Solar Radiation Management (SRM) in scientific circles can be a contentious topic. One general conclusion often made is that SRM is not a replacement for greenhouse gas mitigation. A new research paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature[1], has cast doubt on the benefit of SRM. The researchers studied the impact of sulphur aerosol relea...
BP's 67th Annual Statistical Review, which came out in June 2018, reports that in 2017 energy markets took a step backwards which is not good news. For the first time in three years, CO2 emissions rose again and global carbon emissions from energy consumption increased by 1.6%. Global primary energy consumption grew at 2.2% in 2017, the fastes...
On a recent visit to Norway, travelling by bus through Oslo on route to the airport, I was struck by the frequency of passing electric cars. From my vantage point on the coach, it seemed that every third or fourth car that passed us was a Tesla.This should not have surprised me since Norway's fleet of plug-in electric vehicles is the largest p...
I hear on a regular basis, advocates of renewable energy telling audiences that we can go 100% renewable. Whilst this is a nice concept, and would certainly help achieve the Paris Agreement targets, I am afraid reality must at times prevail, as recent events in the UK suggest. In the UK this week, according to Bloomberg, we have gone 9 days with no...
The Keeling Curve, named after its inventor Charles David Keeling, is a wonderfully simple communication tool. It shows in a very descriptive way the increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 since the 1950s. What frightens me is the trend it is showing. Between 1960 and 2015, we see a steady increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations fr...
I recently attended a workshop called "Delivering the Clean Growth Plan".For those that are not aware of the Clean Growth Plan this is a significant initiative that sets out the UK's agenda for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy through the next decade. The UK Government plans to spend £2.5bn to support low carbon innovation. A core elemen...
The origin of the word 'sandwich' for an item of food may have originated from a story about John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. It is said that in approximately1762, he asked for meat to be served between slices of bread to avoid interrupting a gambling game. This story may have been rumour but soon people are reputed to have started ordering ...
Coming straight on the heels of the ratification of the Paris Agreement COP22 in Marrakech starts today. the COP22 will focus on action items in order to achieve the priorities of The Paris Agreement, especially related to adaptation, transparency, technology transfer, mitigation, capacity building and loss and damages. At yesterday's opening...
The IEA Greenhouse gas R&D programme is formed under an agreement framed by the International Energy Agency in Paris. There are nearly 40 such agreements, which used to be called Implementing Agreements. The term Implementing Agreement caused a lot of confusion and what it stood for was difficult to communicate especially to non-native En...
With the UK the latest country to signal its intent to phase out petrol and diesel cars, it seems we can see the end of the much-loved internal combustion engine (ICE). First invented back in the early 1800's the ICE has certainly made its mark on society and we remain hooked on our cars. I am not sure myself that an electric car appeals to m...
The latest news that the authority that governs the Kemper county CCS project will not support any more activities on the lignite fired gasification and CCS plant is extremely disappointing. Unlike projects like ROAD, Kemper has been built and so calling a halt at this stage is a shame. The Kemper project has had its problems mostly with new ...
It seems the ROAD project in the Netherlands has come to the end of its road. It is a shame that any CCS project does not proceed and particularly one in Europe, but ROAD has had the feeling of a dead man walking for a long time now. Its latest restructuring meant it only had a small offshore injection lifetime of some 3 years. When I first heard t...
Christine Figueres, who must be given great credit for delivering the Paris Agreement has launched a new initiative – Mission 2020. Mission 2020 is not a new NASA moon shot, but is a new initiative to bring "new urgency" to the "global climate conversation". Inherent in Mission 2020 is a call to begin "rapidly declining" global greenhouse gas emiss...
It is pleasing to see that Ladybird Books (which publishes mass-market children's books) has published a title on Climate Change which has been co-authored by HRH the Prince of Wales. The book, Climate Change, provides a short-format guide to the key scientific facts central to climate change. It explains the history, dangers and challenges o...
I like to watch the weather in a morning on BBC news to start the day. These days we regularly get images of the flow of the jet stream and I have been amazed by how much it varies, wobbling around the upper region of the globe. This morning we were told that the jet stream was bringing high winds to the UK and planes coming from the USA will be s...
Andy Boston from the Energy Research Partnership in the UK has written a great article that presses on an issue that has concerned me for some time, the use of the levelised costs of electricity (LCOE) to compare low carbon technologies. In his article "the levelised cost of fruit" see http://erpuk.org/levelised-cost-fruit/ he dismisses the use of ...
A new report entitled The Arctic Resilience Report (see https://www.sei-international.org/publications?pid=3047) indicates that temperatures in the Arctic are currently about 200C above what would be expected for the time of year and that sea ice is at the lowest extent ever recorded for the time of year. One concern highlighted by the report is t...
This was a lively well attended panel discussion which certainly sparked a lot of debate. My takeaways from this were: CO2 utilisation and conversion to chemicals is a hot topic in many countries, with many Governments funding research programmesTo meet the below 20C target set at COP22 we need mitigation options that permanently remove CO2 f...
The Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) set up in 2003 is the implementing arm of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Technology Mechanism. The CTCN, promotes the accelerated development and transfer of climate technologies for energy-efficient, low-carbon and climate-resilient development. On November 4th 2016 the CT...
The Paris Agreement has now entered into force. To date 74 countries have joined the agreement, 55 were needed. These countries represent 58.83% of global greenhouse emissions, breaking the required 55% threshold. That was the easy bit, now the hard work starts, there a big hill to climb to get to below 2 degree C temperature rise.
