In his second and third interview George Monbiot meets Fatih Birol, the International Energy Authority’s chief economist, and Shaun Spiers, head of the “anti environmental” organisation the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Britain’s leading green commentator tackles the International Energy Authority’s chief economist, who reveals for the first time a startling and worrying prediction for the date of peak oil.

Watch the second interview on the Guardian!

In the third of his groundbreaking encounters with the figures whose decisions shape our environment, George Monbiot gives the head of the countryside watchdog, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, an unforgettable grilling, asking why it opposes windfarms - but not opencast coal mines

Watch the third interview on the Guardian!

Be also sure to check out the very first interview with Yvo de Boer, the current Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Photo credit: go_greener_oz

With Parliament in recession for Christmas and the Christmas-New Year holiday), the pro-Coal Australian Government that presides over the Developed World’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and the World’s biggest coal exporter - climate criminal Australia - has finally announced commitment to a derisory “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020”.

This appalling decision has drawn trenchant criticism from Australian scientists and environmentalists (indeed a courageous young woman protestor who shouted “NO!” was hauled from the Australian PM’s press conference. This appalling decision is in stark contrast to the Climate Emergency Facts (from top Australian and world climate scientists) and the Climate Emergency Actions required to deal with the Climate Emergency that are summarized at the end of this article (see “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group’s website.).

I have presented below a very detailed critique of this appalling, irresponsible, selfish and incompetent decision by the extreme right wing, Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government - a decision which, if adopted globally, would be tantamount to Terracide (destruction of the Earth’s Bisophere) and global Climate Suicide. A top Australian climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman responded to the Australian Government’s “5% off by 2020” by saying that we need to keep atmospheric CO2 to below 450 ppm to avoid a catastrophic 2 degrees C temperature rise and that means global 25%-50% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020.

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Photo credit: izzie_whizzie

Yesterday it was revealed that on November 28 one activist managed to breach the coal-powered Kingsnorth plant, one of the most heavily guarded power stations in Britain. The activist singlehandedly managed to get in, stop the power station and get out the same way without being noticed or caught by the security on site.

The £12m defences of the most heavily guarded power station in Britain have been breached by a single person who, under the eyes of CCTV cameras, climbed two three-metre (10ft) razor-wired, electrified security fences, walked into the station and crashed a giant 500MW turbine before leaving a calling card reading “no new coal”. He walked out the same way and hopped back over the fence.

As a result the coal-powered Kingsnorth plant was shut down for hours, which apparently reduced the climate change emissions in the UK by 2%.

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Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters have launched a “Reality Coalition” to tell the American public that there is no “clean coal”.

“The reality is that there’s not a single home or business in America today powered by clean coal,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “If coal really wants to be part of America’s energy future, the industry can start by making a real commitment to eliminating their pollution that is a leading cause of global warming.”

Hardwick continued: “It is high time for the coal industry to come clean and admit to the American people that today clean coal is not a reality. No matter how much they say it in their advertising, coal can’t truly be clean until the plants can capture global warming pollution. With so much at stake, we can’t afford to hang our hats on an illusion.”

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Photo credit: World Resources Institute Staff

Al Gore talked about the failing auto industry in USA, “clean coal” and the environmental work being done in China in a recent interview with Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria.

In the interview Gore said that he thinks that the whole auto industry needs to be “transformed”, and that the auto makers in USA “should make a transition as quickly as possible toward plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”

ZAKARIA: Would you bail out the carmakers?
GORE: Whatever assistance might be forthcoming should be focused on speeding the changes that are absolutely essential to ensure that our companies are competitive in the global marketplace. When I was vice president, I initiated a program called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. The federal government invested over a billion dollars in partnership with the Big Three to focus on the accelerated development of advanced high-efficiency vehicles. But as soon as they felt they were off the hook at the end of 2000, they pulled the plug and walked away.

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If you live in northern Europe you might have heard about a new “climate manifesto” from Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish government.

With this “climate manifesto” Vattenfall is a trying to influence politicians and governments to put a global price on CO2 emissions, support (read financial support) climate friendly technologies and implement climate requirements for products. It all sounds good but this is just another greenwashing campaign from a dirty energy company.

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Photo credit: World Economic Forum

In an article in the New York Times, titled “The Climate for Change,” Al Gore lays out his climate and energy plan, which he says is needed “to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.”

In the article Gore points out that IPCC has after years of detailed study and four unanimous reports now said that the evidence for man-made climate change is “unequivocal.” Climate change deniers need to “wake up” and that “our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.”

Gore says his five-part energy and climate plan, where USA commits to produce 100% of the electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years, will help solve the climate and the economic crisis while creating “millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced”.

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Action on the Maasvlakte: activists plant 18 flags, one for each nationality at the camp

As part of their global Quit Coal Campaign, Greenpeace activists from 18 different countries have today occupied the construction site of a new E.ON coal fired power plant on the Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The construction of the plant has halted and the activists say they will stay until the coal plant is cancelled.

“E.ON is ignoring all science around climate change by insisting on plans to construct eight new European coal fired power plants. The plant in Rotterdam is intended to be the first, even though it has not yet been granted the necessary permits. The previous evening the activists put up tents, next to the building site, to bear witness to the unfolding climate disaster. Then at first light they moved onto the site, paralysing the construction of the plant.”

The activists have locked themselves onto strategic points at the construction site and occupied the building cranes.

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In light of the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Poznan, between 1st - 14th of December, Greenpeace have set up a “Climate Rescue Station” on the edge of a coal mine. The four storey tall station “will be used as a platform to tell the world that we can save the climate, but only if we quit coal, the most polluting of all fossil fuels”.

The Climate Rescue Station, which is powered by wind and solar energy, will have representatives from 15 different countries and is part of Greenpeace’s global Quit Coal campaign. The campaign is led by the flagship the Rainbow Warrior, who is currently urging governments and energy companies “to give coal the boot”.

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Photo credit: Photo Mojo

John McCain, the Republican Presidential candidate, who failed to mention climate change in his acceptance speech, who picked a climate change denier as his running mate, who won’t regulate greenhouse gases, whose energy plan is mainly about offshore drilling and nuclear energy is continuing on his failed environmental and energy trail.

While campaigning in coal-rich Pennsylvania, the Washington Post reports, McCain promised he is a “coal booster” and that he would encourage the export of coal to other countries. He also claimed that coal will “create hundreds of thousands of jobs”.

“My friends, you know what Senator Obama said about a year ago, he said he had not been a, quote, coal booster,” he said, as the crowd booed. “My friends, I’ve been a coal booster and it’s going to create jobs, and we’re going to export coal to other countries and we are going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That’s going to help restore the economy of the great state of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

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