Spinning to save the planet

Is spinning OK if it's in a good cause? The Guardian's exclusive this morning says that Europe has clashed with the US Obama administration over climate change in a potentially damaging split that comes ahead of crucial political negotiations on a new global deal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The story is clearly planted by "Sources on the European side", who "say the US approach could undermine the new treaty and weaken the world's ability to cut carbon emissions." US negotiators have apparently told European counterparts that the Obama administration intends to sweep away almost all of the architecture of the Kyoto treaty and replace it with a system of its own design.

The story makes clear that "European officials are reluctant to be seen to openly criticise the Obama administration, which they acknowledge has engaged with climate change in a way that President Bush refused to." So one of them is doing it anonymously. We are even told what the European negotiators "fear" - that the US move could sink efforts to agree a robust new treaty in Copenhagen in December.

Make your mind up

The Telegraph has decided to re-spin Lord Adonis' comments in Beijing about the need to cut down travel to save the planet. But Adonis is in a spin either way.

Here is what Adonis said, as reported in both yesterday's report and a new one today:

“We’ll never sell a low-carbon future to the public if it depends on a deprivation model. I’m convinced that there’s no necessary trade-off between a low carbon future and more or less transport,”
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“If you can radically cut emissions as a result of new transport technology it is not necessary to face people with an ‘either-or’ choice between a low carbon future and big cuts in travel.”

Yesterday, the Telegraph presented Adonis' remarks about the personal choices of consumers, claiming that Adonis

"said it was not realistic to expect people to curtail their travel habits in the name of global warming.."

Today, realising it had missed a trick, the paper presents the remarks as undermining government policies that discourage travel, claiming that Adonis:

"said emissions can be cut without forcing people to make personal sacrifices in their lifestyle."

I think today's story is a more legitimate interpretation of what Adonis said and this leaves him even more confused about his government's policy. A couple of weeks ago, I pointed out that Adonis' support for new rail links that cut short haul air travel and therefore carbon emissions undermined the government's claim that aviation emissions are irrelevant because they will be offset under a carbon trading scheme. Now - as the Telegraph points out - Adonis has undermined the rationale for taxes that seek to restrict road and air travel.

In last week's New Statesman, Dominic Sandbrook described Adonis as one of the current political scene's few "overtly intellectual politicians". Perhaps he's too clever for his own good because his main talent seems to be tying himself up in knots.

All hot air

Yesterday's Telegraph carried an amazingly naive interview with Sir Nigel Rudd, chairman of airport owner BAA. Rudd's claim to be concerned about climate change/global warming is pretty transparent:

Like many bosses of consumer-led businesses, he recognises that mitigating climate change is becoming very important to customers, and that companies need to act on the issue to preserve their reputations and brands.
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"Combating climate change is very important to us,” he says. “Clearly as far as our customers, the travelling public, are concerned, I think people want to see that we are environmentally aware."

So we'll believe him when he says he's worried about climate change, even when he says he only says it to keep his customers happy. The article is full of naive assertions about what Rudd believes or is worried about:

If, on the other hand, environmental concerns prevent the development of a third runway at Heathrow, he is worried that interconnecting flights that currently go via London will be routed to overseas airports instead. “Frankfurt flies to six cities in China now, because that’s where the economy of the world is going to grow, in the Far East,” says Sir Nigel.

Never mind that Heathrow is chock full of transatlantic flights because those are the most profitable, lets blame the lack of flights to China on a lack of capacity. Reading the article, it's clear that Rudd doesn't give a stuff about global warming. He comes close to outing himself as a climate change denier:

"Sometimes there isn’t a hugely open debate about this. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who believes that human activity is not affecting the planet, but there are a lot of people who will not speak out about the real issues, because they’re concerned they will be branded as Luddite."

An honest debate would be great. But tacked onto the interview is an even more naive piece about what BAA is doing that looks as if it was written by BAA's press office:

BAA’s approach is to lead the airport industry in managing emissions, where it has direct control over them. Where it does not have direct control, such as over emissions from flights, it seeks to encourage the airline industry and policymakers to tackle climate change.

Question for the Telegraph: do you call this journalism or are you having a laugh?

Alarming, to say the least

The BBC's Roger Harrabin has an interview with US energy secretary Stephen Chu, who says the US will not be able to cut greenhouse emissions as much as it should due to domestic political opposition.

The American political system is in the throes of a fierce battle over climate policy. President Barack Obama says he wants cuts in greenhouse gases but has left it to Congress to make the political running.

The House of Representatives is debating a climate and energy bill but even if it passes it may be rejected by senators, many of whom are funded by the energy industry.

Prof Chu is a Nobel prize-winning physicist and a world expert on clean energy. But he said it was impossible to ignore political reality.

Another triumph for democracy. Unsurprisingly environmentalists are alarmed. Damon Moglen from Greenpeace USA, echoing the views of Nasa scientist James Hansen, says:

"we are getting very concerned. Professor Chu is a good man and a good scientist, but the science on global warming is clear and he should be guided by the science not the politics."

The story that matters

Dare I suggest that there is a more important story in today's papers than MPs' expenses? It's one that also involves the corruption of politics. The Guardian reports that:

America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5m in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support for Barack Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy.
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A defeat for the bill would have global consequences. The international community is depending on America, as the world's biggest per capita polluter, to set out a firm plan for getting off dirty fuels in the months before crucial UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

Without such action, the chances of getting a deal that scientists say is vital to limiting dangerous climate change are much reduced.

In a capitalist democracy, big business will find huge sums of money to influence public opinion when its interests are threatened. In this case, the carbon lobby wants us to carry on polluting. If they do succeed in stopping efforts to tackle global warming, we may have to ask whether this form of democracy is such a good idea.

Third Runway? No thanks

Writing in the Times today, Lord Stern of Climate Change is very critical of the government's decision to approve a third Heathrow runway:

...recent decisions - such as approving Heathrow's third runway and a relatively weak green component of the fiscal boost - undermine confidence in the UK's ability to meet its climate change target. It is vital that the Government shows it is credible on the environment.

... big transport decisions, such as the third runway at Heathrow, should be taken only if they make sense in the context of a coherent carbon and transport policy for the UK, and, preferably, for Europe as a whole. I would be surprised if the construction of a third runway at Heathrow passed that test, which will be applied by the Committee on Climate Change by the end of this year. The runway decision should not have been taken before the committee's examination.

No shame

More lies from the Home Office, this time around the policing of the Kinsgnorth protest. According to the Guardian:

Police were accused of using aggressive tactics, confiscating everything from toilet rolls and board games to generators and hammers. But ministers justified what they called the "proportionate" £5.9m cost of the operation, pointing out that 70 officers had been injured in the course of their duties.

But data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act puts a rather different slant on the nature of those injuries, disclosing that not one was sustained in clashes with demonstrators.

The Home Office has now admitted that the protesters had not been responsible for any injuries. In a three-line written answer to a parliamentary question, the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker wrote to the Lib Dem justice spokesman, David Howarth, saying: "Kent police have informed the Home Office that there were no recorded injuries sustained as a result of direct contact with the protesters."

Presumably Coaker will be apologising.

Will the market save the world?

On Comment is Free, Madeleine Bunting makes the necessary but obvious point that free market ideology is pure faith, and has been proved wrong.

What worries me is that many free market fundamentalists still think that capitalism and market mechanisms will magically provide a solution to global warming. Perhaps the realisation that this is mumbo jumbo is what will get people's heads out of the sand.

I'm doing my best

Researchers say many ideas about sustainable living are a myth and people who believe they have green lifestyles "can be seen as some of the main culprits behind global warming", the Guardian reports.

According to the researchers, people who regularly recycle rubbish and save energy at home are also the most likely to take frequent long-haul flights abroad. The carbon emissions from such flights can swamp the green savings made at home, the researchers claim.
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Questioned on their heavy use of flying, one respondent said: "I recycle 100% of what I can, there's not one piece of paper goes in my bin, so that makes me feel less guilty about flying as much as I do."

Good news, bad news

Both the Independent and the Guardian have good news on motoring.

The Indy reports :

The credit crunch and the rising cost of running a car has caused traffic on Britain's major roads to drop for the first time since congestion was measured, a report has revealed.

While the Guardian says that "Highways in the US are at their safest since the 1960s as the rocketing price of petrol puts a strain on America's love affair with fast cars."

Lon Anderson, a spokesman for the AAA motoring organisation, said high fuel prices had caused US drivers to travel 58 billion fewer miles in the first seven months of this year.

Wow! The sad thought that I keep coming back to is that someone else, somewhere in the world, is using the same oil that British and American drivers are foregoing...

Warm under the collar

The BBC website has an interesting story about the UK's contribution to climate change, which, as the BBC and others have pointed out before, is higher than admitted if aviation and shipping are included.

It's the tone of the piece that I find most interesting. Environment analyst Roger Harrabin has been given licence to have a bit of a go at the government.

a massive blow to the British government

The government sat on the SEI report since February, tested its calculations, then published it in an obscure press release on 2 July.

we are getting countries like China to do our dirty work

I'm not saying I disagree with any of it, it's just stronger than you would normally get from the Beeb.

Global spinning

I didn't watch The Great Global Warming Swindle, the film that inspired a generation of flat earthers. The Guardian says that Ofcom will find that Channel 4 is to be censured for misleading the scientists who appeared in the film.

But it is understood that Channel 4 will still claim victory

executives will argue that the key test of whether or not it was right to broadcast the programme has been passed.

Another case of getting your retaliation in first. Off the record off course.

Nasa in hot water

The Guardian reports that:

Political appointees placed by the Bush administration into senior positions within Nasa's media headquarters acted to play down and distort accounts given to the public of the research findings of its scientists on global warming, an official investigation has concluded.

Spin doctors distorting the findings of the experts? It could never happen here...