Last week the United Kingdom's Committee on Climate Change "launched a call for evidence in order to identify relevant published information of the risks and opportunities to the UK from climate change". Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, last night I attended a talk organised by Transition Exeter entitled "Climate Change Update – The Pathway to Two Degrees Warming" and subtitled "Can Global Warming be Limited to Two Degrees?" The evidence was presented on the night by Dr. Jeff Ridley from the Met Office's Hadley Centre here in Exeter and consisted of an overview of the results of the UK Government funded AVOID research programme, followed by a question and answer session with the members of Transition Exeter. The brief executive summary of the answer to today's headline question is :
It was announced on Twitter earlier today that the UK's Backbench Business Committee has scheduled a debate in Westminster Hall on Thursday July 11th on the topic of large scale solar arrays. Never having heard of the Backbench Business Committee before I rummaged around on the UK Parliament web site and discovered this video, which explains how it works:
Teignbridge District Council have today decided that no Environmental Impact Assessment will be needed for proposals to build two large scale solar PV arrays either side of Rydon Farm near Ogwell. Their decision letter is addressed to Orta Solar, although the "pre-application enquiry" also mentioned Steadfast Solar Limited. In it Teignbridge's case officer states that:
Prompted by a conversation over on Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog I happened to glance at the Department of Energy and Climate Change's shiny new web site this morning, and discovered evidence strongly suggesting that Ed Davey is suffering from selective schizophrenia.
According to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change:c
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker will both be attending the second week of the COP18 negotiations in Doha, commencing on 3rd December
The second week of the "18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" starts tomorrow at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar.
Professor David MacKay used to work in the Physics department of Cambridge University. Now he's the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change. Here's a video in which he explains how he halved his own personal energy consumption, and how you can too:
Fresh from arguing about energy policy with the Treasury up in Westminster, Ed Davey has popped down here to South West England to help launch Cornwall Together, which according to their web site:
Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with E.ON UK, one of the UK’s leading power and gas companies, to develop five new deep-geothermal heat and distribution systems. Under the terms of the partnership, the two companies will collaborate on five projects to tap into the heat that occurs naturally only a few kilometres underground, providing a reliable source of clean energy for homes and businesses.
However they didn't reveal the location of those five plants. Now they have taken the next step, and they announced today that they have:
Amongst a plethora of TL(and longer)As it is our sad duty to report today that the Renewable Energy Association are very disappointed by the (in)actions of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The REA recently published the Summer 2012 edition of their "REA News" magazine. Here it is:
