreds of millions of pounds will be needed to mend crumbling roads once the thaw sets in, it says.

The BBC, which devoted most of the half-hour local news slot to it, paints a better picture of the events in Yorkshire, telling us that much of the region is experiencing its worst disruption of the winter due to black ice. Many roads are impassable, it says, and even four gritting lorries slid off North Yorkshire roads.

In West Yorkshire, two vehicles hit buildings and a taxi slid down an embankment onto a factory roof. Some 187 West Yorkshire schools were shut, while Yorkshire Ambulance Service said there had been a four-fold increase in calls during the morning.

The Guardian adds to this, telling us that in Morley, Leeds, one truck smashed into a hairdressing salon, and another ploughed into a house. One man was taken to hospital after a taxi fell down a 30 ft embankment and landed on a factory roof in Holmfirth. 

Even that, though, does not really do justice to what has been chaos compounded by shambles. We have seen pictures of people crawling on all-fours along the road because it was too slippery to stand. 

Thousands of people struggled for hours to get to work, many hundreds were injured – some very seriously – and one of the local casualty units was telling us that it had lost count of the people it had treated. At one time, ambulances were parked four deep outside the reception bay, delivering patients.

And above all that, we had council officials telling us they would like to do more gritting, but the government was prevented from doing so, while a councillor from Kirkless Council admitted that they had not built up stocks during the summer because they had been told by the Met Office that it would be a mild winter.

What happened the previous night had been exceptional, according the BBC's local weather man, Paul Hudson. A partial thaw had brought light rain, and where roads had been gritted, the salt was washed away. It then froze hard, the rain turning to thin snow, coating every horizontal surface with ice. 

With the restrictions on gritting, there were few repeat applications and, by the time the morning traffic started to appear, congestion and then multiple breakdowns were blocking the roads and preventing the emergency gritting. Whole parts of Yorkshire came to a standstill. By mid-morning, bus services were being withdrawn because it was too dangerous to drive, and we even had "vigilantes" closing off sections of main roads, to prevent motorists driving up them, to certain but unwitting doom.

By last night, the icy snow was back – more ice than snow. It is so thin that you can only see that it is snowing when you look against the light – although it shows up with flash photography (pictured top) - but it is coating everything with a lethal layer of ice. The streets were virtually deserted by mid-evening, with only the very occasional car. Shops have been empty – and so have their shelves, with some basic commodities running out. Pubs are struggling for customers, with many closing early. Commercial life is coming to a halt.

Had, of course, the Met Office been giving out early warnings – back in the summer – we would have been better prepared. But, as we know, the official propaganda had been singing the global warming line right up to the moment the snow started falling. Never has a population been so unprepared, mentally, physically and in every way imaginable.

From our own researches, we have seen millions blown by this government on researching the theoretical costs of global warming. Not a penny has been spent on the costs of a freezing winter and, more importantly, a cost benefit analysis of making preparations – like buying enough salt and equipment, and making plans to deal with what is actually getting to be a real emergency. Forget "climate emergency" - we've got a "weather emergency" in the making.

And this, many of us are convinced, is only the start. Yet still, the official line is damage limitation, with those dangerous fools in the Met Office telling us that winters are to get warmer and milder. They will kill people with their blind stupidity.

The local television news programmes captured the mood. They said they had had thousands of people ringing in to convey their nightmare experiences. They were getting really "fed up," we were told.

Of course, the London-centric media will not convey this, and those in London – including the political classes – are entirely oblivious to what is going on. But "fed up" will soon turn to anger. You can feel it. The warmists are going to have their first martyrs if they are not careful – cut up and fed into gritters to make up for the lack of salt.

And, if Cameron continues with his greenery, here at least – away from the political cesspool in Westminster – he will be crucified, politically if not physically. Yesterday, I thought the warmists might hold the line. Today, I am less sure. Yorkshire grit – or lack of it – is going to see these people taken apart unless they wake up and join the real world.

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

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Beautiful people - by Richard... Wednesday, January 13, 2010

"Nobody in TERI gets money for anything he or she does as part of his or her job," says R K Pachauri, in this recent television interview on the Indian "Beautiful People" slot. He continues:

P. I'm afraid this is all part of a slanderous campaign, perhaps the same people – and I don't want to make any allegations – I can only draw some inferences. They attempted to steal those e-mails ... now that petered out so now what do they do? They look at me, I'm visible, I’m all over the world ... I've a feeling that this is all part of an orchestrated campaign ... there are powerful people ...

Q. ... to discredit the climate movement and slow down the momentum, do you think?

P. What would be more effective than damaging the chairman of the IPCC? Because then the IPCC gets a bad name as well ... It is my job to advise people. I would even advise them, provided they listen to my advice. Maybe the Telegraph should start investing in some renewable energy devices. Maybe they should help some poor countries where you need to adapt to the impacts of climate change rather than publishing trash on their pages.

Q. You cannot turn a blind eye to these accusations?

P. Well, I mean, I can turn a blind eye to it but I think if they get away with something like this with me, er ...

Q. It damages the cause?

P. And tomorrow they'll try it with somebody else. So, you know, I think we're living in a world where hopefully there's a rule of law and er, people can't indulge in slander of this kind by telling lies and get away with it. So I certainly am looking at my options and keeping them open.

That was on 1 January. He's still keeping his options open, although he has sent a letter to the Telegraph - by snail mail - demanding publication. The interviewer concludes by asking Pachauri if it is going to be a busy year in 2010. It's going to be even busier after Sunday and, from what I gather, we are not going to be the only ones publishing a story.

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Pachauri: another day, another dollar - by Richard...

An earnest British citizen, desperate to get in touch with the Asian Energy Institute (AEI) will be pleased to learn that there is a London number they can call, the same one they would use if they were trying to contact TERI-Europe. Conveniently, R K Pachauri's London outpost of Empire in London just happens to represent this organisation in the UK.

Interestingly enough, R K Pachauri's TERI organisation in India just happens to represent the organisation in India and points east – although that is hardly surprising as it shares the same address and TERI hosts the secretariat. R K Pachauri also happens to be its president, a post he has occupied since 1992.

No doubt, if pressed, the same R K Pachauri – a "full-time salaried employee" of TERI – will aver that not a single penny goes into his own pocket as a result of his service, but the same cannot be said of TERI. It has benefitted hugely from its association – although the income so gained will have nothing to do with ensuring that the unspecified salary of R K Pachauri is paid on time.

As an illustration of the way things do work, the AEI in the late 1990s managed to tap into one of the world's great milch cows, the European Union, and prevailed upon it to award it a contract to carry out a study on the "Deployment of sustainable energy systems: an agenda for cooperation, 1997-2000."

Cost-conscious taxpayers will be pleased to learn that it was a shoe-string project, which aimed "to capitalize upon research undertaken in European countries in the fields of renewable energy, and mitigation of air pollution, through building knowledge networks between European and Asian counterparts." 

Rather than undertaken through tiresome primary research, this was effected through "preparation of discussion papers, workshops and posting all information and papers on a dedicated web site, and also through a newsletter titled Sustainable Energy Systems in Asia." Thus, it only cost a paltry €300,000. As the project was primarily undertaken by TERI, with involvement of four AEI members from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand, one must assume that the bulk of this miserable amount of cash went to TERI.

Nevertheless, this points up a – if not the - primary role of the AEI – what is known in the NGO trade as a "funding vehicle". It is a membership organisation with impressive credentials and a worthy background, which can Hoover up donor funding in return for obscure projects. It then distributes it to its members, less a small percentage to cover overheads, in this case that also going to a member – TERI – as it hosts the secretariat.

To be fair, though, TERI, with its full-time salaried director-general R K Pachauri, actually started the whole thing off. It emerged in 1987 from the Asian Relations Commemorative Conference, conveniently – for R K Pachauri - held in New Delhi, India. And, just as conveniently, it recommended establishing an Asian collaborative research entity on energy. 

Quick off the mark, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) – which just happened to be based in New Delhi - responded by taking the initiative to launch the AEI, supported financially by the Government of India. It has since grown to include representatives from 14 countries in Asia, two from outside the region and 13 associate members.

The Institute is registered in India and has "a unique status and a separate bank account." Conveniently – for R K Pachauri – the chairman of its board happens to be Dr Emil Salim (pictured), from Indonesia who, as we noted earlier is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Forum for Environment and Development. 

One of its major activities is sponsoring the "Partnership Initiatives for Knowledge Network and Capacity Building" – in conjunction with TERI as a major partner. Salim also has a seat on the Advisory Group on Climate Change for the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which happens to be chaired by R K Pachauri.

Since its inception, the AEI has been remarkably successful in its role as a funding vehicle, attracting funds from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), the World Bank, the IMF and the Japan Gas Association. It has received money from the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan and the Japanese National Oil Corporation (JNOC) – Big Oil money once again.

Other funders have included the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – a body with which R K Pachauri has some connection - Deutsche Gesselschaft Fur Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, United Nations University-Japan; ADB-Manila – another body with which R K Pachauri has some connection - GISPRI-Japan and the Ministry of External Affairs, India.

Money has also flowed from USAID, the UN Conference on Environment and Development, ECOFUND, CICERO-Norway, DANIDA-Denmark and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. Another major donor has been the Rockefeller Foundation, which has as a member of its advisory board a certain R K Pachauri. The Foundation, incidentally, has been quite generous to TERI, recently giving it $200,000 to organise the 2008 Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

When it comes to inventiveness in developing funding vehicles, however, AEI – under the presidency of R K Pachauri – has clearly acquired some of its master's skills. In November 2005, it became the Asian representative for the Vienna-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP). The secretariat is now conveniently located at TERI's head office in New Delhi.

This is certainly convenient for Dr Ligia Noronha (pictured), the coordinator of REEEP for South Asia. She also happens to be a director of TERI - and the secretary of the AEI. Dr Noronha, incidentally, happens to sit on the external review committee ofShell Oil - more money from Big Oil in the coffers.

British taxpayers will also be pleased to note that themain donor for REEEP is the United Kingdom, our friendly Foreign and Commonwealth Office again. Since its inception in 2003, the UK has contributednearly £9m, with another £2.5 million in funding for the financial year ending April 2009 - part of a 3-year further financial commitment by the UK. 

The organisation also receives financial contributions from Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States and the European Union. With such support, this "funding vehicle" had funded four projects in the region up to 2008 and five more projects were under implementation, with an average funding for each of about €0.1 million. 

And, of course, the work is undertaken by members, of which TERI is one. Thus, so far, TERI has worked on a "Framework for Renewable Energy Certificate System in Maharashtra" and another REEEP-funded project called "Capacity Building for Regulators and Policy Makers in Andhra Pradesh". In completing these, it was undoubtedly helped by R K Pachauri, who is a REEEP governing board member.

All of this, of course, is perfectly legal and above board – it could hardly be otherwise with British (and US) taxpayers contributing so generously. And not a single penny goes into the pocket of R K Pachauri. Any money which finds its way into New Delhi goes to his beloved institute, from which R K Pachauri gains absolutely no benefit – so he tells us.

One really does wonder, though, how the impoverished R K Pachauri manages to finance his multi-million home at 160 Golf Links, New Delhi, much less buy his $1000 suits and pay his servants' wages.

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The ice age cometh - by Richard...

Not just the weather, but democracy, is in suspended animation, locked in a perpetual winter like the fictional Narnia, awaiting the arrival of an Aslan figure to break the spell of the wicked witch.

While a major catastrophe in Haiti dominates the world news (not yet blamed on global warming, but give it time), this country is going through an extraordinary, if low-grade crisis precipitated not by the weather but by our lack of preparedness for it.

Thus we have the unprecedented situation where a minister of the Crown is issuing fiats instructing local authorities to cut their grit usage by half, causing chaos and disruption on the roads and lethal conditions on the pavements.

With a partial thaw yesterday, freezing conditions returned overnight leaving surfaces coated with thin layers of ices, untreated by ministerial fiat – bringing busses to a halt locally and drastically limiting traffic (and economic activity). 

Shops which should be bustling are empty and local trade is seriously down, refuse accumulates and local services have ground to a halt. Life for many is "on hold" until normal conditions return.

How we got to this parlous state is a long story, but at the top of the pyramid rests that international – or trans-national – organisation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has been dominating major areas of policy which reach down and affect Mrs Miggins in Bradford high street, struggling to work or shopping for her family.

It is all very well now the Conservative local government spokesman Caroline Spelman seeking to capitalise on the government's discomfort, making strident claims about its "... admission of utter failure," charging that, "The lessons of last February's extreme weather have not been learnt."

In fact, the government did take note of the conditions last February and commissioned a study from the UK Roads Liaison Group, which issued a report in July last.

But, for all its vital importance, the report received scant attention from our over-paid parliamentarians. Such was the priority afforded that there was not even a ministerial statement on the report until 15 December, only a day before the Met Office issued its first severe weather warning and the snow started to fall. 

Needless to say, there was no debate – our MPs had much more important things to think about and David Cameron was far too busy announcing his £20 billion plan for major retailers and energy firms to help people to "green" their homes. For him now to raise the issue at Prime Minister's Questions is leaving it a bit late.

Then, what used to be the basic fare of politics is no more. The agenda is no longer set by our local politicians, whether in town halls or Westminster, but by trans-national groups like the IPCC, accountable to no one but dominating policy. Our politicians no longer govern, but react to the agendas set by others, and then play silly party political games when things go wrong.

Thus it is that while Cameron was prattling about turning the nation "green", Mother Nature was turning it white. Aslan, where art thou?

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

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In the balance - by Richard...

Joining the David Viner school of climate prediction, we now have John Hammond from the Met Office confidently telling us that, severe winter freezes, "like the one gripping parts of Europe over the last few weeks," will become increasingly rare.

This is, of course, because of our old friend "climate change", the news brought to us by Reuters, which seems have resisted the temptation to put its report in the entertainment section.

Hammond represents the latest attempt of the warmists at damage limitation – evident in the change of tone since the freezing weather hit us. Gone is the daily diet of catastrophic predictions, to be replaced by diverse offerings on the "weather is not climate" theme, combined with increasingly frantic reiterations that "climate change" is continuing.

Thus do we get the man telling us that the winter so far has been one of the coldest for nearly 30 years in Britain – something that even the Met Office has not been able to hide (but no mention that but it has been just as cold throughout most of the northern hemisphere).

But, we are assured, such icy weather was more common in centuries past and should become even rarer going forward. "Winters like this are likely to become less of a feature as we head through the 21st century," says Hammond. "Colder winters become less likely because overall the background warming will reduce the severity of them, certainly for our part of the world."

The Met Office is already writing the scenario for the next winter and winters to come – as it did this winter - expecting Britain's "already relatively mild and damp, on average, winters" to become "increasingly warm and wet as a result of climate change, with the effect particularly pronounced in the latter part of the century."

The latter is a safe enough prediction, given that there will be very few of us around to call the bluff – and even fewer if this type of harsh weather persists. It allows the likes of Hammond to discount this – and perhaps the next – winter, focusing on the far distance rather than the near future.

My guess is that they will hold the line for the moment – just. Another freezing winter though, and public patience will run out, especially if we have any serious power failures and people really begin to suffer. Interestingly, that may be with David Cameron in office, and his religious devotion will be seriously challenged if he insists on pursuing his warmist beliefs. 

Everything is in the balance. A mild, wet winter next year will give the warmists breathing space. A freezing winter will finish them, and their creed.

This is an aspect of post-election Britain which is being neglected by many political commentators. As we have observed before, the political ramifications of a prolonged cooling cycle are profound, and stand to have far more impact on national life than even the continuing economic travails – not least because they will exacerbate them.

The sophisticates who prattle endlessly about Westminster coups, and the machinations of the political classes – which are becoming ever more detached from their roots – may believe they are at the centre of things. But the real stuff of politics is whether people are able to keep warm when it is freezing, whether they can afford to eat, and whether they can get to work when global warming lies feet deep on the ground - just supposing they still have jobs.

Whatever David Cameron may have in store for us in the next administration – if indeed he has any idea – his plans may be seriously derailed as he is forced to react to events, the likes of which John Hammond is predicting will not happen. Cameron's response may well define his premiership – and certainly its length – as politics is dragged back into the real world and ceases to become a spectator sport for a narrow claque of political groupies.

Like as not, they will not enjoy the experience. The national mood – if I am any judge – is likely to be pretty unforgiving.

CLIMATE CHANGE – NEW THREAD

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The real thing - by Richard... Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Professor Tol, writing on our forum, is the real thing:

Dr Richard S J Tol
Research professor, Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, Ireland
Professor of the Economics of Climate Change, 
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Editor, Energy Economics

We do not mess around on our site – the forum is a vital resource and the quality of material has been superb of late. Prof Tol is a very welcome addition.

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Roger Pielke Jr - by Richard...

"When causes are popular it can be uncomfortable and inconvenient to realize that experts who render politically desired advice have potential conflicts of interest," writes Roger Pielke Jr.

He continues, saying:

Perhaps this helps to explain why investigative journalists (with only several exceptions), especially those who cover science, have turned a blind eye to the obvious and egregious conflicts of interest present in the case of Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC. The longer this issue is allowed to percolate in plain view, the worse the outcome will be for the scientific community and perhaps also those whose job it is to hold experts accountable to basic standards of conduct.

After a Magisterial blast, he concludes:

The sum total of the above signifies that at a minimum climate science needs to set forth and follow basic standards of conflict of interest. Otherwise, the apparent anything-goes approach is giving opponents of action to address accumulating carbon dioxide emissions plenty of legitimate material to work with. Journalists and others who turn a blind eye are their unwitting allies.

This, in effect, is a view from the other side. There is plenty with which I could disagree – strip out the conflict of interest and is there anything left to the warmist case? But it is fair comment, and all the more powerful, given its source.

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