New Scientist - USA (2019-12-07)

7 December 2019 | New Scientist | 21

Who would have predicted

that the UK election would

see politicians competing on

who will plant most trees? The

Conservatives have promised a

£640 million fund that should see

an “additional 75,000 acres of

trees a year” by 2025 – roughly

30 million trees a year in total.

The Liberal Democrats outbid

them with a pledge of 60 million

trees a year. The Labour

manifesto simply mentions

“an ambitious programme of

tree-planting”, but the party has

Millions of trees

▲ End of coal

Ultra-polluting coal is

almost on the way out, as

most major insurers now

refuse to back projects

fuelled by the black stuff.

▲ Go AI

AlphaGo, a Go-playing AI

developed by DeepMind,

has forced champion

Lee Sedol into retirement.

“There is an entity that

cannot be defeated,”

he said.

▲ Coral raves

Music played through

underwater loudspeakers

could attract marine life to

dying coral reefs. Time to

break out the Eels, Phish

and Wet Wet Wet playlist.

▼ ISS toilets

For a brief period last

week, both toilets on

the International Space

Station were out of order.

It seems in space, no one

can hear you flush.

▼ Virtual reality

In a sign that we really are

living in the Mootrix, a

Russian farm has slapped

VR headsets on its dairy

cows to help them relax.

storage (CCS), and low-carbon

steel. The Tories are promising

£800 million for a CCS industrial

cluster by the mid-2020s.

While all the parties promise

action, they offer distinctly

different approaches. “The

starkest difference is between the

way the Lib Dems have framed it,

which is much more focused

market solutions, whereas

with Labour it’s heavy public

investment and nationalisation,”

says Watson. He and Ekins aren’t

convinced that state ownership

will necessarily speed up

decarbonisation, although Willis

says it could work. Some right-

leaning commentators argue that

it would even slow things down.

The focus in this article has

been on three parties, but the

possibility of no party getting a

majority means that the climate-

heavy manifestos of the smaller

parties could be important too.

The Scottish National Party is

offering a “Green Energy Deal” to

boost renewables, including wave

and tidal, while Welsh party Plaid

Cymru promises a £20 billion

“Green Jobs Revolution”.

“Given one of the possibilities is

we will get a hung parliament and

the smaller parties may be in a

position to make demands, I think

it does matter that those demands

are likely to include a strong

climate programme,” says Ekins.

Beyond policies, Ekins says

parties should be judged on their

previous record. In his view, that

favours Labour, because that party

passed the Climate Change Act in

2008 and signed the 2009 EU

renewable energy directive. Willis

disagrees. “The game has changed.

I’ve been waiting a long time for

proper political debate about

climate, and now we’ve got one.

So I think that we should judge

parties on what they’re offering

now, not on their past records.” ❚

pledge on ditching internal

combustion engines: they say all

new cars sold will be electric by

2030, a decade earlier than the

UK’s existing plan. Labour is

vaguer, saying it will aim to ban

the sale of petrol and diesel cars

by 2030, while the Tories say they

will consult on an earlier date.

One clear dividing line is airport

expansion, which the Lib Dems

oppose, but Labour and the

Conservatives don’t. “The aviation

stuff is the elephant in the room

for both Labour and the Tories

when it comes to the climate

emergency,” says Rebecca

Newsom at Greenpeace. For her,

another weakness for the Tories

is the “problematic” amount of

money – £28.8 billion – that they

have promised for building roads.

In other parts of the economy,

such as heavy industry, Labour

and the Lib Dems offer some

support for the clean production

of hydrogen, carbon capture and

“We’ve been waiting a long

time for proper political

debate about climate,

and now we’ve got one”

TO

P:^ I

MA

GE

SO

UR

CE

/AL

AM

Y^ S

TO

CK

PH

OT

O;^ B

OT

TO

M:^

@O

LD

LE

NT

AC

H/T

WI

TT

ER

Working

hypothesis

Sorting the week’s

supernovae from

the absolute zeros

More Insight online

Your guide to a rapidly changing world

newscientist.com/insight

also said it wants to plant

2 billion by 2040. The Brexit

party says it will plant millions,

but doesn’t specify how many.

Whichever party comes to

power, tree-planting needs to

ramp up massively if climate

targets are to be met. About

13,000 hectares of trees were

planted in the UK last year,

overwhelmingly in Scotland.

This is well short of the 30,000

that the UK’s climate advisers

says are needed annually for

net-zero emissions by 2050.

the parties on the electricity to
power those buildings. Everyone
backs renewables. Labour would
have 90 per cent of electricity
from low-carbon sources by 2030,
which includes renewables and
nuclear. The Lib Dems offer
80 per cent renewables by 2030,
up from about a third today. The
Conservatives have no headline
target, but promise a third more
offshore wind power than is
currently planned for 2030, and
support to help floating turbines.
“Voters need to look beyond
shiny promises of support for
renewable energy,” says Rebecca
Willis at Lancaster University, UK.
Petrol and diesel cars, flying and
fossil fuel production are more
important, because of the
emissions involved, she says.
All parties vow more charging
points for electric cars. Labour
and the Tories promise massive
“gigafactories” to make batteries
for them, in the style of electric car
firm Tesla. How they will make
that happen is unclear, however.
Tesla recently chose Germany
over the UK for its first European
Gigafactory.
The Lib Dems have the clearest