Sorry, it took longer than I thought. The trouble with being an environment journalist is there are so many things happening at once sometimes it is hard to keep up extra projects like the “Ice Blog”. I have been working on all the material I brought back from a trip to Scotland (looking mainly at renewable energies), but at the same time following climate policy in different parts of the globe, President Obama’s disappointing concessions to the oil industry, preparations for the Bonn talks, etc.
Anyway, this is a picture taken at Whitelee windfarm. It’s the biggest onshore windfarm in Europe, with 140 turbines, situated in southern Scotland, close to the small village of Eaglesham.

Eaglesham is a conservation village, not far from the city of Glasgow, but a world apart, in many ways.
You can see from the picture it has the old-fashioned charm of a traditional Scottish village. I find the contrast to the high-tech windfarm just along the road fascinating. I think it’s very typical of 21st century Scotland, that combination of traditionalist features and modern technology. Of course people disagree about the effect of windfarms like this on the landscape etc, but given the advantages of wind power over fossil fuel plants, you have to compromise somewhere.
The devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh has given top priority to renewable energy. While I was there,licenses were granted for marine energy projects, wave and tidal devices, off the northern coast of Scotland and Orkney. The experts and politicians say this could one day provide 10% of Europe’s energy requirement. The Pentland Firth, between the Scottish mainland and Orkney, has tremendous currents and so energy potential.
The Scottish government has high targets for increasing the share of renewables and reducing its emissions. They reject the pro-nuclear stance of the UK government in Westminster. A small country with just over 5 million people seeing itself as a kind of “laboratory”, bringing all the stakeholders together to come up with energy solutions that could serve as models for others? Sounds good? It might sound too much like political rhetoric, but I also interviewed Duncan McLaren, the CEO of Friends of the Earth Scotland, and his organisation backs up the Scottish figures and says the country can exceed its target of 55% renewable electricty by 2020 and reach the target earlier.

Your ice blogger has been in Scotland over the past week, intrigued by claims by the country’s First Minister (Scotland is part of the UK but has a devolved parliament in Edinburgh) Alex Salmond that Scotland could become the “Saudi Arabia” of renewable energy, in particular marine energy.
The country is well suited to develop tidal, wave and wind energy and some interesting announcements were made while I was there.
Scotland has ambitious emissions reductions targets, higher than those of the UK as a whole.
More anon, when I have processed some of the material I collected. There should be some photos here by tomorrow at the latest.

There is a danger of climate change sliding into the background. Recently I talked to Professor Mojib Latif, one of Germany’s leading experts on climate change. He said he thought people have a natural tendency to try to find ways of avoiding doing unpleasant things – like changing your lifestyle to reduce emissions. He’s still optimistic overall, though.
Today I received some info about an art project to draw attention to climate change by having sculptures created on icebergs and letting everybody follow the iceberg’s progress online. Interesting? Or just a gimmick? Judge for yourself here. I’ll be interested to hear peoples reactions:
The Cool Emotion Iceberg Sculpture project
The IPCC has appointed a “watchdog”, it seems, to try to avoid any more damaging errors making their way into the reports. The Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council, or IAC, will be bringing out a report on its review of the IPCC procedure by August.
Meanwhile, the negotiators are gearing up for the next round of preparatory talks here in Bonn for the “big meeting” in Mexico towards the end of the year. They’re starting early, in May.
I’ll try to keep you posted on any important developments.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had some interesting talks with US experts and journalists on a study tour to Hamburg and Copenhagen recently.
I put some of what I learned from them into a report.
There’s a short version on this week’s edition of Living Planet:
Sign of hope in US?
After the announcement that Yvo de Boer is resigning, it’s also been announced the next round of preparatory talks for the big Mexico summit at the end of the year have been brought forward to April. I’m not surprised they’re moving earlier, but it doesn’t make me feel any more optimistic.

Somehow I wasn’t really surprised to hear yesterday that Yvo de Boer, who has headed the UNFCCC, the climate secretariat, since 2006, was resigning as of July 1st.
I can remember interviewing him when he first came to Bonn and having the feeling this man was a professional eternal optimist and, of course, a born diplomat. The diplomacy stayed – most of the time – but the optimism couldn’t last. Although he’s too loyal to say it – I’m sure the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference must have been the last straw after years (he worked on climate for the Dutch government and the EU beforehand) of struggling to bring about climate agreements in the face of all the international wrangling and power games.
You really can’t blame him for giving up and switching to private industry, although it will be hard to find a suitable successor at this critical time in the negotiations, with the next big conference in Mexico at the end of the year, the Kyoto Protocol running out in 2012 and the world wondering whether the UN is the right forum for the negotiations after the Copenhagen flop.
Yvo de Boer and his team were sidelined in the final phase of Copenhagen, while the USA and China fought out their battle for influence. The “Copenhagen Accord” is a toothless document that wasn’t accepted by everybody and binds nobody.
Of course the UN climate chief has to take some share of the blame for the Copenhagen fiasco. Preparing that conference was his job as well as the Danish government’s.
Nevertheless, it’s a shame to see him leave like this.
Remember the Bali conference 2 years ago, when de Boer left the room in tears at a point where it appeared the conference might fail? A lot of people thought that would be the end. But the conference achieved results after all and he carried on and was widely regarded as the “human face” of climate politics.
Now he’s finally had enough, and is leaving the UN climate ship in very troubled waters, with the economic crisis, Obama crippled by domestic problems and the Chinese determined to develop at all costs and reject any international control.
The chances of a binding post-Kyoto agreement being achieved or even set on the right track at the Mexico conference at the end of this year are slim. And time, the scientists tell us – and Yvo de Boer was convinced of it – is running out.