
Fracking equipment ready for use at Cuadrilla’s shale gas site at Preston New Road, 5 October 2018. Photo: Danny Vc Llew
UK anti-fracking campaigners claimed their case against shale gas was supported by today’s international report on the actions needed to limit global warming to 1.5 ºC.
The UK government made no reference to shale gas in its response to the assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the onshore oil and gas industry said carbon capture and storage and extracting hydrogen from methane could be cost-effective decarbonisation options.
The IPCC report concluded that limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.
It said there would need to be “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This meant that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.
Allowing the global temperature to temporarily exceed or ‘overshoot’ 1.5ºC would mean a greater reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global temperature to below 1.5ºC by 2100, the report said. The effectiveness of such techniques were unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable development, it noted. Link to the report
DrillOrDrop has been looking at the reaction to the report.
“Urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions”
Claire Perry, energy and clean growth minister
“I welcome the strong scientific analysis behind today’s IPCC report and it’s conclusions are stark and sober. As policy makers we need to work together to accelerate the low carbon transition to minimise the costs and misery of a rapidly warming world.
“In the UK we have shown great leadership with the passage of the world’s first Climate Change Act a decade ago, the most rapid decarbonisation in the G7 and a comprehensive Clean Growth Strategy detailing policies to cut carbon right across the economy. Our upcoming Green GB Week from October 15 will help us reflect on this progress but also the urgent need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions globally.”
“Need for democratic control and public interest decision making
Rebecca Long Bailey, shadow business, energy and industrial strategy secretary
“Today’s IPCC report is sobering – a call for transformative action to avoid dangerous climate change. That is Labour’s offer to the public. But we must be honest: it is something the Conservatives will never be able to deliver.”
She said it was not a lack of knowledge or technology that prevented action.
“What we do lack is an economic system in which major decisions about resource use are under democratic control.
“We also lack a political and economic system in which decisions are made in the public interest, for the many not the few.
“We need democratic control and public interest decision making to tackle climate change – but these two things are anathema to conservatives. That is why a Tory administration could never deliver on the scale required. Fracking is just one example of this.”
“Ban on fracking”
Bill Esterson, shadow energy and international trade minister
“CCS and methane reforming cost-effective options”
Ken Cronin, chief executive, UK Onshore Oil and Gas
“The Committee on Climate Change have expressed that ‘Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is part of the cost-effective pathway for an emissions reduction of 80% by 2050, and its absence could double the cost of achieving this reduction. CCS becomes even more important for deeper reductions by 2050 and is essential to reach net-zero emissions, committed to under the Paris Agreement’
“Several pieces of analysis have concluded that the least cost decarbonisation for sectors such as heating and industry involves methane reforming with CCS. The alternative requires a costlier and more intrusive intervention into the UK’s homes and businesses.
“As the UK has a 50% gas import dependency, which is forecast to increase to almost 75% by 2035 without UK shale gas production – the UK would have to achieve its decarbonisation targets with higher carbon imported gas, such as LNG and long distance pipeline.”
“Government pushing us towards climate tipping point”
Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP and former leader
“Today’s IPCC report is unequivocal: renewables need to supply 70-85% of ower by 2050.
“Fracking will put us on a dangerous path towards climate breakdown.”
“Government not on track to make changes”
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader, Green Party

“Time is running out”
Friends of the Earth

Rachel Kennerley, Friends of the Earth climate campaigner, said:
“Political will can get us out of this and the UK government can choose whether to heed this report’s findings. Currently, they’re choosing to ignore the full weight of scientific consensus and are directly funding climate chaos by supporting fracking and other dirty industries.”
“Consequences of new fracking industry can’t be ignored”
Greenpeace UK
“This is the last call for humanity’s journey to a liveable planet. From this point on, action on climate change can’t be kicked into the long grass. We’re now playing catch-up to limit the irreversible damage it will do.
“Every decision made by our government will have serious impacts on people’s lives and livelihoods. No longer can the UK government ignore the consequences of starting a new fracking industry, expanding aviation or failing to phase out polluting cars and deal with energy-wasting homes.
“As the room for mistakes shrinks and the cost grows, Theresa May’s government should rise to the challenge laid down by the world’s leading scientists and make Britain a true climate leader. Our children and grandchildren are watching and will remember.”
“Fracking is increasingly dangerous climate denial”
Keith Taylor Green Party MEP
“When climate scientists across the world are telling political leaders that the only way to avoid climate catastrophe is to remake the human world within a generation, it is unconscionable that the Tories are still pushing ahead with plans to fast-track the dangerous exploitation of new climate-destructive shale gas reserves. And planning to bypass local democracy in the process.
“Fracking has never been compatible with our binding climate commitments under the Paris agreement. Today’s IPCC report makes clear the brutal reality of the impact of global warming exceeding 1.5c. Failure to keep below that limit is assured if the Tories press ahead with fracking.
“Rather than jailing the fracking protesters heroically defending our planet and our future, Ministers must wake up and take urgent action to drop their support for the climate-destructive fossil fuel industry. Fracking is a form of increasingly dangerous climate denial.”
“We can’t have any new fossil fuels”
Fossil Free UK

“Why is UK fracking?
Frack Off London
“Today the IPCC stated to keep global warming to 1.50C in low-carbon energy technologies & energy efficiency would need to approximately double in the next 20 years, while investment in fossil fuels extraction and conversion decrease by a quarter. So why is UK fracking?”
Categories: Research

Just seen BBC NW Tonight. Labour MP seeking votes & campaigners only interviewed about PNR. As usual total bias from regional BBC News. In breach of their charter!
Can anyone answer this starter for 10?
Why do pro-frackers believe that the only export from China is a solar panel…….
‘In 2017, the UK’s single largest import from China was telecoms
equipment, valued at £5.7 billion, representing 14% of all UK goods
imports from China, followed by miscellaneous manufactured articles (a
category that includes plastic articles, toys, games and sporting goods)
valued at £5.2 billion, representing 13% of all UK goods imports from
China. Other imports from China included clothing and apparel, valued
at £4.0 billion (10% of goods imports), electrical machinery and
equipment, valued at £3.8 billion (9% of goods imports) and office
machinery, valued at £3.4 billion (8% of all goods exports).
Combined, these five products groups comprised 54% of all UK goods
imports from China’
BRIEFING PAPER
Number 7379, 31 July 2018
by Matthew Ward
House of Commons Library
£5.2 billion of plastic tat!
Get real people!!
Looks like the BEEB are p!$$£d off with the blues again…..
No. Today’s report changes nothing. There never was an argument for UK shale.
In order to minimise the effect of climate change you need to use the least damaging energy source.
in the UK that would be energy sourced from wind, tidal, and solar.
Any sane Government would maximise on those energy sources. This Government has chosen not to. Far from it.
If we did maximise our renewable potential, maximise on energy saving, and still needed more energy we would burn our least damaging readily available fossil fuel. That would be North sea gas.
There are decades left of reserves, full infrastructure in place, and a skilled workforce of well over 400,000.
North sea gas is far cheaper to produce than shale could ever be.
We choose to export around the same amount of gas as we import in LNG. We could therefore stop importing LNG and use home grown North sea but as we have a £1.5 billion annual trade deal with Qatar there would be politics decisions to be considered.
Even with our Government trying to curb renewables we are told,
“The overall demand for gas including heating gradually decreases and is replaced by renewables”
Natural gas use is projected to fall by 24% between 2016 and 2035. Currently, the amount of natural gas used for electricity generation approximately equals that used for cooking and heating in households. However, the amount of gas used for electricity generation is projected to decrease by 70% whereas the amount used by households is projected to increase by around 17% over this period.
By 2035 renewables will be producing 180 TWh of electric generation whereas gas will only be producing 40 TWh.
After 2025 our import requirements will be dropping
Click to access Updated_energy_and_emissions_projections_2016.pdf
So there we have it. UK shale has nothing to offer to combat the effects of climate change. It never did have.
Sherwulfe – the art of scientific investigation is asking the right question. “Why do pro-frackers believe that the only export from China is a solar panel…….” Is not what I said. I said solar panels and other other consumer goods. By the way the statistics you gave “electrical machinery and equipment, valued at £3.8 billion (9% of goods imports)” may well include solar panels. Whist we are on it. PV solar panels cannot produce the carbon payback of their manufacture & fitting in the UK as our country is too far north & cloudy. Also their is no legislation to have them fiited optimally or maintained correctly. As a means of energy security they do have some value – but not much in winter! https://www.solarguide.co.uk/cheap-chinese-solar-panels-proving-popular-in-the-uk#/
And this is the reality of our pathetic governments utter failure to prevent anthropogenic wildlife species extinction in SSSI in UK, on the now, typical excuse grounds that
That Natural England, the government’s nature regulator “There is not enough money and they are too stretched”:
However, bombing civilians and hospitals in Syria seems perfectly well funded?
“The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a long standing target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.
The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.
The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50% of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.
But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7% of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.
The new target is just 0.07% higher than the current level.
An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.
That sounds familiar doesnt it?
“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”
Now that comment could be just as appropriate for the fracking debacle, do they have any opinion? No, remember that they dont keep any records to make any scientific evaluation upon, so what they dont know cant be held against them.
Didnt i read somewhere that ignorance is no excuse in law? But of course, where human rights, community freedom to exercise self determination to reject industrialisation by invading oil and gas operators, and where wildlife the health of our countryside and rural sacrifice zones is concerned, there is no applicable law and such considerations are overruled and ignored anyway?
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/09/30/wildlife-sssi-sites-target-natural-england/
‘PV solar panels cannot produce the carbon payback of their manufacture & fitting in the UK as our country is too far north & cloudy’
.Actually
‘Under typical UK conditions, 1m2 of PV panel will produce around 100kWh electricity per year, so it will take around 2.5 years to “pay back” the energy cost of the panel’.
http://info.cat.org.uk/questions/pv/what-energy-and-carbon-payback-time-pv-panels-uk/
There is of course some energy cost to add on for installation but panels can last 25 – 30 years so plenty to spare.
As a means of energy security UK shale has no value as it has no advantages over our other diverse range of energy sources.
How many times have we been told that the end is nigh? It’s alarmist nonsense again. The IPCC’s models have been grossly wrong for years now but the MSM keeps repeating the BS. The subject is vastly more complicated than this. There’s a great post on Judith Curry .com recently about how the increase in CO2 is creating a greaner planet for starters. For the record i’m anti fracking.
So, Jim. Whilst I understand you skepticism – and who wouldn’t question the end of days, especially those who think it’s someone else’s responsibility to ‘fix’ it? – these reports are drawn from a build up of data that is ongoing, therefore will change as more time and resources are committed to the problem. I don’t believe anyone has the correct answer, we have been skirting the issue for too long, but I do see the changes which correlate with the models.
My concern is +0.5 degrees in 12 years; if indeed this process is escalating faster than the original forecasts, does that mean we may well be out of time in less than half a century – that means everyone alive today will be affected; I wonder will than spur us on, or will we carry on regardless with the inevitable outcome?
If, today, you were standing on the edge of a cliff, would you wait and wait until it inevitably crumbled and sent you crashing to your death, or would you step back and enjoy the view?
“There’s a great post on Judith Curry .com recently about how the increase in CO2 is creating a greaner planet for starters.”
Nice try Jim but its not true i am afraid, the myth is convenient to the fossil fuel industry but simply not true, to repeat your own phrase “The subject is vastly more complicated than this” there are many studies that produce quite the opposite conclusions.
Click to access 1606734113.full.pdf
Even The Guardian reported that here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/sep/19/new-study-undercuts-favorite-climate-myth-more-co2-is-good-for-plants.
Both Exxon/Mobil and Shell produced scientific projections of the global effects of concentrating on one fossil fuel source of power generation and domestic and industrial use. Both scientific teams concluded that the long term effects would be irreversible climate change but the scientific teams were silenced and both Exxon and Shell have been trying to jam the worms back in the can in court and by any other means ever since.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/exxon-and-the-oil-industry-knew-about-climate-change/exxons-climate-denial-history-a-timeline/
What actually happens with the effects of too much CO2 and methane, dont forget methane, is that the effects of global warming….climate change have a long term negative effect.
Also the evidence is that it is not CO2 but Nitrogen that increases plant growth and too much CO2 actually weakens the plant structure and makes them too extended and they become in danger of collapse in high winds, another greenhouse effect. The chemistry chlorophyll, the prime generator of flora growth, which is amazingly 99.9% efficient compared to a miserable 20-35% max efficiency of fossil fuels generation, demands for the right amount of sunlight at the right ambient temperature and a regular amount of moisture in the soil and the air to allow for the plant to use its almost magical plant photosynthesis to survive.
The problem with increased levels of CO2 is that it produces a number of negative effects on the climate, the greenhouse effect, which is well known, and increased level of ultraviolet radiation at ground level due the the depletion of the ozone layer which allows UV radiation to burn the leaf tissue, the air and soil becomes drier eventually due to the UV radiation effect and the burning away of the moisture in the atmosphere, preventing the shield effect, the increased growth for a short period is therefore countermanded by the longer term effects.
it is always interesting to look at the processes that caused the great Permian extinction, these were that as the earths continents drifted apart and then clashed together, that caused an increased level of volcanic activity to the point where the skys were obscured by ash and clouds of toxic chemicals and acid rain from the outouring of CO2 causes the rain that does fall to be highly acidic and that burns the plants leaf structure. The final blow in the great Permian extinction was that the greenhouse effect heated up the atmosphere so much, the ice poles melted and released the vast amounts of methane that were trapped in the permafrost and the ocean bottom. As we all now know methane has approximately 20 times the greenhouse effect of CO2 and the continuous outpouring caused it to remain at high levels in the atmosphere.
At the end of the Permian, conditions became unsuitable for most life and about 95% of marine species were eliminated as well as 70% of terrestrial species in a very short period of time.
http://www.eartharchives.org/articles/the-great-permian-extinction-when-all-life-on-earth-almost-vanished/
So, sorry, nice try but as you say, “The subject is vastly more complicated than this”, we have seen the recent effects of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere and even in this geologically short time of two hundred years or so, the long term effects have manifested themselves in rapidly increasing high temperatures, rapidly accelerated fluctuations in local and global weather anomalies, such as the highest ever recorded temperatures, the fastest ever recorded hurricane and tornado speeds, the highest ever recorded rainfall and ice and hailstone falls, flooding and tsunamis, several super-storms in the same location, one after the other, and in anthropogenic terms, billions on costs, loss of life and homes and ecologies due to land and ocean species being intolerant of temperature and acidity changes, evacuations and health scares, wildlife extinctions, crop failures, due to floods and droughts and increases in energy and food costs.
Interesting comment there about solar, Nick.
Recent feedback in my area:
One guy added panels to his stable roof. In winter, on a bright sunny day, it produces 13p worth of electricity! (Someone didn’t calculate for the angle of the sun in winter, and another roof supplied a shadow.)
Second, young couple, decided to invest around £15k to do the “right” thing. No-one told them the real output and how often the panels would need cleaning (yes, on the roof) to maintain even that. Never again, was their decision. (And that is before they have time to realise how soon they will need to be replaced.)
Third-we now have a solar farm that covers land that was decent agricultural land. Built by a gang who came over from Poland and drove back with their money. Good luck to them. Now that the agricultural land has been deemed fit for a solar “farm” it is open season reference planning, and the first housing estate is currently under construction.
Alternative can be an excuse for many vested interests to make hay-as yesterday’s media coverage of the UN report demonstrated quite well. Yes, I know alternative can be done properly, but invariably isn’t when doing the right thing is used to excite action. You get a lot of action from headless chickens-initially.
Perhaps you need to do more research Dr Nick, The UK is better suited for the latest solar as the power is not generated just on sunny days. I suggest if you speak to people who actually use them; but of course, your collusion with a certain drilling company may prevent you from doing this in the small print?
You often quote synonymously solar panel and chinese imports.
So back to the breakdown, am sure the 9% does include solar panels, but not exclusively, however the other 91+%?
But, predictably we have been moved off point.
Another ostrich
Ahh, yes, the convenient ‘I know someone’ spin MC; I could start a fish farm with all these red herrings……
This is where we should be concentrating research on high efficiency solar panels 34.5% efficient and the constituents are available without the need for exploitation of exotic mineral mining and the slavery that engenders.
“The previous record of 24 percent was held by a large, 800-square centimetre solar cell produced by a US company, but these new photovoltaic cells aren’t only more efficient, they also cover far less surface area, which means they’re going to make solar power even cheaper.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/engineers-just-created-the-most-efficient-solar-cells-ever
No Chinese imports, headless chickens or red or blue herrings required.
Trump dumps EPA but even Trumps own administration secretly prepares for the worst whilst publishing their own unsourced reduced projections and recommends a rollback of what few existing environmental regulations to the favour oil and gas exploration production and proliferation.
1 OCT 2018
“Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous seven degrees Fahrenheit (3.9 degrees Celsius) by the end of this century.
He noted that NHTSA document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100.”
“I was shocked when I saw it,” Pettit said in a phone interview. “These are their numbers. They aren’t our numbers.”
“In one internal White House memo, officials wondered whether it would be best to simply “ignore” such analyses.
In this context, the draft environmental impact statement from NHTSA – which simultaneously outlines a scenario for very extreme climate change, and yet offers it to support an environmental rollback – is simply the latest apparent inconsistency.
David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified against Trump’s freeze of car mileage standards Monday in Fresno, Calif., said his organization is prepared to use the administration’s own numbers to challenge its regulatory rollbacks.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/government-report-reveals-the-trump-administration-is-already-preparing-for-the-worst-when-it-comes-to-climate-change
Click to access ld_cafe_my2021-26_deis_0.pdf
Apparently, like our own government, they can and do make it up as they go along?
Pseudo science anyone?
“I suggest you speak to people who use them”-yep, good idea Sherwulfe. I did. Wise old owl, not ostrich.
Interesting that when someone actually does as you suggest, then the result of those conversations-if inconvenient- must be fiction and not fact!
Hmmm. Display of insecurity there. But thanks for the demonstration of the anti truth approach. Will excite the two thirds to await the real truth.
Let’s just concentrate on getting other countries off their reliance on coal shall we. And please don’t anyone come out with that rubbish about gas being as bad.
On another note. I only found out yesterday that Corbyn has a brother,Piers, whom apparently denies climate change is even happening. All orchestrated by big energy companies if he were to be believed. He even denies that the coral reef is vanishing.
Interesting that the antis still believe what Jeremy tells them.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1028681/Piers-Corbyn-climate-change-report-IPCC-United-Nations-UN-news-global-warming
Oh by the way I don’t read the Express I heard him live on LBC but when researching his details that was first article that came up. I know you antis like to dismiss your own media outlets in favour of RT so don’t want anyone getting themselves all worked up for nothing.
No let’s get our own house in order before sticking our unwanted imperialist noses into other countries concerns. Only then will we be in any position to be giving out advice.
GBK …….lets be clear on this.
Jeremy Corbyn is very much in favour of strong action to combat climate change .
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-big-six-energy-companies-nationalisation-public-ownership-fracking-ban-climate-change-a8204031.html
It is also worth noting , that there are also a growing number of Conservative MP’s that are saying NO to FRACKING
Really, Jack?
Well, if you follow his meanderings through the Brexit process he is only in favour of which way he thinks the wind is blowing at the time. His record on such things suggests that his weather cock spins like it is on some sort of illegal substance and the media are quite willing to allow it to go unquestioned as it creates a new story each time. That’s what oppositions can do when there are “interviewers” who follow the script given to them by minders and will be outed as the Tory controlled media if they dare to go off script.
Interesting little rant there crembrule. So, you feel we should be buying more oil from Saudi, and accept it is none of our business what they get up to? A lot of sacrifices required on the anti alter to keep the green gods smiling. More Aztec than anti.
No rant at all Martin, perhaps you can explain to me why any developed or developing nation should take advice how to run their own affairs by the U.K. particularly in light of our past record and our current policies?
Interesting that you bring up the Saudis as it would appear we are more than happy to appease their every whim to ensure ongoing sales of armaments.
Funnily enough if I recall correctly significant proportions of the Al Yamamha BAe deal in the 80s was paid for in crude. A deal that eventually ended up with dropped SFO cases following Government interventions and a plea bargain of $400m in the US.
So are we really in any position to take a holier that though attitude globally?
MARTIN ,
This couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Pro-Frackers, like yourself, must be very bitter towards Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, after all they have promised to listen to the British people and completely BAN FRACKING in the UK. Now I know that must hurt Shale investors a lot .
Your above post, once again is only your opinion, backed up with SWEET NOTHINGS . This desparate clutching at straws and the spitting out of a barrage of unsubstantiated verble abuse against Jeremy Corbyn, is quite preposterous .
So for the members of this forum … WHO DO YOU SAY, out of all the UK political parties, has an honest and trustworthy leader ?????
Why should they take advice from the UN then crembrule? Their record is equally open to scrutiny. But, reports are a good way to try and attract other sources of funding when your biggest source dries up.
The reality will be that does not work, and those who can start to do more will be followed by others of a like mind if that works well. However, if it does not work well it will do more harm than good. UK householders already pay around £105 a year on average to subsidise wind, solar and energy efficiency measures. To achieve 80% reduction on emissions by 2050 will be difficult, but 100% will require massive investment which will add to that cost. That cost also makes most businesses struggle to compete. So, transition not revolution will happen. We are quite good at that in UK as our current progress on emissions show.
Opposition parties and individuals can preach revolution, but wasting tax payers money when in power may be revolutionary but it is also suicidal, as the unemployment levels shoot up.
“ Why should they take advice from the UN then crembrule? Their record is equally open to scrutiny.“
Is it?
MARTIN ,
I’m sorry to say, THE PARTIES OVER .
Whatever the cost, the UK and the world as a whole will have to face up to the fact that we now have to almost eliminate all forms of Carbon emissions and/or offset any Carbon emissions we do emit with equal Carbon capture/elimination programs .. That’s a FACT and it has to happen RIGHT NOW .
FRACKING is an energy intensive way to extract fossil fuels …( it takes a lot of energy/resources to extract a little.) It basically is a process of scrapping the bottom of the fossil fuel barrel. This is one form of energy that is definitely not needed in a world that has to tackle such serious climate change problems.
Now I know you like to always bring money in to the equation to back up your stance .
So for ALL THE MEMBERS of this forum . What will be the financial cost for the UK and other countries around the world if we fail to immediately act on Climate Change ????
Well said Jack; and in the meantime, while the pro-frackers are putting pointless ostrich induced PR to appease their masters, the world turns, ever more warmer, choking on the very stuff they call a ‘safe’ alternative.
There is no more argument, ifs buts or maybes; work together or we die; even Noah’s boat won’t save this one…….