1990 UN IPCC Report Said That Climate Models Were Considerably Skillful: ‘The performance of current global climate models has shown that there is considerable skill in the simulation of the present day climate by atmospheric general circulation models’
1990 IPCC Report Said That Climate Models Were Considerably Skillful
4.11 Conclusions and Recommendations the performance of current global climate models has shown that there is considerable skill in the simulation of the present day climate by atmospheric general circulation models You can see their skill here : Maybe That IPCC 95% Certainty Was Correct After All
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New paper explains how climate change mitigation harms development in poor countries – Published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change
New paper explains how climate change mitigation harms development in poor countries
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-paper-explains-how-climate-change.html
A paper published today in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change finds that development in poor countries will be harmed by misguided efforts at emission reductions, even if industrialized countries covered all of the costs. According to the authors, “This opinion piece argues that even if the ‘full incremental costs’ of abatement in developing countries would be covered by industrialized countries, the former’s development prospects could be hampered by climate change mitigation due to the following reasons. First, financial inflows have the potential to induce a ‘climate finance curse’ similar to adverse effects related to natural resource exports. Second, increased use of more expensive low-carbon energy sources could delay structural change and the build-up of physical infrastructure. Third, higher energy prices could have negative effects on poverty and inequality.”
How climate change mitigation could harm development in poor countriesMichael Jakob, Jan Christoph SteckelAbstract: Avoiding dangerous climate changes requires emission reductions in not only industrialized but also developing countries. This opinion piece argues that even if the ‘full incremental costs’ of abatement in developing countries would be covered by industrialized countries, the former’s development prospects could be hampered by climate change mitigation due to the following reasons. First, financial inflows have the potential to induce a ‘climate finance curse’ similar to adverse effects related to natural resource exports. Second, increased use of more expensive low-carbon energy sources could delay structural change and the build-up of physical infrastructure. Third, higher energy prices could have negative effects on poverty and inequality. We conclude that these considerations should not be seen as an indication that one should abstain from emission reductions in developing countries. However, until developing countries’ most severe concerns can be appropriately addressed, attention should be focused on measures that promote human well-being while saving emissions.
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Britain Plans Emergency Measures To Prevent Blackouts
Britain Plans Emergency Measures To Prevent Blackouts
http://www.thegwpf.org/britain-plans-emergency-measures-prevent-blackouts/
The Government and the National Grid are developing emergency measures to prevent blackouts across Britain, as the country’s energy supply faces its biggest strain in years.
Users will be financially incentivised to turn their power off for short periods at peak times, easing the burden on the national system, while energy companies that had planned to decommission power plants will be paid to “bring them back up and running at times of stress”.
Steve Holliday, chief executive of The National Grid, said that the measures were necessary to prevent blackouts across Britain, following a dramatic fall in the amount of coal-burning power plants that are in operation.
The drop in power generation means that Britain will be running with a buffer of just 5pc this winter, the lowest reserve energy supplies since 2007. That figure could drop even lower in 2014 and 2015 as more and more power stations fall out of operation.
“Things will continue to get tight in the next two years because the electricity market reform does not really incentivise a lot of new generation until the year after that. There are a couple of extra tools that are being developed at the moment, that will incentivise people who would like to make a bit of money to reduce their demand – only occasionally, when we have peak demand. That will help us to balance the system.
“We’re taking action with the government and with Ofgem [the industry regulator] to reinforce the armoury in case things are tighter,” he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
The Grid has already warned that reserve supplies of electricirty are wafer thin this winter, putting the country at its highest risk of a blackout since 2007.
Mr Holliday downplayed the odds of Britain being plunged into darkness but admitted that the country’s energy supply was not as “robust” as in the past.
“A year ago, we had a certain amount of generation that was available. Twelve months on, 6,800 megawatts (MW) of generation has shut in the UK. At the same time, only about 1,000MW has started up, so clearly we have significantly less generation available today than a year ago. The reality is that if things are tighter, they are not as robust as they might have been 12 months ago.
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Matt Ridley: A Response To My Critics On Global Warming: ‘Not one of my critics managed to disprove my central assertion, that climate change is probably causing net benefits now and is likely to continue doing so for some decades yet’
Matt Ridley: A Response To My Critics On Global Warming
http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-response-critics-global-warming/
My Spectator cover story on the net benefits of climate change sparked a lot of interest. There was an explosion of fury from all the predictable places. Yet not one of my critics managed to disprove my central assertion, that climate change is probably causing net benefits now and is likely to continue doing so for some decades yet.
I’ve written responses to some of the critical articles and reproduce them here.
1. Duncan Geere in the New Statesman.
Four paragraphs in his piece in turn begin with “He’s right…” so I am glad that Geere confirms that I am right about all my main points. If you read my article you will find that each of Geere’s assertions about the eventual harm of climate change are also in my piece. For example, I say:
“Even if climate change does produce slightly more welfare for the next 70 years, why take the risk that it will do great harm thereafter?”.
I do not ignore sea level rise: and anyway it is taken into account in all of the studies collated by Tol.
Geere’s main point, that the graph of benefits starts declining at 1C above (today’s) is very misleading. What this means is that the benefit during one year is slightly smaller than the benefit during the year before, not that there has been net harm during that year. Geere seems to have misunderstood Tol’s graph.
My points about probably fewer droughts and probably richer biodiversity are grounded in the peer reviewed literature. Many models and data sets agree that rainfall is likely to increase as temperature rises, while the evidence for global greening as a result of carbon dioxide emissions (and rainfall increases) is now strong. Greater yields means more land sparing as well.
The main point I was trying to make is that very few people know that climate change has benefits at all, let alone net benefits today; even fewer know that it is likely to have net benefits in the future for about 70 years. This fact, which Mr Geere confirms, is worth discussing. Judging by the incredulous reaction to my article in some quarters, this was indeed news to many people.
I note Mr Geere has nothing to say about the harm being done by climate policies to the very poorest people in the …