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Talks from the panel discussion available here:
http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/talks/Barker23rdOct.ppt
http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/talks/HelwegLarsen23rdOct.exe
http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/talks/Frame23rdOct.ppt

Photos from the protest are on our website here:
http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/photos/ProtestOct27th/

Cambridge Zero Carbon Society

1, Parker Street,

Cambridge

CB1 1JL

http://www.zerocarbonnow.org

27^th October 2007

Dear Prime Minister,

We are a group of concerned scientists, economists and students from the University of Cambridge and are writing to you regarding Britain’s CO₂ reduction targets as set out under the draft climate bill. We believe the climate bill is a crucial element of strategy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level and supports our international efforts to tackle climate change. We see the best approach as being a positive one and that Britain should lead by example, reducing its emissions to a sustainable level in a timescale that avoids dangerous climate change. Economic evidence suggests that conversion to a net zero carbon economy, when promoted by efficient economic instruments can be achieved at low cost or even with net benefit to the UK.

We feel it is important that the targets are chosen based on clear thinking and the most reliable up-to-date scientific evidence. We also understand the importance of a comprehensive or holistic approach taking into account pressures from the different parts of government and society.

Today we have been educating the public in London regarding these issues. It is important to simplify as much as possible this complex issue and demonstrate the choices we now face. We would like to draw your attention to the enclosed information sheet summarizing the fact that to prevent a 2°C increase in average global temperatures a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 is needed in the UK.

For further information on some suggested policies or to hear more from us please feel free to visit our website and contact us, http://www.zerocarbonnow.org. We warmly welcome a response to this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Some Reviews of Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming by Bjorn Lomborg (Knopf/Cyan-Marshall Cavendish: 2007. 272 pp./256 pp. $21/£19.99)

Partha Dasgupta’s Review on Bjorn Lomoborg: Available in Nature, Vol 449|13 September 2007

Kevin Watkins’s review
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9810

Eban Goodstein’s review
“The place is somewhere in Turkey, 5,200 years ago. Noah has just gotten word about an upcoming episode of abrupt climate change, and he and his family are hard at work building an ark. The plan is to take on board mating pairs of every living thing of all flesh, every creeping thing of the ground, in order, as God put it, to keep them alive.

Up walks a man who introduces himself as an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. He says, “Noah, you have to stop. We’ve run the numbers and they don’t add up. I agree that there may be a few days of rain, but if you really want to help future generations, don’t build the ark. Grow the economy!”

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2007/08/29/cool_it/index_np.html 

A group of Cambridge university students descended on the capital last Saturday (October 27^th) to encourage people to lobby for stronger legislation to save the planet. The Cambridge Zero Carbon Society (www.zerocarbonnow.org) wants Parliament to toughen up its planned legislation on greenhouse gases.

The Parliament Square protest was organised to increase the targets set out in the forthcoming Climate Change Bill, due to be discussed by MPs in the next parliamentary session. The legislation will make Britain the first country in the world to pass laws to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

“This Bill gives us the opportunity to lead the way in setting meaningful targets,” says organiser Stephen Stretton. “If we get this right we can set an example for other countries to follow and create a real possibility of creating a sustainable future”.

Current calculations suggest that a sustainable level of carbon dioxide emissions would be about one tonne CO2 per person per year, averaged across the total world population. The current global average is about 4 tonnes per person and growing, while in Britain each person is already responsible for ten.
This means Britain needs to reduce emissions by 90% to reach the sustainable target. In addition, it is important that these reductions are achieved in the next twenty years. This way we could limit any global temperature increase to no more than two degrees celsius above the pre-industrial, which is the point at which dangerous feedback mechanisms could cause more serious damage to the climate.

The students, who were dressed in their academic gowns, want the Climate Change Bill strengthened to increase the proposed target of 60% reduction by 2050 to 90% by 2030.

Ends.

Note for Editors:
The protest happened from 11am-1pm in Parliament Square, Westminster. The protest was organised by the Cambridge Zero Carbon Society and supported by the Cambridge Climate Change Coalition.

Find our response to the UK Climate bill here: www.zerocarbonnow.org/?p=394

Full document (pdf) here: http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/wordpress/uploads/full-response-climate-bill.pdf

Poster: http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/wordpress//uploads/protest27thnew.pdf

For further information please contact:

Marc Kaufmann: 0789 184 9630

Following a recent Cambridge Energy Forum meeting on carbon offsetting and a subsequent email dialogue between myself and Philip Sargent, I would like to clarify some terms and describe a critical problem with carbon offsetting.

The Gold Standard and other sets of rules for carbon offset projects rely on a test of “additionality”. This test basically states that, for a carbon offset project to meet the standard, it must be demonstrable that the reductions in carbon emissions would not have happened anyway. Examples of projects that would pass the additionality test are a wind farm in China that would not otherwise have been funded; energy saving light-bulbs in South America that would not otherwise have been provided; and projects to filter HFC23 from factory emissions that would not have happened otherwise. Critically, the test of additionality is only made within the scope of the carbon offset project.

The are various problems with the concept of additionality - such as the virtual certainty of moral hazard coming into play (e.g. wind farms might not be funded another way simply because China knows carbon offset money is available) - but I believe the most significant flaw is that the test is incomplete. The problem is that we are dealing with an open system - global energy production and consumption - and not a series of closed systems. The easyJet flight you offset, VAT free, for £1.77, and the Chinese windfarm are not the end of the story.

We need another test, which I term “subtractability”. That is, there needs to be an onus on the carbon offset provider to prove that the carbon emissions saved really are subtracted from total global carbon emissions. Several types of carbon offset project fail this test and must be consigned to the fig-leaf category.

Of the 3 examples I gave earlier, the first two both fail the “subtractability” test. They run into what I have previously termed “the displacement fallacy“. For example, China is using energy as fast as it can produce it. The wind-farm may simply mean they produce and use more energy than they would have done otherwise. Similarly, people given energy-saving lightbulbs may simply be able to afford more electricity for something else, or power cuts may become a little less frequent in their country. [Note that I am not arguing that such projects themselves are not worthwhile - I’m merely pointing out that they most likely will not successfully offset your carbon emissions].

Projects that directly remove or destroy GHGs, such as those to capture HFC23 from factory flues, pass the subtractability test, but may run into other problems, as we heard at last week’s Cambridge Energy Forum. In fact, since the types of project that pass the subtractability test - such as tree-planting - tend to fail in other ways, it’s difficult to see how carbon offsetting can do more than salve peoples’ consciences.

An upstream solution to global warming

By Ray Galvin

The only way we can save the planet from catastrophic climate change is to drastically reduce the amount of oil, coal and natural gas we are taking out of the ground. Any strategy for mitigating global warming that does not have this as its lynch-pin is bound to fail. Yet strangely, this is the one approach that no-one is talking about.

Full Article: An_Upstream_Solution by Ray Galvin

By Stephen Stretton 

Christopher Monckton gave a talk at the Cambridge on Monday 8th October. The following sets out some comments on his presentation

Monckton Response In Full (more…)

众所周知，通过燃烧 化石燃料(比如煤)，石 油和天然气所释放到 大气层中去的二氧化 碳会导致全球范围内 的升温。

这个效应被 称为“温室效应”。 科学家们预测气候只 要比工业革命之前升 高两度（就可称为气 候的危险变化）将导 致大面积的沙漠化和 生态系统（比如亚马 逊热带雨林）的崩溃
。从而更多存储在树 木中的碳将以二氧化 碳的形式释放到大气 层中去。按我们目前 的发展趋势，在未来 几年内这种变化就会 发生。

要避免危险气候的发生，我们必须马上行动起来，向零二氧化碳排放的经济转型（2003年之前排放量必须减低90％）。如果英国能够率先行动，这种做法将会被广泛的普及到比如欧洲其它地方，北美，中国和印度。这种做法将会被广泛的普及到欧洲其地方，北美，中国和印度。向零二氧化碳排放的经济转型是可行的，对这个领域的经济投入将会得到经济收益。

Translation by Jiawen Chen & Helen Li