Boris In A Pickle Over Toxic UN Climate Conference
In this newsletter:
1) Brussels Tells UK: Report To Us On Climate Change Or Forget Brexit Trade Deal
The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2020
2) Poisoned Chalice: Green Tories Decline Invitation To Chair Toxic UN Climate Conference
The Times, 5 February 2020
3) Greens & Scottish Nationalists May Turn COP26 Into A Political Fiasco For Boris
The Guardian, 4 February 2020
4) Foolish Climate Obsession Threatens To Turn Drivers and Voters Against Boris
The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2020
5) The Government's Eco-Edict That All New Cars Be Electric In 15 Years Is Doomed To Backfire
John Naish, Daily Mail, 5 February 2020
6) Government Steps Up War With BBC As It Moves To Decriminalise Licence Fee Evasion
Politics Home, 5 February 2020
7) BBC Licence Fee Faces Scrap
The Times, 5 February 2020
Full details:
1) Brussels Tells UK: Report To Us On Climate Change Or Forget Brexit Trade Deal
The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2020
Brussels negotiators are seeking to lock Britain into European Union rules on climate change as tensions rise over a future trade deal.
The bloc wants Britain to sets up an independent watchdog to ensure it sticks to green commitments and it called on the UK to remain as part of its carbon trading market.
Boris Johnson has repeatedly rejected demands to follow EU regulations as part of a deal, but Michel Barnier has said that so-called level playing field guarantees are “inextricably linked” to striking an agreement.
The UK’s Committee on Climate Change already monitors progress in reducing emissions and reaching targets. The Government would be expected to report such data to Brussels after Brexit, according to the EU’s negotiating mandate.
If targets accepted when the UK was a member state or future agreed goals are not reached, Britain could face punitive measures from the EU – including fines or even the temporary suspension of market access.
The EU wants Britain to consider becoming an associate member of its Emissions Trading System (ETS). The ETS, the world’s largest carbon market, works by setting a cap on emissions and requiring industry to hold a permit for each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted.
Unused permits can be traded for cash on the market. Member countries are given carbon allowances, which provide revenue when sold to polluting companies.
But membership requires an acceptance of the EU’s rules and close ties to EU climate policy after Brexit.
The Government has not yet decided on a course of action, and a carbon pricing consultation is set to be published in due course.
Other options could be to set up a UK only carbon market, join another carbon market such as California’s, or introduce a carbon tax.
Before the withdrawal agreement was ratified, Britain made no-deal Brexit plans to replace ETS membership with a carbon tax. Campaigners described the proposals as “woefully inadequate”.
The proposed tax was a flat rate of £16 per tonne of carbon dioxide for 2019. This would have reduced the incentive for polluting companies to switch to greener technologies compared with the higher ETS rate, which is currently £19.66 per tonne and can fluctuate.
Full story (£)
2) Poisoned Chalice: Green Tories Decline Invitation To Chair Toxic UN Climate Conference
The Times, 5 February 2020
Boris Johnson sounded out two former Conservative leaders, David Cameron and William Hague, to serve as the figurehead of this year’s UN climate change conference in Glasgow, The Times can reveal.
However, the former prime minister and Lord Hague of Richmond turned down the offer to take a leading role at this November’s COP26 summit, raising fresh questions over the event.
Mr Johnson has identified hosting the UN conference — secured last year with the backing of France and Germany — as a key part of his diplomatic drive to present Britain as a world leader after Brexit.
Some 90,000 people, including world leaders, are expected at the summit, the biggest event hosted by the British government since the 2012 Olympics. Preparations have been dogged by rows with Scotland over the cost and policing.
The summit is deemed critical to keeping the Paris climate agreement on track as nations are due to commit to specific action to reduce global warming. Its success is far from assured after the withdrawal of the US.
Climate campaigners have been urging Mr Johnson to secure a big-hitter to get the talks on track. The role would involve extensive travel to cajole national governments and institutions such as the EU. During the summit itself, the president effectively acts as its chairman.
Concerns over the summit’s leadership came to light last week when Mr Johnson sacked the former energy minister Claire O’Neill as its president.
She exacted revenge yesterday, savaging the prime minister’s green credentials by saying that he had privately admitted he “doesn’t really understand” climate change.
Full story (£)
3) Greens & Scottish Nationalists May Turn COP26 Into A Political Fiasco For Boris
The Guardian, 4 February 2020
Preparations for this year’s climate summit in Glasgow are being overshadowed by a bitter row between the UK and Scottish governments over a key building near the venue.
UK government sources have accused Scottish ministers of refusing to hand over a building the Scottish government wants to use as its base for the COP 26 climate talks in November.
Scottish ministers say they booked the Glasgow science centre, a publicly funded venue on the opposite bank of the Clyde from the main conference site, only after the UK government said it would be outside the summit security zone last November.
The dispute deepened after Claire O’Neill, the former minister who was sacked as the summit’s chair by Boris Johnson last week, alleged the two governments “were in an extraordinary state of standoff” over the event.
O’Neill told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she had been told the Scottish government had “behaved disgracefully” by booking buildings on the summit site – a claim rejected by Scottish government officials and independent sources.
In a letter to the prime minister published by the FT, O’Neill said that Johnson was even considering moving the event to an English city because of “ballooning costs”. That claim was rejected by a Whitehall source who said there was “zero chance” of it being relocated.
O’Neill told Today that the “playground politics, the yah boo of this, has to stop”. She suggested to Johnson that Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, be given a key role at the summit which “the prime minister heartily and saltily rebutted.”
Full story
4) Foolish Climate Obsession Threatens To Turn Drivers and Voters Against Boris
The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2020
Buyers left fuming as Government outlaws hybrid cars.
The 330,443 people who have bought a new hybrid-powered car in the past two years are now wondering if they have been misled as to the environmental credentials of their transport choices.
In a classic case of “greenwashing”, it turns out that the cars they bought in good faith as better for the environment than conventional petrol- or diesel-engined models might now not be as clean as they had been led to believe.
They may also have to face the consequences of such vehicles dropping in value now that the Government has included plug-in hybrids in its proposed ban on the sale of all fossil fuel-powered cars by 2035, five years ahead of the previous target for such a move.
A similar thing happened with diesel. Consumers bought into the low-CO2 benefits of the fuel, encouraged by government via reduced taxation for the lowest-emitting models.
It was only when diesels were shown to produce high levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulates, affecting air quality particularly in large conurbations, that car taxation became less favourable, scare stories circulated and the values of diesel-engined cars plummeted.
Diesels accounted for 31.5 per cent of all new-car sales in 2018 following a high of about 50 per cent. That figure fell to 25.2 per cent for 2019 – and continues to fall as consumers either reverted to petrol or considered battery-electric propulsion.
Thus hybrids gained in popularity. These consist of either a conventional petrol or diesel engine combined with an electric motor powered by a small battery. The electric motor assists the internal combustion engine and can usually power the car for short distances (on average about 30 miles) on battery power alone.
With doubts over diesel and serious concerns about the range of electric cars, hybrids seemed an excellent interim solution for consumers and the car manufacturers. The rise of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which you can charge as you might a fully electric car, was encouraged by a government grant towards the purchase price of such cutting-edge technology.
You might be as surprised as we were at the time when this grant was withdrawn, although it is too early to tell whether the values of used hybrids will tumble as spectacularly as those for diesels. I suspect not….
This reflects that the state of public car-charging in the UK leaves a lot to be desired and is unlikely to improve substantially in the short term. The widespread adoption of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) will be limited for as long as this is the case.
Plug-in hybrids used properly – plugged in whenever possible – are, for now, the perfect handover.
And if you’re fuming about mixed messages from government about which is the best type of car to reduce emissions and air pollution, spare a thought for the car manufacturers which have spent billions investing in plug-in hybrid technology that adds significant cost to their wares.
Full story (£)
5) The Government's Eco-Edict That All New Cars Be Electric In 15 Years Is Doomed To Backfire
John Naish, Daily Mail, 5 February 2020
For those readers left scratching their heads over the Government's ban on sales of all new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035, here's what I — a former Fleet Street motoring editor — will be doing to help save the planet.
Our family car, a VW Golf, has at least a decade left in its petrol engine. Good care and servicing should stretch that to 2033. Then I'll buy the very latest-technology petrol or diesel car, just before the pre‑ban sales scramble causes prices to spiral.
Why? Because I'm convinced it is the greenest thing to do all round.
Debacle
The government's attempt to meet its near-zero carbon target by bringing forward by five years its ban on petrol, diesel and hybrid cars is well‑intentioned. Yet it is doomed to backfire as badly as a Model T Ford.
We all know well from the great diesel debacle what happens when politicians grab the steering wheel on eco policy.
Back in 2001, the then Chancellor Gordon Brown slashed road tax and fuel duty on diesel cars because some boffin in a white coat had told him they emit 15 per cent less CO2 greenhouse-gas carbon dioxide than petrol cars.
Sales rocketed as eco-minded drivers rushed to buy.
But then some other boffins discovered diesels spewed out vastly more damaging nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide than petrol cars.
What's more, their exhausts send asthma and heart disease rates soaring.
So punishing new taxes got slapped on diesels. Costs spiralled and re-sale prices plummeted. Those well-meaning motorists got taken to the cleaners.
Now we are experiencing the great electric car push — and that is set to be still more of a shocker, both for people and the planet. At a local level, we require massive amounts of new infrastructure to be built to support electric cars.
We will need at least 25 million new roadside charging points — the equivalent of installing 4,000 new ones a day, starting yesterday — with roads and pavements having to be ripped up in the process which will, of course, create plumes of emissions.
And where on earth will the electricity needed come from?
More than a third of Britons commute by car. Imagine, in 2035 and beyond, each of those motorists arriving home at night and hurriedly plugging in their vehicles at around the same time.
Malcolm McCulloch, head of Oxford University's Energy and Power group, has warned that the National Grid will need another 20 gigawatts of generating capacity — double the amount currently generated by all the UK's nuclear power stations — to cope.
The Engineer magazine says that charging an electric car at home with a medium-speed charger is like 'leaving the electric shower on all night. If just a few people in a street decided to do that, it'd blow the local distribution fuse.'
Indeed, the whole system may fail.
Full post
6) Government Steps Up War With BBC As It Moves To Decriminalise Licence Fee Evasion
Politics Home, 5 February 2020
The Government will set itself on a fresh collision course with the BBC by taking the first steps towards decriminalising people who don’t pay their TV Licence.
Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan said many people believed the current system - which can see licence fee dodgers sent to jail - "punishes the vulnerable" and is ripe for reform.
But the Corporation warned that decriminalisation of non-payment could end up costing it millions of pounds.
It is the latest round in a battle between the BBC and the Government, with both sides already at odds over plans by the broadcaster to stop providing free TV licences to the over-75s from June.
Meanwhile, Downing Street has banned ministers from appearing on Today, Radio Four's flagship current affairs programme.
As part of a public consultation on the licence fee, Baroness Morgan also announced the Simple Payment Plan to help people struggling to pay it.
Full story
7) At Last: BBC Licence Fee Faces Scrap
The Times, 5 February 2020
The TV licence could be scrapped by 2027 after the government announced that it would launch a detailed and “open-minded” review of the BBC’s funding model.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes, the culture secretary, put the long-term future of the licence fee in doubt this morning as she also confirmed that the government was consulting on decriminalising licence fee evasion by 2022.
The BBC receives the majority of its income — £3.7 billion of its total £4.9 billion annual revenues — from the compulsory annual levy on all households that watch television.
Abolishing the fee at the end of the corporation’s existing royal charter would require a profound rethink of the national broadcaster’s purpose and programming, probably resulting in substantial cuts to services.
Full story
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.
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