Exclusive: Record rise, despite recession, means 2C target almost out of reach Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency . The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” – is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol , chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions. Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data. “I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions,” Birol told the Guardian. “It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say.” Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100 ,” he said. “Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.” Birol said disaster could yet be averted, if governments heed the warning. “If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding,” he said. The IEA has calculated that if the world is to escape the most damaging effects of global warming, annual energy-related emissions should be no more than 32Gt by 2020. If this year’s emissions rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree. Emissions from energy fell slightly between 2008 and 2009, from 29.3Gt to 29Gt, due to the financial crisis. A small rise was predicted for 2010 as economies recovered, but the scale of the increase has shocked the IEA. “I was expecting a rebound, but not such a strong one,” said Birol, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on emissions. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said time was running out. “This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world’s last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic . You don’t put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them.” Most of the rise – about three-quarters – has come from developing countries, as rapidly emerging economies have weathered the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped most of the developed world. But he added that, while the emissions data was bad enough news, there were other factors that made it even less likely that the world would meet its greenhouse gas targets. • About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These “locked-in” emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere. “It means the room for manoeuvre is shrinking,” warned Birol. • Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering nuclear power. “People may not like nuclear, but it is one of the major technologies for generating electricity without carbon dioxide,” said Birol. The gap left by scaling back the world’s nuclear ambitions is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels. • Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. “The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago,” said Birol. He urged governments to take action urgently. “This should be a wake-up call. A chance [of staying below 2 degrees] would be if we had a legally binding international agreement or major moves on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and other technologies.” Governments are to meet next week in Bonn for the next round of the UN talks, but little progress is expected. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said the global emissions figures showed that the link between rising GDP and rising emissions had not been broken. “The only people who will be surprised by this are people who have not been reading the situation properly,” he said. Forthcoming research led by Sir David will show the west has only managed to reduce emissions by relying on imports from countries such as China . Another telling message from the IEA’s estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a “breathing space” and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed. Carbon emissions Nuclear power Energy Global recession Climate change Fiona Harvey guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …It’s all over for Endeavour but the undocking: The shuttle’s crew floated out the door this morning and closed the hatch behind them, having completed Endeavour’s final mission. “We’re looking forward to getting home,” said commander Mark Kelly, “and we’re going to leave these guys to some peace and quiet…
Continue reading …Ratko Mladic claims he had nothing to do with the massacre of 8,000 men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica when it fell during the 1992-1995 war, his son said today. Darko Mladic said his father denies ordering the massacre—the worst atrocity in Europe since the…
Continue reading …A charismatic Joplin teenager whose disappearance in Sunday’s tornado captured national attention has been found dead, reports CNN. Will Norton was driving home from his high school graduation with his father when the violent storm snapped his seat belt and pulled him through the sunroof of his Hummer H3. His…
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Statement of support issued amid growing speculation over health secretary’s cabinet future Downing Street has moved to quash growing speculation that health secretary Andrew Lansley will quit if the government’s review of proposed health reforms ends in wholesale changes. It has been reported that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been discussing how to handle Lansley’s cabinet future when the review by Professor Steve Field concludes in mid-June. Downing Street issued a statement of support for Lansley, saying: “The speculation in the papers is nonsense. Andrew Lansley is doing an excellent job.” Foreign secretary William Hague is said to be advising against pressing ahead with the reforms, while Nick Clegg has argued that the changes required to the health and social care bill are so widespread it will have to go back for a second line-by-line scrutiny by MPs. That would delay the bill by up to six months. Cameron was caught apparently telling Clegg the reforms no longer had anything to do with Lansley, as the two men exchanged angry words about the reforms while waiting to hear Barack Obama address parliament last week. In a sign Lansley has become fed up with horsetrading over his plans, he has said: “I’ve stopped being a politician – I just want to get the NHS to a place where it will deliver results. I don’t want to do any other cabinet job. I’m someone who cares about the NHS who happens to be a politician, not the other way around.” Cameron is caught between needing to show he has listened to the public and professional outcry over the changes, and his need to keep Lansley in the cabinet. Lansley and his fellow ministers believe much of the reassurance required can be provided without big changes, arguing that much of the opposition was based on a misunderstanding of the bill – in part created by the health secretary’s failure to sell the reforms effectively. Lansley is confident his key proposals for GP commissioning will survive, with membership extended to include nurses and possibly other health professionals, such as doctors in acute hospitals. His aides believe the Liberal Democrats will not press for local councillors to join GP commissioning bodies but will demand they are subject to greater scrutiny by health and wellbeing boards on which councillors will sit. Plans for Monitor, the health regulator, to be given a general duty to extend competition in the NHS will be shelved, something Lansley has been prepared to do. He is also likely to support Clegg’s call for no sudden, top-down opening up of all NHS services to any qualified provider. Lansley has been receiving support from the Tory right, as well as from Blairite health reformers including Lord Warner and Prof Julian le Grand of the LSE. In a sign of support from the right, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, gave strong backing to Lansley’s plans. “We have very clear common aims: that we want to get the outcomes of the NHS up, we have to get better health outcomes in this country for the money we spend. We also have to ensure that more decisions are taken by doctors and nurses and fewer by bureaucrats.” Fox is regarded as increasingly difficult to control by Downing Street. During Obama’s visit he chose to go to Washington to speak at an anniversary marking the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. His speech included an apparent snub to Cameron and Obama, saying Thatcher and Reagan never saw the special relationship as “a dewy-eyed Disneyesque emotional love-in”. Fox added: “They were giants of history when history needed giants. We may never see their likes again in our lifetime.” Fox also praised competition, the principle in dispute in the health bill, saying Reagan and Thatcher “believed that competition is to be welcomed not feared – that it is the means by which we judge our talents, one against the other, without recourse to conflict.” Andrew Lansley Health policy Public services policy David Cameron Nick Clegg William Hague Liam Fox Health NHS GPs Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister to promise more money for immunisation despite growing outcry over UK’s aid budget David Cameron will use a conference in London to promote plans to raise a further $3.7bn (£2.25bn) in global aid to increase immunisation programmes, further antagonising those in Britain who claim he is putting overseas aid before squeezed living standards in the UK. With his modernising credentials damaged by the row about NHS reforms, Cameron is determined to show that he is committed to a generous UK aid budget, and reassure those on the centre left he is a centrist Conservative. He also believes he can see off the aid sceptics in his own party, mainly from the right. In his most high-profile intervention on overseas aid since becoming prime minister, Cameron will host the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) conference in London on 13 June. The conference, discussed by Barack Obama and Cameron last week, is regarded as vital to efforts to lower child mortality in Africa. In a sign of the scale of pledges being sought, the Obama administration is being asked to give $450m to the programme over three years. Britain will also announce a substantial extra contribution to help reach the $3.7bn required to scale up immunisation programmes between 2011 and 2015, and save an estimated 4 million children’s lives. The funding will specifically enable Gavi to distribute two vaccines, pneumococcal and rotavirus, tackling the two biggest killers of children in the developing world: pneumonia and diarrhoea. It is thought the vaccines will save more than 4 million lives by 2015. Pneumonia accounts for 20% of all deaths of children under five. Britain gave £150m to Gavi in March last year, and since 2005 has been the second most generous contributor to the alliance after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gavi was praised by the Department for International Development in a review on multilateral aid published three months ago. Officials at the department were reassured by steps Gavi is taking to be more transparent about the differing costs of vaccines from different producers. Two pharmaceutical industry representatives sit on the board of Gavi. Germany announced last week that it would give €30m (£26m) to GAVI in 2012, up from €20m in 2011. Cameron made passionate remarks at his press conference at the close of the G8 summit of industrialised nations in France last week, insisting he would not backtrack on a commitment to increase the amount of overseas aid given by DfID. It is the only UK department not facing budget cuts. Cameron added he would not solve the UK deficit on the backs of the world’s poor, and lambasted some other world leaders for forgetting their promises on aid. Some of this passion was driven by the knowledge of what the Gavi conference could achieve next month. He regards practical vaccines that are shown to have tangible results in terms of saving lives as one of the best ways of combating the aid fatigue currently gripping the UK. Gavi claims it has saved more than five million lives in its first decade of existence. Alan Duncan, the international development minister, sprung to Cameron’s defence telling Sky News that “aid-bashing does not actually get us anywhere. If we were to cancel the aid budget altogether it wouldn’t solve all the other problems, so this sort of balancing of the aid budget versus all other problems isn’t entirely logical. “The fact is, if you had a pound, would you give a halfpenny to stop someone dying in the street? The answer is you probably would, and what we are doing is stopping millions of people dying from disease, we are helping educate people and make them healthy.” Aid Vaccines and immunisation Health David Cameron Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Why bother with a baby name book when you can go straight to the Social Security Administration … via your iPhone? The SSA, of course, releases an annual list of the most popular baby names in the US, and its new (and free!) Baby Name Playroom app can suggest…
Continue reading …The FBI has combed through Scott Crow’s email, phone records, and garbage, installed a camera across the street from his home, and infiltrated his political meetings with at least five informants. His crimes? A few trespassing charges stemming from political demonstrations. But in the wake of 9/11 and the Oklahoma…
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Castles, cathedrals and the Cavern Club: historians make their choices of key sites in Britain’s past for book Which was more important in the making of Britain, a ruined abbey, a Dorset tree, a Liverpool cellar or a painted gable in Northern Ireland? Battle Abbey was where Harold lost his crown and his life to William the Conqueror in 1066; Tolpuddle where in 1830 a group of agricultural labourers discussed forming a union and paid for their audacity with transportation to Australia; and Free Derry Corner looks down on the narrow streets where 13 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by the army in 1972. All are among the 100 sites nominated by historians to appear in a book as the places that made the modern nation. The Liverpool cellar nominated by Peter Catterall, lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, was a fruit warehouse, air raid shelter and egg packing station before in 1957 it became a music club and four years later gave the world the Beatles. “I don’t think music was the only element of the 1960s, but it came to be emblematic of it,” Catterall says. “You can’t imagine Swinging London without the music. In a sense the band that made everything possible was the Beatles; it was they who paved the way for the idea that the British were good at music.” David Musgrave, who edited the book, spent months tramping around the ruins, industrial landscapes, archaeological sites, castles and cathedrals, and odd corners once brushed by the hand of history, checking out the 100 places nominated by scores of historians. Many are internationally renowned, including the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Blenheim Palace. There are surprises. Gerard De Groot, professor of history at St Andrews, chose a nearby stretch of smooth green turf: the Old Course overlooked by the clubhouse of the Royal and Ancient golf club. Historians have often ignored the significance of sport, he argues. “It is hugely important in the sense that it’s not just seen as a leisure pursuit. It’s a package of cultural values that have been exported along with the other elements of civilisation that the British feel they have given to the rest of the world.” He added: “Sports have been seen not just as a way to exercise and have fun, but also as a way to convey the cultural values of fair play, decency and honesty. It’s interesting that golf embodies that better than most because it is based on the fundamental honesty between the people playing it.” John Morrill, professor of British and Irish history at Selwyn College, Cambridge, chose a little 16th-century folly in Northamptonshire, Rushton Triangular Lodge, which was built by the unswervingly Roman Catholic Sir Thomas Tresham as a blatant symbol of his belief in the Holy Trinity. “You get a sense of the religious passion and the religious obsession that was to dominate the whole of the political and social life of people in Britain and Ireland over the early modern period. There’s no building I can think of that tells us more of these passions during the century after the Reformation.” The gable with the painted slogan “You are now entering Free Derry” chosen by Claire Fitzpatrick, history lecturer at Plymouth University, stands witness to the long shadow of the wars of religion. “In a place like Northern Ireland which is big on commemoration, it was symbolic to write on that Free Derry wall. This is a nationalist area and they felt locked out of the city, so Free Derry Corner is the ironic response to the city walls. It’s an important part of British history within the context of British identity.” Musgrave, who edits the BBC History magazine, imposed only one criterion on the historians: that all the sites had to be open to the public, so readers can make their own pilgrimages and argue the merit of the choices. He added one of his own, the field in Leicestershire where the Battle of Bosworth was fought in 1485 – which was only pinpointed by archaeologists last year. The battle changed the course of English history when Richard III, the last Plantagenet king and the last monarch to die in battle, literally lost his crown when it fell from his head and rolled under a bush to be retrieved for the victorious Henry Tudor. Musgrave chose his top 10 from the 100 for the Guardian and, forced to choose his absolute favourite, eventually plumped for Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, where in 1939 the grave of an Anglo-Saxon prince was found, his treasure heaped around in him in the ghostly outline of the long since rotted timbers of his ship. The site was nominated by Julian Richards, professor of archaeology at the University of York, who said: “Until the discovery of Sutton Hoo, historians and archaeologists had taken rather a dim view of the Anglo-Saxon barbarians who had stepped into the power vacuum after the departure of the legions.” Musgrave was entranced by its atmosphere: “The place where Anglo-Saxon history comes alive, and the site of one of the greatest archaeological finds ever made. I love it there, the landscape feels like it’s been picked up from Denmark and plonked down in East Anglia – or maybe that’s just me.” Musgrave’s top 10 • Iona: the Scottish island was a key location in the early days of Britain’s Christian story • Sutton Hoo, Suffolk: A find that gave insight into the mysterious Anglo-Saxon world • Battle Abbey: 1066 and all that. A key English battlefield, where Harold lost to William and history took a decisive turn • Dunfermline Abbey: Scottish church where the remains of Robert the Bruce were rediscovered in 1818 • Dolbadarn Castle: a seat of native Welsh power before the Anglo-Normans dominated Britain • Longthorpe Tower: Cambridgeshire medieval tower with surviving 14th-century domestic secular wall paintings • Hampton Court: spectacularly preserved window into the Tudor world • Putney church: the site in south-west London of days of passionate debate on the rights of man during the English civil war • Blaenavon: the best preserved ironworks in south Wales and a key site in the industrial revolution • Belfast Titanic Footprint: The Northern Ireland site where the doomed transatlantic liner was built Heritage History Heritage Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Castles, cathedrals and the Cavern Club: historians make their choices of key sites in Britain’s past for book Which was more important in the making of Britain, a ruined abbey, a Dorset tree, a Liverpool cellar or a painted gable in Northern Ireland? Battle Abbey was where Harold lost his crown and his life to William the Conqueror in 1066; Tolpuddle where in 1830 a group of agricultural labourers discussed forming a union and paid for their audacity with transportation to Australia; and Free Derry Corner looks down on the narrow streets where 13 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by the army in 1972. All are among the 100 sites nominated by historians to appear in a book as the places that made the modern nation. The Liverpool cellar nominated by Peter Catterall, lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, was a fruit warehouse, air raid shelter and egg packing station before in 1957 it became a music club and four years later gave the world the Beatles. “I don’t think music was the only element of the 1960s, but it came to be emblematic of it,” Catterall says. “You can’t imagine Swinging London without the music. In a sense the band that made everything possible was the Beatles; it was they who paved the way for the idea that the British were good at music.” David Musgrave, who edited the book, spent months tramping around the ruins, industrial landscapes, archaeological sites, castles and cathedrals, and odd corners once brushed by the hand of history, checking out the 100 places nominated by scores of historians. Many are internationally renowned, including the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Blenheim Palace. There are surprises. Gerard De Groot, professor of history at St Andrews, chose a nearby stretch of smooth green turf: the Old Course overlooked by the clubhouse of the Royal and Ancient golf club. Historians have often ignored the significance of sport, he argues. “It is hugely important in the sense that it’s not just seen as a leisure pursuit. It’s a package of cultural values that have been exported along with the other elements of civilisation that the British feel they have given to the rest of the world.” He added: “Sports have been seen not just as a way to exercise and have fun, but also as a way to convey the cultural values of fair play, decency and honesty. It’s interesting that golf embodies that better than most because it is based on the fundamental honesty between the people playing it.” John Morrill, professor of British and Irish history at Selwyn College, Cambridge, chose a little 16th-century folly in Northamptonshire, Rushton Triangular Lodge, which was built by the unswervingly Roman Catholic Sir Thomas Tresham as a blatant symbol of his belief in the Holy Trinity. “You get a sense of the religious passion and the religious obsession that was to dominate the whole of the political and social life of people in Britain and Ireland over the early modern period. There’s no building I can think of that tells us more of these passions during the century after the Reformation.” The gable with the painted slogan “You are now entering Free Derry” chosen by Claire Fitzpatrick, history lecturer at Plymouth University, stands witness to the long shadow of the wars of religion. “In a place like Northern Ireland which is big on commemoration, it was symbolic to write on that Free Derry wall. This is a nationalist area and they felt locked out of the city, so Free Derry Corner is the ironic response to the city walls. It’s an important part of British history within the context of British identity.” Musgrave, who edits the BBC History magazine, imposed only one criterion on the historians: that all the sites had to be open to the public, so readers can make their own pilgrimages and argue the merit of the choices. He added one of his own, the field in Leicestershire where the Battle of Bosworth was fought in 1485 – which was only pinpointed by archaeologists last year. The battle changed the course of English history when Richard III, the last Plantagenet king and the last monarch to die in battle, literally lost his crown when it fell from his head and rolled under a bush to be retrieved for the victorious Henry Tudor. Musgrave chose his top 10 from the 100 for the Guardian and, forced to choose his absolute favourite, eventually plumped for Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, where in 1939 the grave of an Anglo-Saxon prince was found, his treasure heaped around in him in the ghostly outline of the long since rotted timbers of his ship. The site was nominated by Julian Richards, professor of archaeology at the University of York, who said: “Until the discovery of Sutton Hoo, historians and archaeologists had taken rather a dim view of the Anglo-Saxon barbarians who had stepped into the power vacuum after the departure of the legions.” Musgrave was entranced by its atmosphere: “The place where Anglo-Saxon history comes alive, and the site of one of the greatest archaeological finds ever made. I love it there, the landscape feels like it’s been picked up from Denmark and plonked down in East Anglia – or maybe that’s just me.” Musgrave’s top 10 • Iona: the Scottish island was a key location in the early days of Britain’s Christian story • Sutton Hoo, Suffolk: A find that gave insight into the mysterious Anglo-Saxon world • Battle Abbey: 1066 and all that. A key English battlefield, where Harold lost to William and history took a decisive turn • Dunfermline Abbey: Scottish church where the remains of Robert the Bruce were rediscovered in 1818 • Dolbadarn Castle: a seat of native Welsh power before the Anglo-Normans dominated Britain • Longthorpe Tower: Cambridgeshire medieval tower with surviving 14th-century domestic secular wall paintings • Hampton Court: spectacularly preserved window into the Tudor world • Putney church: the site in south-west London of days of passionate debate on the rights of man during the English civil war • Blaenavon: the best preserved ironworks in south Wales and a key site in the industrial revolution • Belfast Titanic Footprint: The Northern Ireland site where the doomed transatlantic liner was built Heritage History Heritage Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk
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