© Clive Mear/Tearfund

Owen Paterson and climate change

Owen Paterson is the UK's environment minister, and has just reacted to last week's landmark report on climate change arguing that there's not too much to worry about.

His wilful complacency on climate change would be shocking from any Government minister, but it's doubly so because he's in charge of the environment. Surely David Cameron should move him to somewhere he'd do less damage. But then, what harm might Mr Paterson do elsewhere... ?

Here's what he said on climate change:

 "People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.

"I think the relief of this latest report is that it shows a really quite modest increase, half of which has already happened. They are talking one to two and a half degrees.

"Remember that for humans, the biggest cause of death is cold in winter, far bigger than heat in summer. It would also lead to longer growing seasons and you could extend growing a little further north into some of the colder areas. more ...

© Scottish Government

Where would Jesus get his energy from?

Earlier this week, Martin Wharton, the Bishop of Newcastle, spoke out against wind farms claiming this as his Christian duty.

He stated that:

"It is a basic Christian truth that we all have a duty and a responsibility to care for and exercise wise stewardship over God's creation, which has been entrusted to us."

He expressed his concerns that wind farms were damaging the landscape of parts of his diocese. This has always been a subjective point held by, according to opinion polls, a vocal minority of people.

I'm no expert on theology but I do have a massive amount of respect for the work of the Church and leaders of all faiths. My experience of dealing with faith leaders is that they tend to have a much more global view of things.

For example, take the work of Operation Noah in bringing a Christian focus on the issue of climate change.

more ...

© Hadley Centre

Politicians are asleep on the job - scientists issue climate wake-up call

Today's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been called another wake-up call. I don't know how many more alarm bells politicians need. It's worse than trying to wake up a teenager for school in the morning.

The long and short of it is we need to cut carbon pollution fast if we want to avoid dangerous climate change and much more extreme weather. This means leaving the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground and not searching for more through using methods such as fracking.

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© Conservative Party

Conservative conference: pick up the pace, or pick up the pieces?

Greg Barker, the UK's Energy and Climate Change minister, has been doing the media rounds today in response to the IPCC report.

Barker said on the BBC's Daily Politics show (and presumably elsewhere - he's been almost omnipresent) that "Government has a record of solid action [on climate change], the rest of the world needs to pick up the pace".

The second half of that is uncontroversial. Friends of the Earth agrees that all nations need to join together to tackle the unprecedented challenge of curbing global emissions to avoid the worst impacts of a warming planet.

But you can hardly expect to have any credibility calling for this on the international stage without some evidence that you're stepping up at home. The former diplomat and UK's chief climate change negotiator, John Ashton CBE, said as much in a highly revealing speech hosted by Friends of the Earth earlier this year. more ...

© Friends of the Earth

It's about time someone took on the energy companies

I'm just back from Brighton, where Ed Miliband has set the Big Six energy companies in a tizz by announcing that a Labour government would freeze energy bills for 20 months after the next election.

And surprise surprise, the energy companies don't like it. The first thing they say will have to go if they are forced to freeze prices is investment in clean energy. Projects like new wind turbines, energy storage and wave power. more ...

© Getty Images

Scientists to report on climate change - our top four predictions

We can all see the climate changing around us - and the economic and environmental benefits from energy efficiency and developing renewable energy - but what is the latest scientific understanding of climate change?

Every five years or so, the world's scientists produce a series of mammoth reports assessing the latest knowledge on climate change. These reports let us know whether we should be very worried or just plain worried. The first of the latest series of reports - the IPCC's 5^th Assessment Working Group 1 report - is due on 27 September 2013, and in this blog I predict what they will say.

A more detailed Q&A briefing on the report is available here.

Here are my top four predictions:

1. Extreme weather

The scientists will say they have much greater certainty than before that manmade climate change is already contributing to extreme weather around the globe. They will say that more extreme weather will happen in the future, especially extreme rainfall and heat-waves.

This chimes with research just published that said in 2012 climate change had made the US heat-waves, Superstorm Sandy, shrinking Arctic sea ice, drought in Europe's Iberian peninsula and extreme rainfall in Australia and New Zealand more likely. more ...

© Friends of the Earth

The law is not a punch-bag for the government - another flagrant attack on democracy

It is round two of the government's boxing match against judicial review- the means for taking public authorities to court and to stop them breaking the law. The government now wants to restrict the ability of campaign groups to take them to court in another flagrant attack on democracy, as I explain here.  

In a 60 page consultation on the "impact of judicial review on economic recovery and growth"; the "inappropriate use of judicial review as a campaign tool" and "the use of the delays and costs associated with judicial review to hinder actions the executive wishes to take", it has presented another set of worryingly restrictive proposals, adding to those introduced in July.

To complete the picture, Justice Minister Chris Grayling penned an article in the Daily Mail entitled "The judicial review system is not a promotional tool for countless Left-wing campaigners". more ...

© Rettet den Regenwald

EU votes on biofuels, but what does the result mean?

European legislation is never straight forward, but seldom has the outcome of a vote confused analysts on all sides as much as that on biofuels legislation on September 11.

The Parliament's plenary was voting on the reform of the EU's controversial biofuel policy.  Rather than leading to significant reductions in greenhouse gases from road transport, the policy in its current form has led to global food price rises, deforestation and, ironically, increasing emissions.

Before the vote activists handed rapporteur Corinne Lepage 243,998 petitions sent by European citizens calling for an end of food-to-fuel (see photo above).

MEPs voted on over 50 amendments at break-neck speed; some of which were carried or rejected with majorities of less than 10 votes out of 766 MEPs. Contrary to expectations, voting happened largely along traditional party lines, with the conservative block voting to weaken safeguards on biofuels. Only within the ALDE group (the European liberals) voting was more varied between individuals.

The key amendments voted for were: more ...

© The Guardian

The true costs of cheap meat

Eating more sustainable diets - which includes eating less but better meat - is a key theme of our campaign.  Alex has written a book on the true cost of cheap meat which explores many of the reasons why this matters and how change can happen. This blog first appeared on the Eating Better website on 5^th September 2013

Half a year ago the horsemeat scandal broke in Britain. Last week, the authorities let it be known that no supermarket that sold adulterated beef meals will face any charges. They had done their due diligence, and could not be held responsible for the contents of the horse-stuffed beefburgers and ready meals.

Amazing. Even the Daily Mail thought this was an outrage (confession: I wrote the Mail's op-ed). What was interesting was that of the 300+ commenters on the Mail's website, 99% were positive to the article's message about the bullying, ruthless supermarkets. Those that were not already vegetarians told their fellow readers to go to the butcher's instead. These aren't Guardian subscribers, remember. more ...

© istock

U-turn? Nope, the Gagging Bill still gags us

Today MPs have a second short window to scrutinise the Gagging Bill as it makes its breakneck passage through Parliament.

There's a perception being fostered by some MPs and journalists that it's all ok for charities now - the Government has done a u-turn. This is not true.

On Friday Leader of the Commons Andrew Lansley announced that he would amend the Bill's definition of controlled spending: from expenditure which has the incidental "effect" of influencing electoral outcomes, to spending that is deliberately "intended" to change electoral outcomes. This is a welcome concession, but media reports that it represents a complete u-turn are extremely wide of the mark.

Charities and campaigning groups across the voluntary sector - from the Royal British Legion to Oxfam - remain steadfastly opposed to the Lobbying Bill in its current form, which will place huge and unjust constraints on our legitimate activities. more ...