China believes it can meet European targets on renewable energy by producing 20% of its energy needs through wind and solar power. Whereas Japan is aiming for 15% in the same time frame, a target that environmentalists call “appalling” yet is in line with the USA’s and Australia’s less ambitious targets.

China’s aims include a three-fold increase in both solar power energy production and in wind energy production targets. As in the UK, China is also promoting energy-efficient lightbulbs, installing 100 million of them this year. China may even beat the USA in solar heating array targets for 2020. Funding for these ambitious targets will come from China’s $590bn economic stimulus package. Over $30bn will be directly spent on environmental projects and even more money put into carbon-efficient transport and electricity transmission systems.

We will all however, have to wait until December when a climate change agreement to supersede the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 should be agreed in Copenhagen. This new agreement will allow everyone to see how far China and other countries are willing to go in formally cutting climate change emissions.

Original articles in the Guardian (10/06/09) and on the BBC website (10/06/09).

Invasive non-native species have significant negative ecological and economic impacts. The negative ecological impacts have been widely reported; invasive non-native species may predate or out-compete native species, be the vectors of disease and affect ecosystem services.

In the Journal of Ecology, a team of researchers from the Czech Republic, have published one of the rare studies that actually quantify community-level effects of invasive non-native plants.

The researchers assessed the effects of thirteen invasive non-native plant species on a range of plant communities by measuring species richness, diversity and evenness in invaded and uninvaded plots. Eleven of the thirteen invading plant species reduced species richness, diversity and evenness. The decrease in species richness in invaded plots is primarily due to the identity of the invading plant species. The decrease in diversity and evenness is primarily due to the height and cover of the invading non-native species and the differences in height and cover between the native and non-native plants.

This study indicates the need for conservation managers to consider that the effects of invasive plants on native plant communities differs between invading plant species and that the characteristics rather than species identity of the invading plant affects species diversity and evenness.

Original article: Hejda, M., Pyšek, P. and Jarošík, V. (2009) Impact of invasive plants on the species richness, diversity and composition of invaded communities. Journal of Ecology, 97, 393-403.
For further information on invasive non-native species please see POSTnote 303 written by the 2008 BES-POST fellow.

Amidst all the high drama of UK politics over the last week, it was very easy to miss a significant environmental legislative milestone. However, on Monday 8th June, the UK Marine Bill achieved its third reading in the House of Lords, thereby being passed out of that House and sent on to the Commons for consideration (somewhat unusually, the Marine Bill started first in the Lords and goes to the Commons second).

It has taken considerably longer than normal legislation to make its way through the Lords, and is in fact amongst their slowest-moving pieces of legislation ever (it took 1 week short of 6 months), which reflects the wide-ranging and complex nature of the Bill. Hopefully the amount of time spent examining and amending the Bill also means that it has been considerably improved. Indeed, this was one of the major sentiments expressed by Lords from all sides of the House in the last debate on the Bill, who took the opportunity to reflect on the significant improvements that have taken place over the past six months. In particular, marine science has been given a more major role in the new Marine Management Organisation, and the duty on Ministers to create a network of marine reserves has been strengthened.

There are still some major concerns however. The most important being that the network of marine reserves to be established under the Bill does not currently have to be ecologically coherent, which means there is ample opportunity for future Ministers to limit the effectiveness and extent of the network. Given the current focus on marine sustainability issues engendered by the excellent documentary ‘The End of the Line’, which was released this week, the BES hopes that this issue may be addressed by MPs when the Bill is taken up by the Commons.

Today is the inaugural UN-designated ‘World Oceans Day’, intended to highlight the value of our oceans and the parlous state many of them have fallen into. The theme this year is ‘One Ocean, One Climate, One Future’, and we therefore thought it appropriate to highlight the findings of a recent Spanish study on the effects of climate change in the Mediterranean.

Recently, the coral community, one of the most diverse communities in the Med, has suffered several mass mortality events, and many species have been badly affected. The causes remain unknown but it is thought that they are related to distinct changes to the climate in late summer/early autumn (two of the largest events coincided with temperatures reaching around 3-4 degrees Celsius above average at this time of year).

The study focused on benthic suspension feeders, a group which includes sponges and gorgonians (a variety of coral) which live on the seabed and feed by filtering microscopic particles. This group has been particularly affected by the mass mortality events, which is put down to the increase in temperature causing high respiratory demand and decreasing the amount of food and nutrients available due to thermal stratification (layering of the water according to temperature).

The proposed causal link between climate change and the mortality events was evaluated on a well-studied gorgonian – Paramuricea clavata. The branches of this coral were exposed to different combinations of temperature and food concentration. Partial mortality was observed in a high-temperature/lower-food condition and about 49 per cent of biomass was lost under these conditions. These conditions reflect those found during mass mortality events. Losses of more than 35 per cent of biomass result in mortality similar to that recorded in field observations during mass mortality events.

The identification of a cause-and-effect relationship between temperature and mortality supports the theory that mass mortality events in the Mediterranean are linked to climate change. It appears that temperature changes are the underlying cause of events and limits on food and energy are the main trigger. The physiological stress this places on benthic suspension feeders may also make them more vulnerable to disease, leading to further deaths.

For further details of the study, please see: Coma, R., Ribes, M., Serrano, E. et al. (2009). Global warming-enhanced stratification and mass mortality events in the Mediterranean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (15): 6176-6181.

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills today ceased to exist. DIUS has merged with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Refrom to form a new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS).

Read a full analysis of the changes, and what they mean for science policy, at Times Higher Education.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in the process of a cabinet reshuffle which has seen John Denham move from Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills to the Department for Communities and Local Government. Denham is one of only a handful of scientifically trained MPs in Parliament, possessing a chemistry degree.

Rumours are circulating that the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, created only two years ago, will be dissolved, with responsibility for science and innovation moving to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) and universities and skills moving to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Ed Balls remains as Schools Secretary but may be given responsibility for the wider universities and skills agenda, whilst Lord Mandelson would bear ultimate responsibility for science as Secretary of State at BERR.

Hilary Benn will remain as Secretary of State at Defra.

See more at the Times and BBC

The UK Government’s Science Minister, Lord Paul Drayson, opened the 2009 Cheltenham Festival on Wednesday with a call to better market climate change science, making it ‘cool and exciting’, rather than ‘dull and worthy’. He criticised green campaigners and politicians for making people feel guilty about their lifestyle choices, stating his belief that it is “not going to be possible to persuade people to accept a poorer quality of life.”

Instead, he said that Government and environmentalists must communicate the message that the public can make a difference in ways that involve small changes, come with little cost and which might save money: better insultation, recycling and selecting energy efficient appliances, for example.

Alongside this, he called for the development of “new technologies that deliver performance with sustainability and put them within reach of people”. Climate change science should be exploited as a way of developing and of selling products, allowing people to support innovation for the convenience it offers as much as the scientific and technical advance it represents.

By understanding consumer behaviour, the public can be offered “opportunities and incentives” to change for themselves, rather than having behavioural change thrust upon them through means which engender feelings of guilt and helplessness rather than achieving the desired objectives.

See an extract from Lord Drayson’s speech on the websites of the Independent and the Times.

The Cheltenham Festival is taking place until Sunday 7 June. Find out more about events at the Festival.

Representatives of UK Learned Societies, including the BES, came together in London today for a Discussion Meeting on ‘International Capacity Building’. Many Learned Societies began life as ‘dining clubs’, or informal networks of researchers, and have grown over the past century into strong networks. The experience which Learned Societies have in network formation and delivering activities for the benefit of members of the network mean that such organisations are fantastically placed to assist researchers in developing countries – those wishing to form their own network or to tap into the resources offered by the wider research community.

Participants heard a number of presentations from Learned Societies actively engaged in innovative projects, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. COSPAR, the Committee for Space Research, runs a workshop, taking place in a different developing country each year, bringing students of space science together with lecturers to build skills based around a project of national interest. Funding is provided by the host Government or partner organisations. The scheme has been expanded to offer competitive Fellowships to those who have taken part in the workshop, offering participants the opportunity to spend a month in a lecturer’s lab.

A different, and no less innovative, model was provided by the London Mathematical Society, which offers a mentoring scheme to members in developing countries: ‘Mentoring African Research in Mathematics’. UK mathematicians are offered the chance to provide advice and guidance to young mathematicians in African countries, embedding themselves in a lab for two weeks. Offering advice on everything from how to submit a research paper successfully, how and where to apply for funding or simply raising the profile of the lab group in the university, the mentor allows researchers in developing countries to feel part of the international mathematics community, removing a sense of isolation which can militate against remaining in a career in science and technology.

The Royal Society provided a fantastic model of how to engage directly with researchers in developing countries, making sure that the programme delivered really does meet national need. In developing the recently launched ‘Leverhulme Trust – Royal Society Africa Awards’ and grants to facilitate collaborations, a number of workshops were held in Ghana, Tanzania and the UK, bringing researchers together with policy-makers to scope funding priorities.

Overall, the day provided a fantastic opportunity to share experience across the Learned Societies. It is clear that Learned Societies are active in this area, in different ways, and that by co-ordinating our activities, we can strengthen the efforts which are already being made.

Find out more about how the BES supports researchers in developing countries by viewing our Grants and Awards.

The Royal Society has managed the impressive feat of co-ordinating with 69 other science academies from around the world to write a formal Inter-Academy Panel statement on ocean acidification. The statement is to be launched this week in a very deliberately timed act to coincide with the UNFCCC talks currently under way in Bonn.

The acidification of the world’s oceans, like climate change, is a direct consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The Academies argue that deep and rapid cuts in CO2 emissions are the only solution, and point out that ocean acidification is not yet on the agenda for the UNFCCC Bonn or Copenhagen talks. The Academies therefore hope to use this statement to raise the profile of ocean acidification within the UNFCCC talks, and to encourage climate negotiators to consider the additional impacts of ocean acidification when discussing global emission reduction targets.

The statement emphasises the critical role of the oceans in the global carbon cycle: they have absorbed about a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by human activities since the industrial revolution. Rapid and irreversible changes in ocean chemistry have occurred as a direct result, with our seas now more acidic than they have been for 800,000 years. This acidification has significant implications for marine ecosystems. At current emission rates models suggest that all coral reefs and polar ecosystems will be severely affected by 2050 or potentially even earlier. Marine food supplies are likely to be reduced with significant implications for food production and security in regions dependent on fish protein, and human health and wellbeing.

The statement concludes that deep and rapid reductions of global CO2 emissions by at least 50% by 2050 and much more thereafter are needed, and calls on world leaders to:

-acknowledge that ocean acidification is a direct and real consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, that it is already having an effect at current concentrations, and that it is likely to cause grave harm to important marine ecosystems as CO2 concentrations reach 450 ppm and above;

- within the context of the UNFCCC negotiations, recognise the direct threats posed by increasing atmospheric CO2 emissions to the oceans and therefore society, and take action to mitigate this threat;

- reinvigorate action to reduce stressors, such as overfishing and pollution, on marine ecosystems to increase resilience to ocean acidification.

To view a copy of the Inter-Academy Panel Statement, please click here.

A member of the Policy Team today attended a very interesting set of talks by David Kennedy, Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), and Jonathan Brearley, Director of the Office of Climate Change.

Dr. Kennedy spoke first, highlighting the Committee’s work on the UK’s Carbon Budgets. There are actually two budgets- an ‘Interim Budget’, to be applied before there is a global deal, which calls for a 34% cut in emission below 1990 levels by 2020, and the ‘Intended Budget’, which will be applied once a global deal is achieved and calls for 42% cuts by 2020.

Of particular interest was his views on how the Committee believes all these ambitious targets can actually be achieved. Their research suggests that the power generation sector offers the biggest potential emission cuts (50 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxode by 2020), followed by residential buildings (32 Mt), transport (30Mt), non-residential buildings and industry (17 Mt) and agriculture (11Mt). This adds up to a total of 140 Mt i.e. enough to meet the Interim budget cuts of 34%.

He also argued that the energy policymakers’ nightmare- the ‘rebound effect’- had been taken into account in these projections. This effect is one of the most serious uncertainties and potential flaws in energy efficiency policy; it describes how both the public and industry are prone to spend any money saved by improved energy efficiency on other things, thereby increasing consumption and boosting the carbon emissions of other sectors. Whilst this effect has been clearly observed before, its scale is very hard to predict- an illustration of the enormous complexity involved in climate change mitigation policy.

Jonathan Brearley meanwhile spoke about the difficulties of getting the public to improve household energy efficiency, reminding the audience that despite the fact that policymakers have been trying to encourage this for over thirty years, people simply aren’t making the household investments required. He suggested three barriers to change- i) a lack of information, ii) the hassle of having insulation etc. work done, and iii) the upfront costs of investment/capital constraints. Hassle was identified as a particularly major problem, with Jonathan noting that Government would have to provide some major incentives to encourage change in this area.

All in all, an optimistic meeting with talks from two obviously very thoughtful men. The difficulty of communicating this policy complexity and thoughtfulness was clear however- David Kennedy attracted all sorts of negative attention last week, including being pilloried on Have I Got News For You, for his comment that he was giving up doner kebabs as part of an effort to rebalance his diet and reduce the carbon footprint of his food intake.