At the Commission for Climatology meeting in Turkey this week, the Met Office submitted a Proposal for a New International Analysis of Land Surface Air Temperature Data, a document which calls for a reassessment of more than 150 years of global temperature records. This is part of a new comprehensive approach for analysing temperature data in order to better assess the risks of dangerous climate change. This will help to strengthen decisions on adapting to the effects of global warming.

The proposal is being viewed as a bid to regain public confidence, at a time when public conviction about the threat of climate change has steeply declined: an Ipsos Mori survey published this week showed that the proportion of adults who believe that climate change is ‘definitely’ a reality has dropped from 44% to 31% during the last year. The poll of just over 1,000 people in Great Britain was taken at the end of January, shortly after the scandal concerning leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, where allegations were made that researchers had manipulated the evidence in order to support man-made global warming.

The proposal emphasises that no substantial changes in overall trends are expected as a result of the reassessment; the main purpose is to ensure that datasets are completely robust and methods are transparent.

Source: Guardian, 25th February

Last night saw the BES Policy Team attend the winter reception of the All Party Parliamentary Environment Group (APEG) at the Houses of Parliament. Delegates from NGOs and industry were joined by MPs and Prospective Parliamentary Candidates on the House of Commons Terrace, for an evening of networking and speeches from Jonathan Porritt, Peter Ainsworth MP and representatives of the energy sector.

Peter Ainsworth MP, Chair of the APEG, introduced the event by stressing the importance of highlighting the up-side of a transition to a low-carbon economy to the electorate. He praised those present from the renewable energy sector for taking advantage of opportunities to create jobs. This was a theme of the evening; the need to relate climate change and the alterations needed in society and to people’s lifestyles to their everyday concerns. In a time of economic hardship people are concerned about their jobs and livlihoods; the opportunities which a transition to a more sustainable society can bring need to be better articulated.

The event was sponsored by the Mark Group and by the Micropower Council and speakers from both bodies again stressed the positives to come from a low-carbon society. Feed-in tariffs, paying people for the electricity they generate in their own homes and feed back into the National Grid (whether through solar panels or roof-mounted wind turbines), have now been released and are due to come into force on 1st April. One speaker emphasised that generating your own electricity can now yield a return of 8% on your investment, ‘better than any bank’. Householders will need an excuse not to generate their own energy, speakers stressed.

Jonathan Porritt, former Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, praised the APEG and Peter Ainsworth in particular for work in parliament to raise the profile of environmental issues. However, politicians still haven’t woken up to the reality of what living within sustainable limits actually means, he said. Commenting on the environmental agenda for the next Parliament he saw it as unlikely that any new Prime Minister would take the difficult, innovative, decisions needed to move to a new form of economic system. He said, therefore, that backbench MPs and groups like the APEG would be more important than ever to highlight environmental concerns, particularly if no political party achieves a clear majority at the next election. He wished all the Prospective Parliamentary Candidates present luck with the election, urging them to enter parliament energised and with new ideas for reform. He stressed the need for them, and others present, to work hard to move other environmental issues up the agenda; these have not simply followed in the wake of climate change and more needs to be done to raise awareness of biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystem services – and what these too mean for society.

One powerful point made by Mr Porritt was directed at science and scientists. ‘The truth will not conquer all’, he suggested; the public will not simply accept that changes need to be made to their lifestyles if the science behind climate change is presented to them- the reality of public engagement with science is far more complex. Scientists have to be better communicators and must relate climate change to people’s everyday lives. Again, as with other speakers he stressed that the positive side of de-carbonising the economy, the wider suite of benefits it will bring to society, must be articulated.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) this weekend, Dr Ralph Cicerone, President of the US National Academy of Sciences, argued that there has been a general deterioration of the public’s faith in science, in America and in other countries, over the course of the past three months. American opinion polls point to the public’s growing lack of trust in science and in scientists. Catalysed by the leakage of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the incorporation of flawed data on the melting rates of Himalayan glaciers into a report from the Iintergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s, Dr Cicerone argued that public mistrust of science is now spreading beyond the science of climate change.

“I think the damage has spilled over to other kinds of science”, Dr Cicerone said at the conference on Saturday. I don’t think it’s fair, but we have to address our fundamentals in any case as we improve science. Let’s do it, and I hope we can set a new level of transparency and trust.” Dr Cicerone warned that continuing attacks on climate change science by sceptics would further damage public attitudes to science.

The ‘Thought for the Day’ piece on BBC Radio 4 this morning focused on public attitudes to science, calling for better funding for scientific research, leaving science and scientists less open to accusations of ‘collusion’ with industry and corporate interests in order to achieve funding for their work. Greater communication on the part of scientists was also highlighted as means to tackle public mistrust.

Scientists hit by climate doubt fallout: Independent, John van Radowitz, PA, Saturday 20 February

The Natural Capital Initiative has published an article for comment on the ‘Future Countryside’ website. Future Countryside has been established by the Shadow Environment Secretary, Conservative MP Nick Herbert, to debate new ideas in environment policy.

In the article members of the Natural Capital Initiative, a partnership between the Society of Biology, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the British Ecological Society, discuss whether movements towards valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services represent a paradigm shift amongst policy-makers and within the scientific community. Yet, say the NCI, policy is running far ahead of the ability to put an accurate ‘price’ on nature. The article calls for an approach which integrates monetary and other approaches to valuation as a way forward which reflects the true worth of society’s natural capital.

Have your say on the points raised in the article on the Future Countryside website.

A survey of the world’s reefs and sea mounts has revealed that deep-sea trawling is causing widespread destruction of marine habitats. Deep-sea trawlers drag giant nets over the seafloor, destroying habitat over huge areas. Cold water coral reefs in temperate regions are among the most threatened sites; these areas contain pristine habitats with many species which are new to science. Deep-sea reefs are particularly vulnerable to trawling, unlike shallow water reefs which are stronger because they need to withstand wave action.

Bans on deep-sea trawling exist in a number of sites around the world, including the biggest cold-water reef in the world, which is in Norway. However Jason Hall-Spencer, a researcher from Plymouth University involved with the survey, emphasises that more needs to be done. He calls for the establishment of an international network of marine reserves which ban deep-sea trawling.

Source: Guardian, 19th February 2010

A report being launched today at Bristol Zoo shows that 48% of the world’s 634 primate species, which includes apes, monkeys and lemurs, are threatened with extinction. The report, which was compiled by 85 primatologists, highlights the top 25 most endangered primate species, including the golden headed langur, found in north-eastern Vietnam, whose population is down to between 60 and 70 individuals. The main threats to primates are illegal logging, hunting and trade, and fragmentation of forests through fires.

The report aims to encourage governments to find resources to implement greater conservation measures. Indeed, there is evidence that conservation measures can be effective in helping primate species to recover: more than 30 years of conservation effort at zoos and by scientists enabled the black lion tamarin to be moved from “critically endangered” to “endangered” on the IUCN Red List.

The UN’s Redd programme (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) involves rich countries paying developing countries to maintain their forests in order to prevent further greenhouse gas emissions. The programme might also involve incentives for developing countries to plant more trees and would be highly valuable for primate conservation.

Source: Guardian, 18th January 2010

On 11th February the meeting “Is Biodiversity really under pressure?” was held at the Linnean Society. This was a joint meeting between the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and the Linnean Society of London, organised by Dr Peter Bridgewater FLS (JNCC) and Dr Sandy Knapp FLS.

The meeting included speeches by guest speakers on five categories of pressure that were identified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Habitat Loss, Pollution, Climate Change, Non- Native Species and Over Exploitation.

Following the speeches, the audience were asked to vote on the issues that had been raised which they considered the most important. The top results of this poll were as follows:

1. It is important to expand measures of wealth to incorporate natural capital
2. We should ‘disobey God’ by limiting reproduction in order to tackle overpopulation.
3. It is important to determine the impacts on ecosystem functioning and services and not just single species.

The meeting concluded with an address by Professor Bob Watson from Defra, who emphasised the consideration of multiple drivers of biodiversity loss, the importance of an ecosystem-based approach and the valuation of natural capital, among other issues.

The concept of monetising biodiversity, generating a ‘net present value’ for a polar bear or a ‘discount rate’ for seasonally dry tropical forest, might fill ecologists and conservationists with dread. Still reeling from the after-effects of the financial crisis, do we really trust the bankers to decide what is a sensible investment in our ecosystems? One man has been brave enough try – Pavan Sukhdev, a leading banker in Deutsche Bank, special advisor to the UN Green Economy Initiative, and study leader of TEEB, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, a ground-breaking report due for publication this autumn which aims to do just that.

Pavan Sukhdev addressed a packed audience last night at the SAID Business School, Oxford, at the 5th Oxford Earthwatch Lecture, jointly organised with the think tank SustainAbility. The event was co-chaired Elaine Dorward-King, Global Head of Health, Safety and the Environment at Rio Tinto, a leading mining concern with significant interests in the developing world.

Mr Sukhdev’s key question was to ask whether corporations can keep being profitable, and governments keep growing GDP, without measuring impacts on natural and human capital? Through excellent examples, he demonstrated the need to ‘internalise the externalities’; in other words, counting the cost of natural resources such as fresh water, clean air and an amenable climate which are normally taken for granted. A good case-study is the Rio de la Plata Basin, dubbed the granary of Latin America, which is worth about a trillion dollars per year. Rainfall in the Basin is dependant on water cycling provided by the Amazon Rainforest, but farmers pay nothing for the water supplied by intact rainforest. Pavan Sukhdev described this as the ‘economic invisibility of nature’. He requested that corporations begin to disclose their impacts on natural and human capital on their balance sheets, not just absolve them in a Corporate Social Responsibility report. Elaine Dorward-King, the representative from Rio Tinto, promised to take this on board.

Mr Sukhdev continued to describe the results of valuing natural capital insufficiently. Ecosystems generate wealth indirectly that is not valued but can be large, for example a mangrove forest could generate over $10,000/ha/yr through providing fish and storm protection. The cost of restoring a mangrove forest after it has been cut down is also non-significant. Weighing these two up over 40 years gives the internal rate of return on initial investment to maintain ecosystems, which for mangroves is 40% and for grasslands, 70%. To put this in perspective, your bank account is probably around 1%. For this reason, Mr Sukhdev stated that the economics can not only save wild nature, but wild nature could also save the economy.

Pavan Sukhdev addressed a packed audience in Westminister at a parliamentary event organised by the BES and Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management in October 2009. Find out more about this under ‘Policy Meetings and Events’ on the BES website.

A new report, commsissioned by Defra and produced by Imperial College and the Zoological Society of London, casts doubt on the effectiveness of badger culling in reducing the incidence of bovine TB in the UK. The report examines the aftermath of the Krebbs random badger culling trials which took place between 1998 – 2005.

Speaking to the BBC, Professor Christl Donnelly, lead author of the report from Imperial College London, said that “although badger culling reduced cattle bovine TB during the trial and immediately thereafter, our new study shows that the beneficial effects are not sustained, disappearing four-years post-cull.” The report also suggests that savings to the Government and to farmers, through reduced bovine TB incidence in cattle, are two to three times lower than the cost of culling badgers.

Wales is preparing to instigate a badger cull later this year. Dr Christianne Glossop, Chief Veterinary Advisor in Wales, commenting on the findings of the report, said that the Welsh approach would not be the same as that used in the Krebbs trials and would instead see a limited cull couple with strict cattle control measures, over a limited area and for a sustained period. Dr Glossop said that she anticipated that the badger cull in Wales would be successful.

Professor Rosie Woodroffee, Senior Research Fellow at the ZSL, appeared on the BBC’s Today Programme this morning at 7am, commenting on the report. The programme is available to listen to again online.

More information on badgers and bovine TB is available from the BES website.

David Dickson, Director of SciDev.net, has written a very interesting piece on the network’s website, discussing the importance of effective science communication in stemming the loss of biodiversity. He states that scientists and others working to tackle biodiversity loss and climate change face ‘formidable challenges’ in presuading political leaders and the public to take action. In part, he says, the failure to tackle biodiversity loss effectively to date, missing the 2010 biodiversity target to achieve “a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss”, is due to poor communication on the part of scientists and the media.

Mr Dickson criticises the scientific community for poorly articulating the importance of biodiversity to decision-makers, relating it to people’s everyday lives and concerns. New targets agreed at the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan, in October this year, must be accompanied by a ’sophisticated communications strategy’ to avoid a continuation of this mistake. ‘Biodiversity’ as a term is itself flawed, he argues, lacking concreteness which could galvanise public support. In moving forwards, the piece argues, scientists should firm up the science behind an understanding of biodiversity and its importance and must embed this science in viable, sustainable, economic growth and development strategies. Media coverage must relate biodiversity to people’s concerns such as jobs, health and food.

The BES and Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management launched a position statement on halting UK biodiversity loss in October 2009. Read more here.