An autonomous “SharkCam” has been used in the UK for the first time as part of efforts to reveal the secret lives of basking sharks.

Scientists have now began tagging the sharks around the Inner Hebrides so an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) can follow them below the surface of the water.

Little is known about the world’s second largest fish – despite being prevalent in the waters off the west coast of Scotland.

Habitat

Researchers hope the groundbreaking technology will uncover more about their underwater behaviour, social interactions, group behaviour and courtship of the species.

Suzanne Henderson, marine policy officer at Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), said: “These giant fish are spectacular and watching them feed gracefully at the sea surface is such a special and memorable experience.

“This year’s collaboration has allowed us to use a combination of camera technologies and given us a glimpse of basking sharks’ underwater behaviour – a real first and very exciting.

“The footage has already made us reassess their behaviour, with the sharks appearing to spend much more time swimming just above the seabed than we previously thought.

Ecosystems

“It really brings home why it’s so important that the species and its habitat are protected by designating the Sea of the Hebrides as a marine protected area (MPA).”

The REMUS SharkCam technology collects high-quality data and wide angle high-definition video of their behaviour from a distance by following the tagged fish.

Initial footage from the AUV deployed off the coast of Coll and Tiree in July shows the sharks moving through the water column, potentially searching for food, feeding near the surface and swimming close to the seabed.

Fieldwork took place in the proposed Sea of the Hebrides MPA – one of four possible protected areas currently under consultation by the Scottish Government.

MPAs are specially designated and managed to protect marine ecosystems, habitats and species. It is suspected that basking sharks may even breed in Scotland – an event that has never before been captured on film.

Collaboration

The Inner Hebridean area is one of only a few areas worldwide where large numbers of basking sharks are found feeding in the surface waters each year.

Jenny Oates, of WWF, said: “Our seas and coasts are home to some incredible wildlife.

“As our oceans come under increasing pressure, innovative technology like the REMUS SharkCam Robot can reveal our underwater world like never before and help to show why it must be protected.

“It is essential that we safeguard our seas, not just to enable magnificent species like basking sharks to thrive, but because all life on earth depends on our oceans.”

The project has been carried out by a collaboration of bodies including SNH, WWF and the University of Exeter.

This Author

Conor Riordan is a reporter with PA Scotland.

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is demanding that the UK reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025. This is reasonable, but if we’re going to get there so quickly we need to be talking right now about how we can achieve this.

XR is perhaps wise to avoid making detailed proposals – any specifics risk splitting the movement over the fine detail. Better to leave it to their third demand – a Citizen’s Assembly. 

Drastic reductions in fossil fuel use are, to many, a frightening prospect. Jacob Rees-Mogg suggests that XR want to take us back to living in caves; others indicate that taxing carbon is dangerous – it was the catalyst for the Gilets Jaunes protests in France. 

Fee and dividend

There is no doubt that carbon neutrality will entail significant adjustments to our ways of living, but there could be a major silver lining.

One key mechanism on the table – Carbon Fee and Dividend – could drastically cut emissions while creating positive social impacts. It is being seriously considered in Ireland and Canada, and is supported by the Citizen’s Climate Lobby in the USA.

A statement published in the Wall Street Journal in January 2019 calling for a carbon tax and dividend (another name for the same idea) has been signed by 3,000 American economists.

The basics of Fee and Dividend are simple. Carbon extraction becomes chargeable, and the money raised is returned to the population as a cash grant or regular basic income.

Some schemes propose using a carbon cap alongside the fee, so that total emissions can be directly controlled without relying on price rises to curtail demand. 

Perverse incentives

There remains, however, a major fly in the ointment if this process happens only at the national level. Applying carbon fees on a country by country basis would require border checks on all fossil fuels, to assess the level of carbon fee that has been paid in the fuel’s country of origin and to charge an appropriate ‘Border Carbon Adjustment’ to ensure the fee is brought to the same level as that paid in the importing country.

This becomes even more complex when applied to goods like steel and fertilisers that require heavy fossil fuel use in their production, and it could stray into the absurd if attempting to account for the embodied carbon content of all imports.

A whole new professional field of carbon accountancy would be required, as we attempt to calculate the footprint of every imported good, from petrol and cement, to Colombian roses and Kenyan green beans. Carbon fee avoidance schemes and ‘carbon havens’ may even arise, in a sad 21st century mirroring of today’s tax havens. 

Finally, and disastrously, the carbon dividend money would end up in the countries that extract and import the most fossil fuels. These high-polluting nations and citizens are the ones that least need or deserve these revenues.

Such a scheme would create perverse incentives for people to continue polluting, as doing so would boost basic income payments. 

Global response

Climate change is a global problem and it requires a global response. A far simpler and more globally just solution would be to apply the Carbon Fee and Dividend system at the global level, so carbon can be both capped and taxed at source, and the dividends distributed fairly to people worldwide.   

This has the unusual merit of being relatively easy to enforce. Just 100 companies produce 71 percent of all carbon extracted. A scheme could be introduced immediately, whereby these companies are required to buy a licence for every tonne of carbon they produce.

For this to be achieved it would need the leadership of just two countries, the USA and the UK, as this is where the majority of fossil fuel firms are registered. Convincing the Russians and others to get on board may be tricky at first, but international pressure and trade sanctions could be ramped up to make any exceptions difficult to sustain.

The enormous sums of money that would be raised by a carbon fee should be given back to the all the world’s people as a dividend. Rather than benefiting people in polluting countries, those with a low carbon footprint – the poor – would benefit the most. 

To make the scheme successful, we must charge the right price for carbon. The IMF recently concluded that to keep global temperature rises to 2°C we would need to implement a carbon price of at least $70 per tonne. This compares to the average $2 per tonne carbon price that is charged in current emissions-trading schemes according to the IMF.

Basic income

A 2°C temperature rise is still much too high if we are to contain the worst extremes of climate change, so a strict cap and probably a higher carbon price will be necessary.

Nevertheless, for now we will base our calculations on the IMF recommendation. If we assume the carbon cap starts at this level then decreases by 15 percent (of today’s output) every year for five years, this would bring us to 25 percent of today’s carbon emissions by 2025.

Let’s assume we raise the carbon price by 15 percent of the original each year, starting at the IMF recommendation of $70. This scheme would raise $2.5 trillion in the first year which is enough for $28 a month in basic income for every woman, man and child on the planet. Over five years the reduction in carbon extraction mandated by the cap gradually reduces the dividend to $12.25.

Transfers at this level seem small to people in richer countries. Those lucky enough to find this amount underwhelming could either not apply to receive it, or could see it as a small compensation for the changes in lifestyle they will have to undergo as part of the transition to a low carbon economy. This might include retraining or driving less, though living in a cave will, happily, not be required.

The dividend could help to neutralise the sense of grievance that generated the Gilets Jaunes protests. 

Global commons

Most people in the Global South would find a dividend at this level transformative. Considering that it would be received by every member of a family including children, this would be a significant income boost that would end the worst extremes of poverty and open up new life opportunities.  Most importantly, it would give us all a fair share in the revenues from our global commons.

Although the fee would rise as the cap reduces, the scheme inevitably raises far less money for a carbon dividend once the cap begins to bite. It could even reduce to zero if we end all carbon extraction.

What happens then to the monthly dividends we have all been enjoying? At this point, we have a choice. We can allow them to fade out, and remember them as a brief but helpful boost for global equality.

Alternatively we could expand the scheme to incorporate new revenue streams deriving from the global commons, and turn it into a true world basic income. 

There are plenty of global common spaces as well as our atmosphere – such as the oceans, international airspace, and the satellite zone. Other spaces, such as the land and mineral beds, were once commons and we could choose to treat them as such for taxation purposes.

Profitable use of these common spaces and resources could be made chargeable, thereby generating rents for the people that could be distributed as world basic income. These spaces would benefit from the protection that use-taxes would bring, just as the atmosphere would be improved through the Carbon Fee. 

Historical wealth 

Through this scheme, private land ownership, aviation, shipping and deep sea mining could all be taxed. Radio frequencies (used for GPS, TV and many other uses beyond radio programming) and satellite space could be rented out on behalf of the world’s people rather than given to corporations for free.

The data we all generate that has enriched Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple could be taxed, with money added to the collective pot.

Financial transactions (which are profitable thanks only to our common monetary system) and intellectual property (which is generated through use of historic common knowledge) could also provide a rich source of revenues.

Significant historical wealth could be returned to the people in common rather than retained through inheritance.

In these ways, and even without the carbon dividend, we could easily set up revenue streams that would generate $50 a month for every person worldwide. In time, as more commons resources are covered, this could rise to several hundred dollars a month. 

Astonishing potential

These proposals are radical, but we live in incredible times.

The risk of catastrophic climate change forces us to think big. If we are to achieve climate justice, rather than just climate action, we need responses that consider and respond to economic inequalities. 

The Carbon Fee and Dividend is one such response, that has the astonishing potential to drive us briskly towards net zero while temporarily ending extreme poverty. By establishing the principle that the earth is a global commons, the Carbon Fee and Dividend would also lay the groundwork for a wider transformation in our thinking.

As its economic benefits dry up, we could use its infrastructure and the shift in thinking to kickstart a worldwide basic income that would give us all a fair share of common wealth in perpetuity.

In this way, Carbon Fee and Dividend represents a practical solution to our most pressing human problems. It could transform our current crisis into an opportunity to embrace our common heritage and march forward towards real global justice.

This Author

Laura Bannister and Paul Harnett are co-directors of World Basic Income. Laura is a researcher and global justice campaigner, specialising in basic income, sustainability and trade policy. Paul is a development economist who works for governments around the world. 

Image: UN Women, Climate Visuals.

The future of Poland’s ‘last coal plant’, Ostrołęka C, hangs in the balance following a court ruling.

The District Court in Poznań held that the company resolution authorising construction of the €1.2bn, 1GW coal-fired power plant, a joint venture between two Polish energy companies, Enea and Energa, was legally invalid.

This should prompt a major rethink by the companies and their boards, and could spell the end for the costly project, which still lacks over PLN 3 billion in necessary financing.

Excellent result

The ruling represents a major step in the shareholder lawsuit, the first of its kind, brought by ClientEarth.

Peter Barnett, a ClientEarth lawyer, said: “This is an excellent result for Enea’s shareholders and for the climate. The plant is a stranded asset in the making, facing clear and well-documented financial risks.

“Companies and their directors are legally responsible for managing climate-related risks and face potential liability if they fail to do so. Enea and Energa should lay this project to rest before it incurs any further costs to the companies and their shareholders.”

ClientEarth brought the legal case against Enea over the Ostrołęka C project in October 2018, based on evidence that it poses unjustifiable financial risk to shareholders.

Polish energy market experts had long raised questions over the plant’s economic viability and failure to secure financing. The €1 trillion global asset manager Legal & General Investment Management, which is invested in both Enea and Energa, expressed “serious concerns” about the project and has written to the two companies with four other major institutional investors.

Unnecessary burden

The plant is exposed to the risks posed by the plummeting cost of renewables and rising carbon prices. Since late 2016, when the plans for the plant’s construction were resumed, EU carbon prices have soared fourfold from below €6 to nearly €30 per tonne. 

At Enea’s joint venture partner Energa’s latest general meeting on 25 June 2019, shareholders further interrogated the economic viability of the project. Despite maintaining that it is viable, Energa admitted that “the scale of the investment poses a significant challenge to the closure of its financing”.

The company also confirmed concerns about delays, indicating that Ostrołęka C will face at least eight months of financial penalties for failing to deliver electricity it has committed to under the Polish capacity market – where a major share of its expected income comes from.

While the case has been ongoing, key players in the Polish energy industry, including Tauron and PGE, have been looking into alternative and cheaper avenues of producing energy – like wind power.

Head of ClientEarth Poland Marcin Stoczkiewicz said: “This is a clear signal and major opportunity for the companies, and for the industry at large. Pursuing this project puts an unnecessary burden on the state and taxpayers and is in no way necessary for national energy security.

“Enea and Energa need to look at what the future of energy is in Poland. There is vast employment potential in cheaper, domestic renewables.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth. 

This summer the Woodmeadow Trust is running a campaign to raise the funds it needs to be able to continue delivering its vital outdoor education work, events, and activities at its acclaimed Three Hagges Woodmeadow, just off the A19 between Selby and York.

Aiming to raise £2,000, the fundraiser will run until Saturday 31 August 2019.

The Trust is looking to raise this money to buy equipment including an outdoor sink, an outdoor whiteboard, sweep nets, pond nets and trays, specimen tubes, firebuckets, camping equipment, and microscopes.

Sense of wonder

The much-needed equipment will allow the Trust to continue its community outreach work – allowing those of all ages to engage with wildlife and learn about the natural world around them.

This equipment will hugely benefit the wide range of events the Trust holds, and will help to meet the growing demands of the Trust’s highly successful outdoor education programme.

Rosalind Forbes Adam, chair of the Woodmeadow Trust, said: “We have had great comments from pupils who have come to our woodmeadow this year.  One 11 year old said he was ‘Speechless! It was the best day ever.’

“Our Education Officer Amber Botham is bringing in so many children and offering them a wealth of opportunities, including pond dipping, insect hunts, wildflower identification, firemaking – and even survival tactics on a desert island!  

“It is joyful to see a young person’s sense of wonder opening up.  If the young can discover an appreciation of nature early on, they will get much more from it in their future lives.  

‘”The equipment we are asking for will enable us to create the best programme possible.”

This Article

This article is based on a press release from the Woodmeadow Trust. The JustGiving page for the fundraiser can be visited here.

Campaigners are calling for an “urgent transformation” in the way the world’s land is used, ahead of a key UN report on land and climate change.

Governments are meeting to approve a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is set to be published on Thursday.

The report will look at the climate impacts of land, such as agriculture and deforestation, which account for around a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, and the effects of rising temperatures for landscapes and society.

Emissions

It is also expected to look at ways that the land can help tackle climate change and deliver other benefits such as food security and wildlife protection, for example through reforestation and sustainable agriculture.

Ahead of the report’s publication, Dr Stephen Cornelius, WWF’s chief adviser on climate change and IPCC lead, said: “We need to see an urgent transformation in how we use land in the future.

“This includes the type of farming we do, our food system and diets, and the conservation of areas such as forests and other natural ecosystems. All of which can either help or hinder the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This new report should bring this home to us.”

He added: “Good land-use choices are central to tackling the climate crisis. We must see a rapid shift in how we manage our land, alongside the necessary deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions, if we are to meet the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement.”

Habitats

Countries have agreed to curb global temperature rises to “well below” 2C and to pursue efforts to keep them to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels under the international Paris Agreement secured in the French capital in 2015.

The latest report comes after a study last year from the IPCC warned countries must take “unprecedented” action to slash carbon emissions to zero by 2050 and limit dangerous global warming.

Impacts of climate change, from droughts to rising seas, will be less extreme if temperature rises are curbed at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels than if they climb to 2C, the UN-backed study said.

Limiting warming to 1.5C is possible but will require fast and far-reaching changes to power generation, industry, transport, buildings and potential shifts in lifestyle such as eating less meat as well as measures to take carbon from the atmosphere, such as planting trees.

A separate UN-backed global assessment of the state of nature earlier this year found wildlife and habitats are declining at an “unprecedented” rate worldwide, with changes to the way land is used playing a major role.

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent.

A Cambridge scientist has warned that the “decaying” of the Greenland ice sheet risks pushing up the sea level and threatens coastal cities around the world.

Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, said he had observed first hand drastic changes to conditions in the Arctic.

The 71-year-old, who has led 55 expeditions to the region during his career, compared flowing melt water to the “Niagara Falls” as ice in the region disappeared.

Melt

Speaking to PA from near the settlement of Kangerlussuaq on the south-west edge of Greenland, Professor Wadhams said there had been “large changes” to the area since his last visit five years ago.

“It’s certainly a far more rapid rate of ice loss going on now than at any time in the past,” he said. “The rate of global sea level rise… is really completely dependent now on the loss from the Greenland ice sheet, that’s going to be going up quite rapidly.

“The first time I was here 30 years ago there was never any melt from the Greenland ice sheet even in summer,” he added.

The professor, who first visited the Arctic in 1969, said the melting of ice had moved from the low altitude edges of the Greenland ice sheet to include its surface at the centre.

“It’s coming down more or less like Niagara Falls, down through holes all over the ice sheet,” he said.

Highest

His comments come after a period of record-breaking temperatures hitting the world in recent months.

According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), July 2019 had at least equalled and possibly exceeded the record for the hottest month in history.

It followed data showing the world had experienced the warmest June on record.

Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK all saw new national temperature records on July 25.

The Met Office said it took a recording of 38.7C at Cambridge Botanic Garden, officially the highest temperature recorded in the UK.

Science

Wildfires struck areas of Siberia in Russia in July, with the plumes of smoke visible from space.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre, the loss of ice extent in the Arctic in the first half of July matched rates from 2012, the year with the lowest September sea ice extent in the satellite record.

Professor Wadhams said 300 cubic kilometres of ice was lost from the Greenland sheet every year.

If the entire Greenland ice sheet melted the sea level would rise by seven metres, flooding most of the world’s coastal cities, the professor warned. “It’s decaying and decaying quite rapidly,” he said.

WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas said of global weather conditions: “This is not science fiction. It is the reality of climate change.

Sea level

“It is happening now and it will worsen in the future without urgent climate action.”

In Greenland, Professor Wadhams said there was now “a huge epidemic of icebergs being emitted” as water flow drives glaciers out to sea.

“Most of the other glaciers in the world are already more or less gone,” he said.

“So there’s not much extra water to add from glaciers from other parts of the world.”

“Greenland is now the driver for global sea level rise and will be until the ice has gone from Greenland,” he added.

Rainforest

He described witnessing “a raging torrent” passing beneath a bridge in Kangerlussuaq and the appearance of “black ice” as centuries old dirt is left behind by melting ice.

“Some of it is really dark, it means that it reflects less of the radiation of the sun that falls on it,” the professor said.

“That means it’s absorbing radiation and warming it faster still.”

Professor Wadhams is in Greenland to help scope out a suitable location for a new global electric car rally.

Extreme E will see teams race head-to-head in the Arctic, the Himalayas, the desert, the Amazon rainforest and an island in the Indian Ocean.

Trouble

The race will take place in locations already damaged by the effects of climate change and aims to highlight the environmental challenges facing the world.

Professor Wadhams lamented the changes to the Arctic, admitting that people previously held a “false picture” that it would never change.

“It’s very sad,” he said. “You will never again see things that I was able to see when I was young.”

He argued the solution to the melting ice was to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, rather than just reducing carbon emissions.

Professor Wadhams added: “The trouble is nobody has suggested any practicable way of bringing back ice. That’s what we have to do, is to cool the whole planet.”

This Author

Tom Pilgrim is a reporter with PA.

The Asháninka have called the Amazon rainforest home for at least 5,000 years. Tradition, ceremony and storytelling are at the heart of their culture, and they proudly hold on to their customs in a changing world.

But that doesn’t make them averse to progress. During a recent field trip to the Cutivireni partnership, the Cool Earth team worked with six local community members to trial methodologies for collecting geospatial data.

They were eager to support Cool Earth’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team in finding the best ways to monitor the forest. The data collected through on-the-ground observation will be used to validate data from satellite analysis. It’s called ‘ground truthing’ and is a core focus for the MEL team.

Forest monitoring

Canopy cover is a key indicator of the success of Cool Earth’s partnerships. It’s why Cool Earth has been investing in the latest satellite monitoring technology to keep tabs on the health, and level of forest cover, both in and around the partnerships.

With Cool Earth’s Regional Coordinator, Aurora Lume, running through the different data collection devices, the team and community split into three groups over two days to collect data.

Using traditional GPS field devices, standard GPS-enabled Android smartphones and a bespoke form to collect information from each point, the team verified locations of primary forest, deforestation, degradation, and recorded valuable images. But it’s not just about data. 

These activities continue to be invaluable in engaging members of the community with every aspect of monitoring their forest.

It’s during exercises like this that the most interesting information comes out in conversation; territory boundaries, invasions, village names, diseases, what the communities hunt and what medicinal plants continue to be used.

This is how Cool Earth is truly able to understand the threats to people’s forest and the possible solutions to deforestation. Combine latest technology with local knowledge and the picture becomes clear; a comprehensive story of life on the rainforest floor.

Jaime Peña, a biodiversity officer in Peru, said: “We, as Asháninka, need to find ways to mitigate pressure on the rainforest. Involving the community in data collection can be part of the solution.

“Together we can learn more about what’s happening in our territory and take action to protect our natural world based on the geospatial data we collect.”

This Article

This article is based on a press release from Cool Earth. 

Boris Johnson has conducted an extraordinary cull of government ministers as prime minister. His mission was mainly to bring in new, more pro-Leave blood to replace the supposed Brexit balance of Theresa May’s cabinet. 

But as a consequence, the UK now finds itself governed by a collection of some of the UK’s most right-wing politicians, some of which have promoted climate science denial and many of whom have ties to pro-deregulation campaign groups based in and around Westminster’s 55 Tufton Street.

Here’s a who’s who, and how they fit into the UK’s pro-Brexit, anti-climate action network.

Boris Johnson (Prime Minister)

The new Prime Minister himself has a patchy grasp of climate science. 

In December 2015, following the signing of the landmark Paris Agreement, Johnson wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph praising the work of notorious climate science denier and brother of the Labour leader, Piers Corbyn.

Johnson’s position has apparently changed since then, though, having recently come out in support of a 2050 “net zero” emissions target, a commitment he reaffirmed in his first address to parliament as Prime Minister. And during his stint as Foreign Secretary, he said he would “continue to lobby the US at all levels to continue to take climate change extremely seriously.” That didn’t stop Johnson presiding over a 60 percent cut in “climate attaches” at the Foreign Office, however.

Johnson also remains closely tied to the UK’s climate science denial network and US groups known for spreading disinformation around climate change. 

During the Conservative party leadership campaign, he received a £25,000 donation from Terence Mordaunt, a director of the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), the campaign wing of the UK’s principal climate science denial group founded by Lord Nigel Lawson. First Corporate Shipping, which Mordaunt co-owns, donated to both Johnson and Hunt’s leadership campaigns, as openDemocracy revealed.

And in September 2018, Johnson went on an all-expenses-paid trip to the US to speak at a black tie dinner organised by the American Enterprise Institute, a Koch-funded free-market thinktank that has lobbied hard against climate action in the US.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Leader of the Commons)

The most hardline Brexiteer in Johnson’s cabinet, Rees-Mogg is likewise the most explicit climate science denier.

Rees-Mogg has claimed that “climate alarmism” is responsible for high energy prices, and that it was unrealistic for scientists to project future climate changes as meteorologists struggle to correctly predict the weather. He wrote in the Telegraph in 2013 that:

“It is widely accepted that carbon dioxide emissions have risen but the effect on the climate remains much debated while the computer modelling that has been done to date has not proved especially accurate … common sense dictates that if the Meteorological Office cannot forecast the next season’s weather with any success it is ambitious to predict what will happen decades ahead.”

In 2014, he was referred to the parliamentary standards watchdog for failing to disclose interests in a company with millions of pounds invested in energy companies when speaking in relevant debates. Somerset Capital, the hedge fund of which Rees-Mogg is a Director, held investments worth about £3 million in mining firms, £2.4 million in oil and gas producers, as well as £23 million in tobacco companies.

Rees-Mogg is also an advisor to Economists for Free Trade, a campaign group with strong ties to the right-leaning media advocating the benefits of a no-deal Brexit. The group has close ties with organisations working out of offices in and around Tufton Street, including the Taxpayers’ Alliance and Institute of Economic Affairs.

Rees-Mogg has also regularly clashed with Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay over the UK’s departure from the EU. Barclay does not share Rees-Mogg’s views on climate change, telling an international conference in May 2019 that, “as a planet, the changing climate threatens our lands and livelihoods”.

Dominic Raab (Foreign Secretary)

Despite being an uncelebrated Brexit Secretary, Raab has found himself in charge of the UK’s foreign policy. He’s likely to have plenty of people attached to the Tufton Street network scrambling to advise him.

Raab served on the political advisory board of the campaign group Leave Means Leave, alongside North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson, who has long lobbied to cut regulations and targets related to climate change. Paterson has strong ties to the UK’s premier climate science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Paterson’s brother-in-law is hereditary peer Matt Ridley, who sits on the GWPF’s advisory board.

Leave Means Leave was also supported by some of the UK’s most prominent climate science deniers such as former Tory MP(and now Lord) Peter Lilley, and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Sammy Wilson. It was also backed by libertarian Tories who have called for deregulation and pushed disinformation on climate change including Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood, Christopher Chope and Ian Paisley, to name a few.

Raab has published several articles on the Taxpayers’ Alliance website, a campaign group lobbying to cut taxes including the climate change levy. In 2012, he wrote a piece for Taxpayers’ Alliance demanding the government be transparent about the cost of its climate policies, according to the group’s Twitter feed. The link to the story is no longer available.  

Andrea Leadsom (Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy)

Leadsom is back in the cabinet, having resigned in May 2019 in a move that was largely seen as firing the starting gun on Theresa May’s slow departure from 10 Downing Street. She’s a familiar face, having previously been Leader of the Commons, Environment Secretary and an Energy Minister.

She caused early controversy in her first government role as Energy Minister when she said, “when I first came to this job one of my two questions was: ‘Is climate change real?’ and the other was ‘Is hydraulic fracturing safe?’” Though during her time in what was then the Department of Energy and Climate Change she acknowledged that “on both of those questions I am now completely persuaded.” 

Nonetheless, she has continued to be a staunch supporter of fracking in the UK. She told the Conservative Party conference in 2015 that, “there is no chance in the near term that we move away from fossil fuels; that just cannot happen.” However, when she ran for the leadership this time round (getting eliminated in the first round), she said that if she became Prime Minister she would “declare a climate emergency”. 

In her new role, she’ll be tasked with delivering the UK’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Leadsom won’t be working alongside Claire Perry, though, who recently took a leave of absence from the department and her role as Energy Minister. Amid the cabinet reshuffle, she confirmed she would be leaving BEIS permanently to take on the role as President of COP26, the annual UN climate talks which will take place in the UK in 2020.

Liz Truss (International Trade Secretary)

Truss replaces Liam Fox, who had a far from stellar record on climate action. But while the new International Trade Secretary may “fully agree that climate change is happening”, evidence of her commitment to tackling the issue over the years is thin on the ground.

After taking over from Owen Paterson as Environment Secretary in 2014, Truss called solar farms “ugly” and a “blight on the landscape”, and announced a cut in subsidies for the industry. Truss’s argument that solar farms threaten the country’s food security were later revealed not to have been supported by any evidence.

A former Shell manager and vocal supporter of Heathrow expansion, Truss also backs fracking. While Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Truss tweeted: “Good to see PM supporting fracking against NIMBY question. #frackontrack #pmqs”.

She also caused alarm during this time with promises to axe “white elephant projects”, including low-carbon initiatives. And in a House of Commons debate this year, Truss described those involved in Extinction Rebellion protests as a “bunch of anti-capitalists that glue themselves to public transport”.

With long-held free-market beliefs, Truss founded the “Free Enterprise Group” of Conservative MPs in 2011 and was last year revealed to have met with Koch-funded libertarian groups, with a history of climate science denial, during an official trip to the US.

She has also spoken at events organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute, groups at the heart of a network of pro-deregulation groups based in and around 55 Tufton Street.

Michael Gove (Cabinet Office Minister)

Gove busily promoted his “shy green” credentials while Environment Secretary, but his history suggests an element of political pragmatism when committing to climate action. Gove will now be based out of the Cabinet Office as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster — a position with a broad remit that is generally seen as acting as a ‘fixer’ for the Prime Minister.

While Education Secretary, Gove planned to exclude climate change from the geography national curriculum but abandoned his plans after public outrage. In 2014, Gove said he had “read with concern” a report by the Global Warming Policy Foundation(GWPF), which accused “activist” teachers of trying to turn pupils into “foot soldiers of the green movement.” Andrew Montford, the GWPF’s Deputy Director who co-wrote the report and runs the climate-sceptic Bishop Hill blog, said children were being brainwashed for “political ends.” 

Gove is very familiar with the Institute of Economic Affairs, which lobbies on behalf of companies including oil giants BP. An undercover investigation last year revealed Shanker Singham, the Director of International Trade and Competition at the institute, located a stone’s throw from Tufton Street, regularly speaks with Gove. Singham is a former Washington lobbyist who has “unparalleled access” to UK ministers, ties to multiple US organisations known for promoting climate science denial, including the Koch-funded Heartland Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

Gove is also an advisory committee member of campaign group The New Culture Forum, which works to change cultural debates the group believes are dominated by “the Left,” and is based out of 55 Tufton Street, home to the climate science denying GWPF. Gove was also previously on the advisory council of Liam Fox’s now defunct neoconservative thinktank The Atlantic Bridge, which worked with groups promoting climate science denial in the US.

Sajid Javid (Chancellor of the Exchequer)

Javid now finds himself in the top tier of government, having previously been Home Secretary and before that Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. And during his first job on the front bench, Javid decided to use his power as Communities Secretary to overrule Lancashire County Council’s decision to block fracking in the area. 

In October 2016, he found in favour of the appeal by shale gas company Cuadrilla Resources, which is now fracking at the Preston New Road site near Blackpool despite more than two years of strong local opposition. Explaining the decision, he argued it was the job of determining whether fracking is compatible with our climate targets is “a matter for future national policy”.

However, Javid later rejected plans for a new coal mine at Druridge Bay in Northumbria. That decision was taken in part due to concerns over how the mine would fit with the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy and its impact on local communities.

Javid has close ties to the Tufton Street network through his connection to Vote Leave chief and Taxpayers’ Alliance founder Matthew Elliott, who was part of his leadership campaign team. Elliott sits at the heart of a trans-Atlantic network of campaign groups lobbying for market deregulation post-Brexit, including rolling back key environmental protections. 

Priti Patel (Home Secretary)

Patel is probably best known for her controversial comments on social policy over the years, including a call for the death penalty to be reinstated, which she claims to have changed her mind on in recent years. Patel left May’s cabinet in disgrace following revelations that she had set up unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials while International Development Secretary.

A former lobbyist for the tobacco industry, Patel has been a strong advocate for fracking, including in national parks. In an article on ConservativeHome, Patel hit out at “parts of the green lobby and its eco-extremist followers” who she said should back fracking if they “genuinely believed in tackling climate change”.

After her stint at the Department for International Development, which she had previously called to be abolished, Patel wrotethat the UK shouldn’t be using its aid budget to help developing countries avoid relying on fossil fuels, calling them “anti-development restrictions”. She also stated that “coal with CCS is vital for tackling climate change” and backed a US push for “cleaner” fossil fuels under President Trump. The article was originally published on the CapX website run by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies and approvingly reposted by the Global Warming Policy Forum.

Grant Shapps (Transport Secretary)

Shapps is no stranger to controversy, having resigned from Theresa May’s cabinet in 2015 after allegations of bullying. He is also no stranger to ‘alternative facts’ having denied using a pseudonym while holding a second job (which he later admitted) and claiming the lights would go out over Christmas in 2016 due to a lack of coal power (they didn’t).

Those claims came from a report by the British Infrastructure Group, which Shapps chaired. Shapps was quoted as saying, “it is clear that a perfect coincidence of numerous policies designed to reduce Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions has had the unintended effect of hollowing out the reliability of the electricity generating sector”. The claims were strongly rebutted by academics including Sussex University Professor Jim Watson, director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC).

The report’s lead researcher was Tim Philpott, who was also an aide to Shapps. Philpott used to work for Business for Britain, an organisation that claims it “formed the basis for Vote Leave”. Business for Britain was at the heart of a cosy Euro-sceptic climate denier network that pushed for Brexit and getting rid of regulations that would clean up the UK’s energy system based out of Westminster offices at 55 Tufton Street.  Philpott also co-authored a UKIP report on the UK’s energy system in early 2016 with climate science denying former MEP Roger Helmer.

Theresa Villiers (Environment Secretary)

Villiers takes over from Michael Gove as Environment Secretary, having previously been Northern Ireland Secretary and Transport Minister. She has said that “action on climate change is vital” and talked up the UK’s renewable energy potential. 

She has also come out against Heathrow airport expansion due to concerns over air quality. “We should not make a serious problem even worse by trying to expand Heathrow,” she said. She is not against airport expansion altogether, however, arguing that adding a runway at Gatwick would be a better option.

Like most Tories, she is seen as being broadly pro-fracking, and has previously argued that exploiting shale gas “has potential for use in the UK for helping us with energy security in keeping energy bills as low as possible”.

Esther McVey (Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government)

McVey is another new cabinet member who has sparked controversy in the past with some of her socially conservative views, apparently welcoming the rise in foodbank use in the UK and supporting the right of parents to take their children out of LGBTeducation. She has remained relatively tight-lipped about environmental issues, though.

In a rare public statement, McVey refused to back a 2050 “net zero” emissions target during a Q&A session with ConservativeHome readers during the Conservative leadership contest, saying: “If you want to guarantee failure, get politicians to set a target.” While accepting that environmental protection was “vital for the legacy we leave future generations” and that climate change “affects us all”, she also took a shot at “wealthy environmental activists” and said business doesn’t need targets but the “government to stop slapping taxes on them”. She has nevertheless celebrated the UK’s reduction in CO2 emissions, by consumption.

McVey is married to Philip Davies, one of the two remaining MPs to have voted against the landmark Climate Change Act in 2008.

Matt Hancock (Health Secretary)

One of the only cabinet ministers to survive Boris’ cull, Hancock keeps his job as Health Secretary.

While seen as one of the more progressive cabinet ministers, Hancock has taken donations from Neil Record, a funder of the UK’s leading climate science denial lobby group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. In 2018, DeSmog found that Hancock had been receiving £4,000 a year from Record since 2018, according to Parliament’s register of interests.

These Authors

Mat Hope (@MatJHope) is editor of DeSmogUK. Richard Collett-White (@RichardCollettW) is a researcher and reporter for DeSmog UK. This article was first published by DeSmog UK. 

Image: Chatham House, Flickr.

Central London’s freshwater sources contain high levels of antibiotic resistant genes, with the River Thames having the highest amount, according to research by University College London (UCL)

The Regent’s Canal, Regent’s Park Pond and the Serpentine all contained the genes but at lower levels than the Thames, which contained genes providing resistance for bacteria to common antibiotics such as penicillin, erythromycin and tetracycline.

The genes come from bacteria in human and animal waste. When antibiotics are taken by humans much of the drug is excreted into the sewer system and then into freshwater sources. The presence of antibiotics in these water sources provides an environment where microbes carrying the resistance genes can multiply quicker and share their resistance with other microbes.

Wastewater treatment

Project lead Dr Lena Ciric (UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering) said: “This shows that more research is needed into the efficiency of different water treatment methods for antibiotic removal, as none of the treatments currently used were designed to incorporate this.

“This is particularly important in the case of water bodies into which we discharge our treated wastewater, which currently still contains antibiotics. It is also important to look into the levels of antibiotics and resistant bacteria in our drinking water sources.”

There is currently no legislation to remove antibiotics or the resistant genes from water sources, implying that antibiotics and the resistant genes could be present in small amounts in drinking water, although this would require testing.

The Thames is likely to have higher levels of antibiotics and resistant genes because a large number of wastewater treatment works discharge into it both upstream and in London.

Antibiotics entering the sewer system are diluted through flushing, but even low levels can encourage resistance genes to multiply and spread to more microbes.

Experiments

The research team developed a DNA-based method which can provide information about the number of each of the resistant genes per litre of water. They then compared the numbers of the resistant genes in the different London water systems.

The team are now experimenting with removing antibiotics and the resistant bacteria and genes from water taken from London’s natural water system using slow sand filtration, which is a form of drinking water treatment.

This technique is used around the world including at Thames Water’s Coppermills Treatment Works which provides drinking water for most of north east London. They are investigating using different variations of the filtration, with changing proportions of sand and activated carbon and different flow rates.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the University College London. 

This July is set to be the joint-warmest month on record for the world – and may even be the hottest ever seen, provisional figures indicate.

Figures suggest global average temperatures for the month will be “on a par with and possibly marginally higher” than those seen in July 2016, the previous warmest July – and warmest month overall – on record.

The assessment shows that July 2019 will have been around 1.2C (2.16F) above pre-industrial levels.

Hottest

The provisional assessment is based on data for July 1 to 29 from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

Final, confirmed data for the month will be published on Monday.

The difference in temperatures between the months of July 2016 and 2019 in the assessment is smaller than the difference typically seen between the various sets of global data which the analysis uses, the experts said.

July is not alone in being hot, with all the months of 2019 so far ranking among the four warmest for their time of year, they said.

The latest figures come after June 2019 was recorded as the hottest June in the records.

Swallow

Record-breaking heatwaves gripped parts of the northern hemisphere in July, with the UK seeing a new high temperature of 38.7C (101.66F) set in Cambridge on Thursday July 25 as the country sweltered in the heat.

Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands also saw national records broken as exceptionally high temperatures gripped large parts of central and western Europe last week.

Earlier in the month, parts of the US suffered record-breaking hot conditions.

Prof Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said: “Months which break the global temperature record, such as July 2016 and June and July 2019, are now the expectation rather than a surprise since this is entirely consistent with the increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by human activities.

“Just as one swallow does not make a summer, one record month does not tell us much on its own since the fickle nature of weather systems and the slow sloshing about of the ocean can sometimes temporarily warm or cool the planet.

Fundamental

“However, the clustering of recent record hot years and months, the longer-term warming trend and our understanding of the physics of the atmosphere and oceans confirms that our climate is heating up, it’s our fault and the way to stop this is to reduce and begin removing emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Prof Dann Mitchell, associate professor of atmosphere science at the University of Bristol, said the current global data showed July was “probably the warmest on record”.

“The warming trend is clear and the scientific evidence robustly points to this being caused by human induced climate change.”

He warned: “A 1.2C increase in global temperature, as reported for this July, almost certainly means an even higher increase in temperature over land, and cities, which are known to warm faster than the oceans.”

Tens of thousands of people can die prematurely in heatwaves and such incidents were projected to get significantly worse in the future, so “fundamental infrastructure changes” are needed to adapt to climate change.

This Author

Emily Beament is the PA environment correspondent. Image: Mr.TinDC. “So hot! My neighborhood in Columbia Heights definitely runs on the warm side. Thermometer not in direct sunlight.”