GWPF Newsletter: Pacific Ocean Cools Rapidly La Nina Threatens Early Return

South Africa Set For Biggest Maize Crop Harvest On Record

In this newsletter:

1) Pacific Ocean Cools Rapidly, La Nina Threatens Early Return
John Kemp, Reuters, 5 September 2017 

2) South Africa Set For Biggest Maize Crop Harvest On Record
The South Africa, 1 September 2017 


3) After El Nino Drought, An Overabundance Of Maize In Southern Africa
This Is Africa, 27 June 2017

4) Chinese Scientists Identify Natural Driving Forces Of Climate Change
Geli Wang, Peicai Yang & Xiuji Zhou, Scientific Reports, April 2017 

5) Blaming The Weather: The Moral Danger Of The Securitization Of Climate Change
Marloes van Loon, Leiden University

6) Turning Africa’s Lights On Should Be A Homegrown Priority
Geoff Hill, Daily Maverick, 4 September 2017  

7) Tony Abbott To Deliver Annual Lecture To Leading Climate Policy Think Tank
The Australian, 2 September 2017

8) Benny Peiser: Climate Realism – A Lukewarm Approach To Global Warming
University of Birmingham

Full details:

1) Pacific Ocean Cools Rapidly, La Nina Threatens Early Return
John Kemp, Reuters, 5 September 2017 
 
Forecasts for an El Nino this winter have given way to the prospect of more La Nina-like conditions as sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern Pacific cool rapidly.

 

Surface temperatures in the critical area of the Pacific have fallen to 0.2 degrees Celsius below average, down from 0.7 degrees above average in the week centred on June 28. The rapid cooling has forced meteorologists to reassess the outlook for the northern hemisphere winter.

Until June, most forecasters were predicting a mild or moderate El Nino between December 2017 and February 2018.

But the rapid cooling of the sea’s surface in July and August now points to a shift towards more neutral conditions, or even La Nina developing.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has cut the probability of El Nino between December and February from 44 percent in its May forecast to just 16 percent in August.

At the same time, it has doubled the probability of La Nina between December and February from 14 percent to 28 percent.

The latest runs of NOAA’s forecast models point to La Nina conditions developing by the end of 2017 and into early 2018.

Surface temperatures in the central-eastern Pacific area are monitored by meteorologists because they correlate with a broader set of oceanic and atmospheric changes known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

But the evolution of ENSO remains notoriously hard to predict. The warm phase forecast earlier this year proved to be very weak, failing to reach the threshold to qualify as a full El Nino, and then fizzled early.

Full story

2) South Africa Set For Biggest Maize Crop Harvest On Record
The South Africa, 1 September 2017 

South Africa is set for its biggest maize crop harvest on record following improved weather conditions.



At least 16.4 million tonnes of maize can be expected from the maize belt this season.

The Crop Estimates Committee upped its forecast by 2.7 percent from July.

Almost 60 percent of the yield will be white maize, which is the regional staple used for human consumption.

Full story

Reminder: El Nino drought blamed on man-made global warming




3) After El Nino Drought, An Overabundance Of Maize In Southern Africa
This Is Africa, 27 June 2017
Charlie Mitchell

In 2015, a vicious El Niño weather pattern swept across southern Africa. When it intensified the following year, it caused severe droughts and threatened the food security of millions. But in 2017, that trend is set to reverse.

South Africa is expecting a 15.63m tonne maize harvest, the highest yield of the crop ever. That is double last year’s crop from Africa’s largest producer of the staple, guaranteeing a surplus of around 4m tonnes.

Malawi is also expecting a 3.2m tonne maize harvest, Zambia 3.6m tonnes and Zimbabwe 2.1m tonnes – up from just 512,000 tonnes – according to figures from the Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz) of southern Africa.

Following two years of drought – its worst since the 1980s – South Africa imported 3.8m tonnes of the vital grain in 2016.

Malawi and Zambia, the continent’s second and third largest producers respectively, also faced deficits. Resulting price hikes struck maize-reliant livestock producers, inflating dairy and meat prices for consumers across Africa.

Cultivating more land accounts for part of the jump in production. Ahead of the 2017 season, some 2.6m hectares of maize was planted in South Africa alone, a 37 percent increase on the previous year. And in January and February, farmers enjoyed an ideal rainfall pattern.

“Whenever it needed to rain, the rains appeared,” said Joe DeVries, vice president for programmes at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

Technology also played an important part, particularly the use of higher-yield seeds developed by private companies and sold at the village level by merchants.

Now 85 percent of South Africa’s crop is genetically modified, with even Malawian and Zambian farmers taking up higher-yield seeds at a rapid rate.

“There had never been a competitive vibrant market for high yield seeds in Africa,” says Mr DeVries. “This is what we are now seeing.”

With the surplus, maize prices have dropped some 60 percent since last year. While this is good news for some consumers, for farmers it is making it hard to balance accounts.

“Many farmers have carry-over debt as a result of the drought of the previous season, and now they face a situation where the current market price is below what is required to break-even,” explains Flippie Cloete, professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of the Free State in South Africa.

The solution: look to export the bumper crop. In May, the Malawian and Zambian governments lifted their export bans on maize. The bans were imposed two years ago to ease inflation and retain waning maize stocks for domestic consumption during the lean years. Now farmers can sell their crop across Africa.

South African farmers are tapping the global market, particularly countries in the Middle East and Asia, where South African yellow maize is popular. “We are starting to see South Korea, Taiwan and Japan back in the market buying South African corn,” says Wandile Sihlobo, head of economic and agribusiness intelligence at Agbiz.

Full story

4) Chinese Scientists Identify Natural Driving Forces Of Climate Change
Geli Wang, Peicai Yang & Xiuji Zhou, Scientific Reports, April 2017 

Abstract

The identification of causal effects is a fundamental problem in climate change research. Here, a new perspective on climate change causality is presented using the central England temperature (CET) dataset, the longest instrumental temperature record, and a combination of slow feature analysis and wavelet analysis. The driving forces of climate change were investigated and the results showed two independent degrees of freedom —a 3.36-year cycle and a 22.6-year cycle, which seem to be connected to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycle and the Hale sunspot cycle, respectively. Moreover, these driving forces were modulated in amplitude by signals with millennial timescales.


Figure 1: The Driving force constructed using CET dataset and SFA with embedding dimension m = 13.

Full paper

5) Blaming The Weather: The Moral Danger Of The Securitization Of Climate Change
Marloes van Loon, Leiden University

Marloes van Loon
MA Thesis International Relations
International Studies, Leiden University


Sheikh Ghazi Rashad Hrimis touches dried earth in the parched region of Raqqa province in eastern Syria, November 2010 (Stokes 2016).

Introduction

In the last few years, a connection between the Syrian Civil War, the refugee crisis and climate change appeared in media articles and was discussed in policy circles. The Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) published a short video explaining this connection, which mentioned climate change as a so-called ‘threat multiplier’ of existing instability. In all my years of study, never before did I come across the relationship between climate change and conflict. My interest was aroused and the idea for this thesis was born. Initially, my intension was to defend and strengthen the argument for a link between climate change and conflict. After all, it seemed to make sense that when people lose their livelihoods and migrate to other places, only to find themselves with other people in the same situation, tension rises and conflict might erupt. My own frame of reference played a part in this. I am deeply concerned about a changing climate, our human role in this and the possible future consequences. The fact that prominent people like former-president Barack Obama, former vice-president Al Gore and UN Messenger of Peace – with a focus on climate change – Leonardo DiCaprio spoke out about this, contributed to my view.

The picture of climate change as the biggest threat to our planet led me to believe that the Syrian conflict must have been the (direct) result of climate change. A much-debated article by Kelley et al. (2015) strengthened my beliefs. In short, Kelley et al. argue that a drought preceding the Syrian uprisings had contributed to the escalation of the conflict. They also argued that the drought was the result of human interference with the global climate. In other words, it seemed clear that human induced climate change is not only causing rising temperatures, but apparently it is capable of causing conflicts as well.

A few months into my research, however, I realized that reality is not that simple. Moreover, such a simplistic statement could even make things worse. It came to my attention that shortly after the Kelley et al. research was published, climate change was blamed for Syrian Civil War and the refugee flows in the media, followed by politicians making similar claims. Newspaper articles implied that climate change did not only pose a threat to Syria itself, but also to other countries – even the one in which environmental changes did not occur. As a consequence of climate change, ‘climate refugees’ appeared to become a global threat to national and international security. My view, and idea for this thesis, had changed. I asked myself, why would a war and its consequences be explained with climate change? Why now and not before? What is the process behind this? Who benefits from this? And why is there such a focus on the risks and threats of climate change?

This led to my research question:

Why did climate change become such an influential explanation for the Syrian Civil War?

My sub-questions are the following:

1. In what way did climate change play a role in the eruption of the Syrian Civil War?

2. In what way did climate change play a role in the migration of Syrians?

3. What way of conceptualizing the connection between climate change and migration has obtained the most influence?

4. In what way are the Syrian Civil War and the refugees portrayed in the media? 5. In what way does the alarming narrative facilitate politicians?

Full thesis

6) Turning Africa’s Lights On Should Be A Homegrown Priority
Geoff Hill, Daily Maverick, 4 September 2017 

GWPF director Benny Peiser:  While small solar units handed out by US and British aid groups are helpful, let’s not kid ourselves that this is the answer. We need every city and town in Africa on a central grid where the power doesn’t go off.



The numbers are scary. Africa, with 1.2-billion people and 20% of global land mass, makes just 3% of the world’s electricity.

Half of the continent’s power comes from Eskom in SA, while America burns more in a day than countries like Ghana or Tanzania make in a year.

It was one of the issues raised on 28 August at a conference on illegal migration to Europe. Leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Chad, Niger and Libya resolved to crack down on people-trafficking, and provide more development aid to source countries.

The push driving people north, they agreed, was not war but poverty and unemployment. And with no electricity, it was hard to change either.

John Owusu is a retired engineer originally from Ghana, but for 50 years he has worked across all regions of Africa.

“Young people on our continent are mostly urban, or in the process of moving from the countryside,” he said. “So if you want to employ millions who are currently without jobs, you need mines, factories and service industries.

“But how can you do that without electricity? In Europe or America, having the lights on is taken for granted,” Owusu said. “But what would happen to cities like New York or London if there was no power for a month, a year? That’s what millions of Africans live with.”

Dams on the continent’s biggest rivers pump out power, but a recent drought left water levels on some reservoirs so low they could no longer spin the turbines.

The cost of solar panels has fallen dramatically, but foreign currency needed to import enough to make a difference can put them beyond the reach of poorer states.

And theft of panels is a problem for India, Africa and parts of Latin America. A Johannesburg firm has patented a system of lock-bolts making access more difficult, but police reports from Limpopo province, where the crime is especially bad on farms, show gangs now arrive with a blowtorch.

It is a challenge for both the aid lobby and environmentalists who would like to see Africa move straight to renewables. But extracting coal, oil and gas provides employment for thousands, hard to argue with in countries with mass unemployment.

Whatever the source of power, the author of a new book says Africa’s answers should be homegrown.

Dr Sylvanus Adetokunboh Ayeni was born in Nigeria but lives in the US where he recently retired as a neurosurgeon. In lectures, on radio and in public forums, Dr Ayeni slams into corruption and incompetence on his native continent, asking why countries with virtually no natural resources like Singapore that gained independence in 1965 rank among the world’s best economies, “while oil-rich Angola manufacturers almost nothing and, under president Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe has gone from breadbasket to a beggar state”.

But, in Rescue Thyself – subtitled “Change in sub-Saharan Africa must come from within” – the author says little can be done until there is a workable supply of electricity.

“When you have no power, you can’t set up factories, run hotels, do homework, keep vaccines chilled at a clinic or even pump water efficiently. In short, you have no hope of a better life,” Ayeni said.

“And with the resultant poverty and unemployment, young people have few options,” he said. “Why do you think millions are striking out to cross the Mediterranean while others join gangs or militia? Ask yourself what you would do if you lived in such misery.”

India has an estimated 300-million people – close to the population of the US – who are still off the grid. Africa has double that number.

The Power Africa initiative started by President Barack Obama and continued by the Trump administration encourages private US companies to build generation capacity across Africa.

But in Uganda, where both Power Africa and USAID are active, only 22% of the population are on the grid while the country sells what it calls its “excess power” to neighbouring Kenya for cash. Two new dams with turbines are about to come online but much of the output will flow down pylons into the Democratic Republic of Congo, boosting the treasury in Kampala but still leaving a majority of Ugandans in the dark.

In July, President Donald Trump lifted an Obama-era ban on World Bank funds being used for clean-coal projects to generate power in the developing world.

But Dr Ayeni believes aid is not the answer.

“We hear endlessly how a gift of money can put things right, but more than a trillion dollars in aid to Africa since 1960 has done little to help.

“We need solutions that work locally, not wafty notions from aid junkies and NGOs who, when they get it wrong, run back to the comfort of London or Los Angeles,” he said.

“For example, what’s the point of spending scarce foreign exchange to import solar panels or wind turbines for oil-rich countries like Angola or Nigeria? Or to Tanzania, Botswana and South Africa with billions of tons of coal in the ground.”
Nigeria, with more than three times the population of South Africa, produces one tenth as much power.

Experts say the problem often lies in last-mile technology, lines from substations to homes and factories, even to whole towns.

Nigel Lawson was chancellor under Margaret Thatcher and today sits in the House of Lords. In London, he also chairs a non-partisan think tank, the Global Warming Policy Forum, or GWPF, with a board of leading business people and academics.

GWPF director, Dr Benny Peiser, agrees with Ayeni that power generation is vital to changing Africa for the better. “If you worry about Africans in poverty and people drowning in the Mediterranean, or the rise of militia and criminal networks, do something about it. And that must begin with electricity.”

Peiser said it was “an outrage that, in 2017, some African states produce less power than a mid-size town in Europe or America”.

This, he said, is a threat to the environment. “People need to cook and stay warm, so they cut down trees.” A recent report published in Nairobi shows that over the past half century Kenya has lost three-quarters of its old-growth forest.

And he said Ayeni was right that supply of power had to be done quickly and in a way that works for Africa.

“China has 1.4-billion people, roughly the same as Africa, but it generates 12 times more electricity. You only get those numbers from hydro plants on rivers and, for the most part, from coal and gas.”

But Ayeni says time is short. “Africa is urbanising perhaps faster than anywhere on the planet, and in our cities unemployment can reach 70%, especially among the youth. If we don’t find something for these people to do, we face a bloody revolution worse than anything in history.”

Migration, crime, militia and “a continent in dysfunction”, he said, were “a product of poor governance, bad aid and hundreds of millions left destitute because there is no work and no electricity to build an economy”.

Peiser said while small solar units handed out by US and British aid groups were helpful, “let’s not kid ourselves that this is the answer. We need every city and town on a central grid where the power doesn’t go off”.

Full post

7) Tony Abbott To Deliver Annual Lecture To Leading Climate Policy Think Tank
The Australian, 2 September 2017
Graham Lloyd

Former prime minister Tony ­Abbott will give the annual lecture to one of the world’s leading climate change sceptic think tanks, the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London.



The title of Mr Abbott’s ­address will be “Daring to doubt”.

The invitation-only lecture will be held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Birdcage Walk, London, on October 9. Mr Abbott will follow John Howard who addressed the foundation’s lecture in 2013 with a speech “One religion is enough”.

The foundation is chaired by former Thatcher government treasurer Lord Nigel Lawson.

The foundation is one of the world’s most active groups promoting debate about the state of climate change science.

It republishes articles and mat­erial both supportive and against the mainstream science view and commissions research on climate change-related issues.

The foundation is funded by private donations and does not accept gifts from energy companies or anyone with a significant interest in an energy company.

Mr Abbott’s spokeswoman said the trip would be privately funded by the foundation.

8) Benny Peiser: Climate Realism – A Lukewarm Approach To Global Warming
University of Birmingham



Birmingham Energy Institute Seminar — Wednesday 27 September 2017   17:00-18:00

University of Birmingham, Lecture Theatre G35, Chemical Engineering Building  (Y11 on campus map [PDF])

There are many scientific agreements and disagreements in climate science. While there is general agreement about the modern global warming trend (since 1850), scientific controversies increase as climate research moves further back in time, and predictions move further into the future. Climate realism acknowledges the significant difference between verifiable and replicable knowledge, and hypothetical knowledge based on indirect evidence.

The lecture will attempt to address which knowledge claims are more reliable and trustworthy, and which are less so. What do we really know about terrestrial climate change, and what are our main knowledge gaps? Why do we accept certain scientific claims about climate change but are doubtful about others?

Biography
Dr Benny Peiser is the Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), an all-party and non-party think tank and educational charity chaired by Lord Lawson. A 10km-wide asteroid, Minor Planet (7107) Peiser, was named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union.

To register click here

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.