This document is part of an archive of postings on Greenie Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written
This is a backup copy of the original blog
31 December, 2023
Here’s How Much Money Biden’s ‘Anti-Fossil Fuel’ Regulatory Agenda Sucks From the US Economy Each Year
The administration has unleashed a bevy of regulations from several agencies that have distorted energy markets and disincentivized long-term investment in fossil fuel production, which in turn has increased the costs of energy production and consumption to the detriment of the overall American economy, according to the report.
These policies and their ramifications play to the advantage of major oil producers in Asia and the Middle East, some of which are known to use oil revenues to bankroll terrorist organizations, while American consumers and businesses navigate higher costs.
“This study examines what has happened with oil and gas production when we adjust for the large increase in the world price since [President Joe] Biden entered office, and the upward supply trends that had widely been expected to continue,” the report’s executive summary states. “Coincident with Biden’s new anti-energy policies, vigorous ‘Environmental, Social and Governance’ (ESG) investing and rising business tax rates, U.S. oil production has fallen 1-5 million daily barrels short of previous trends. Increased costs of oil and gas extraction are reducing annual GDP by about $100 billion.”
Further, the administration’s approach to regulating energy markets has chilled incentives for technological innovation in extracting fuels, and the natural gas industry has also underperformed relative to how it was trending when former President Donald Trump was in office, according to the report.
Notably, oil production in the U.S. is hovering at or above record levels, even as the industry deals with the regulatory barrage. While the Biden administration has suggested that this fact demonstrates that it is not cracking down on fossil fuel production, Daniel Turner, an energy sector expert and the executive director for Power The Future, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that this narrative is misleading because “the lifetime of an oil well is years in the making, and so all of the production that is online now is from wells that started well before Biden came into office.”
The Committee To Unleash Prosperity’s report also rejects the notion that “Biden’s anti-fossil fuels policies—ranging from taking hundreds of thousands of acres off-line for drilling, to canceling pipelines, to restrictive environmental regulations that make drilling more expensive—are not the reason for the energy crisis and high gas prices at the pump.”
The administration has taken dozens of executive and regulatory actions designed to make oil and gas activity more difficult and expensive since it assumed power in 2021, according to research conducted by the Institute for Energy Research.
The Biden administration has engaged in a broad effort to reduce new oil and gas activity on federally controlled lands, which has resulted in millions of acres being removed from consideration for oil drilling activity. Biden pledged to fully stop oil and gas activity on federal lands as a candidate and issued a moratorium on oil and gas leasing on federal lands in 2021, later saying in August that he would have been able to fulfill that promise if not for the court system.
The administration finalized the most restrictive offshore oil and gas leasing schedule in American history on Friday, has leased the fewest acres for oil and gas drilling of any administration in the last 80 years, and has moved to increase the costs of oil and gas activities on public lands that it has not excluded from such uses altogether.
The administration has also retroactively nixed leases in Alaska and attempted to remove huge swaths of the state’s land from eligibility for oil and gas activity, but the administration’s approach has not satisfied hard-line environmentalists, a key electoral and fundraising constituency for Biden.
The Biden administration’s energy policies are not only holding back the American economy, but also empowering foreign countries to whom the U.S. has ceded control of the marginal price of oil, according to the report.
“Anti-energy policies in the United States enrich the major oil producers in Asia and the Middle East, some of whom use their wealth to fund terrorism. Indeed, they are enriched twice by our policies,” the report states. “One benefit they get is that subtractions from U.S. production are subtractions from world production that contribute to higher world oil prices. The second benefit is that undermining shale activity in the U.S. gives OPEC more pricing power, because we are no longer as able to respond to OPEC production cuts with production increases of our own.”
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Science and environmental costs show folly over unwavering commitment to lab meat
I have some state-of-the-art bioreactors right outside my window. They are solar-powered, grass-fuelled, self-replacing, self-cleaning and biodegradable. They walk around casually generating beef cells and are more commonly known as cows.
Little do they know they were central to discussions that recently took place half a world away at the COP28 summit in the United Arab Emirates. To build a meat-making machine that outperforms these docile ruminants on environmental and efficiency measures was surprisingly high on the agenda despite a track record of unmet targets and broken promises on the part of lab-meat proponents.
Billions of investment dollars, some of the world’s best scientific minds and the ideological willpower of vegans combined have yet to result in the development of a bioreactor quite as good as a cow. The process of taking animal cells and replicating them outside the body does work, but it requires a complex and expensive growth medium to feed the cells, as well as a sterile and temperature-controlled environment. If we thought three stomachs were complicated, this takes the cake. A kilogram of synthetic beef costs about $33,000 to produce, according to an estimate from the Good Food Institute in 2021. Admittedly, this is down from $3.5m a kilogram in 2013 when the first synthetic burger was unveiled but it’s still an astonishingly long way off commercial viability.
Estimates of when lab-grown meat will begin to replace natural meat vary from next year to next decade. The sticking point at this stage remains the cost of the pharmaceutical-grade growth medium, which is stubbornly high at more than $600 a litre. If technological advances could drive the price of the medium down to $30 a litre, the cost price of the final product is estimated to reach just under $100 a kilogram. This doesn’t account for supermarket and restaurant mark-ups.
Nevertheless, Australian lab meat company Magic Valley told The Australian earlier this year that its products would be on the shelves by the end of 2024. This is an extraordinary claim given the technological hurdles that remain and the fact lab-grown meat is not yet approved for sale in Australia.
Another company, Eat Just, did manage to sell lab-grown chicken nuggets at a restaurant in Singapore earlier this year for about $75 a nugget. The company will not comment on costs of production but – given the known variables such as medium, labour and energy costs – it has to be assumed it is selling the nuggets at a significant loss to attract publicity and further investment.
Scientists are beginning to question whether further investment in lab-grown meat is warranted in light of the scaleability challenges and doubts over improved environmental outcomes. This year University of California scientists estimated that using current technologies to produce lab-grown beef had up to 25 times more “global warming potential”. Even with technological advances, the estimate ranged from 80 per cent lower to 26 per cent higher global warming potential.
In a report released last year that estimated the future cost of lab-grown meat, scientists from Oklahoma State University made clear that some of the technological advances required to sell lab meat in a mass market might never materialise. “This cost estimate may not ever be reached since it will require multiple technological advances to be achieved,” the authors warned. “In practical terms, for this large-scale production, a kilogram of cell-cultured hamburger meat would cost well over $US100/kg at the supermarket and restaurants.”
It’s also important to consider that if renewable energy technology advanced quickly enough to cheaply power millions of giant steel vats in thousands of factories across the world, this also would dramatically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions created by existing food production systems.
Inventing cheap, reliable broadscale renewable energy is not the means to an end, it is the end. If the time and money that have been plunged into million-dollar beef patties across the past decade had been directed to renewable energy and recycling solutions, who knows what we could have achieved.
The publicity exercise around lab meat is ongoing, with a concerted effort to call it cultivated or cultured rather than lab-grown or synthetic. Cultivated is a term apparently being used to conjure wholesome imagery of growing food from the soil. Cultured sounds artisanal and bespoke. It’s image control that directs our minds away from the steel vats, the syringes, the gooey medium fluid and the white coats hovering over your future dinner. These images are off-putting but this is the reality. Just as people who eat natural meat must come to terms with facts of life such as death, people who eat lab-grown meat cannot escape the fact it came from a lab.
If the problem of methane emissions from cattle were addressed with an open mind, we could have been investing in natural dietary additives such as algae and seaweed that reduce the amount of methane cattle burp and fart. We could have been investing in management practices that used cattle to regenerate the soil naturally and sequester carbon dioxide.
Seeking to eliminate cattle from our diet fails to recognise that herd animals have played a critical role in grasslands ecosystems for hundreds of thousands of years. Removing them from areas that are unsuitable for farming is not an efficient use of land. Herd animals also remain a vital source of protein for poorer nations and small landholders responsible for most of the earth’s farmland.
Synthetic meat ventures’ continued ability to attract investment despite poor performance suggests the backing is based on hope and inflated claims rather than due diligence or evidence. The danger of being so heavily invested in an idea, both mentally and financially, is that we become incapable of considering alternatives. The unwavering commitment to lab meat despite fundamental problems is emblematic of the way ideological viewpoints quickly become blinkered and counter-productive to the original problem they were trying to solve.
It seems the allure of grandiose plans and discoveries that assure individuals a place in the history books has been prioritised over projects that genuinely would serve the collective good. Instead of having the humility to recognise and work with the genius of the natural world, our egos get in the way and the only result is a poor imitation.
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Associated Press Got It Wrong: Wind Farm Contractors Acknowledge Turbines Harm Dolphins, Whales
The misleading AP article—carried by WBTS-TV in Boston; The Daily Star newspaper of Oneonta, New York; and WTFX-TV in Philadelphia, among others—stated that “scientists say there is no credible evidence linking offshore wind farms to whale deaths” and that “offshore wind opponents are using unsupported claims about harm to whales to try to stop projects, with some of the loudest opposition centered in New Jersey.”
The article accuses opponents of causing “angst in coastal communities, where developers need to build shoreside infrastructure to operate a wind farm.”
If so, why are offshore wind farm companies asking Uncle Sam for permission to harm ocean mammals, and why are dead whales washing up on East Coast beaches?
According to AP reporters Christina Larson, Jennifer McDermott, Patrick Whittle, and Wayne Parry, “One vocal opponent of offshore wind is The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the foundation’s center for energy, climate and environment, wrote in November that Danish company Ørsted’s scrapped New Jersey wind project was “unsightly” and “a threat to wildlife.”
If the four reporters had done their homework, they would have mentioned that in required environmental-impact filings with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, companies explain that sounds generated by their activities will harm ocean mammals.
For example, Atlantic Shores and Ørsted’s Ocean Winds both requested permission to harm ocean mammals in their applications for New Jersey offshore-wind projects. And, since boats ramped up offshore surveys in May 2022, 31 dead whales have washed up on New Jersey and surrounding beaches.
Ørsted, which in November pulled out of a proposed New Jersey offshore wind farm, requested permission to harm 30 whales, 3,231 dolphins, 82 porpoises, and eight seals through sound waves generated by its surveys—although the company claims that the damage would be negligible.
The precise numbers and detailed species can be found on the website of the NOAA, in Ørsted’s Application for Incidental Harassment Authorization (Table 9).
Atlantic Shores, owned by Dutch Shell oil and French EDF, is still seeking permission to locate an offshore wind farm in New Jersey. In its Request for Incidental Harassment (Table 6-3) it stated that acoustic waves associated with the siting of the wind turbines would likely affect 10 whales, 662 dolphins, 206 porpoises, and 546 seals (also termed a negligible amount). It received permission to harm these marine animals.
Although the companies describe effects as “negligible,” the NOAA website states that it’s difficult to measure the effects of manmade sounds on mammals.
“Acoustic trauma, which could result from close exposure to loud human-produced sounds, is very challenging to assess, particularly with any amount of decomposition,” or damage to the whale’s body, states NOAA on its website.
Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for the NOAA, wrote in a letter to Brian Hooker, lead biologist at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: “The development of offshore wind poses risks to these species [right whales], which is magnified in southern New England waters due to species abundance and distribution … . However, unlike vessel traffic and noise, which can be mitigated to some extent, oceanographic impacts from installed and operating turbines cannot be mitigated for the 30-year life span of the project, unless they are decommissioned.”
In addition, the AP article made no mention that some of the companies that would install these wind farms are owned by Denmark, the Netherlands, and France—despite the fact that renewable energy tax credits in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act are aimed at stimulating domestic firms to produce renewable energy. And there was no mention that New Jersey offshore wind farms would have practically no effect on mitigating global temperatures, either now or by 2100.
Local municipalities are increasingly rejecting wind farms, according to a Renewable Rejection Database tracker maintained by environmental scholar Robert Bryce. He reports that 417 wind farms and 190 solar arrays have been rejected by local communities in 2023. More than 600 projects have been rejected in 2023, up from 489 in 2022 and 208 in 2018.
Proponents of renewable energy are trying to gloss over its harms and exaggerate its benefits in an attempt to push costly offshore wind farms. For the record, French- and Dutch-owned Atlantic Shores and Danish-owned Ørsted asked permission to hurt whales, dolphins, porpoises, and seals.
Americans in New Jersey and elsewhere oppose that environmental damage.
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Australia: Peak Body Criticises Decision to Ban Oil, Gas Development in Lake Eyre Basin
A peak industry association representing Queensland’s minerals and energy producers has criticised the state government for banning new oil and gas development in the country’s largest drainage basin.
The ban came a few days after Queensland Premier Steven Miles assumed the position of the state's leader following the resignation of predecessor, Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Under the ban, the Queensland government will prohibit all future oil and gas production in the Lake Eyre Basin's rivers and floodplains.
However, the ban will not cover existing approved conventional gas developments, and holders of existing petroleum exploration permits can apply for a production lease until Aug. 30, 2024.
Lake Eyre Basin is one of the largest drainage basins in the world. It covers an area of 1.2 million square kilometres, including parts of Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales.
Large tracts of the Basin is considered arid, supporting just 60,000 people, with the major land use (82 percent) being for low-density grazing.
It is also well-known for containing significant oil and gas resources.
Following the announcement, Queensland Resources Council CEO Ian Macfarlane criticised the state government for not considering the social and economic impact of preventing further expansion of Australia’s gas reserves.
“Reports this week indicate Australia’s East Coast is facing another gas shortage over the next few years and will rely on Queensland producers to ensure supply to millions of homes and businesses,” he said in a statement.
“Less supply means higher gas prices for Australians already struggling with cost-of-living pressures.
“Unless governments are prepared to allow and support new gas projects to be developed, not only will energy prices continue to climb, but southern states are going to run out of gas.”
The CEO noted that the decision was a blow to the energy sector, which had engaged in good faith with the Queensland government and other stakeholders and was willing to work with them to maintain the highest standards to protect the environment.
“The Queensland gas industry has developed alongside agriculture and other regional industries over the past six decades, supporting regional communities, and providing a benefit to all Queenslanders,” he said.
“There is no reason why the gas industry can’t continue along the same regulated and sustainable path that provides new opportunities for the communities of South West Queensland.”
Mr. Macfarlane also believed the ban would create more policy uncertainty for the resources sector and hinder new investments while impacting the livelihood of local communities relying on oil and gas extraction.
Mr. Macfarlane's remarks come after a June report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission indicated that Australia’s southern states would likely experience a gas shortfall in 2024.
The consumer watchdog warned that the shortfall risk would remain unless there was considerable transport and storage capacity to deliver Queensland’s surplus gas to those states.
Queensland Government’s Response
Meanwhile, Mr. Miles said the new policy would protect the Lake Eyre Basin for future generations of Queenslanders.
“The changes strike a good balance in preserving the Queensland Lake Eyre Basin region while providing industry with the tools they need to grow and develop,” the premier said in a statement.
Echoing the sentiment, Queensland Environment Minister Leanne Linard highlighted the importance of preserving the Basin.
“Maintaining clean and uninterrupted flow of the waterways in the basin is critical to the survival of the wildlife and the businesses and communities in the region,” she said.
“The Miles government is committed to the ongoing preservation of the ecological and cultural values in the rivers, watercourses and floodplains of the Queensland Lake Eyre Basin and First Nations Peoples’ connection to the land.”
Environmentalist group Lock The Gate welcomed the ban and hoped to see more similar policies from the government.
“Unconventional oil and gas extraction can require thousands of wells to be drilled across a landscape, with each well requiring millions of litres of water for a single frack,” Lock the Gate Alliance national coordinator Ellen Roberts said.
“This sort of development would have decimated the fragile and unique rivers and floodplains of the Channel Country. It would have pushed out existing sustainable industries and wreaked havoc on cultural sites.”
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28 December, 2023
As Wind and Solar Power Falter, U.N. Climate Agreement Becomes Wishful Thinking
Despite the lip service that governments, nongovernmental organizations and the media continue to pay to wind and solar power, most notably at the recent U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai—where some 200 countries signed a nonbinding agreement pledging their support for “transitioning away from fossil fuels”—some global leaders realize that wind and solar energy won’t do the trick and that fossil fuels will be here for a long, long time.
Sweden, for example, recently announced a major bet on nuclear energy and the United States and others have pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050.
Meanwhile, in the third quarter of 2023 alone, China permitted more coal-fired power plants than in all of 2021. Scores of solar and wind energy projects and investments have been canceled or put on hold as costs begin to catch up with reality, and production seems nowhere near where it should be to meet humanity’s needs.
Accepting reality has nothing to do with denying climate change or even that human activity plays a role alongside the natural climate cycle. It’s simply a question of understanding that political decrees and propaganda eventually collide with truth.
The truth is that (1) producing a unit of wind or solar energy requires a significant amount of energy, which defeats the purpose and makes for highly inefficient results, and (2) the declining cost of wind and solar power over the last decade was a function of artificially low interest rates and an abundance of cheap fossil fuels, thanks to the “fracking” revolution.
Regarding truth No. 1, to produce a unit of power output, wind requires three times as much and solar six times as much traditional energy as a combined-cycle natural gas plant. That’s because solar panels and wind turbines require lots of raw materials that depend on fossil fuels.
Regarding truth No. 2, green energy’s low-cost boom appears to be over. Clean energy is getting more expensive. Until recently, wind and solar advocates were touting the dramatic decline since 2010 in the cost of renewables, as measured in dollars per megawatt-hour. But that was a function of cheap capital and cheap energy.
The shale revolution that began 15 years ago turned the world’s biggest energy consumer, the United States, into its biggest energy producer, dramatically lowering energy prices. For example, North Dakota’s Bakken field increased its production sevenfold in the years leading up to 2020.
Other fields, including the Permian basin in west Texas and the Marcellus field in the Appalachian basin (Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York), experienced similar growth.
Unsurprisingly, the price of oil [West Texas Intermediate] declined from $196 per barrel in June 2008 to $73 per barrel in early 2020, pre-pandemic, while the price of natural gas [Henry Hub] fell from $18 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) to $2 per MMBtu.
Given that the wind and solar industries need energy-intensive materials such as steel, concrete and copper, the low price of oil and natural gas kept their production costs down. But that has changed, helping to drive up the cost of solar energy by 60% since 2021 and the cost of wind power by 30%.
Capital was also cheap. The Federal Reserve slashed the federal funds effective rate from 5.26% in mid-2007 to essentially 0% by the end of 2008 and basically kept it there until 2016, when it began to rise slightly, reaching 2.4% in 2019, well below its mid-2007 level, when it began to fall again. The fight against inflation brought things back to reality. The current rate is about 5.33%.
The double whammy of higher energy and borrowing costs that have hit renewables is unlikely to go away in the near future—though one should never underestimate the ability (and willingness) of politicians to do the same stupid thing again and again. Nevertheless, it seems improbable we’ll see trillions of dollars of zero-interest debt again anytime soon.
Given the decline of the shale fields’ output (with the exception of the Permian basin, but that too seems close to its peak) and the scant investment in traditional energy because of the environmental, social and governance-driven political environment, the dynamics of supply and demand do not point to a sustained return of the low energy prices that renewables ironically depend on.
That’s why we will see more green projects canceled, more countries betting on nuclear energy (forgetting their knee-jerk reactions to the Fukushima, Japan, reactor accident in 2011), and oil, natural gas and coal continuing to enjoy a long life.
According to the International Energy Agency, trillions of dollars have been invested in wind and solar power. This year alone, the figure is about $600 billion. Yet wind and solar represent only about 12% of total electricity generation.
Imagine what would have happened had they not benefited from ultra-cheap capital and energy, not to mention the generous taxpayer subsidies many governments provided. A sober rethinking is long overdue.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14776&omhide=true&trk=title
*****************************************Offshore wind in the U.S. hit headwinds in 2023. Here's what you need to know
There's a lot riding on the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry: the ability to tap into a huge source of clean energy and reduce carbon emissions, the opportunity to create thousands of jobs, the unique chance to jumpstart a new domestic manufacturing industry.
For these reasons, President Biden has made the success of the industry a pillar of his climate agenda. His administration has set an ambitious target of getting 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind power flowing into the grid by 2030, which is enough electricity to power 10 million homes.
That goal is a long way off, and given the tumultuous year the industry just had, the future is anything but certain.
2023 has been marked by "headwinds" and "tailwinds," for the young industry. While some of the first large-scale projects in the Northeast started offshore construction and began sending power to the electric grid, the industry as a whole has been hit hard by rising interest rates, inflation, and global supply chain issues.
Making sense of the "whiplash" between good and bad offshore wind news is tough. But to get a full picture of where the industry currently stands, and what to watch for in 2024, here's what you need to know.
Offshore wind projects are moving forward
Until very recently, the U.S. had a total of seven operating turbines: five near Rhode Island and two near Virginia. Together, they generate about 42 megawatts, which is less than a small natural gas power plant.
That's about to change with the addition of the country's first two commercial-scale projects: Vineyard Wind and South Fork Wind.
Vineyard Wind — a 62-turbine wind farm located about 15 miles offshore from Martha's Vineyard — is set to deliver its "first power" to Massachusetts by the end of the year. Once the project is completed sometime next year, it will generate 800 megawatts, which is enough power for 400,000 homes.
South Fork Wind — a 12-turbine wind farm near Long Island — is also under construction and began producing electricity from its one completed turbine in early December. When the project is fully built out next year, its 132 megawatts will generate enough electricity to power about 70,000 homes in New York.
South Fork Wind — a 12-turbine wind farm near Long Island —began generating electricity in December. (South Fork Wind)
There are more than 10,000 offshore wind turbines in Northern Europe and parts of Asia. But adoption of offshore wind in the U.S. has been hobbled by NIMBYism and permitting delays. So industry experts and clean energy advocates say the progress on these first two American commercial-scale projects should not be understated.
"We should not lose sight of the fact that Vineyard Wind was not inevitable," said Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts. "It is a very big deal and should be celebrated as such."
Progress in other parts of the U.S.
The Northeast is farthest ahead when it comes to U.S. offshore wind. But the last year was also notable for the fledgling industry elsewhere in the country.
In the mid-Atlantic, the federal government gave final approval to a 2,600 megawatt offshore wind project near Virginia Beach, the sixth and largest proposed project in the country so far. The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project will consist of 176 turbines and is expected to begin generating power by 2026.
In the Gulf of Mexico, the government held the region's first auction to lease areas offshore for wind development. The results, however, were "underwhelming." Only one of the three proposed lease areas near Texas and Louisiana received any bids.
Building a west coast offshore wind industry will be challenging, in large part because the water is so deep that only floating turbines will work. But on the heels of a successful auction for five lease areas, California continued to plow ahead this year on its ambitious plan to get 3,000 megawatts of offshore power by 2030 and a whopping 25,000 megawatts by 2045.
In 2024, the federal government has scheduled another lease auction in the mid-Atlantic and is expected to hold auctions in the Gulf of Maine and off the coast of Oregon.
Economic woes and canceled contracts
A year and half ago, the U.S. offshore wind industry looked nearly unstoppable. But global financial challenges and supply chain backlogs of the post-pandemic era, followed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, complicated everything.
The problems first surfaced in Massachusetts when two offshore wind developers announced that the large projects they had signed contracts for were "no longer viable" under the terms of their existing agreements.
Offshore wind farms cost billions to build, so even a small rise in interest rates or the cost of steel can send the price tag of a project soaring. The two companies unsuccessfully pleaded with Massachusetts the state to let them charge more for the electricity, and ultimately ended up backing out of their contracts. Both companies have promised to re-bid their projects, just at a higher cost, during Massachusetts' next round of offshore wind solicitations in early 2024.
Similar economic issues surfaced in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Even in Northern Europe, where offshore wind turbines have been in the water for decades, upcoming projects face unprecedented economic challenges and potential delays.
A major setback to the industry
For a while, offshore wind experts said the industry was simply undergoing a market correction and making up for overly optimistic bids — the projects weren't abandoned, people noted; they just needed new contracts.
Then, in late October, Ørsted, the world's largest offshore wind developer, canceled two projects it had proposed for New Jersey. The decision, which the company blamed on economic challenges and supply chain bottlenecks, shook the offshore wind world.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called the move "outrageous." Opponents of offshore wind jumped on the news, pointing to it as further evidence that building turbines in the ocean is bad policy and financially irresponsible. Meanwhile, environmentalists quietly worried that other cancellations would follow.
"The world has in many ways, from a macroeconomic and industry point of view, almost turned upside down," Mads Nipper, the company's CEO said at the time. But while Nipper reaffirmed the company's commitment to other U.S. offshore wind projects in the pipeline, headlines about doom and gloom for the industry were everywhere.
"I think the reason the Ørsted cancellations just seemed so astounding was because they never came out and said, 'We want to renegotiate our contracts, we want to rebid,'" said Samantha Woodworth, an offshore wind analyst with consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. "I think that it was the abruptness that caused the industry to sort of go, 'Oh God!'"
In her view, the Ørsted cancellations are part of a bigger story about the struggle to get a new industry off the ground in a challenging economic situation.
"I don't think the offshore wind industry in the U.S. is going to fail," she said.
Other experts agree; meeting Biden's 2030 goals is more a matter of "when" than "if," they say.
"I think we will see the continuous rise of offshore wind," said Jan Matthiessen, director of the offshore wind program at The Carbon Trust, which advises governments and industry. "It is a young sector. We are scaling up, we are growing. And that also means you have some bumps in the road that you need to overcome."
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Sorry, USA Today, Weather Isn’t Getting Weirder or More Extreme
USA Today ran a story titled, “The weather is getting cold. Global warming is still making weather weird.” Both the second half of the headline and the story underlying it are false. Data refutes claims that weather has been unusual in recent years. Winters are still cold, with some places being colder and receiving more snow than others as has been true throughout history. Also summers are still hot with some regions being hotter and more prone droughts and heatwaves, than others.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, writing for USA Today says:
[Researchers are] compiling increasing evidence that climate change is bringing weirder weather, even in frigid locations like this northeastern landmark.
Notoriously fickle, the world’s weather is lurching from one extreme to another more often and to a greater degree as the warming atmosphere pushes natural variability to new extremes, breaking records time and again, the researchers say.
…
Human-induced climate change alters the intensity, frequency and duration of many extreme events during every season of the year, according to the report. Drought, flooding and wildfire are becoming more frequent and severe, with cascading effects in every part of the country.
There is no evidence whatsoever that weather is wildly swinging from one extreme to the other in a way that it has not done in the past, outside of unjustifiably alarming mainstream media headlines proclaiming it. The data just doesn’t support the claim.
Specifically, contrary to Pulver and USA Today’s claims, as discussed in Climate At A Glance: Drought and across dozens of Climate Realism articles, here, here, here, and here, for example, data refutes claims that droughts in the United States or globally have increased in number or intensity in recent years. The earth certainly hasn’t experienced any of the 100 year or longer droughts that research shows have occurred multiple times in past centuries and millennia, long before humans began pumping large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Nor have wildfires or floods increased in frequency, intensity, or duration outside of their historical norms amidst recent modest warming, as data presented in Climate At A Glance: U.S. Wildfires, Climate At A Glance: Floods, and articles at Climate Realism discussing flood and wildfire trends demonstrate.
In the end, the USA Today’s story on weird weather is wrong on almost every testable claim made in it. Scientists’ anecdotes and impressions aside, no real-world data exists suggesting that weather in recent decades is getting weirder, however defined, or that extreme weather events are becoming more common or severe when they occur. Sorry, Pulver and USA Today, climate change can’t be causing something that isn’t happening. Such a claim is laughably false.
https://climaterealism.com/2023/12/sorry-usa-today-weather-isnt-getting-weirder-or-more-extreme
**************************************************Crude Oil Isn’t Going Away Soon
We’ve become a very materialistic society over the last 200 years, and the world has populated from 1 to 8 billion because of more than 6,000 useful products and different fuels for planes, ships, trucks, cars, military, and the space program made from crude oil that did not exist before the 1800’s.
As a refresher for those pursuing net-zero emissions, wind and solar do different things than crude oil.
Wind and solar renewables only generate occasional electricity but cannot manufacture anything. The problem with renewable electricity from wind turbines and solar panels is that they don’t work most of the time, and thus are unreliable for “just electricity”!
Then there is “the nameplate farce” of those renewables. There should be financial penalties for the subsidies and tax credits provided to wind and solar power plants for their inability to deliver at least 90 percent of their permitted nameplate ratings on an ANNUAL basis, like their backup competitors of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants that provide continuous uninterruptable electricity.
Of the three fossil fuels, coal and natural gas are used to generate electricity, but the third, crude oil, is virtually never used to generate electricity. However, when crude oil is manufactured into petrochemicals, it is the basis for virtually all the products in our materialistic society that did not exist before the 1800’s.
Today’s policymakers do not understand that everything that needs electricity is made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the refrigerator, iPhone, defibrillator, computer, and communications equipment. Thus, “just electricity” from the so-called green renewables of wind turbines and solar panels are not displacing the need for crude oil.
We should be careful with what we wish for. From the proverb “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” tells us that:
You can’t rid the world of crude oil and,
Continue to enjoy the products and transportation fuels that are currently made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil.
The few wealthy countries of the United States of America, Germany, the UK, and Australia representing about 6 percent of the world’s population (515 million vs 8 billion) are mandating social changes to achieve net zero emissions. Those developed countries have come a long way from the zero emissions society that existed before the 1800’s when:
There were no coal fired power plants before the 1800’s.
There were no natural gas-powered plants before the 1800’s.
There were no nuclear power plants before the 1800’s.
There were no products for heating, cooling, or irrigation to prevent weather related fatalities and injuries before the 1800’s.
There were no tires or asphalt to support transportation infrastructures.
Life expectancy was short, as life longevity was about 40 years of age before the 1800’s.
When people were born, they seldom traveled more than 100 miles from their birthplace before the 1800’s.
There was no medical industry before the 1800’s.
There were no electronics before the 1800’s.
There were no transportation infrastructures before the 1800’s.
There were no airplanes and thus no airports before the 1800’s.
There were no cruise ships nor merchant ships, other than sailing vessels before the 1800’s.
There were no military ships or planes before the 1800’s.
Looking beyond the few wealthy countries setting environmental policies for the other 94 percent of the world’s population,
Nearly Half the World Lives on Less than $5.50 a Day, as billions still struggle to meet basic needs. They may never be able to enjoy the materialistic living styles of those in wealthier countries.
At the recent climate summit gathering in Dubai that attracted more than 70,000 from around the world that enjoy their carbon-intensive lifestyles, as well as more than 600 emission-spewing private jets, the president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber stated that a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”, i.e. back to the pre-1800’a as noted above.
Until a crude oil replacement is identified that can support making the more than 6,000 products in today’s society, the world cannot do without crude oil that is the basis of our materialistic “products” society.
Without crude oil, here are several conundrums that 8 billion on this planet would need to adjust to:
There would be no products that are based on oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil! Such as tires, asphalt, refrigerators, televisions, air conditioners, X-Ray machines, life-saving medical equipment, and the other 6,000 products that did not exist 200 years ago that make our lives better, and just about everything we take to be modern, such as cell phones.
The elimination of all of today’s militaries and space programs as the world reverts to when civilization existed without the products and fuels from oil, i.e., pre-1800.
The elimination of the tents and sleeping bags utilized by the growing homeless population, as tents and sleeping bags are just a few of the products made from petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil.
Eliminate the need for airports that now accommodate more than 25,000 commercial aircraft and more than 14,000 military aircraft.
Eliminate the more than 50,000 merchant ships, that are moving products around the world to support the 8 billion on this planet that are made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil!
Eliminate the needs for major shipping ports that accommodate military, cruise, and merchant ships.
Wealthier countries continue their pursuit of wind and solar generated electricity. believing that electricity will reduce crude oil usage, the wealthier countries renewables dream would mean sacrificing an estimated 6,000 useful products that rely on the petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil – products that range from tires and asphalt for highways to fertilizers, cosmetics, synthetic rubber, medicines and medical devices, cleaning products, and so many more.
Without fuels and without products now based on crude oil, we would be unable to operate the international and military airports that now accommodate a large number of the more than 25,000 commercial aircraft and a large number of the more than 14,000 military aircraft, as well as many of the more than50,000 merchant ships.
Just as food is fuel (no pun intended) for our bodies, crude oil is food for our way of life. It provides the products we need for prosperous lives. No sane person would cut off their main food supply without lining up for a new food supply, first unless they wanted to starve to death.
So, before we jump out of the airplane without a parachute, and revert to the pre-1800’s, let’s identify the back-up “source” that can continue to support the making of more than 6,000 products and the various fuels of our materialistic society that are now based on crude oil.
https://heartland.org/opinion/crude-oil-isnt-going-away-soon
***************************************27 December, 2023
Measuring methane intensity is a key step on the path to net zero
Sheer madness. In the atmosphere its effects are blocked by water vapour. It has no effect on the amount of radiation received and hence no effect on global temperature
After Canada and the United States both announced new policy measures to address oil and gas methane at the COP28 climate summit — just weeks after the EU agreed to extend its methane intensity standards to imported natural gas — it is clear that global policy to address the potent climate-warming greenhouse gas is moving fast.
As policy continues to evolve and demand shifts toward cleaner forms of energy, methane intensity will be key to assessing progress and regulatory efficacy, as well as ensuring the global competitiveness of Canadian product.
Measuring methane
Methane intensity is the quantity of methane released into the atmosphere relative to the amount of oil or gas produced. Measuring it enables comparisons of environmental performance across regions, companies, facilities, production levels, fuel sources and time frames.
With this data we can see where policies and practices are driving down emissions and where improvements are needed.
To effectively target methane emissions and gauge intensity improvements, you need to know how much methane you have and where. However, studies continue to show that we lack adequate knowledge of its magnitude and distribution. Comprehensive measurement to determine methane intensity is key.
When it comes to methane intensity, some producers do a lot better than others. A study by researchers at St. Francis Xavier University’s FluxLab found a 1,000-fold variation in methane intensities among Albertan oil and gas producers.
Since Canada’s oil and gas industry consists of many different production methods and fluid types, methane intensity also varies significantly across regions.
Measurements collected by FluxLab researchers in 2021 show that methane intensity from offshore oil production in Newfoundland is quite low, likely due to a combination of technology advances (for example, flare recovery systems), regulation and high production volumes.
Natural gas produced in British Columbia also has relatively low methane intensities. Another study showed B.C.’s overall methane intensity was lower than 2019 averages for Western Canada and the United States (though, at 0.42 per cent, it’s still higher than the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s 0.2 per cent methane fee threshold and the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative target).
B.C. introduced regulations in 2020 to drive down oil and gas methane emissions, which the B.C. Energy Regulator is now working to strengthen.
Heavy oil regions have the most methane-intensive production in Canada. Certain production methods can have as much as 400 times the methane intensity as offshore production.
A recent study of Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand (CHOPS) production in Saskatchewan found that methane intensity just during production was four times higher than the mean carbon intensity of Canadian oil over its entire life cycle. Saskatchewan’s overall emissions intensity is also getting worse.
Possible solutions
Fortunately, reducing methane emissions — and by extension, methane intensity — is dirt cheap. A Dunsky report found that a 75 per cent reduction in upstream oil and gas methane emissions would cost as little as $11 per ton of CO? equivalent.
That’s far below the federal carbon price of $65 per ton of CO? equivalent and rising, as well as carbon capture and storage for oilsands, which could cost between $89-144 per ton of CO? equivalent.
An overview of Canada’s newly announced methane reduction policy, produced by the CBC.
Canada’s newly announced amendments to its methane regulations will help drive deep methane reductions, so long as they are meaningfully enforced.
However, to credibly assess outcomes and achieve the reductions we truly need, producers and governments need to have accurate data on oil and gas methane emissions and emissions intensity. In addition:
Following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Canada should develop stronger measurement, monitoring, verification and reporting requirements to generate a more accurate picture of emissions and emissions intensity.
Saskatchewan and Alberta should proceed with regulatory development to update and strengthen their oil and gas methane regulations in a timely manner and follow B.C.’s lead by basing models and targets on aerial survey data.
Energy regulators should apply strong monetary penalties for non-compliance in a consistent and timely manner.
Methane intensity allows various stakeholders to recognize, quantify and base decision-making on important comparisons and trends. It will be a key metric in the global transition to net-zero that will make or break producer competitiveness and, if accurately measured and reported, help governments effectively determine emissions reduction progress and priorities.
https://theconversation.com/measuring-methane-intensity-is-a-key-step-on-the-path-to-net-zero-218976#:~:text=Measuring%20it%20enables%20comparisons%20of,and%20where%20improvements%20are%20needed .
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Eco-Warriors are now battling Christmas
In one of the season’s most predictable developments, climate activists have declared war on Christmas trees, vandalizing holiday displays in cities across Germany.
Like any new religion, the climate cult despises competition, and so its members target religious symbols — not only Christmas trees but also Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” — as well as civic institutions, recently having defaced Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
With great pomp and gloom, the anti-Christmas tree group calls itself Last Generation (Letzte Generation), and, while apocalyptic youth cults do not have a very inspiring record anywhere, they have an especially ugly history in Germany — Seig heil and jackboots and all.
I do not make the comparison lightly.
There is a real debate to be had on climate policy, but these young vandals are not a part of it.
What they are about is pure millenarian hysteria, with all its usual destructive features: the cult of youth, contempt for political norms and property and an unearned sense of importance.
The German cities that endured this Christmas tree vandalism have seen this sort of thing before, from the Protestant iconoclastic riots of the 16th century to the book-burnings and church-strippings a few hundred years later.
There’s nothing new here.
As I saw for myself while attending the 2021 UN climate confab in Glasgow, what dominates the climate conversation is not policy wonkery but ritual rooted in apocalyptic mysticism.
That isn’t an exaggeration: I didn’t meet a lot of scientists or engineers at COP26, but I did meet many monks, magicians, and shamans; there was lot of incense-burning and chanting.
But there was very little talk about building a better power grid and lots of rubbish about the folk wisdom of the indigenous peoples of . . . wherever.
Climate change is a real issue that requires a real response: Ironically, our European cousins were until recently among the best positioned to actually do something about carbon-dioxide emissions.
They had the infrastructure and experience to build out the most important mitigation technology on offer: nuclear power.
Unfortunately, Europe at large — and Germany in particular — has turned away from that option.
Germany’s last three nuclear plants were shuttered in April.
The current German governing coalition includes the Green Party, which grew out of anti-nuclear protests in the Cold War era and never made peace with peaceable uses for nuclear power.
And if nuclear power gives them fits, then they absolutely go nuts at the mention of natural gas, even though expanding gas use would represent a significant carbon-footprint improvement for countries that rely heavily on coal for generating electricity.
Mitigation, adaptation, incremental improvement — that’s how constructive public policy works, but that’s not how a religious revival works.
Religious revivals require a conversion, the experience of being born again, along with pledges, acts of penance, symbolic sacrifice and striving toward personal holiness.
Such holiness even extends to Pope Francis, who’s been pressured recently to reinstate the Catholic practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays.
The pressure, however, is not coming from traditionalists looking to reinforce Catholic observances but from climate activists who argue (with some pretty fuzzy math) that this would meaningfully mitigate climate change by meat production emissions.
This would have no real effect on the climate, of course, but co-opting the pope would be a major spiritual coup.
The most recent UN climate conference just concluded in Dubai — the Rome, Jerusalem, and Mecca of hydrocarbon-enabled consumerism.
The Dubai conference produced the same thing every previous conference did: non-binding pledges by governments to mend their nations’ ways and similarly non-binding pledges to spend a lot of money helping poor countries adapt to climate disruptions.
Speaking for the United Arab Emirates, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber said his country would commit $100 million to a climate-mitigation fund.
For perspective, consider that the figure is about 1/15th of what UAE residents spend on Rolexes and other luxury timepieces in a given year. It’s also about one half of 1% of what Emiratis spend on the gas-guzzling automobiles of which they are so famously fond — booming demand in the Arab oil kingdoms helped Rolls Royce set an all-time sales record in 2022. Not everyone in the church is a true believer.
https://nypost.com/2023/12/23/opinion/in-germany-eco-warriors-now-hate-christmas/
***********************************************Has anyone checked on the Great White North lately?
It appears the Trudeau government has ramped up its extreme “green” efforts and is ignoring the cries of protest and suffering left in their wake.
COP 28, the United Nations’ latest climate conference, just ended, and despite Trudeau not attending the event, he and his lackeys drafted up a plan that would require their oil and gas industry to rapidly reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 35 to 38 percent below 2019 levels.
The Canadian government uses the word “pollution” over and over, no doubt to paint a picture in the uninformed public’s mind that they are merely regulating toxic chemicals and other similar emissions, when in reality, it is carbon dioxide they are targeting.
Alberta government officials have pushed back, explaining that this will be essentially a production cap that will decimate the local economy, especially since the Canadian oil patch has already significantly reduced emissions and they have been engaging in carbon pricing schemes and other similar policies to fund green energy projects and make up for what carbon dioxide is emitted.
Canada is one of the lowest greenhouse gas emitters among industrialized nations, and yet their government seems insistent that they show off to their international friends by cutting their energy industry down (sometimes followed by a meek backpedal to avoid distressing voters too much).
The Canadian Association of Energy Contractors told Bloomberg that these regulations were going to make it more difficult for companies to attract investment capital, just like what has been happening in the United States amid the Biden administration’s regulatory onslaught. It’s obvious that government hostility towards an industry would make investing capital in it less appealing. In the case of the United States, we have a president who has repeatedly pledged to end hydraulic fracturing, end drilling on federal lands, end offshore drilling, and more, so that investing in those kinds of projects would appear to be a serious risk. In Canada, it is no different. Why invest in an industry that is being “phased out” by the government? This will result in lower production and higher prices that Canadians can hardly afford.
But Trudeau’s attack on the oil industry in Canada is not enough for the bloodthirsty greens; the Canadian Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act also targets farmers, specifically those who need to use natural gas and propane to heat barns and greenhouses. If you didn’t realize, the Great White North is cold, awfully cold in the winter, and fruits and vegetables are not easily grown outdoors during the winter season. Canadian farmers have already seen their income fall 8.3 percent in 2022, while the costs of running a farm increased 21.2 percent.
If that’s not bad enough, Trudeau bizarrely called for a tax on grocery stores as food prices began to skyrocket. Grocery stores operate at very slim margins of 1 to 3 percent, depending on volume more than anything else. The only thing a tax would do is raise food costs, or pressure farmers and other suppliers to lower their prices even as the cost of operating (not to mention transportation) rises.
Outrage already caused the Canadian government to temporarily pause their tax on home heating oil, yet another burden on average Canadians, who are struggling just to pay bills.
Canada has a very high cost of living. In fact, it has become so extreme that Reuters reports recent immigrants are leaving the country and moving elsewhere to survive. Natural-born Canadian citizens, of course, can’t jump ship so easily.
All of these factors leave me with one burning question: Are Trudeau and his government incompetent, incomprehensibly stupid, or bluntly and callously evil?
Regardless of which is the case, things are not looking good for our neighbors up north. This hyper-focus on global warming has gone way too far, and it’s actively hurting people. It’s long past time for this madness to stop.
https://redstate.com/heartlandinstitute/2023/12/15/eh-whats-going-on-with-canada-n2167578
**********************************************U.S. Climate 2023 Year in Review In One Word: NORMAL
The year is not quite in the books, but it is late enough that we can have a look-back at this year’s weather and climate extremes.
We are all well aware of the narrative that the weather is quickly getting worse. Unfortunately, data does not agree.1
The weather — and certainly the impacts — of the past 12 months in the United States was actually pretty typical, even benign, in historical context.2
The one variable that stands out among extreme weather is temperature — extreme high temperatures in summer and (in particular) winter were very high in 2023, both of which contribute to a long-term trend that the IPCC has attributed primarily to the emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
This year will come in well below average for the total and insured economic costs of disasters in the United States, mainly because the only landfalling hurricane (Idalia) resulted in less than $1 billion in total damages, far less than the $22+ billion of an average hurricane season.
Month-by-month, 2023 ventured above and below the zero-line of the NOAA temperature anomaly time series (the USCRN). You can see from the figure above that there is no trend in this time series since December 2000, which is counter to what has occurred globally.
Hurricanes
Lots of interesting details, but as far as landfalls and damage, just Hurricane Idalia which was preliminarily classified as a Category 3 storm, but to date just over $300 million in insured damage … Zzzzzz.
Flooding
The US sees a lot of flooding every year. It is normal. This year saw its fair share but nothing unusual or particularly damaging. Disaster declarations don’t tell us anything about climate, but they do tell us something about disaster declarations — 2023 saw (to date) 19 flood-related FEMA disaster declarations, which is just about exactly the average from 2000-2022.4 You can dive much deeper into trends in US flood at this recent post. 2023 will no doubt be consistent with the trends documented there.
Drought
2023 was not particularly exceptional for drought in long-term context. In fact, compared to one year ago, 2023 has seen a markedly improvement in US drought conditions, as you can see below — with December 2022 on the left and December 2023 on the right. 2023 ends the year just about in the 50th percentile of months since 2000 for area under exceptional and extreme drought.
The figure below shows the proportion of US land area characterized as “very wet” and “very dry” from 1895 to 2023. If you squint, you can see that “very dry” has declined a bit, with extremes reduced dramatically since the 1950s, while “very wet” has increased, with more extremes since the 1980s. Fascinating, as Spock would say.
The “very wet” and “very dry” time series has a lot of month-to-month variability — in 2023 the “very wet” area ranged from 0.81% of the country (Nov) to 23.56% (Jan), and “very dry” from 3.36% (Jan) to 23.07% (Jul).
Tornados, Hail, Wind
The figures above show from left to right, tornadoes, hail and wind local storm report counts, based on preliminary data for 2023. The data shows that tornadoes are a bit above the recent average and hail is a bit below. Winds, in contrast, were exceptionally high in 2023. Given that convective storms produce tornadoes, hail and winds, I am looking forward to how meteorologists explain these contrasting trends of 2023. Economic losses from hail and wind were quite large in 2023.
Wildfire
Remarkably, 2023 has seen the fewest acres burned in the US since 1998. Everyone has heard about the record wildfires in Canada, but the quiet US season has been largely ignored.
https://climaterealism.com/2023/12/u-s-climate-2023-year-in-review-in-one-word-normal
***************************************24 December, 2023
Dictatorial Control, From Covid to Climate
Paul Driessen
I choked on my coffee when I read the headline: “Democrats raise specter of Trump dictatorship to boost Biden.” What a textbook example of “projection,” I laughed, referring to the psychology term for deflecting attention away from one’s own blatant behavior by claiming someone else is doing it.
Partisan media and politicos parroted the accusation, and the Biden campaign doubled down.
In the interest of fairness and accuracy, it’s appropriate then to revisit ways the Biden Administration, Democrats and their allies have battled wannabe dictators and defended freedom, democracy and viewpoint diversity in recent years. (Or not.) For example:
* Incessant Antifa rage, riots, rampaging and legal warfare against “Russia-colluding” President Trump, from his election and inauguration throughout and after his term in office.
* School, park and restaurant lockdowns, “social distancing” and mask “advisories,” mandates for “safe and effective” inoculations with vaccines approved with minimal study under “emergency use authorizations,” and endless misrepresentation and censorship by Biden officials, Democrat governors and “journalists” – in the name of preventing Covid.
* Opening our southern border to untold millions of “undocumented noncitizens” – mostly Latin Americans but also Chinese agents, drug smugglers, sex traffickers, terrorists, and disease carriers.
* Billions in “student debt forgiveness,” forcing taxpayers to pay off huge loans to graduates who struggle to get six-figure jobs despite prestigious degrees in gender studies or community organizing.
* Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Environment Social Governance (ESG) programs, from K-12, college to law school, and into government and corporate arenas – to ensure that every component of the society reflects racial, ethnic, and gender proportionality, but never viewpoint or political diversity.
These and many other authoritarian actions impacted American society, freedoms, health, and prosperity in countless negative ways. Far worse, many progressives and leftists hope they will pave the way for obeisance to even more dictatorial mandates promulgated in the name of saving our planet from supposed cataclysms inflicted by fossil-fuel-driven climate change.
Few will quibble that President Biden directed federal employees to take public transportation, ride bikes or rent electric vehicles for work travel, and hold virtual meetings instead of in-person gatherings.
These rules certainly won’t apply to private-jet globe-trotters like Climate Czar John Kerry, and EVs mostly transfer emissions from tailpipes to distant countries where toxic pollution and child labor accompany the mining and processing of raw materials to make EV batteries. But at least some federal workers will now suffer the inconveniences they impose on us, commoners.
However, Team Biden’s endless torrent of dictatorial executive orders, regulatory mandates, and twisted legal reinterpretations for electricity generation, vehicles, appliances, agriculture, housing, and other matters are already impacting our industries, livelihoods, living standards, and basic rights and freedoms.
These diktats are designed to force us to convert everything we now operate with coal, gasoline, diesel or natural gas to electric models. The United States will soon need 3-4 times more electricity than today – and still more to power the AI revolution.
But the same bureaucrats are shutting down coal, gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric generators – ensuring that electricity will be in short supply, generated primarily by weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels, backed up by massive grid-scale battery systems, and thus unavailable or unaffordable during the coldest and hottest days, when electric heat or air conditioning becomes a matter of life or death.
In fact, just the batteries to back up nationwide electricity would cost up to $290 trillion (13 times US 2021 GDP)! Add that to wind, solar, and transmission costs, and the juice to run your all-electric home, business, hospital, school, or transportation will likely cost 30-40 cents per kilowatt-hour instead of the 12-15 cents the average American is paying now.
It’s a prescription for repeated blackouts, economic disaster – and unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats micromanaging every aspect of our lives: what size home we can have; how warm or cool we can keep it; what cars we can drive and how far, or whether we too will be forced to walk, bike or take a bus; how many trips we can take in jetliners, in our lifetime; what foods we can eat (hint: not beef); maybe even how many new clothing items we will be “allowed” to purchase each year!
The ecological impacts will be equally horrendous and widespread in the USA and overseas.
Wind and solar installations, transmission lines, and enormous battery complexes would sprawl across millions of acres of now scenic wildlife habitat and agricultural land. A single solar facility proposed in Virgnia would involve 3,000 acres of panels on 21,000 acres (over half the land area of Washington, DC). It’s just one of dozens of Virginia solar plans – on top of onshore and offshore wind turbine projects.
The installations “will power millions of homes,” supporters insist. Perhaps – but only when the wind is blowing and sun is shining at optimal intensities ... maybe 15-30% of the year in northern latitudes, considering winter snow and sunlight, clouds, nighttime, zero wind and other factors.
Many local residents and other citizens don’t want these massive installations in their backyards; the habitat and scenic vista destruction, bird and bat killings, health problems, and electricity costs and disruptions that go with them; or being turned into energy colonies for progressive urban centers. They’ve already blocked more than 500 wind and solar projects, on environmental and other grounds.
That’s why Michigan, California, New York and Illinois have already enacted laws that give state bureaucrats authority over land use – the ability to exercise eminent domain and other powers over local governments that want to slow or stop the onrush of enormous, heavily subsidized industrial wind, solar, transmission line and other “green” projects. More are likely to follow – depriving rural communities of their rights, property values and autonomy – to serve corporate interests that bankroll Democrat pols.
The federal “deep state” is likely to seek similar legislative authority – or simply assert authority – to implement President Biden’s national net-zero “renewable” energy transformation agenda.
UN and Biden “30x30” plans to “conserve” (make off limits to development) 30% of US and global lands and waters by 2030 will massively increase all these impacts and usurpations of power. Any lands not made off-limits by 30x30, wilderness, park, refuge, and other actions will be developed and desecrated to the hilt with wind, solar, transmission line, mining, biofuel, and other “green energy” projects.
Meanwhile, international climate alarmists and bureaucrats are telling African and other impoverished nations how much they will be “permitted” to develop and improve their health and living standards – using only “sustainable, renewable” wind and solar power. It’s dictatorial colonialism at its worst.
And amid all that, China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other rapidly developing countries are burning more coal, oil, and gas – and emitting more greenhouse gases – than most developed nations combined. That means US and EU economic suicide on the climate altar won’t make an iota of difference.
What might a Trump dictator do? Roll back or cancel these dictatorial decrees. Stop fast-tracking wind and solar projects. End phony environmental justice, DEI, and ESG programs. Return America to energy independence and affordable energy. Build the wall and control immigration. Above all, follow the law and Constitution. How revolutionary, tyrannical ... and refreshing ... that would be!
Paul Driessen is a senior policy advisor to the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate, environmental, and human rights issues.
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Environmental campaigners filmed, threatened and harassed at Cop28
Greenie versus Greenie
Incidents of harassment, surveillance, threats and intimidation are creating a climate of fear at UN events including the recent Cop28 climate conference in Dubai, experts have said.
Indigenous campaigners, human rights defenders and environmental activists say they are increasingly afraid to speak out on urgent issues because of concerns about reprisals from governments or fossil fuel industries.
“In the last few years, we’ve seen Indigenous representatives being filmed by people related to government institutions while giving statements about human rights at UN events, or photographed just for being present at a UN event,” said Lola García-Alix, the global governance senior adviser for the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.
“We’ve witnessed people working closely with governments physically corner and encircle Indigenous representatives in UN meetings. Such acts of intimidation have drastic effects back home, where Indigenous people sometimes face reprisals, including being questioned, harassed or detained.
“While many of these incidents happened in UN human rights events, such as the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, this worrying trend is expanding,’ García-Alix said. “We recently saw intimidation tactics at Cop in Dubai, where several Indigenous people from one country were intimidated by people working closely with that country’s government.
“The brazenness of governments is spreading into international spaces to suppress any voice that goes against their narratives. Over the last decade, there has been increasing alarm over the severity and frequency of such acts. Governments now feel they can act without suffering consequences.”
Other Indigenous activists also reported an atmosphere of intimidation in Dubai. “There was a heavy presence of surveillance and harassment at Cop28,” said Mesiah Burciaga-Hameed, an afro-Indigenous activist with Native Land Digital. “On numerous occasions, we were stalled from entering events, with no explanation. The United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) prides itself on being a peaceful space for self-expression when, in reality, it silences many people.”
Activists, Indigenous and otherwise, have reported being filmed and photographed by people connected to governments or fossil fuel industries as an intimidation tactic.
“Many individuals who made speeches during actions for Palestine or West Papua had reps from Israel and Indonesia taking closeup shots of them,” said Neeka Jun from the Climate Alliance for Palestine. “This intimidation causes extreme fear. There are many people who simply wouldn’t speak their truth publicly for fear of being targeted later.”
Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s programme director of climate, economic and social justice and corporate accountability, was at Cop28. Her delegation’s plans to highlight the link between human rights and climate action in Cop host countries, including the UAE and Egypt, resulted in demands for changes from the UNFCCC and UN security, including for text and photos to be removed.
“We were told our safety couldn’t be guaranteed if we didn’t comply with the requests,” said Schaaf. “We’re concerned about freedom of expression and the right to protest at Cop, including the UNFCCC’s commitment to ensuring safeguards are in place to protect participants.”
Other attenders were afraid to use sim cards or WhatsApp at Cop28, in case phones or messages were being monitored, or to speak openly in public areas because of the thousands of cameras installed, or to openly discuss or protest on wider issues, such as Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Gaza.
“I was stopped by a security guard for a watermelon pin [a sign of solidarity with Palestine] I was wearing,” Krishna, a climate campaigner from the Philippines, said. “He said I could be debadged.”
Official processes are in place for people to report incidents of harassment or intimidation to the UN, but they are seen by many as toothless.
Activists are concerned there will be a similarly repressive atmosphere at next year’s Cop29 in Azerbaijan, a petrostate with strong ties to Russia and where “violations of international humanitarian law” have been reported.
“The last two Cops and the next Cop on climate are in countries where freedom of speech and the right to protest are not upheld, so the UN has increasingly targeted activists,” said Big Wind Carpenter from the Northern Arapaho tribe, part of the Wisdom Keepers delegation at Cop28. “It’s a growing problem. Many Indigenous activists are threatened and punished by their own governments, and can’t speak out against them or corporations. Instead, the UN would rather punish us for speaking the truth.
“But in the hottest year in human history, where we’re watching fossil fuel corporations lead backdoor deals at the UN conference on climate, where leaders can refute climate science as ‘false’ or ‘fringe’, you have to ask why isn’t this oppression happening to the industry responsible for climate change?”
Campaigners are calling for change. “The agreement between the UNFCCC and each Cop host country’s government should be made public,” said Schaaf. “There is a lack of transparency. There should be stronger rules on conflicts of interests to minimise fossil fuel industry influence, and stronger safeguards for all civil society participants. Activists, researchers, and journalists need their rights to free expression to be respected.”
Activists are also hoping the UN will commit to protecting Indigenous peoples and other activists at events and afterwards, including taking action against states or organisations that intimidate campaigners.
“The reprisals faced by Indigenous leaders and defenders of human rights in the United Nations’ mechanisms is alarming – it’s at pandemic level,” said Anexa Alfred Cunningham, an Indigenous Miskitu lawyer from Nicaragua, who was blocked from returning home after participating at an Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) event in Switzerland in 2022. She now lives in Geneva, separated from family, friends and colleagues.
“The UN must take effective measures to ensure no one is subject to retaliation for their participation. The UN should operate free spaces where you can express yourself without fear.”
Activists say the suppression of free speech at Cops and other UN events is hampering progress on climate action and human rights. “If people, Indigenous or otherwise, know they will be intimidated, threatened, harassed or worse for bringing their situation to the attention of the UN and the international community, we’re all facing a serious problem,” García-Alix said.
“If this continues to be allowed, it will delegitimise the whole UN system, important voices will be lost, and environmental degradation and gross human rights violations will persist.”
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Wind farm ‘free for all’ must stop, says Bob Brown
Veteran conservationist Bob Brown has turned on sections of the wind industry, accusing some developers of “profiteering” from climate change and not caring about the planet, while warning the wind rush risks accelerating extinctions.
The former Greens leader told The Weekend Australian better planning and environmental regulation were needed to ensure the nation’s wind rush did not have perverse outcomes.
“Wind power is an essential part of the answer to global warming but at the moment we have a free-for-all and whenever that happens there are reckless casualties,” Dr Brown said.
“And the (Albanese) government is way behind industry on this. There are international as well as national (wind farm developer) interests looking at anywhere the wind blows. They’re not doing it in the service of the planet.
“I do see a small number of those wind farms that are environmentally unjustified because the detriment is far greater than the benefit. That’s not being properly safeguarded at state or federal level.”
Dr Brown’s foundation has opposed a wind farm proposed for Robbins Island, at the northwestern tip of Tasmania, and Dr Brown is opposed to another inland from Cairns, in Queensland.
He said he was being approached to help fight wind farms across the country and had to make a case-by-case decision.
“(Some of these wind farms) are going in the end to be negative – the overall environmental offer is false because the impact on the environment is going to be bigger than the benefit,” he said.
Dr Brown, who famously led opposition to the damming of the Franklin River for a hydro-electric scheme in the 1980s, agreed the wind rush, if mishandled, could create as many environmental problems as it solved.
He was concerned the Tasmanian government’s pursuit of a 200 per cent renewable energy target – to allow surplus power to be exported to the mainland – was driven by “profiteering” under the guise of climate action.
The Bob Brown Foundation continues to fight the 100-turbine wind farm proposed for Robbins Island by ACEN Australia.
“The real driving reason for that (200 per cent renewables target) is profiteering by people like ACEN, moving into a lucrative new market which is being forced by the exigencies of climate change,” Dr Brown said.
He said the federal government was still talking about improving environmental regulation of wind farms, while developers moved into inappropriate areas.
“There’s an appalling wind farm being built inland at Cairns on the top of the range there, to the west of the Daintree National Park, and this one on Robbins Island,” Dr Brown said.
“I’m afraid we’re going to see more of this with massive wind farms lined up across the Australian environment to sell at profit renewable energy into Asia, either directly through cables or for hydrogen.
“We’re in a calamitous situation for the environment and nobody in this is much discussing energy efficiency, which is the cheapest and most environmentally sound (source of new power).”
ACEN said it had worked hard to address potential impacts of its Robbins Island wind farm on endangered Tasmanian devils and orange-bellied parrots, and that such impacts would be negligible.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek declined to comment but her department said the government was committed to “strengthening and streamlining … national environmental laws, including for renewables projects”.
“The reforms will improve the system for business and ensure we have faster, clearer, more efficient decision-making that enables economic development, while at the same time ensuring we better protect our environment and heritage,” a spokeswoman said.
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British PM faces Net Zero ‘boiler tax’ rebellion
Tory backbenchers mobilise against plans to penalise boiler makers that do not meet heat pump installation targets.
Rishi Sunak is facing another major Tory rebellion over his plans to introduce a net zero “boiler tax” to railroad through the switch to heat pumps.
Conservative backbenchers are mobilising to oppose the proposals when they come before the Commons for a crunch vote in the new year.
The Prime Minister is pressing ahead with plans to fine boiler makers who do not meet heat pump installation targets from April.
Manufacturers have responded to the proposals by increasing their prices, raising them by up to £120 to offset the cost of the heat pump rollout.
However, the penalties require legislation to enforce, meaning Mr Sunak faces a showdown with MPs who are unhappy with the cost to consumers.
The Telegraph has been told the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which consists of 50 Tory backbenchers, is mobilising to vote against the plans.
Craig Mackinlay, the influential group’s chairman, said: “The Government’s planned new boiler tax is another blow to hardworking families.
“If heat pumps are as good as ministers are claiming then why do they feel the need to mandate them?
“I urge the Prime Minister to remember his speech from back in September and deliver on his promise to protect families from the cost of net zero. He must scrap this tax.”
Ministers need to pass a Statutory Instrument through the Commons early next year to provide the legal powers to enforce heat pump quotas.
‘Green mania will increase inflation’
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former energy secretary, said: “Once again the green mania will increase inflation and lower living standards.
“It is wrong to tax boilers. If heat pumps are expensive and inefficient people should not be coerced into buying them.”
Sir John Redwood, a former Cabinet minister, said that if MPs saw an opportunity to vote against the proposals “we’ll obviously take it”.
He branded the plan “a disgrace”, adding: “It will mean higher prices for gas boilers for the many who still want them and will not necessarily sell more heat pumps.”
Under the scheme boiler manufacturers will have to ensure that 4pc of their sales are made up of heat pumps next year, rising to 6pc in 2025-26.
They will be fined £3,000 for every unit that they miss their target by.
Labour is poised to support the measures, known as the Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM), meaning Mr Sunak is not in danger of an embarrassing defeat.
But a sizeable mutiny would leave him once again in the embarrassing position of having to rely on the opposition to pass a flagship piece of Net Zero law.
The Prime Minister suffered one of the biggest rebellions of his premiership earlier this month as dozens of Tory MPs opposed similar targets for car makers.
Senior figures including Suella Braverman and Dame Priti Patel, both former home secretaries, voted against quotas for electric vehicle sales.
In total 26 of Mr Sunak’s own MPs opposed the plans, meaning that they would have been defeated had it not been for Labour’s support.
Backbenchers have accused the Prime Minister of effectively reneging on a promise he made in September to scale back the cost of Net Zero.
He gave a major speech from Downing Street which he hailed as a change of course on green targets to reduce the hit to family finances.
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21 December, 2023
Another eco myth? Study finds plant-based utensils do NOT break down in the environment like activists claim
Plant-based plastics have been touted as the environmentally conscious alternative to typical petroleum-based products.
But many so-called 'bioplastic' products failed to decompose after more than a year in the ocean or on land, a new study shows.
The products have become increasingly common, with companies like Starbucks, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Lavazza, Lego, Nestle, Lush Cosmetics, and Kelloggs using them for all sorts of packaging, either as single-use plastic items or as linings for other materials.
Previous research has shown that paper straws contain cancer-causing PFAS, known as 'forever chemicals' because they remain in the environment for many, many years.
And the new study suggests that even if these bioplastics are not toxic, they don't appear to break down either.
Given the increasing popularity of bioplastics, researchers with The 5 Gyres Institute set out to see how these products would fare when thrown in the ocean or left by the side of the road - common fates for plastic bags, bottles, straws, and forks.
They placed bioplastics at multiple sites on land and sea, alongside conventional plastics and some made from wood or paper for comparison.
Almost none of these products fully wore away after 64 weeks, and some were virtually unchanged. Those that did wear away tended to break down into smaller pieces, rather than decomposing.
The bioplastic industry is valued at about $11.6 billion worldwide, and it is expected to grow about 19 percent per year.
Products left on land tended to break down more slowly than those left in the water, but even after 64 weeks, 78 percent of the bioplastic items remained in some form.
'Bioplastics' is a category that includes both biobased plastics made from renewable sources like vegetable fats, corn starch, straw, sawdust, or recycled food waste, and what are known as 'biopolymers,' plastics produced by microorganisms like bacteria or yeast, which are fed fats or sugars.
The study mainly examined PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) and PLA (polylactic acid) products, which are both biopolymers.
Researchers deposited 22 different products at 6 sites in California, Maine, and Florida - one on land and one at sea in each state. Seventeen of the products were bioplastics. For comparison, they included three polyethylene, one bamboo, and one paper product.
Mesh bags held the objects in place, while still exposing them to the elements. Land-based items were buried, and sea items were dangled into the water.
Researchers retrieved the items at fixed periods to track how much they had broken down: 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 16 weeks, 32 weeks, and 64 weeks.
As expected, none of the polyethylene products broke down after 64 weeks. The bamboo forks did not, either.
The paper straws at all three aquatic sites broke down after 32 weeks, but only the land-based ones in Maine were fully gone by 64 weeks.
The bioplastics followed a similar pattern: Out of those that actually did break down, most were in the water. Overall, about 78 out of 102 bioplastic items remained intact.
The 5 Gyres Institute is an environmental nonprofit funded mostly by donations from corporations and charitable foundations. Charity Navigator rated it three out of four stars.
The study's results were published in a report on the group's website.
One of the study's main conclusions is that consumers should be aware of the difference between products that are 'compostable' versus those that are 'biodegradable.'
All compostable products are biodegradable, but that does not mean they will break down while they float around in the ocean or lie in the dirt.
Part of the issue is that, even though the products may start life as natural ingredients like corn, chemical tweaking yields a chemical structure almost the same as regular plastics made from petroleum products.
Most of them require high-heat composting facilities, and most will never get there - and many end up in garbage incinerators just like any other trash.
Bioplastics are rarely disposed properly, previous research has shown, making them potentially worse for global warming than conventional plastics. Environmental groups have called them a 'false solution' to the problem of plastic waste.
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The Impossible Energy 'Transition'
After two weeks of negotiation, the United Nations climate conference in Dubai agreed last week to “transition away” from fossil fuels. Left unanswered is whether governments are supposed to do that by reducing supply, reducing demand or both. A lot rides on the answer, but neither would affect the climate much.
In the demand-side scenario, technology saves the day with cost-competitive renewables. This is the vision of the International Energy Agency, according to which the more rapid the transition from fossil fuels, the more precipitous the decline in fossil-fuel prices. In its “Net Zero Emissions” scenario, oil demand drops faster than supply this decade, pushing oil prices below $30 a barrel soon after 2030, which corresponds to $1-a-gallon gasoline.
Yet even with fossil-fuel prices near historic highs, effective renewable substitutes are nowhere near cost-competitive. They’d have to get cheaper still to compete with $30-a-barrel oil. And in developed countries, especially the U.S., it’s impossible to get permits quickly enough for the staggering amount of renewable capacity that would be needed.
In the supply-side approach, governments would slash oil production or impose rationing, hoping to make fossil fuels so expensive that renewables are the only option. This is the dark vision of “Stop Oil” and Greta Thunberg. But as long as renewable substitutes aren’t immediately available and oil and gas remain necessary, a small reduction in supply causes prices to soar. That means windfall profits for energy companies, scarcity for everyone else, and electoral danger for the governments responsible. Ms. Thunberg claims that climate change is a “death sentence” for the poor, but the poor are far more vulnerable to disruptions in energy supply. In the 1970s, an oil boycott aimed at the U.S. caused famines in Africa.
While the stop-oil view was popular at Dubai, there were enough adults in the room to keep the conference from committing to it. “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5 C” (the Paris Agreement’s proposed limit on 21st-century temperature increases), said conference president Ahmed al Jaber, “unless you want to take the world back into caves.” Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman dared countries to try to choke off the oil supply: “Let them do that themselves. And we will see how much they can deliver.”
Poor countries are clear-eyed about the danger of energy poverty. “We are not going to compromise with the availability of power for growth,” said India’s minister for power, R.K. Singh. China has more coal plants under construction than are in operation in the U.S. Few rich countries have announced plans to stop drilling for oil or gas, and none of those are major producers. Even President Biden ran away from increasing the gasoline tax as soon as prices went above $3 a gallon in the summer of 2021.
The administration’s answer to this conundrum is to defer political consequences via the regulatory state. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to require that all coal and natural-gas plants shut down or adopt unproven zero-carbon technologies by 2038. Another EPA proposal would require 62% of all cars sold in America to be fully electric by 2032.
Assuming they survive court challenges and future administrations, they would impose soaring prices and reduced mobility on Americans. They would have almost no impact on global temperatures unless other countries, including China and India, also commit to energy poverty. The question is how much damage these policies will do before they’re abandoned.
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What could happen if we just stopped oil? Six billion might die
It's difficult to see how an immediate ban on fossil fuels will allow civilisation to continue and flourish
Many of us have been exasperated by the antics of Just Stop Oil protesters. Now, I believe that these are well-meaning and committed to their cause and I am sure that they think that they are trying to save the planet in the best way they can think of – gain publicity, get people talking and influence politicians.
But what would happen if we literally just stopped oil tomorrow and did without the natural resources on which the world, its economies and populations depend? The answer: most likely six billion people would die within a year.
I am going to assume the “oil” in Just Stop Oil means fossil fuels – so oil, gas and coal. I am also going to assume that we have today’s technological knowledge and infrastructure, so we are talking about stopping fossil fuels now, not at some unspecified time in the future.
Day 1 – no more mining of coal; the world’s oil wells shut down; the world’s gas fields likewise. The first to feel the change would be gas users.
Gas stocks held above ground are typically not that high. So the UK would quite quickly, say in 10 or 15 days, have to turn off its gas distribution system as it would be unable to maintain pressure.
This would mean in turn that the domestic supply would be shut down too – gas would stop flowing, and some 21 million households (74pc of the population) would no longer have heating, hot water, and cooking facilities. In their panic, people might turn to electricity for their cooking and heating, but wait…
The UK electricity grid relies on natural gas as its “buffer” energy source. Every day, demand varies according to consumer demand, and the other main energy supplier, renewables, are highly variable and can only power the grid when gas is picking up the lion’s share of the gap between their output and consumer demand.
So the moment that the main gas distribution system is de-pressurised, the grid-balancing system fails and power cuts ensue.
It is impossible to gauge how extensive these power cuts would be, but the grid would be so seriously compromised, possibly fatally, that they may be widespread and permanent.
Electricity demand would have rocketed through the switch to electric space heating, cooking and water-heating, and so it seems very likely that the sudden excess demand would be undeliverable, and therefore that the grid would spiral into uncontrollability.
No electricity means no communication systems – no mobiles, no TV, and no running water. With no power and no heating, vulnerable people start to die.
Initially just the elderly in their own homes, then in hospitals when the diesel back-up generators run out of fuel, but then new existential problems emerge for ordinary people in the form of food availability and distribution.
Day 25 – I’m probably being generous with the timing here, but diesel and petrol are likely to have run out by day 25. This means that food distribution would fail, and so the population, most of which are entirely dependent on bought food, begin to starve.
In dire national emergencies, international help is often forthcoming, but in this case, this scenario is taking place, in largely identical ways and timing, across the developed and developing world. Only isolated rural communities, agriculturally self-sufficient, would be relatively unaffected. So no international rescue mission.
Day 50 – in the urban world, many people would be near death from starvation. In the 50 days since the ending of fossil fuel supply, law and order would have broken down, and I suspect that mass conflict and slaughter would have been taking place with the increasingly desperate search for the means of survival.
But disease would be on the rampage too, with no power, no water supply and no sewage flow, so cholera, dysentery and all the other Victorian diseases of crowding would take over.
Day 100 – just three months or so since the world just stopped oil – my guess is that around half of the world’s population (say four billion people) would be dead. The first to die would be the urban poor; then the middle and upper classes, with money and status becoming increasingly irrelevant with the passage of time.
The survivors would be largely rural, able to live off local agricultural produce, or live off dwindling food stocks.
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Why the green elites hate Christmas
Ignore the doom-mongers, the killjoys, the snobs. Don’t let your week of freedom be clouded by the wailing of upper-class neurotics who think the world will end if we get to do what we want. Instead, eat, drink and – the greatest rebellion of all – be merry.
Not content with blocking roads and ruining the snooker, now Just Stop Oil’s glum toffs are coming for Christmas. Nothing horrifies plummy greens more than the thought of millions of plebs buying gifts, getting sloshed and eating dead birds. So they intend to do something about it. They’ll be spray-painting Christmas trees and singing ‘climate Christmas carols’. Then there’s the ace up their sleeve. Their greatest act of torment against the British public yet. A Christmas single.
It’s called ‘We Tried’. The singer is Louise Harris. You remember her – she’s the eco-zealot who wept on a motorway gantry during a JSO stunt. ‘I’m here because I don’t have a future!’, she blubbed. ‘Why does it take young people like me up on a fucking gantry on the M25 for you to listen?!’, she wailed. Oh sweetheart, we’re still not listening. Now the Cambridge grad is turning on the waterworks once more as she warbles: ‘Take me where the birds still fly / Cos smoke fills up our sky.’ Deep.
‘This song woke me up’, says Brian Eno, making it sound like it interrupted his afternoon nap. It’s a ‘fucking horrific, terrifying and tragic’ song and you must ‘listen to it’, says naturalist fruitcake Chris Packham. For five long, mournful minutes Ms Harris sings and sobs against a backdrop of factories, war and natural disasters. It’s a deathly ballad, the bastard child of Chris de Burgh and Greta Thunberg. ‘Just Stop Singing!’, as a headline in the Daily Mail aptly puts it.
JSO hopes it will be the Christmas No1. Fat chance. That spot is Shane MacGowan’s. What’s more, people don’t take kindly to being lectured by the emotionally incontinent upper classes during the season to be jolly. Ms Harris must know this. In 2022, she invaded the pitch when Spurs were playing West Ham, whereupon legions of fans pelted her with drinks. She fled to Facebook to boohoo about being ‘hated by the majority of the general public’. There’s an easy fix for that, Louise: don’t interrupt the football and don’t release rubbish singles.
There’s something about Christmas that always brings out the well-off eco-aware in a rash. For years the right-on have bemoaned the waste and indulgence of the holiday season. ‘[F]or God’s sake stop trashing the planet’ with your ‘junk’ gifts, said Guardian Scrooge George Monbiot a decade ago. We’ve had Buy Nothing Christmas, an outgrowth of Buy Nothing Day, which encouraged us to ‘bypass the tinsel, the tree and the tat’ and ‘go cold turkey on consumerism’ (boom boom). ‘All I want for Christmas is a lower rate of consumption’, say headlines in the pompous press. Just Stop Oil’s party-pooping is only the latest expression of this weird aristocratic derision for Christmas.
JSO has already sang climate carols outside Keir Starmer’s house. ‘On the first day of Christmas, Keir Starmer gave to me / Genocide from the North Sea’, the loons intoned, because apparently Sir Keir isn’t sufficiently committed to phasing out oil-pumping in Scotland. ‘All I want for Christmas is for oil-rig workers to lose their jobs’ would have been a more honest lyric. Just Stop Oil’s German wing has defiled Christmas trees with JSO’s trademark orange paint. Furious Christmas shoppers in Strasbourg rose up against the paint-splattering grinches, leading to one of my favorite headlines of the year: ‘Eco protesters manhandled by angry public after spraying Xmas market tree orange.’
There’s a powerful whiff of snobbery to this Christmasphobia. The annual handwringing over holiday ‘waste’ feels a lot like ‘wealthy leftists talking down to the working class about their life choices’, wrote Simon Copland a few years ago. Indeed. From the pulpit of the New York Times comment pages to the weepy pleas of apocalyptic greens, every Christmas the well-off reprimand workers for eating, drinking and spending too much. In the words of a writer for the NYT, ‘Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans produce a colossal amount of waste’, causing ‘landfills [to] swell beyond all reason’, and making ‘whales starve because of the plastic they have consumed’. Oh, stop it! Can we not have one week off from the finger-wagging?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/19/why-the-green-elites-hate-christmas/
***************************************20 December, 2023
What Climate Zealots Don’t Understand About EVs and Winter
Here in Wisconsin, where fewer than one-tenth of 1% of vehicles are fully electric, it’s rare to see an EV outside the city.
That’s why the latest international climate conference, Conference of the Parties (COP28), which advocated widespread adoption of electric vehicles, should have Wisconsinites concerned.
When the temperature drops below 40 degrees, which occurs over 200 days per year in Eau Claire, electric vehicles experience a reduction in range and efficiency, with losses of up to 40% when the heating system is in use.
My visit to my local automotive shop to have the tires rotated on the family Ram truck was unaffected by the 13-degree Fahrenheit weather.
While the truck was up on the lift, Liz Fox, a service adviser at the shop, told me that while not many electric vehicles come in for repairs, when they do, repairs typically take longer and are more expensive than repairing internal-combustion engine vehicles.
“Switching to EVs is really costly, and it’s going to be really time-consuming.” Fox told me. She cited a recent case where nearly two months were spent troubleshooting and sourcing components on a broken EV, despite having a certified electric vehicle technician.
She’s not alone. A recent report shows that repair costs for EVs are 56% more expensive than traditional vehicles—and purchase costs are often 50% higher.
A new special report by The Heritage Foundation, “Powering Human Advancement,” shows how access to affordable, abundant energy is essential to living. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“Depriving people in any society of reliable and affordable energy denies them access to clean water, adequate medical care, affordable transportation, and economic opportunities, which will limit any human advancement, especially in the most vulnerable of countries,” the report states.
Governments and international organizations cannot force renewable energy and electric vehicles before people are ready. That’s a recipe for crisis.
Construction sites in Eau Claire feature battered pickup trucks and SUVs driven by construction workers, who can’t afford EVs. There is no subway in Eau Claire, bus service is limited, and people can’t rely on bicycles due to snowy weather and long distances.
Affordable transportation provides a means to a job, a ride to school, and to take weekend trips and vacations with the family.
In contrast, EVs are popular as second cars with upper-income individuals who have short commutes. Americans value the freedom to choose gasoline-only, hybrid, or electric vehicles, and for that freedom, it’s crucial to have alternative choices. But the organizers of COP28, supported by President Joe Biden, don’t want Americans or residents of other countries to choose which vehicles to buy.
This erosion of choice is not only detrimental to consumer freedom, but also to the livelihood of auto producers and car dealers. Look no further than last month’s letter to Biden signed by about 4,000 auto dealers, who were disturbed at the surging supply of unsold electric vehicles on their lots.
Even with subsidies to car manufacturers and tax credits for buyers, only 7% of new-vehicle sales are electric, well below Biden’s 2030 goal of 60%.
Codifying the recommendations of COP28 would require that America generate an additional costly 1.4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or 30% of current output, to support the charging needs of a full fleet of electric vehicles.
Over the past two decades, nearly $7 trillion has been spent globally on subsidies for wind and solar energy. Despite this substantial investment, these sources contribute only 2.3% to the global supply of energy. Pairing fully electric vehicles with costly and unreliable electricity is a recipe for disaster.
Wisconsinites appreciate the benefits of affordable energy and the mobility of gasoline-powered cars. As a cold Christmas approaches, they know that COP28 recommendations won’t fly here in the Badger State.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/18/winter-electric-vehicles-dont-mix-wisconsin/
*******************************************Time’s up for Net Zero
In Archimedes’ Fulcrum, Professor Gwythian Prins argues that, in the aftermath of the almost complete failure of the 28th COP climate conference, time is up for Net Zero. Instead, he says we need climate policy “as if the environment really mattered” and shows how small legislative changes could have a major impact on the UK’s prospects.
Professor Prins, a security and energy expert with decades of experience, says that in our increasingly unstable world ‘luxury beliefs’, chief among them Net Zero, must be jettisoned as a matter of urgency. “Its time is over” he says, as COP28 has made clear.
The paper strips everything back to first principles. It reviews the axiomatic flaws in the science of global warming, and explains how the climate change ‘disease’ has been misdiagnosed. It then goes on to consider the decarbonisation ‘medicine’ that has been prescribed and finds that a green energy transition is impossible, transgressing the laws of physics and engineering.
As a result, the medicine is going to be worse than the disease; policies advanced in good faith in a bid to protect Nature will have the opposite effect. As Professor Prins explains:
"The harder Net Zero is pushed, the more it fails. The more it fails, the more it damages the environment, social trust and harmony. It’s high time to supplant eco-religion with reason and evidence. What is to be done? At this geopolitically tense moment, fortune favours the bold. The simplest way is the safest way because it is the most decisive way. That is Archimedes’ Fulcrum – a way to deliver a thermodynamically competent energy transition as if the environment really mattered. Be prepared for some surprises."
https://mailchi.mp/310cd5e6954b/archimedes-fulcrum-times-up-for-net-zero-200092?e=cc88839e92
****************************************************UK Health Security Agency boss criticised for tropical disease claims
A leading expert in mosquito-borne diseases is fiercely critical of Professor Dame Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency, calling her recent pronouncements on mosquito-transmitted diseases “entirely fictional” and “shameless”.
Professor Harries was quoted in the media as saying that rising temperatures will make such diseases common in the UK by 2040 because the Asian Tiger Mosquito – which can transmit dengue, chikungunya, zika, yellow fever and other viral diseases – will become established throughout Britain. Dengue will eventually become endemic in London, it is claimed.
But Professor Paul Reiter, retired professor of Insects and Infectious Diseases at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and a leading specialist in this field, has ridiculed her claims:
“The natural range of the Tiger mosquito, an Asian species, extends from the tropics to regions where mean January temperatures are around minus ten degrees Celsius. Northern strains are able to survive because in late summer, as days grow shorter, the eggs they lay are dormant and remain unhatched until spring arrives”.
Since the late 1970s, there has been rapid global spread of the Tiger mosquito, to the United States, Latin America, Europe and several African countries, probably mainly via the global trade in used tyres. Professor Reiter says that it is beyond doubt that this has nothing to do with temperature.
Professor Reiter has also lambasted fearmongering about the return of malaria, noting that this was once a major cause of death in many parts of England, even during the period that climatologists call the Little Ice Age:
"Shakespeare mentions malaria – “the ague” – thirteen times, so it was clearly once common here. The disease began to decline – for a multitude of reasons – in the mid-nineteenth century, despite the upward trend in global temperatures."
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
"This is not the first time we have seen the Civil Service misleading the public in this way. Science is being misused to generate fear and to “nudge” us in a desired direction. This kind of shameful disinformation brings the Civil Service into disrepute."
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Building wind power, canceling coal — it’s all drowning under borrowing costs
Plans to push South Africa and Indonesia off coal sputtered. So have offshore wind farms on the New Jersey and British coasts, and a green hydrogen project in an Italian port city.
Climate projects around the world are sinking because of high borrowing costs driven by interest rates — jeopardizing a major plank of the international effort to prevent the most catastrophic damage from warming temperatures.
Many of the nations gathered at this month’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai, including the United States, have set a goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade. Such a pledge could be one of a handful of substantial climate actions coming out of the talks, which are embroiled in a standoff over whether governments should commit to phasing out fossil fuels.
But rising interest rates have imperiled these goals.
Interest rates were one reason developers gave for canceling major offshore wind projects in recent months, including two projects near New Jersey by the Danish company Ørsted and a Swedish business’ project in the North Sea. In September, no bidders turned out for a September offshore wind energy auction in the U.K., also related to the effects of higher borrowing costs.
“It’s a very under-appreciated fact how critically, how badly interest rates are impacting our global climate change efforts,” said Sumant Sinha, CEO of the Indian renewable energy developer ReNew. “It’s an innocent bystander in this whole managing the economy and controlling inflation, and people don’t realize that.”
Essentially, persistent rate spikes have scrambled economic fundamentals for large, capital-intensive projects with long repayment periods — the exact type of projects needed if the world wants to hit its goals of massively slashing carbon emissions by mid-century.
The economic climate is also making it harder to wean the world off fossil fuels. Rising rates have made it infeasible to do the debt-refinancing needed to decommission carbon-spewing coal plants, said Joseph Curtin, power and climate managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation. Already, he said, that reality has gummed up tens of billions of dollars that wealthy countries once offered to help nudge South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam off coal.
The renewables collateral damage
Central banks like the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have been hiking interest rates to cool inflation, trying to bring it back under control after the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But the moves have, predictably, had spillover effects. Notably for climate watchers, they have steered capital away from developing nations that will contribute a bulk of planet-heating gases in the coming decades.
Renewables investments have cooled steeply enough in the Middle East that consulting firm Wood Mackenzie is forecasting fewer new installations than it previously thought, said Chris Seiple, vice chair of its power and renewables group.
The same effect is slowing onshore wind projects in Asia, a region highly dependent on coal and imported oil and gas, said Mike Taylor, senior analyst with the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Association, or IRENA.
Simultaneously, high rates have made costlier renewable projects difficult to finance even in rich countries.
Hydrogen, a source of optimism for blunting the climate impact of heavy industry, doesn’t make financial sense at current rates, Seiple said. Just 7 percent of European hydrogen projects have lined up financing for construction, according to research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Italian energy company Enel abandoned its government-backed green hydrogen project in La Spezia last month.
Shaky financing for renewables is therefore delaying the aggressive clean energy deployment the scientists say is necessary to combat climate change. The rates are a key driver of that newfound instability.
That’s because clean-energy projects typically get most of their capital on the front end, then repay that debt over the years with revenue they get from power customers. The prices the developers can charge are often agreed upon before the financing is finalized, making it hard to withstand fluctuations in the rates.
“The renewable business is completely different than the traditional energy business,” Ramon Mendez, Uruguay’s former energy secretary, said at a news conference Wednesday. “Renewables is just the finance business.”
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19 December, 2023
Another New Paper Shows Temp Changes come first: BEFORE CO2 rises
Warmists have entirely mistaken the direction of the causal arrow
This is taken from a very long paper, so we have reproduced the most important parts of it. It will likely be ignored by the mainstream media and politicians. The full paper can be seen via the see more here link
The scientific and wider interest in the relationship between atmospheric temperature (T) and concentration of carbon dioxide ([CO2]) has been enormous
According to the commonly assumed causality link, increased [CO2] causes a rise in T.
However, recent developments cast doubts on this assumption by showing that this relationship is of the hen-or-egg type, or even unidirectional but opposite in direction to the commonly assumed one.
These developments include an advanced theoretical framework for testing causality based on the stochastic evaluation of a potentially causal link between two processes via the notion of the impulse response function.
Using, on the one hand, this framework and further expanding it and, on the other hand, the longest available modern time series of globally averaged T and [CO2], we shed light on the potential causality between these two processes.
All evidence resulting from the analyses suggests a unidirectional, potentially causal link with T as the cause and [CO2] as the effect. That link is not represented in climate models, whose outputs are also examined using the same framework, resulting in a link opposite the one found when the real measurements are used.
The mainstream assumption of the causality direction [CO2] ? T makes a compelling narrative, as everything is blamed on a single cause, the human CO2 emissions. Indeed, this has been the popular narrative for decades.
However, popularity does not necessarily mean correctness, and here we have provided strong arguments against this assumption.
Since we have identified atmospheric temperature as the cause and atmospheric CO2 concentration as the effect, one may be tempted to ask the question: What is the cause of the modern increase in temperature?
Apparently, this question is much more difficult to reply to, as we can no longer attribute everything to any single agent.
We do not claim to have the answer to this question, whose study is far beyond the article’s scope.
Neither do we believe that mainstream climatic theory, which is focused upon human CO2 emissions as the main cause and regards everything else as feedback of the single main cause, can explain what happened on Earth for 4.5 billion years of changing climate.
Nonetheless, as a side product, in the Appendices to the paper, we provide several indications of the following:
The dependence of the carbon cycle on temperature is quite strong and indeed major increases of [CO2] can emerge as a result of temperature rise. In other words, we show that the natural [CO2] changes due to temperature rise are far larger (by a factor > 3) than human emissions (Appendix A.1).
There are processes, such as the Earth’s albedo (which is changing in time as any other characteristic of the climate system), the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the ocean heat content in the upper layer (represented by the vertically averaged temperature in the layer 0–100 m), which are potential causes of the temperature increase, unlike what is observed with [CO2], their changes precede those of temperature (Appendix A.2, Appendix A.3 and Appendix A.4).
On a large timescale, the analysis of paleoclimatic data supports the primacy of the causal direction T ? [CO2], even though some controversy remains about this issue (Appendix A.5).
In terms of the carbon cycle (point 1 above), several physical, chemical, biochemical and human processes are involved in it. The human CO2 emissions due to the burning of ‘fossil fuels’ have largely increased since the beginning of the industrial age.
However, the global temperature increase began succeeding the Little Ice Period, at a time when human CO2 emissions were very low.
To cast light on the problem, we examine the issue of CO2 emissions vs. atmospheric temperature further in the Supplementary Information, where we provide evidence that they are not correlated with each other.
The outgassing from the sea is also highlighted sometimes in the literature among the climate-related mechanisms. On the other hand, the role of the biosphere and biochemical reactions is often downplayed, along with the existence of complex interactions and feedback.
This role can be summarized in the following points, examined in detail and quantified in Appendix A.1.
Terrestrial and maritime respiration and decay are responsible for the vast majority of CO2 emissions [32], Figure 5.12.
Overall, natural processes of the biosphere contribute 96 percent to the global carbon cycle, the rest, four percent, being human emissions (which were even lower in the past [33]).
The biosphere is more productive at higher temperatures, as the rates of biochemical reactions increase with temperature, which leads to increasing natural CO2 emission [2].
Additionally, a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration makes the biosphere more productive via the so-called carbon fertilization effect, thus resulting in greening of the Earth [34,35], i.e., amplification of the carbon cycle, to which humans also contribute through crops and land-use management [36].
In addition to the biosphere, there are other factors that drive the Earth’s climate in periodic and non-periodic way.
Orbital parameters of Earth’s revolution change quasi-cyclically in a multi-millennial scale (variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of Earth’s orbit), as interpreted by Milankovi? [37,38,39,40,41], and changes in the orbit geometry influence the amount of insolation.
The non-periodic drivers of the Earth’s climate variability include volcanic eruptions and collisions with large extraterrestrial objects, e.g., asteroids. An important climate driver is water in its three phases [33].
Another apparent factor is solar activity (including solar cycles) and the solar radiation (im)balance on Earth (e.g., albedo changes; see [33] and Appendix A.2). Notably, a recent study [42], by assessing 20 years of direct observations of energy imbalance from Earth-orbiting satellites, showed that the global changes observed appear largely from reductions in the amount of sunlight scattered by Earth’s atmosphere.
ENSO and ocean heating, both of which affect temperature, are examined in Appendix A.3 and Appendix A.4, respectively. The results of Appendix A.2, Appendix A.3 and Appendix A.4 are summarized in the schematic of Figure 13.
Changes in all three examined processes, albedo, ENSO and the upper ocean heat, precede in time the changes in temperature and even more so those in [CO2]. Generally, the time lags shown in Figure 13 complete a consistent picture of potential causality links among climate processes and always confirm the ???[CO2] direction.
https://principia-scientific.com/another-new-paper-shows-temp-changes-before-co2/
*************************************************Conservative State Files First-in-the-Nation Lawsuit Against BlackRock Over Deceptive Climate Policies
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on Monday sued the investment company BlackRock for deceptive practices.
“BlackRock has said two things that can’t both be true,” Skrmetti, a Republican, told The Daily Signal in an interview Monday. “The first is that they’re taking investors’ money and investing it purely for the purpose of maximizing the return on investment. But they’ve also put out statements saying that they’re committed to net-zero [carbon emissions to combat] climate change by certain dates.”
“They’ve made lots of statements about working to use all of the assets under their management to further the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and both of those can’t be true,” he added.
In the suit filed in Williamson County Circuit Court, Skrmetti alleges that BlackRock violates the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act by engaging in deceptive practices regarding its so-called environmental, social, and governance goals. BlackRock has helped lead the movement to force climate alarmism goals on companies in the name of ESG. These goals often involve pledging to alter business practices to decrease or offset carbon emissions in the name of helping the environment, even though science on carbon emissions destroying the climate is far from settled.
In 2020 and 2021, BlackRock joined the climate alarmism groups Climate Action 100+ and the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, committing to use the weight of all assets under management to advance many environmental, social, and governance goals and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Yet BlackRock operates many non-ESG funds, claiming that such funds “do not seek to follow a sustainable, impact, or ESG investment strategy.” The company further claims that there is “no indication” that non-ESG funds will adopt an ESG investment strategy.
Although BlackRock claims these funds don’t advance its ESG goals, it has adopted a companywide commitment to ESG goals and aggressively urged climate goals on other enterprises it invests in. As a shareholder in many other companies, BlackRock carries considerable weight and has pushed them to make climate-related commitments.
“BlackRock’s pledge as a member of [the climate groups] is to force companies to disclose targets for net-zero emissions for environmental and political reasons (limiting warming to well below 2°C), without regard to materiality to the particular company’s financial performance,” the lawsuit argues. “BlackRock makes no mention of this commitment to non-material factors when explaining its portfolio company disclosure expectations to fund investors.”
The lawsuit cites many instances where BlackRock used its influence over companies it invests in—including Chevron, United Airlines, and Walmart—to push climate-related shareholder proposals. Yet BlackRock claimed in a December 2022 statement responding to state attorneys general that the company doesn’t “dictate to companies what specific emission targets they should meet or what type of political lobbying they should pursue.”
BlackRock also claimed that its role “is to help [clients] navigate investment risks and opportunities, not to engineer a specific decarbonization outcome in the real economy.”
As for ESG funds, Skrmetti’s lawsuit cites this claim by BlackRock: “The global aspiration to achieve a net-zero global economy by 2050 is reflective of aggregated efforts; governments representing over 90% of GDP have committed to move to net-zero over the coming decades.”
However, only 15% of countries that have made a net-zero commitment have enshrined such commitments in law, and only 10% of global emissions would be covered by legally binding pledges, according to Tennessee’s lawsuit. The lawsuit lists 14 statements that BlackRock could have added as disclosures to make that statement less deceptive, such as noting that no country in the world has implemented policies that will prevent the world climate from increasing 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Climate Action Tracker.
BlackRock also has presented contradictory claims about whether ESG goals align with positive financial outcomes.
BlackRock has said that its “focus on climate risk and energy is about driving financial outcomes for clients,” but the company also has admitted that sustainability metrics “do not provide an indication of current or future performance nor do they represent the potential risk and reward profile of a fund.”
Contrary to BlackRock’s claims, ESG-guided funds don’t yield higher returns on investment, according to the lawsuit. It cites a 2019 study finding a “statistically significant negative relation between ESG investing and investor returns.”
“BlackRock’s acts and practices concerning the marketing or sale of products and services, as alleged herein, are deceptive to consumers and other persons in Tennessee,” the lawsuit states.
Skrmetti asks the circuit court to find that BlackRock violated the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, that the court order BlackRock to cease making misrepresentations, that it order BlackRock to “restore the money or property lost as a result of the alleged violations of law,” and that it order BlackRock to give up its “ill-gotten gains.”
Skrmetti asks the court to fine BlackRock a civil penalty of $1,000 to Tennessee for each violation of the law, and that “all costs, including discretionary costs, in this case be taxed against BlackRock.”
BlackRock is the leading exchange-traded fund provider in the world, with $9.4 trillion in assets under management.
Although some states have passed laws to restrict the use of ESG goals in making investment decisions, Skrmetti’s lawsuit represents the first civil enforcement action against BlackRock for ESG deception.
“Ultimately, this is a case about the truth, and the biggest takeaway for me at the end of the day is we can get clarity for consumers,” Skrmetti told The Daily Signal in the interview. “If you’re going to make decisions about how companies should have to behave to do business, those are decisions that ultimately have to flow from the people, and this is part of, I think, a broader effort on the part of some elites to make sure that the American people don’t have that kind of oversight over their economy.”
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Woke Duke Energy Jacks Up Electric Rates to Pay for ESG, Zero Carbon Mandates
Duke Energy has thrown consumers under the proverbial (electric) bus to make their operations carbon neutral by 2050. As a result, electricity prices in North Carolina may increase by 19% over the next three years.
The company’s president, Lynn Good, receives more than $20 million annually in compensation financed in part by ensuring that consumers lower their carbon emissions.
Following the 2021 enactment of the Energy Solutions for North Carolina Act, the vertically integrated Duke Energy is attempting to decarbonize the Tar Heel State by 70% by 2030 and fully decarbonize by 2050. This misguided initiative will force everyday families to subsidize a complete overhaul of the state’s power grid at a total cost approaching $160 billion.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission report and Chapter 4 of Duke’s 2023 Carolinas Resource Plan encourage the exploration of using dynamic rate designs in order to raise prices just when consumers need to use power the most. Essentially, the plan would increase the prices for power in the dog days of summer and the depths of winter. Even everyday activities such as cooking dinner, watching a TV show, or doing the laundry in the late afternoons and evenings could be subject to rate increases.
Duke’s exclusive focus on environmental, social, and governance nonsense has led it to shut down 56 coal-powered generators since 2010. The company has abandoned meritocracy and has mandated that a quarter of its workforce be women and people of color, irrespective of ability. Additionally, it wants to reduce customer energy consumption by 24,000 gigawatt hours and lower peak summer demand by 7,000 megawatt hours by 2025.
This focus on fake frugality over providing value can already be seen in its corporate history.
Duke announced it would pay more than $200 million to clean up its leeched toxic coal waste that spilled into ground water in Indiana, but subsequently tried to illegally and retroactively raise rates on the very consumers it harmed to pay for it. Additionally, Duke shut off power to more than half a million residents of North Carolina on Christmas Eve of 2022. No warnings were given when it took 1,300 megawatts of coal and natural gas capacity offline, ruining many family gatherings as temperatures fell to the low single digits.
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. warned Duke and other operators in the South in its 2018 report that these power plants needed to be weatherized properly. Additionally, the largest factor leading to outages was Duke’s failure to purchase dedicated or firm gas supplies for Christmas Eve, the exact issue a 2019 report from the American Petroleum Institute addressed.
Perhaps Duke—which employs more than 26,000 people and serves almost 10 million customers with natural gas and more than 50,000 megawatts of electricity in North and South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee—should refocus its efforts on providing electricity, rather than virtue signaling.
With an annual profit of $2.56 billion in 2022, Duke has ample resources to stabilize the grid without raising rates.
Instead, the quest to decarbonize North Carolina would cost between $140 billion and $160 billion through 2050, according to the John Locke Foundation’s analysis of Duke’s various carbon plans. The plans’ overemphasis on solar and wind and on unrealistic pricing of hydrogen come at the expense of “reliable, dispatchable power plants that would decarbonize at the lowest possible cost.”
Perhaps Duke is even aware of this, as it is trying to sell off its unregulated renewables division to Brookfield Renewable, which explicitly assumes carbon pricing in its investment process, despite the cost of carbon being far from settled. However, Duke is still pushing forward with its $150 million lease of the Carolina Long Bay for an offshore wind farm that will have the same inefficiencies, ecological damage, and tourism-destroying effects as New Jersey’s.
Even if the entire United States halted all fossil fuel emissions right now, global temperatures would only decline by 0.02 of a degree Celsius by the year 2100.
Despite the math not being in their favor, Democrats have weaponized ESG by imposing corporate environmental and social policy on companies that then in turn lobby legislatures, such as North Carolina’s, for decarbonization and massive tax subsidies.
Furthermore, the Federal Reserve has been indirectly backing the ESG wokeness that has pervaded corporate America, potentially leading to another banking crisis. North Carolina should repeal its law and join the ranks of the 31 state attorneys general who stand against woke investing.
Instead of continuing down the ESG path, North Carolina should take a page from South Carolina and explore electricity market reform.
The Brattle Group’s report for South Carolina suggested making a Southeast Transmission Organization with North Carolina and other Southern states to save each customer between $115 and $187 annually. Additionally, the benefits for South Carolina adopting such competitive investment reforms could be as high as $370 million a year if the state fully participates. Other states, such as North Carolina, could also see similar benefits, and it would further stabilize every state’s power grid.
If North Carolina wants to strengthen its economy and serve its residents, the state should deregulate the electricity market and foster a business culture encouraging economic development, regardless of ideology.
Renewables projects and their storage capacities that are economically viable should be able to compete against other sources without $160 billion in state subsidies or making consumers pay for the energy transition.
Certainly, North Carolina should not support policies that make electricity increasingly unaffordable to its residents and push them into poverty.
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Climate change alarm is exaggerated, we should not demonise oil and gas: Elon Musk
Billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday (Dec 16) said that oil and gas should not be demonised and that it was extremely critical to reduce carbon emissions to preserve the planet.
While speaking at a right-wing political gathering organised by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, Musk said, "I don't think we should demonise oil and gas, I think we should say look that is obviously necessary in the short term and the medium term too, and although it takes several decades to become sustainable, so I think if we just, without getting too worried about it, seek to have a sustainable energy future, gradually, then that's what will happen."
Musk said that it was important that industries began reducing billions of the carbon they take from Earth and releasing it into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
"We should not demonise oil and gas in the medium term," he said.
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18 December, 2023
UK Governmental Agency Claims Climate Change Threatens Health In Report
In a new report released yesterday, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) claimed that “the climate crisis is a health crisis,” suggesting that health goals should be intrinsically linked to decarbonization strategies.
The UKHSA replaced Public Health England in April 2021, assuming responsibility for England-wide public health protection and infectious disease capabilities. It functions as an executive agency under the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
The UKHSA’s Behavioral Science and Insights Unit seeks to engineer “win-win” behavioural shifts for health and decarbonization. Partnering with government, it translates its findings into policy, creating a nuanced dance between surveillance and influence. As the agency succinctly puts it, they aim to “improve understanding of the barriers and opportunities for ‘win-win’ behavioural shifts.”
The agency’s latest document, titled “Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK: State of the Evidence 2023,” is an update from a 2012 report on the topic and recommends a raft of new proactive measures, policy changes, and international collaboration to address perceived health impacts of climate change.
Within the latest report, the authors claim that the, “climate crisis is a health crisis, affecting health determinants directly, leading to increased risks, with vulnerable populations bearing the brunt.”
Climate Change Now One Of ‘Greatest’ Threats
The report also contends that a “changing climate” now poses “one of the greatest health security and societal challenges, impacting everything from the air we breathe to the quality and availability of our food and water.”
Its authors assert that climate change is no longer a theoretical future threat but an emerging reality. It points toward claims of an increasing frequency of extreme weather events globally, including flooding, wildfires, and record temperatures. Regardless of decarbonization progress, it asserts that temperatures are projected to rise, impacting health, society, and the NHS.
In response to the UKHSA’s assertion that ‘the climate crisis is a health crisis,’ researcher Ben Pile strongly contested the claim, stating, “There are no metrics of human welfare that support the UKHSA’s claims.”
Speaking to The Epoch Times, he claimed that globally, people live healthier, wealthier, and safer lives than any previous generation despite the era of climate change.
Mr. Pile, the founder of Climate Resistance, a website dedicated to challenging the green climate narrative, highlighted a significant reduction in deaths from weather-related causes, including storms, natural disasters, communicable diseases, malnutrition, and exposure to temperature extremes.
Another all-encompassing claim made within the report is that “climate change affects most health determinants directly or indirectly,” highlighting what the report suggests may be a very extensive reach of environmental shifts on well-being.
The report claims to evidence a heightened risk of infectious diseases in the UK due to climate sensitivity. Many diseases are identified as highly responsive to climatic variations, posing an imminent threat to worldwide public health: “Global health indicators are being undermined by climate change, impacting global health systems.”
Claims Are An ‘Outright Lie’
Mr. Pile, who has authored reports on the impact of clean air policies on health, characterised the UKHSA’s claims as “an outright lie” and argued that lives are safer today due to improved access to reliable and affordable energy. He expressed concern that limiting access to cheap energy could make lives more challenging, as essential items become more expensive, contributing to increased poverty.
Mr. Pile criticised the UKHSA for succumbing to “green” ideology, stating, “Like many agencies, it has put ‘saving the planet’ before human health, ultimately to the detriment of human health.”
While sounding the alarm on preventative measures, the report also points to opportunities for health benefits through climate change mitigation measures. Embedding health goals in decarbonization strategies, it claims, can generate positive impacts in air quality, food, housing, transport, mental health, and reduce health inequalities.
Among efforts that the report claims are intended to mitigate health concerns, is the creation of the Centre for Climate and Health Security.
Established by the UKHSA in Oct. 2022, this body now leads efforts to protect health in the context of a “changing climate,” collaborating with academic, public, and international partners.
The report emphasises that while its coverage spans the entire UK, driven by the recognition that the impacts of climate change on public health are expected to be largely uniform across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It also clarifies that the research and public health considerations presented in each chapter represent the views of the authors and do not constitute an official policy statement for the four nations.
This latest piece of guidance urges policymakers to be informed by evidence, preventing health impacts by considering global decarbonization, early interventions, and so-called health equity.
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The Not-So-Scary Truth About Climate Change
John Stossel
United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry says it will take trillions of dollars to “solve” climate change. Then he says, “There is not enough money in any country in the world to actually solve this problem.”
Kerry has little understanding of money or how it’s created. He’s a multimillionaire because he married a rich woman. Now he wants to take more of your money to pretend to affect climate change.
Bjorn Lomborg points out that there are better things society should spend money on.
Lomborg acknowledges that a warmer climate brings problems. “As temperatures get higher, seawater, like everything else, expands. So, we’re going to maybe see three feet of sea level rise. Then they say, ‘So everybody who lives within three feet of sea level, they’ll have to move!’ Well, no. If you actually look at what people do, they built dikes, and so they don’t have to move.”
People in Holland did that years ago. A third of the Netherlands is below sea level. In some areas, it’s 22 feet below. Yet the country thrives. That’s the way to deal with climate change: Adjust to it.
“Fewer people are going to get flooded every year, despite the fact that you have much higher sea level rise. The total cost for Holland over the last half-century is about $10 billion,” says Lomborg. “Not nothing, but very little for an advanced economy over 50 years.”
For saying things like that, Lomborg is labeled “the devil.”
“The problem here is unmitigated scaremongering,” he replies. “A new survey shows that 60% of all people in rich countries now believe it’s likely or very likely that unmitigated climate change will lead to the end of mankind. This is what you get when you have constant fearmongering in the media.”
Some people now say they will not have children because they’re convinced that climate change will destroy the world. Lomborg points out how counterproductive that would be: “We need your kids to make sure the future is better.”
He acknowledges that climate warming will kill people.
“As temperatures go up, we’re likely to see more people die from heat. That’s absolutely true. You hear this all the time. But what is underreported is the fact that nine times as many people die from cold. … As temperatures go up, you’re going to see fewer people die from cold. Over the last 20 years, because of temperature rises, we have seen about 116,000 more people die from heat. But 283,000 fewer people die from cold.”
That’s rarely reported in the news.
When the media doesn’t fret over deaths from heat, they grab at other possible threats.
CNN claims, “Climate Change Is Fueling Extremism.”
The BBC says, “A Shifting Climate Is Catalysing Infectious Disease.”
U.S. News and World Report says, “Climate Change Will Harm Children’s Mental Health.”
Lomborg replies, “It’s very, very easy to make this argument that everything is caused by climate change if you don’t have the full picture.”
He points out that we rarely hear about positive effects of climate change, like global greening.
“That’s good! We get more green stuff on the planet. My argument is not that climate change is great or overall positive. It’s simply that, just like every other thing, it has pluses and minuses. … Only reporting on the minuses, and only emphasizing worst-case outcomes, is not a good way to inform people.”
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Paris Accord Policy Costs Greatly Exceed Any Net Benefit From Averted Warming
A new comprehensive analysis (Tol, 2023) weighs the cost-benefit of meeting Paris Accord emission policy targets to keep global warming in check, or under 2°C.
The analysis reveals that even in the best-case scenarios (that assume emission reduction policies fully meet their avoided-warming targets), as well as in the worst-case scenarios (that assume “constant vulnerability” to global-warming-induced climate disasters and widespread economic austerity), the tens of trillions of USD costs associated with moving away from fossil fuel consumption to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 (4.8% of GDP) still outweigh the net benefit losses (3.0% of GDP) in 2100.
“The central estimate of the costs of climate policy, unrealistically assuming least-cost implementation, is 3.8–5.6% of GDP in 2100. The central estimate of the benefits of climate policy, unrealistically assuming high no-policy emissions and constant vulnerability, is 2.8–3.2% of GDP.”
There is a nearly 10 times worse cost versus benefit if we only consider the net impact of best- and worst-case scenario emissions reduction policies through 2050, which is the year it is assumed the world economy will have reached net-zero targets if all goes according to plan.
“In 2050, the year of net-zero, the best estimate of the benefits of the 1.5?C target [is] about 0.5% of GDP while the costs are almost 5%.”
Of course, if the more realistic outcomes about achieving emissions reduction targets eventuate, and if the global warming on tap for failing to achieve these targets is not as exaggeratedly hot as models assume (e.g., 5°C warming by 2100), the net costs of climate “action” exceed the benefits of avoided warming two-, three- and even four-fold.
Simply put, the “Paris targets do not pass the cost-benefit test.”
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Australia: New Leftist Premier guarantees future of Queensland coal mining, gas production
Steven Miles has guaranteed that new coalmines and natural gas wells will be allowed in Queensland, even though his recast Labor government aims to slash emissions by 75 per cent.
Mr Miles told The Australian new resource projects would continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis and could be approved under the tightened climate settings.
In one of his first acts as Premier, he announced the government would legislate a revised emissions target of 75 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035.
“It means it’s unlikely we would have new coal-fired generators,” he said of the state’s ageing, publicly owned power-producing sector.
“But it doesn’t have an impact on the approvals process for extraction projects … each project will be judged on the individual merits. There was no blanket ban … required as part of 75 per cent.”
Under predecessor Annastacia Palaszczuk, hefty coal royalty hikes angered big miners and triggered an advertising campaign by the Queensland Resources Council against the Labor government.
But the controversial tax regime is forecast to pump $9.2bn into the state coffers, up $3.8bn in the 2023-24 budget update.
Mr Miles said fugitive emissions from coal and gas mining would be captured under the revised climate action target.
He said the scheme was an example of how he would bring together city and country in the nation’s most decentralised state.
“We will continue to export coal – particularly coking coal will have a longer future – and we will continue to use gas into the 2030s, and clearly we will continue to export gas as well,” he said. “This is based on modelling that says 75 per cent is achievable. This is really bringing what I’ve been doing in state development into the wider government.
“My focus has been the new industry development strategy, which is all about converting heavy industry to renewable energy … it’s a strong example of how I can bring together the regions and the city. People in the city are concerned about climate change, people in the regions are also concerned about climate change, but they want blue-collar jobs protected and new industries attracted.
“That’s what I want to do here, and legislating the 75 by 2035 target is an important signal.”
Mr Miles said the cabinet line-up he was finalising late on Sunday would demonstrate “renewal” of the government under his leadership, with five new ministers coming in. Controversy-plagued Transport Minister Mark Bailey and Sport and Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchliffe – blamed by some caucus colleagues for the recent RNA stadium debacle – are among those set to bow out.
Asked how the government would hit the formidable target of a 75 per cent emissions reduction over the coming decade, Mr Miles said state laws to limit land clearance outside the cities, and the federal government’s safeguard mechanism to reduce industrial emissions, would be important.
Anticipated technological advancements would also play a role, alongside the transition to renewable energy mandated at both federal and state levels. Queensland has committed to deliver 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030, 70 per cent by 2032 and 80 per cent by 2035, backed by a $500m Low Emissions Investment Partnerships Program and $200m investment in the state’s Regional Economic Futures Fund.
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17 December, 2023
Researchers discover Himalayan glaciers are cooling down, potentially slowing down effects of climate change
Although the glaciers are expected to continue to melt as global temperatures rise, the report shows that Himalayan glaciers have somehow counterintuitively been cooling and drying in recent decades.
According to the report, researchers have found enhanced downslope winds known scientifically as katabatic winds are behind why the glaciers have been cooling and drying.
What are Katabatic winds?
Katabatic winds are downhill winds that are generated when the surface of a mountain is cooler than the adjacent atmosphere, which creates a pressure gradient.
Himalayan glaciers rely on rain from the storms in the region in winter and the rain from monsoon season in the summer.
Winds from the monsoon season are drawn upwards in the daytime and are met with the katabatic winds, the study shows.
The research shows the convergence between the upward monsoonal winds and the downhill winds causes the monsoonal moisture to be lifted, generating a decent amount of rain, snow, sleet or hail over the glaciers.
Increase in katabatic winds may have implications
According to the report the escalation of katabatic winds in recent decades still has consequences.
The first consequence is that daytime temperatures over the glaciers have decreased. This is because of the pumping down of cold air from higher altitudes.
The decrease in daytime temperatures has the tendency to reduce the melting of glaciers, contradicting the observed loss of glacier mass.
The second consequence of the enhanced katabatic winds is to drive the convergence line between upslope and downslope winds further down the mountain.
This means that precipitation has increased at lower elevations, but decreased at the higher elevations where glaciers are situated.
The decrease in precipitation over the glaciers has caused them to lose mass over the past few decades.
The study also suggests the warming of the atmosphere can intensify the katabatic winds, which blocks the flow of moisture from lower elevations.
This is because high altitudes contain so little moisture, which means the glaciers are dependent on the upslope flow of moisture from the low altitudes.
As the Himalayan glaciers have significantly shrunk, it is likely that they are particularly vulnerable to this effect.
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Climate conference pledge to move away from fossil fuels is a farce
So, a deal has been reached. The world has agreed on what Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has called a ‘robust action to keep 1.5 Celsius in reach’. The world is to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels.
And meanwhile, back in the real world? If the world really had just made a meaningful commitment to end the use of fossil fuels, you might have expected shares in oil companies to have crashed this morning. But have they heck. Shell, BP, all are unmoved. It is expansionary business as usual. The UAE has invested $150 billion (£120 billion) to increase oil production by half to five million barrels a day by 2027. In the US, oil and gas production reached a new record last year.
Even coal production was up 2 per cent. There is enough new gas production in the pipeline to increase output from 11.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day to over 20 billion cubic feet. We can be very thankful for that in Europe – it is us, feeling the absence of Russian gas, who are the main customers. The US agreed to spend a piffling £20 million of aid money on poor countries. The US can’t be blamed for seeking energy security, but can anyone say what was the real difference between having the Biden administration at this conference and having a Trump administration snub it?
The share price of Shell and BP are unmoved by the Cop pledge
As for China, it has built 182 new coal-fired power plants in the past two and a half years – since president Xi Jinping announced he was setting his country a target to reach Net Zero by 2060, comfortably beyond his own reign, in spite of his moves to guarantee himself lifetime presidency. Brazil, which was pressing right up until the last day for Cop 28 to agree to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels rather than simply transition away from them? It plans to expand oil production in its offshore fields to become the world’s fourth largest producer by 2030. Canada, which joined Brazil in demanding a ‘phase out’? It has increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day over the past two years.
Never mind Cop 28 and its 98,000 gas-guzzling, private jet-using delegates – never has there been such a bonanza in fossil fuels. If this is supposed to be the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels, as the EU’s climate envoy put it, it is a mighty strange one.
Those who have been carefully watching proceedings over the past couple of weeks may have noticed a subtle difference between the language being used by different countries. While activists and numerous groups were certain they were demanding a phase out of all fossil fuels, US climate envoy John Kerry was talking only about ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. Britain, too, was using this language. The difference is that the US position allows for carbon capture and storage – which could allow for the burning of fossil fuels with no, or with very low, emissions.
There is, though, a very big question over this strategy: who is going to pay for carbon capture, if indeed it can succeed as a commercial technology at all? We have had carbon capture since the 1970s – when ironically it was devised by the oil and gas industry as a means of forcing more fossil fuels out of declining wells. But if it is going to be used without that incentive, someone is going to have to pay – as well as finding the room to store all the carbon. Moreover, it is one thing to capture the carbon from the chimney of a gas-fired power stations, quite another to try to capture it from the exhaust of a jet plane.
Don’t, though, be fooled by grand words of transitioning away from fossil fuels. There is scant sign that the world intends to live up to its grand words.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/cops-pledge-to-move-away-from-fossil-fuels-is-a-farce/
*************************************************NZ Deputy PM Responds to Pressure From Greens Over Oil, Gas Mining
New Zealand's Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters, who is standing in for Chris Luxon, responded to accusations from the Green Party over backtracking on old statements made regarding the ban on oil and gas exploration that now appear contra-positional.
The new National-led coalition government has pledged to overturn the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, putting them at odds with the Green Party who hold firm to the 2018 policy that aimed to shift New Zealand towards a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 and a secondary goal, by 2035, of achieving 100 percent renewable electricity.
New Zealand's oilfields, located predominantly in the Taranki region, have produced petroleum since 1865 when the Alpha well was dug near the Moturoa seeps. There are 37 active extraction permits in the country.
In 2018, the previous Labour-led government, helmed by former Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, brought into law the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Act which banned (save for an exemption granted in a small area of Taranaki) new exploration permits within the country's Exclusive Economic Zone.
“There will be no further offshore oil and gas exploration permits granted,” said Ms. Ardern at the time.
The National Party's "Rebuilding the Economy" policy will open up opportunities for permits to again be issued, with the rationale being to reduce reliance on imported coal from Indonesia. About 726,000 metric tons were imported in 2022.
During the pre-election, the National Party stated that it supported the move towards a net-zero economy, but took issue with the blanket banning of mining permits brought in by the previous government.
On Dec. 12, in Parliament, Green Party leader Marama Davidson asked Mr. Peters if he still supported the quotes he made in 2018 concerning the ban, to which Mr. Peters said it "makes sense, and introducing the ban was a change that New Zealanders wanted."
Mr. Peters added that he stood fast with the government's intentions, saying it had "its settings on the future."
Greens Co-leader James Shaw disagreed, telling Mr. Peters; "The vast majority of New Zealanders actually want our government to do more on climate change, not less."
"The simple fact is you cannot stop the climate crisis by burning more fossil fuels," Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Peters' retort to the Greens questioning was to acknowledge the comments he made and suggest he has changed tack. "With regard to evidence and information at the time of those statements, yes. But, of course, when new information or evidence emerges we acknowledge that and don't just carry on like a bigoted, lefty shill," he said.
"Examine the time and the place when that statement was made. There was a ban on at the time—does that member .... not remember that?"
Ms. Davidson then said the decision to rescind the policy was contradictory given Climate Minister Simon Watts' comments at COP-28 that the tabled draft that was aimed at "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner" did not "align with current global commitment."
"Right now, they are wrestling with that very issue," Mr. Peters said.
The government's new stance on exploration was addressed on a website post by Greenpeace Aotearoa.
Spokesperson Amanda Larsson said, "Our new government’s first official foray on an international stage will result in yet more raised eyebrows as their policy to bring back offshore oil and gas exploration collides with global calls for a fossil fuel phase-out.”
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EU’s green funds are under the guillotine
Billions of euros earmarked to boost renewable energy and slash emissions are on the cutting block after EU leaders proposed moving them over to fund immigration and defense efforts instead.
The move came during this week’s EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, where European Council President Charles Michel proposed axing nearly all of a €10 billion fund meant to help Europe build out energy networks of the future — wind turbines, hydrogen plants, carbon capture. The effort is a crucial part of the EU’s response to the U.S. spending splurge on renewable energy incentives, which includes hundreds of billions in subsidies.
While countries like France, Italy and Spain have publicly backed the €10 billion initiative, Brussels is facing criticism from more frugal European capitals, particularly in the north, that want to limit their EU budget contributions and ensure there is money for competing priorities like curbing illegal immigration and rising military expenditures.
Michel’s compromise would drop the renewables fund — officially dubbed the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, or STEP — to just €1.5 billion. The remaining money initially meant for the effort would get rolled over into a cash pot for military investments, according to the latest proposal.
In exchange, Brussels would offer countries more flexibility in how they can use payouts from the EU’s “cohesion” fund — budgetary injections for lower-income states designed to reduce economic inequality. In theory, that would enable countries to continue some needed renewable energy investments.
“This allows countries with access to European funds to use them in a simple and flexible way,” said one diplomat granted anonymity to comment on the negotiations.
Yet the potential cut is a foreboding signal of Europe’s mounting struggle to source the massive investments needed to hit its climate goals. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, also had to drastically scale back its climate budget recently after a court ruling. And railing against the EU’s green transition costs has proved a winning political talking point for some on the right.
“We know that it’s not enough money,” said a second diplomat with knowledge of the talks, who acknowledged the diminished fund will only provide enough cash for “targeted” measures.
The “reality is really tough,” the diplomat added. “Budgets are tough everywhere.”
The plan to drastically slash the EU’s green tech fund does not have unanimous support. Leaders were unable to strike a final deal on Thursday night and will have to resume discussions in January ahead of an emergency EU leaders’ summit.
Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, director of EU climate investments and cleantech at the Institute for Climate Economics, warned the compromise could be catastrophic for the clean tech industry, particularly given the growing competition from the U.S. and China.
“Previously, you could guesstimate that around 50 percent of STEP funds would go to climate, and now you can guesstimate it will be around 0 percent: that money could go from 5 out of 10 billion to 0 out of 1.5 billion,” he said.
For the EU, that means a regression in key climate funding just as scientists insist much more money is needed.
“We could end up having less EU funding for clean tech in 2024 than we had in 2022,” Pellerin-Carlin said. “It’s not that we’re stepping up, it’s that we’re discussing stepping down even beyond just keeping the status quo.”
"Cutting important research funding to the benefit of other programs is not acceptable, as it threatens Europe's future wellbeing and competitiveness,” said Christian Ehler, a lead European Parliament negotiator on STEP and the industry, research and energy spokesperson for the center-right European People’s Party group. “We will continue to fight for our budget until there is an agreement that lives up to these promises."
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14 December, 2023
Big Oil and COP28 Climate Cultists
A letter was recently leaked that had been distributed among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and 10 other member countries of the OPEC+ coalition — all of which are attending the annual meeting of climate change alarmists otherwise known as COP28.
The letter calls on OPEC members to resist signing on to any deal at COP28 that calls for the eventual phaseout of fossil fuels.
Predictably, the letter triggered outrage among the conference’s climate zealots, who see using fossil fuels as the “sin” that is threatening to destroy the planet. “OPEC’s letter is outrageous,” complained Massachusetts Democrat Senator Ed Markey, who is attending the conference being held in oil-rich Dubai. “OPEC wants to talk about emissions, but not the source of the emissions.”
“It would be like the tobacco industry saying you can talk about lung cancer, but you can’t talk about cigarettes,” he huffed. “It’s outrageous. It’s preposterous.”
The nerve of oil-rich countries. Can you believe that when national economic stability relies on selling oil, those countries don’t want to go belly up by adhering to the pipe dream demands of a bunch of hypocritical climate cultists preaching dubious scientific claims as unassailable dogma?
The truth is that the only way for the phaseout of fossil fuels to be achieved both fairly and equitably is via the free market. The climate cultists have little genuine concern for the state of the planet, much less the state of humanity. Their vacuous claims don’t justify ending the use of fossil fuels because doing so would result in devastating consequences not only for first-world economies but especially for the developing world.
To put it simply, there is no climate “emergency” that justifies the type of “stop oil now” nonsense being pushed by global leftist elites at COP28.
If renewables were a legitimate new step up for energy production on a global scale that could supplant the oil industry in both energy output as well as being more economical, then there would be no need for COP28 countries to continuously trot out climate change agreements. There would be no need to virtue signal about “saving the planet.”
The reason whales still swim in the world’s oceans is not because of Greenpeace but because of the discovery of crude oil — black gold. The whaling industry died because crude oil was an abundant and cost-effective resource that allowed for the burgeoning of a new and cheaper energy-based economy.
When it comes to renewables, however, what they offer is much less than what the fossil fuel industry is already providing. Thus, in order to get the world off of fossil fuels, the climate cultists have to push alarmism and fearmongering about carbon emissions killing planet earth if we don’t transition now.
And when it comes to costs, the Left does yeoman’s work in trying to spin the claim that renewables are “actually” more cost-efficient than fossil fuels. A recent example of this comes from the International Energy Agency, which predicts that the expansion of solar and wind power will lead to falling energy prices when compared to maintaining existing coal-fired power plants.
Well, if their economic predictions are as accurate as their climate change modeling predictions, then we’ll stick with the cost of fossil fuel-powered energy, thank you. Furthermore, much of this predicted cost reduction is dependent on government tax credits. In other words, electricity bills will still go up, but perhaps less so because taxpayers are on the hook for the difference.
Finally, back to the first observation. In a free market economy, the energy technology that wins is what offers customers the most bang for their buck. The effort to demonize fossil fuels is all about creating the perception that fossil fuel-based reliable energy production should be jettisoned for a new “clean” energy that just doesn’t have the capacity to measure up. Yet it’s being sold as the “solution” to a climate change “problem” that has always existed and will continue to exist irrespective of any actions taken.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102803-big-oil-and-cop28-climate-cultists-2023-12-12
***************************************************What climate crisis? America’s new fossil fuel boom as crude exports soar to record high
As diplomats convene at the United Nations’ COP28 climate change summit, fossil fuel production and consumption are hitting new highs, and tanker owners are in prime position to profit from rising trade flows.
The Biden administration is a leading proponent of decarbonization, yet the U.S. is pumping out record volumes of hydrocarbons. America is on track to be the world’s largest producer and exporter of natural gas this year, as well as the leading exporter of refined products and liquefied petroleum gas.
There are also big wins — for energy producers and shipowners, not decarbonization advocates — on the crude oil front.
The U.S. produced 13.2 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in September, according to data released Thursday by the Energy Information Administration. That is the country’s highest monthly production level ever.
And not only is America producing more crude, it is exporting a larger share of the crude it produces, further boosting volumes aboard tankers bound for Europe and Asia.
Seaborne crude exports up 19% vs. 2022
Exports of U.S. crude were banned between 1975 and 2015. For 40 years, U.S. production could only be sold overseas if it was refined first, then exported as petroleum products.
The end of the ban dramatically increased market opportunities for U.S. production, thereby stimulating higher output — creating more business for oil companies and tanker owners.
That upward momentum continues. Seaborne crude exports are tracked by commodity intelligence provider Kpler. In January-November, its data shows that U.S. seaborne crude exports averaged 4 million b/d, an all-time high and up 19% year on year.
Exports in November averaged 4.45 million b/d, the second-highest monthly average on record, just slightly below the peak of 4.46 million bpd in March.
Volumes rise sharply to both Europe and Asia
The Panama Canal is wreaking havoc on many cargo supply chains, but it has virtually no effect on U.S. crude exports.
U.S. crude exports to Asia are loaded on very large crude carriers (VLCCs; tankers that carry 2 million barrels) via ship-to-ship transfers in the U.S. Gulf. VLCCs are too large to transit either the Panama or Suez canals; they use the Cape of Good Hope.
U.S. exports to Europe are shipped aboard Aframaxes (750,000-barrel capacity), Suezmaxes (1 million-barrel capacity) and VLCCs.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, Europe has hiked its purchases of U.S. crude to help offset banned Russian supply. According to Kpler data, an average of 1.83 million b/d of U.S. crude flowed to Europe in January-November, up 26% from the 2022 full-year average.
Europe’s share of total U.S. crude exports has risen to 46% this year compared to 37% in 2021, the year prior to the invasion, while Asia’s share is 41%, down from 47% in 2021.
“In volumetric terms, the story has been all about Europe this year,” Reid I’Anson, senior commodity analyst at Kpler, told FreightWaves. “Europe continues to grow increasingly reliant on U.S. energy — not just LNG [liquefied natural gas] but across the board.”
Despite the pull of Europe, U.S. crude exports to Asia have also continued to escalate. According to Kpler data, exports to Asia are averaging a record-high 1.65 million b/d year to date, up 15% from last year and up 26% from 2021.
Rising volumes to Asia translate into profitable business for VLCC owners. Brokerage True North Chartering counted 40 spot VLCC cargoes loading in the U.S. Gulf in both October and November, matching the prior monthly high in April.
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Norway's COP28 message: 'Leave no stone unturned' in gas exploration, Norway tells industry
Norway still has vast proven natural gas resources without development plans, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Wednesday, urging exploration companies to find ways of producing it despite technological challenges.
As this year's COP28 U.N. climate talks focuses on the first global agreement to phase out fossil fuel use, Norway argues it will keep producing oil and gas, which it says has fewer emissions during production compared with others, as long as there is demand and output will naturally ebb from early 2030.
Natural gas resources equating to some 860 billion standard cubic metres (bcm) are trapped in so-called tight reservoirs with low permeability in Norwegian offshore territory, according to NPD estimates.
However, production from tight reservoirs is frequently only profitable if the development is based on tie-backs to existing infrastructure with a long production horizon, the NPD said in a statement.
But time is of the essence in producing these resources before the end of the lifetime of the infrastructure they are tied to, said Arne Jacobsen an assistant NPD director.
"We need to ensure that these values are not lost, and that the companies are doing enough to produce the difficult volumes as well," Jacobsen added.
Companies should work together and "leave no stone unturned" to determine if it is possible to produce remaining resources profitably with existing technology, he said.
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Residential solar industry is in danger of imploding
This $30 billion industry is built on a shaky foundation of cheap money, questionable accounting and aggressive claims for federal tax credits. With money no longer cheap, subsidies a matter of politics and swirling allegations of fraud, a collapse could be coming soon.
Sitting at a mostly empty 20-person conference table in his Houston headquarters, William “John” Berger, CEO of Sunnova Energy International, looks relaxed and confident. The top of his crisp white shirt is unbuttoned, and no strands of gray yet spoil his shock of black hair. At 50, this Texas-born Aggie engineer with a Harvard MBA has built Sunnova into the nation’s second-largest residential solar power developer, with 2,000 megawatts of generation on the rooftops of 390,000 homes. And yet, he quips, if you like cliffhangers, “you’ve come to the right place.”
Sunnova has lost $330 million on $722 million in revenue in the last 12 months. Its shares are trading around $10, off 80% from their 2021 high. Wall Street is nervous about its bonds: Its $400 million 2021 senior unsecured debt issue, maturing in 2026, initially paid 5.75%, but now yields 14%—high even for junk. But the big test, Berger says, will come if there’s a recession or difficulty raising money (which he fears more than high rates). In the worst case, he says, he could slash costs by 50%, stop seeking new business and fire himself.
The glory days for residential solar power in the United States weren’t that long ago. In 2022, a record six gigawatts of peak generating capacity were installed on 700,000 rooftops, bringing total residential solar power to 40 GWs—nearly enough to power Los Angeles and Philadelphia combined. The boom was partly fueled by falling prices for solar panels and inverters as more countries, including the U.S., jumped in to compete against China. Topping it off, in August 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, an orgy of renewable energy subsidies which boosted the solar tax credit from 26% to 30% and extended it through 2032—meaning Uncle Sam is on the hook for maybe $8 billion a year for at least a decade.
Despite all this, the residential solar industry is in serious trouble. Sharply rising interest rates have sapped both growth in demand for new residential systems, which are typically financed, and the value of $21 billion in debt issued to install existing systems. High interest rates are what Sunlight Financial, a residential solar financier, blamed when it filed for bankruptcy in October. (It went public in 2021 via a SPAC.) Two days after Sunlight sought Chapter 11 protection, San Francisco–based Sunrun, the largest player in residential solar with annual revenue of $2.3 billion, said it was writing off $1.2 billion in goodwill, primarily from the $3.2 billion acquisition of Vivint Solar in 2020.
The interest rate spike is drawing attention to other problems in an industry built not only on cheap money but also on suspect accounting and a tax credit regime (born in 2005) that has invited aggressive—and in some cases fraudulent—claims. Sunrun, whose stock is off 90% from its 2021 high, faces continuing pressure from short sellers who allege it has claimed inflated tax credits. As Warren Buffett famously observed, “you don’t find out who’s been swimming naked until the tide goes out.” In emailed responses to Forbes, Sunrun defended all its practices as proper.
The shorts have some company. One industry whistleblower has told the IRS that inflated tax credit claims are endemic across the residential solar industry. The IRS isn’t talking, but the whistleblower’s attorney believes the agency is still investigating the man’s claims, which could eventually earn him a fat reward of 15% to 30% of any funds recovered.
Gordon Johnson, whose New York boutique equity research firm serves mostly short sellers, goes so far as to compare the residential solar industry’s current peril to the subprime mortgage debacle of 15 years ago: “It’s a debt Ponzi. They perpetually issue more debt to fund these projects that don’t generate the cash they say.”
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13 December, 2023
Oil is everywhere at COP28, vexing those seeking its demise
There’s no way of avoiding oil and gas at the giant expo park hosting COP28 on the outskirts of Dubai.
At the world’s most important climate summit, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — whose members supply almost 30% of the world’s oil — has a pavilion for the first time.
There, staff were giving out a children’s book about oil. A grey-haired cartoon professor named Riggs takes young readers through topics as arcane as the lightness and sourness of crude, before explaining why oil is important: "Without oil, we would not be able to continue to enjoy the same standard of living.” The book proved so popular that the pavilion ran out of copies just four days into the two weeks of COP28.
Oil and gas executives have tended to keep a low profile at the annual U.N. climate change gathering, but they have little reason to hide at COP28, hosted by the United Arab Emirates — one of the world’s largest oil exporters — and led by the CEO of its national oil company. At least 2,456 representatives of the fossil fuel industry have been granted access to COP28, according to an analysis by the Kick Big Polluters Out activist group. The number is nearly four times higher than in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, last year. If they were a country, they would outnumber all national delegations at the conference except for Brazil and the UAE.
Heads of major oil companies have attended as part of country delegations. The CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanne, is part of the French delegation, while Darren Woods, CEO of Exxon Mobil, is accredited to the UAE’s. Other industry representatives attend under the umbrella of influence groups such as the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which registered at least 110 people for the summit.
As COP28 enters its final few days, the most contentious issue is whether the final agreement will pledge to phase down fossil fuels. To many of the thousands of climate activists among the 100,000 or so people registered to attend, the prominence of the oil and gas industry is a travesty — giving the industry most responsible for climate change a seat at the table.
Oil exporters are pushing back. Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman said this week that the text shouldn’t agree to a phase down, while OPEC’s secretary-general wrote to members asking them to resist the idea.
"You don’t invite the tobacco lobbyists to a health convention when you’re writing health policy,” said Emily Lowan of Climate Action Network Canada. "They have clear stated interests against the very premise of these negotiations, at this COP in particular, related to agreeing on the language on the phase out of fossil fuels.”
Others take industry’s statements of good intent at face value and argue the coalition tackling the climate crisis needs to be as broad as possible. Either way, there’s no way of avoiding oil and gas at the giant expo park hosting COP28 on the outskirts of Dubai.
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US opts out of Dutch plan to end fossil fuel subsidies at COP28
The US opted out of a Dutch-led coalition that aims to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, starting by extricating countries from the international agreements in which they are embedded.
Around 50% of government subsidies for oil, gas and coal are a result of global pacts, like those in aviation and shipping that exempt the fuels from tax, according to a statement by the coalition launched at COP28 in Dubai. Member countries will be required to report the amount of subsidies before next year’s summit.
The Netherlands had been pushing for the US to join the group, according to people familiar with the matter. US President Joe Biden has repeatedly pressed to eliminate a raft of tax incentives for the oil and gas industry — reviving a campaign former President Barack Obama launched more than a decade ago.
But the effort depends on support from the closely divided Congress and has been fought by oil industry leaders who argue they shouldn’t be singled out, since many of the targeted deductions are not unique to the sector and have corollaries through the tax code.
The Netherlands has been at the forefront of combating fossil fuel subsidies after it tallied its own and found they totaled around €40 billion. Now the country wants the European Union to undertake the same assessment as a first step to phasing out support for dirty fuels. Activists say that figure dwarfs support for renewables.
Other countries who signed up for the coalition include France, Canada, Spain and Austria. The group wants to involve international organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, as well as create a common methodology to measure support for polluting fuels.
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Net Zero requires new high-voltage power lines to be wrapped around the Earth 2,000 times within 17 years
Achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity. All the high voltage lines built in the last century will need to be built again by 2040 to benefit from all the intermittent power produced by the vast number of wind turbines. The ecological costs of all this can only be guessed at.
Electricity cables are made of aluminium and copper and strung on giant pylons made of steel and supported by large concrete bases. For their part, wind turbines are a menace to both avian and oceanic wildlife, consume vast quantities of raw materials, have a limited lifespan and are an increasing blight on both inland and offshore landscapes.
If the International Energy Agency (IEA) gets its way, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The roll-out of high voltage lines will be on an unprecedented scale. In a report on global electricity grids issued to coincide with COP28, the IEA states that “an unprecedented level of attention from policymakers and business leaders is needed to ensure grids support clean energy transitions and maintain electricity security”. Major changes in how grids operate and are regulated are said to be essential. Annual investment in grids, which has remained broadly stagnant, needs to double to more than $600 billion a year by 2030.
The Australian science journalist Jo Nova is in no mood to be understanding: “Remember, it’s not their fault that renewables need far more land, more space, more backup and more infrastructure – it’s our fault we didn’t build a world ready for their holy energy.”
The IEA paints a world where electricity grids are becoming a “bottleneck” for transitions to Net Zero emissions. While investment in renewables has been increasing rapidly, global investment in grids “has barely changed”. In Europe, policymakers can speed up progress on grids by “enhancing planning, ensuring regulatory risk assessments allow for anticipatory investment, and streamlining administrative processes”. In plain English this means ripping up local planning laws in over-populated Britain and blanketing the country with millions of giant electricity pylons. These will be required to bring energy to urban areas from power intermittently generated far away in the North Sea and off the Scottish coast.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the British Government recently set out “major plans” to speed up connections and rapidly increase capacity on the electricity grid. The press release cunningly linked it with a £960 million government investment in “green industries”. The new package is “expected” to bring forward £90 billion of investment over the next 10 years. The Government promised that it will “reward” those living closest to new infrastructure with up to £1,000 a year off their electricity bills. In another part of the release, this is downgraded to communities “could” benefit, and the bung is limited to 10 years.
Whatever the money is spent on, it is likely to be chickenfeed compared with the growing £12 billion annual subsidy paid by electricity consumers to the producers of renewable energy. But the next British government will face an empty exchequer and soaring state debt. Lack of finance along with the end of low interest rates and free money printing is likely to kill many of the green fantasises currently being peddled by collectivist Net Zero fanatics. It is becoming clearer by the day, to an increasing number of people, that renewable energy is unreliable and uneconomic, and has an insatiable requirement for financial subsidy.
Emeritus Cambridge Professor Michael Kelly has long been a critic of the blind, un-costed rush to Net Zero. The U.K. electricity grid will require upgrading from top to bottom, he wrote in a recent GWPF essay. Leaving aside the massive roll out of long-distance transmission lines required, he noted the inadequacies of all the local cabling and sub-stations built before the need to charge electric cars and run heat pumps. “The whole distribution system will need to be upgraded… the work will be extraordinarily expensive, but without it there will either be regular brownouts, or drivers will be told where and when they can charge their batteries,” he explained.
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Bjorn Lomborg: Net zero is not the answer to climate change
The spectacle of another annual climate conference is ongoing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) until Dec. 12. Like Kabuki theater, performative set pieces lead from one to the other: politicians and celebrities arrive by private jets; speakers predict imminent doom; hectoring nongovernmental organizations cast blame; political negotiations become fraught and inevitably go overtime; and finally: the signing of a new agreement that participants hope and pretend will make a difference.
This circus has been repeated since the 1990s. Despite 27 previous conferences with iterations of ominous speeches and bold promises, global emissions have inexorably increased, punctuated just once, by the economic shutdown of COVID-19. This year is likely to see higher emissions than ever before.
Almost every rich country preaches far more than it delivers. This is exemplified by the European Union, which has promised more than anyone else, yet — when forced by Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine to cut off gas imports — went looking in Africa for more oil, gas, and coal. Meanwhile, almost every poor country understandably prioritizes prosperity, which means abundant, cheap, and reliable energy—which still means fossil fuels.
Underpinning the climate summit farce is one big lie repeated over and over: that green energy is on the precipice of replacing fossil fuels in every aspect of our lives. This exaggeration is today championed by the International Energy Agency, which has turned from an impartial arbiter of energy data to the proponent of the far-fetched prediction that fossil fuels will peak within just seven years.
The claim ignores the fact that any transition away from fossil fuels is occurring only with enormous taxpayer-funded subsidies. And while major energy players like Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp. are moving back to investment in fossil fuel, big bets on green energy have failed spectacularly. Over the past 15 years, alternative energy stocks have plummeted in value, thus sending the pensions of ordinary workers tumbling due to virtue signaling pension companies while general stocks have increased more than four-fold.
What won’t be acknowledged in the UAE — because it has never been acknowledged at a global climate summit — is the awkward reality that while climate change has real costs, climate policy does, too.
In most public conversations, climate change costs are vastly exaggerated. Just consider how every heat wave is depicted as an end-of-the-world, cataclysmic killer, while the far greater reductions in deaths from warmer winters pass without being remarked on. Yet the costs of climate policy are bizarrely ignored.
Analyzing the balance between climate and policy costs has been at the heart of the study of climate change economics for more than three decades. Renowned economist William Nordhaus is the only climate change economist recognized with a Nobel prize. His research shows that we should absolutely do something about climate change: Early cuts in fossil fuel emissions are cheap and will reduce the most dangerous temperature rises. But his work also shows that highly ambitious carbon reductions will be a bad deal, with phenomenally high costs and low additional benefits.
Climate activists, who insist we should listen to the science, have consistently ignored this research and encouraged rich world leaders to make ever-greater climate promises. Many leaders have even gone so far as to promise net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Despite this likely being the single costliest policy ever promised by world leaders, it was made without a single peer-reviewed estimate of the full costs. Earlier this year, a special issue of Climate Change Economics made the first such analyses. It shows that even with very generous assumptions, the benefits of pursuing net zero will just slowly inch upwards over the century. By mid-century, the benefits—meaning the avoided costs from climate change—could reach about $1 trillion each year.
But the costs would be much, much higher. Three different modeled approaches show far higher costs than benefits for every year throughout the 21st century and far into the next. By 2050, the annual costs of the policy range between $10 and $43 trillion. That’s 4 to 18 percent of global GDP. Consider that the total tax intake of all governments across the world today is about 15 percent of global GDP—and politicians would potentially have us spend more than that. Across the century, the benefit is 1.4 percent of global GDP while the cost averages out at 8.6 percent of global GDP. Every dollar in cost delivers perhaps 16 cents of climate benefits. Clearly, this is an atrocious use of money.
The only thing that could avoid this summit being a retread of 27 other failures is if politicians acknowledge the real cost of net zero policy—and instead of making more carbon cut promises, vow to dramatically increase green energy research and development.
This would help innovate the price of low-carbon energy below that of fossil fuels so every country in the world will want to make the switch. Instead of subsidizing today’s still-inefficient technology and trying to brute force a transition by pushing up the price of fossil fuels, we need to make green technologies genuinely cheaper.
Sadly, that seems a far-fetched hope. Instead, this climate summit looks set to be another wasted opportunity producing yet more hot air.
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12 December, 2023
Federal energy regulator said coal plant closure could be 'potentially catastrophic'
A power grid operator that serves millions of Americans across the mid-Atlantic is warning that a planned coal-fired power plant shutdown will severely threaten electricity supplies and occur before new power sources come online.
PJM Interconnection — which coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, serving 65 million consumers — said the forthcoming shutdown of Brandon Shores coal power plant located outside of Baltimore will disrupt the reliability of the region's grid. The plant's operator, Texas-based Talen Energy, intends to deactivate the plant in June 2025 as part of a settlement with the left-wing eco group Sierra Club.
"There has been a strong push for quite some time to get coal power out of Maryland," Christopher Summers, the founder and president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute, told Fox News Digital in an interview. "In this accelerated timeline of exiting from coal-fired power plants in the coming 12 to 24 months, I think it's going to create a major reliability concern for the state."
"The loss of power poses a real danger to the well-being and livelihoods of Maryland families and businesses," Summers said. "Until these current risks to our grid are fully dealt with, it's a mistake to close reliable, baseload power plants too soon. That should be a concern to consumers in Maryland and businesses in Maryland that rely on dependable power."
In 2020, Talen Energy announced it had reached an agreement with Sierra Club to shutter Brandon Shores and two other major coal power plants in the region. The decision was made in exchange for an agreement from the Sierra Club which aims to avoid future litigation or permit disputes related to coal at Talen Energy's "transitioning sites."
Ralph Alexander, the then-CEO of Talen Energy, said at the time that his company's move was part of its transition to green energy and its broader environmental, social and governance (ESG)-focused future. According to the company's current ESG commitments, it plans to entirely eliminate the use of coal in its wholly-owned generation facilities like Brandon Shores, which generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power nationwide.
However, according to PJM Interconnection, prematurely shutting down Brandon Shores — which has a capacity of 1,295 megawatts, enough to power more than a million homes — would spark an imbalance in the grid. Shuttering such a vital power source requires the regional grid operator to divert electricity generated elsewhere, but transmission upgrades in Maryland aren't expected to be finished until 2028, three years after the planned Brandon Shores closure.
"The PJM region and the state of Maryland are facing future reliability challenges as a result of the announced retirement of the Brandon Shores units," Jeff Shields, a spokesperson for PJM Interconnection, told Fox News Digital. "Specifically, PJM analyses showed that the deactivation of the Brandon Shores units would cause severe voltage drop and thermal violations across seven PJM zones, which could lead to a widespread reliability risks in Baltimore and the immediate surrounding areas."
"Therefore, there is an urgent need to upgrade the transmission system in order to maintain reliability and the flow of power to the 65 million people we serve," Shields said. "The chosen transmission solutions include in-service estimates in the 2027-2028 timeframe."
Because of the tight timeframe, PJM has requested that Brandon Shores remains in operation through 2028 under a so-called Reliability Must-Run Agreement until transmission upgrades are completed. However, Shields noted Talen Energy's agreement with Sierra Club prevents such an agreement from moving forward.
Additionally, while Talen Energy previously said it would convert Brandon Shores to rely on another, less emitting fuel source, it ultimately abandoned that plan and opted to completely close the facility, potentially increasing future reliability concerns.
Both PJM and Talen Energy confirmed they are currently engaged in negotiations with the Sierra Club and Maryland state officials to find a solution.
"Talen is currently in discussions with PJM and others regarding the reliability issue claimed by PJM," Taryne WIlliams, a spokesperson for Talen Energy, told Fox News Digital in an email.
"We are always mindful of regional electric system reliability and how it relates to electricity consumers in Maryland," added Maryland Public Service Commission spokesperson Tori Leonard in a statement, noting that PJM is responsible for reliably operating the regional transmission grid.
Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) intervened and greenlighted PJM's nearly $800 million emergency plan for transmission upgrades to blunt the Brandon Shores closure.
FERC Commissioner Mark Christie said on Nov. 8 that, without proper upgrades, the shutdown could cause "severe voltage collapse in Baltimore and the surrounding zones, including Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania," adding such a scenario would be "potentially catastrophic."
"Closing an efficient, low-cost energy producing plant like Brandon Shores is just one more way America is surrendering our energy advantage to China and Russia," Rep. Andy Harris, the sole Republican member of Maryland's congressional delegation, told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"It is foolish to think that anything will come of this short-sighted energy policy, cooked up by the out-of-touch liberals who run Maryland, other than even more expensive electricity bills for hard-working, over-taxed Maryland families," he said.
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28 draft agreement omits plan to phase out fossil fuels, angering Pacific leaders
Attempts to forge a historic deal to phase out fossil fuels at this year's UN climate talks are hanging by a thread after a draft agreement dropped references to the policy.
Leaders from countries in favour of a phase-out, including Australia's Pacific neighbours, were left stunned when the draft text for COP28 omitted any mention of phasing out fossil fuels.
There had been suggestions a deal on a policy to phase them out was within reach amid efforts by a large bloc of countries to negotiate a breakthrough.
But a draft document released following days of intense negotiations stopped short of that ambition.
Rather, it set out a plan for "reducing both the consumption and production of fossil fuels".
The document said such a reduction should be made in a "just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero [carbon emission] by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science".
It also called for action to "accelerate efforts globally towards net zero emissions energy systems, using zero and low carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century".
If agreed by the almost 200 countries involved in the summit, the text would nevertheless be the first time a COP text referred to fossil fuels in such an explicit way.
What is COP28 and why should anyone care?
Talks about how to wean the world off fossil fuels are taking place in one of the globe's leading petrostates. Massive increases in green energy and who should pay will be up for discussion.
At a press conference in the wake of the release, summit president Sultan al-Jaber was hailing the draft as a significant strengthening of the global drive to cut emissions.
Dr al-Jaber called on delegates to show "even more flexibility" as they entered the final days and hours of negotiations while acknowledging that "gaps" remain on many issues between countries.
However, he insisted progress was being made.
'We will not sign our death certificates'
Despite the upbeat tone, leaders of countries pushing for a phase-out were deeply unhappy about the draft text released overnight.
Cedric Schuster, the Minister for Natural Resources and Environment in the Pacific Island nation of Samoa, was damning.
He said the draft text went nowhere near far enough and would risk undermining efforts to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
As a consequence, he said small island states like his own would be imperilled.
"If we do not have strong mitigation outcomes at this COP then this will be the COP where 1.5C would have died," Mr Schuster said.
"We will not sign our death certificates.
"We cannot sign on to text that does not have a strong commitment on phasing out fossil fuels.
"We have been asked throughout this process, what is at stake if these negotiations don't return a strong outcome that keeps 1.5C alive?
"How can you not understand it is our very survival that is at stake?
"This is why in every room our negotiators have been pushing tirelessly for decisions that align with staying under 1.5C of warming.
"That is why if parties continue to oppose the phase-out of fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies they must stop and question their own commitment to this process."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-12/draft-cop28-text-omits-fossil-fuel-phase-out/103216494
*****************************************************COP 28 is not a democracy
Reading the breathless Green coverage of the soon-to-be COP 28, the UN conference on climate change (CFACT is on the way!), I noticed a fundamental fallacy occurring endlessly. The analysts seem to assume that decision-making is democratic, such that what you need to pass a rule is a majority vote along the lines of Congress or Parliament.
The reality is extremely different. Every member Country has veto power. This dramatically changes what is possible. The analysts consistently miss this, especially by talking about possibilities that are, in fact, impossible.
A good example is a recent Washington Post article discussing the possibility that COP 28 will adopt a decision calling for the phasing out of not just coal but all fossil fuel use. They correctly report that some countries are all for this while others are strongly against it.
The presently crazy Biden U.S. is for it despite being the world’s biggest per capita user of fossil fuels. Russia is sanely against it as fossil fuel exports are their primary revenue source.
It is then consistently reported as a maybe yes, maybe no situation, like Congress debating a controversial Bill. The obvious reality is that absent a miracle, this measure has no chance whatsoever. It is, as the saying goes, dead on arrival.
An even better example is the ridiculous proposal from France and, again the U.S. that the member countries all agree to, somehow, stop the private financing of coal-fired power plants. Given that China and a number of big developing countries are betting their electrical future on coal this is clearly nothing more than political posturing. Even a miracle could not save this nonsense. But it is dutifully reported and analyzed as a real possibility. At least it is here in America and likely in France, too.
Wishful COP 28 thinking is not news nor analysis, but it fills the pages. The reality is that none of these big-ticket issues that we read so much about have the slightest chance of happening.
The one big issue where something might actually happen is loss and damage. But it will be small, hyped as huge.
Recall that at COP 27, there was reported to be a great advance, creating a Loss and Damage Fund. This is where the developed countries will pay the developing ones something toward their supposedly climate-caused losses and damages: crop losses and food damages, for example.
In reality, all that was created is a name, an idea if you like. A Committee was established to give, or at least propose, form and substance to this nebulous idea. That has not happened because the issues are overwhelming. After all, every county gets bad weather. The U.S. has said it will donate millions of dollars while developing countries are talking trillions.
However, this loss and damage concept is so vague that there is room for moving forward without being so specific or dangerous, that we start getting vetos.
For example, they might agree on where this little fund will be established. This is presently controversial but probably not a deal breaker because the developing countries want to see money moving.
Or they might all agree that the first, small funds go to the Least Developed Countries or maybe to the poorest Small Island States. This is a feel-good first step that makes the fund real. It carefully avoids the issue of who gets how much of them trillions.
This is how COP diplomacy works. Find little steps that everyone is willing to allow while pushing the big issues down the road. Then, report these small steps as big breakthroughs. Of course, there is truly serious green stuff going on, but that is at the national level. COPs are just a carnival.
So, as you watch yet another COP play out, keep in mind that the grand schemes endlessly reported and analyzed at great length are going nowhere fast. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Or as they say in Texas, all hat, no cattle.
Be amused, not angry.
https://www.cfact.org/2023/11/29/un-cop-28-is-not-a-democracy/
*************************************************COP28 fantasy shows emission targets can’t be reduced to zero sum game
The COP28 summit in Dubai has provided marvellous entertainment. It has illustrated the complete fantasy of so much Australian climate policy and debate for the past 20 years.
Holding it in one of the main oil-producing regions meant a couple of disagreeable collisions with reality. For the big energy producers just laughed out loud at the idea that they were going to eliminate fossil fuels.
The only people who believe that are climate activists. I don’t even think governments that say it believe it.
According to the Energy Institute Statistical Review for 2023, fossil fuels provide about 82 per cent of the world’s energy, which is about where it has been for a decade or more.
But right back to the Gillard government years, we in Australia were constantly berated for what laggards we were and how the rest of the world was switching en masse to renewable energy.
In fact, far from the Coalition years costing the nation by delaying necessary change, they gave us another decade to accumulate wealth. Being a late adopter of technology is smart when the technology in fact has not yet been invented. It’s still true that when the Coalition ran on energy policy it won elections.
The rest of the world was not decarbonising. China is responsible for 30 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Sometime next decade its historic emissions will be so great it will be responsible for the lion’s share of historic emissions as well, so the essentially nonsense argument that the West caused the problem and therefore should pay disproportionately for its solution will not apply in any way.
But China has also dominated the market in manufacturing the hard objects of renewable energy – wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles. One reason China has such a price advantage in producing such products is that it uses cheap electricity generated by coal. That’s true, by the way, of all the consumer goods we buy from China too. The West deindustrialises to reduce emissions and all the same products are made by coal-fired electricity in China. China uses more coal than all other nations combined. China and India use two-thirds of all the coal used in the world.
Once on the ABC Insiders’ program I earned a passionate interjection by the normally well-mannered Annabel Crabb for saying a hi-tech coal-fired power plant would be a good idea in Australia (a position Malcolm Turnbull once advocated). No, she protested, coal was on the way out. The ABC audience was outraged at my pro-coal remark, as if I’d brought eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog to a Salem witch trial.
What of reality? In 2022, increased demand for thermal coal in China, India and Indonesia more than offset the decline in demand in the US, the EU and Japan. So consumption of coal in 2022 hit an all-time high. So, too, did greenhouse gas emissions.
The US Energy Information Administration reports that on all its realistic scenarios, it expects greenhouse gas emissions to rise until 2050 at least.
I’m not arguing that this is a good thing. But every so often it’s worth trying to think of policy in the framework of reality. If you accept more or less the anthropomorphic warming idea, then you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But if it’s absolutely clear that the rest of the world is going to massively increase emissions, and that anything Australia does one way or the other will have no discernible effect on global warming, then it’s only reasonable that you temper the urgency of your efforts a bit. Still reduce emissions by all means, but not at any cost.
If that’s what Australia really wanted to do, it would focus on gas in the short term and nuclear in the long term, with a chunk of renewables thrown in as well. Gas replacing coal does reduce emissions. And nuclear in the long run gives you reliable base-load power forever at more or less zero emissions, after accounting for the emissions involved in constructing the power stations.
All of our current policy is based on fantasy. For example, you can’t have net zero plus immigration, and I want immigration.
The world is not moving to net zero. Where big reductions have occurred it’s in rich nations which, until now, have been willing to pay the massive subsidies renewable energies still need, and, more important, to pay for the back-up capacity you have to have for when renewables don’t work. And yet there’s more. They also have to pay for vast work connecting renewables to electricity grids.
According to one calculation, achieving net zero through renewable energy would require 80 million kilometres of new power lines, or wrapping the Earth 2000 times.
The Economist, a great supporter of net zero and green actions, dolefully reports in its latest issue on the commercial disarray in green energy and finance. The projects are so expensive that they are falling over, in both the US and Europe.
The S&P global green energy index, it reports, has fallen by 32 per cent across the past year while global stockmarkets have risen by 11 per cent.
The Economist doesn’t say it but what those figures represent is that even in rich countries the gobsmacking cost of moving to renewables is such that they are running out of the money to spend on that type of energy.
The Wall Street Journal recently listed a swag of indicators that point to what it calls “the collapse of the net-zero agenda around the world”. Among these: the EU’s green deal has essentially collapsed, with key elements impossible to be implemented; Britain has abandoned an electric vehicle mandate and has also embarked on new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea; Geert Wilders, who repudiates climate action, won a slashing victory in the Dutch elections following regional election victory for a farmers’ party opposed to emissions restrictions in agriculture.
There are countless other straws in the wind. Argentina has just elected a president who rejects costly climate action. If Donald Trump becomes president he will do the same for the US, although even under Joe Biden the US is now the biggest producer and exporter of natural gas and in September produced 13.2 million barrels of crude oil a day, a record amount.
By all means reduce Australia’s emissions, but don’t send us bankrupt going at breakneck speed. And just occasionally acknowledge the reality in the big bad world.
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11 December, 2023
Leftist authoritarianism again
Senior climate experts are calling for an overhaul of the structure and powers of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in despair at the slow pace of climate action.
Five lead authors of IPCC reports told the Guardian that scientists should be given the right to make policy prescriptions and, potentially, to oversee their implementation by the 195 states signed up to the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC).
Their call came after it emerged that the United Arab Emirates had been planning to use its position as Cop28 host to strike oil and gas deals .
Sonia Seneviratne, an IPCC vice-chair and coordinating lead author since 2012, said: “At some point we need to say that if you want to achieve this aim set by policymakers then certain policies need to be implemented.
“As climate change becomes worse and worse, it is becoming more difficult to be policy relevant without being prescriptive.”
Scientists should be able to call for fossil fuel cuts and phaseouts, she said. The discrepancy between IPCC science and action on the ground was “very difficult for us to understand as scientists because it doesn’t seem to make any sense”.
Gert-Jan Nabuurs, a coordinating lead author on three IPCC reports, said: “The IPCC’s critical, independent and guiding roles seem to be less and less evident. As they decline, countries seem to be exerting a larger and larger influence.”
The problem for authors was that “we can’t be policy prescriptive, so we can’t make hard statements on what should be done”, he said.
Nabuurs questioned the value of continuing to produce assessment reports when “we already know that in five to six years’ time the message is not going to be very different, the problem will still be there, emissions will still be going up, there will be more evidence of impacts and less time to try to stay under 2C [of heating above pre-industrial levels]”.
Greenhouse gas emissions are on track to rise by 9% by 2030, despite years of warnings from scientists that climate tipping points may be near. Emissions would need to fall by 43% by the decade’s end to meet the Paris climate agreement goal of capping global heating at 1.5C.
Julia Steinberger, a coordinating lead author on climate mitigation pathways on the IPCC’s most recent, sixth assessment report, known as AR6, said: “Right now, not only is the IPCC prevented from making strong, clear, commonsense statements – like the need to urgently move away from fossil fuel use and investment – but many scientists have personally taken being ‘non policy prescriptive’ to be part of their communication in general, not just the IPCC’s. This self-silencing is counterproductive, in my opinion.”
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California’s Electric Truck Mandate
The California GREEN movement, at any cost, is progressing at warp speed.
Earlier this year, California passed regulations that would turn the trucking industry upside down. Zero emission mandates would disrupt the industry, raise shipping costs, and put trucking companies out of business. A group including 19 states and several trucking organizations recently filed suit to block the California regulation.
A little background on the EV Truck mandate: California’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) Regulation goes into effect on January 1, 2024. The ACF requires that truck operators buy only Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) trucks for medium-duty and heavy-duty trucking operations as early as January 2024. The ACF also requires that trucking companies transition their fleets to 100 percent ZEV trucks by 2035 to 2042, depending upon class of truck.
This EV truck mandate lacks conversations about the many conundrums associated with this mandate, i.e., the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about:
For those huge EV truck batteries there is virtually non-existing transparency of the environmental degradation and the human rights abuses occurring in developing countries with yellow, brown, and black skinned people. Both human rights abuses and environmental degradation are directly connected to the mining for the exotic minerals and metals that are required to manufacture those EV batteries. The children used to produce the lithium for an EV battery is appalling.
California has almost 400,000 miles of roadways used by the State’s 31 million vehicles. Those roadways are heavily dependent on road taxes from fuels that contribute more than $8.8 billion annually, the same gas tax revenues that also funds many environmental programs. That $8.8 billion revenue source will diminish in the decades ahead as EV’s begin to replace internal combustion engine vehicles.
The heavier EV trucks will put more wear and tear on the California roadways. How will the State replace $8.8 billion from fuel taxes to maintain the California roadways?
California is the 4th largest economy in the world and has three of the largest shipping ports in America—No. 1 in Los Angeles, No. 2 in Long Beach, and No. 7 in Oakland. Ships arriving and departing from the ports up and down the coast from San Diego to San Francisco.
Many truckers are individual operators that may just stop coming to California! Those trucks that access three of the largest shipping ports in America move a lot of products for the entire country.
Trucker’s travel all over the nation, thus heavy EV truck charging stations sites would need to be built all over the nation to keep those trucks moving.
EV trucks are only for those in wealthy countries as Nearly Half the World Lives on Less than $5.50 a Day, as billions still struggle to meet basic needs. They may never be able to enjoy the materialistic living styles of those in wealthier countries.
Electric trucks suffer major disadvantages when compared to diesel trucks: Diesel trucks can travel about 1,200 miles after filling the tank in 15 minutes. The range of electric trucks is about 150-330 miles, and recharging may take hours, even on a high-speed charger.
EV truck cabs cost two-to-three times as much as diesel cabs, an incremental cost of as much as $300,000 per truck.
EV cabs also weigh about 10,000 pounds more than comparable diesel versions.
China emits more greenhouse gases in a day than California trucks emit in a year.
The California GREEN movement continues to be a National Security risk for America as 4th largest economy in the world is already importing most of its crude oil demands from foreign countries, to support the States’ 9 International airports, 41 Military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping ports in America, and is now mandating that the trucks that move many of the products to Americans be electric!
https://heartland.org/opinion/californias-electric-truck-mandate-conundrums/
********************************************************There's Just One Problem With That $7.5 Billion Congress Spent for EV Chargers
President Biden wants at least 50 percent of new vehicle sales by 2030 to be electric, but doing so requires significant investment in the infrastructure required to make that happen. To this end, Congress in 2021 spent $7.5 billion to invest in EV charging stations across the country through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
There’s just one problem, however. After two years, Biden's goal of "building a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers along America’s highways and in our communities," has gone nowhere, as not a single charger has been installed.
States and the charger industry blame the delays mostly on the labyrinth of new contracting and performance requirements they have to navigate to receive federal funds. While federal officials have authorized more than $2 billion of the funds to be sent to states, fewer than half of states have even started to take bids from contractors to build the chargers — let alone begin construction.
Consumer demand for electric vehicles is rising in the United States, necessitating six times as many chargers on its roads by the end of the decade, according to federal estimates. But not a single charger funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law has come online and odds are they will not be able to start powering Americans’ vehicles until at least 2024.
Getting chargers up and running across the country is essential to reaching President Joe Biden’s goal of having half the vehicles sold in the United States be electric by the end of the decade — a key cog of his climate agenda. Americans consistently say the lack of charging infrastructure is one of the top reasons they won’t buy an electric car. (Politico)
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates the U.S. will need about 1.2 million public chargers by 2030 to meet demand. According to the Energy Department, there are only about 180,000 chargers today.
An unnamed Biden official said the slow rollout is not surprising given the administration's desire to build a “convenient, affordable, reliable, made-in-America equitable network.”
“Anybody can throw a charger in the ground — that’s not that hard, it doesn’t take that long,” the official told Politico. “Building a network is different.”
GOP senators reacted to the news, blasting Biden's green agenda.
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British PM suffers large rebellion against the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate
In a vote late on Monday night, 38 MPs voted against the legislation bringing in the Government’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate. The legislation enforces an 80% target for electric vehicles as a percentage of new car sales by 2030. With 28 Conservative MPs (including tellers) voting against, it is the biggest Tory revolt of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, surpassing the total that voted against the Government on the Windsor Framework.
The rebellion comes after the Net Zero Scrutiny Group wrote to the Prime Minister on Saturday saying: “If the cost of buying and running an EV will become cheaper than petrol and diesel cars, mandating them with this law is unnecessary. This law is anti-consumer, anti-choice and anti-motorist, and will only leave the public poorer. Car-ownership could once again be restricted to the privileged few.”
The size of the rebellion is significant because it was enough to overturn the Tories’ Commons majority, meaning Sunak knows he is now more vulnerable in parliament. Greg Smith, chair of Conservative Way Forward and a member of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said: “We reached the magic number — enough to wipe out the government’s working majority if Labour hadn’t supported them.”
Craig Mackinlay MP, chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said:
“We all heard the Prime Minister pledge a more proportionate and pragmatic approach to Net Zero, but this pledge has not been met with action. I am disappointed that this legislation has been forced through using a statutory instrument – avoiding the kind of scrutiny that Rishi himself called for.”
“Nevertheless, I am pleased that so many of my colleagues chose to rebel on this important issue. We will not stop our campaign against draconian Net Zero legislation and will continue to promote a better way that protects people’s freedoms and does not leave them poorer.”
Andrea Jenkyns MP, who is a Board member of Net Zero Watch, said in a video to her supporters:
“To me, it’s actions not words. Those MPs who say that they want to stop Net Zero – which is certainly affecting constituents in their pockets – should have voted against this measure this evening.”
Harry Wilkinson, Net Zero Watch Head of Policy, said:
“This is a very significant vote which shows the strength of feeling on the backbenches. Conservative members are clearly deeply sceptical about the whole Net Zero agenda but they don’t have a Government which reflects those views. I welcome Rishi’s change of tone on Net Zero but that needs to be followed with a change of policy – he needs to stand up to the civil servants who keep pushing through draconian Net Zero measures.”
https://mailchi.mp/f6c9c049610e/sunak-suffers-large-rebellion-against-the-zev-mandate?e=cc88839e92
***************************************10 December, 2023
Let Them Eat Chicken
The worthies attending the United Nations COP28 climate summit in Dubai are mostly not eating meat. That's because they believe and have been told that meat leads to flatulence and flatulence leads to "global warming." Instead, they're getting mostly plant-based food. In another fitting irony, some attendees came from European countries where there is heavy snow and cold temperatures. Their private jets emit far more CO2 than many steaks.
In a press release, The United Arab Emirates environment minister, Mariam Almheiri, said: "We know that our food systems are intrinsically linked to the fate of our natural world, and so we have made the progressive decision to ensure that we explore how the catering provided across the event can be responsible and climate conscious."
Where have we heard versions of this apocalyptic nonsense before? From just about everywhere elites gather and attempt to regulate, increasingly tax us, and limit our freedoms. Global warming is the secular holy of holies and those who don't embrace their "faith" are to be cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
King Charles III ratcheted up his already high hyperbole about climate change when he said at the gathering: " The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth." Was he referring to the Genesis account of creation? Probably not.
In 2009, then-Prince Charles said we had only 96 months to avert "irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse." Two thousand seventeen came and went and we have yet to see a collapse. Neither have any of the other numerous predictions from various climate change apostles come true. It doesn't matter. Just as we have now learned from the British Medical Journals that masking children during the Covid- 19 pandemic had no "real- world effectiveness," we should take the alarmist claims coming from Dubai with a grain of salt substitute.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who flew in on his private jet, said he thinks coal plants should not be "permitted anywhere in the world." Kerry, who is not a climate scientist and basically repeats and adds to what he has been told by people who reinforce what he already thinks, has made repeated end- of-the-world predictions. Like Nostradamus and modern religious and secular false prophets, none have come true. But we should believe Kerry now because he said he is becoming "more and more" militant about climate policy. That's because, he says, people are avoiding responsibility. Facts from real experts, not more militancy, is what we need. Avoid believing a "scientific consensus" on climate change. Remember Dr. Anthony "I am science" Fauci's claims that subsequently proved untrue?
How much more of this should we take? Government leaders and bureaucrats are constantly looking for new "crises" to impose their will on us while largely not obeying the laws and regulations they pass. When their forecasts of disaster fail to come true, they quickly move on to the next one.
The fast food chain Chick-fil-A has a billboard ad depicting a cow that says "eat more chicken." Maybe the climate alarmists should adopt that slogan as they continue to promote a false doctrine that if adopted will cost trillions of dollars and not achieve the ends they claim. Doesn't this represent something akin to the old central planning systems of Soviet Russia? We know how that turned out, including a forced famine under Joseph Stalin.
https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2023/12/07/let-them-eat-chicken-n2632079 ?
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Climate Conference Ignores Energy’s Role in Reducing Poverty and Preserving the Environment
As the international climate conference known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP28, starts the first Global Stocktake—a methodology for countries to measure their compliance with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate—the participating governments would do well to remember that energy is more than a mere commodity; it’s the backbone of human progress.
Energy’s ubiquitous role in our daily lives masks its positive and profound effect on economic growth, medicine, longevity, and wealth creation, empowering people around the world to rise above mere subsistence.
A forthcoming Heritage Foundation special report, “Powering Human Advancement: Why the World Needs Affordable and Reliable Energy,” shows that energy is the thread that weaves the fabric of civilizations together and the universal currency to transact business.
The report shows that countries that harness more than 1,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per capita begin to lower poverty substantially. Countries that harness more than 10,000 kWh per capita see the virtual elimination of widespread poverty. The conclusion is clear: encouraging energy use reduces global poverty and generates economic growth to overcome environmental concerns. (The Daily Signal is the news and commentary outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
For instance, the health care revolution of the 21st century owes much to the relentless march of energy. Energy has allowed medical discoveries to leap beyond geographical barriers, bringing advanced medical care to far-flung corners of the world.
From the hum of MRI machines to the quiet reliability of vaccine refrigerators in clinics, energy is a silent guardian of health. Neonatal incubators use energy to keep millions of premature babies’ little hearts pounding and lungs breathing. The result of abundant energy has been a century of dramatic reduction in child and disease mortality and a leap in global health standards.
The story of this increased longevity in the past century is, at its core, a tale of energy. Access to clean water, efficient food production, and sanitary facilities—all energy-intensive—have drastically reduced mortality rates. This longevity boom is intertwined with wealth generation. As people live longer, healthier lives, they contribute significantly more to economic prosperity, creating virtuous cycles of wealth and well-being.
In combination with the rule of law, wealth can be generated by affordable and reliable energy sources, and it is this wealth that will, in turn, afford a society to buy pollution scrubbers for their hydrocarbon power plants. Wealth, thus accrued through energy use, not only creates a buffer against long-term environmental degradation, but actively fuels the fight against it. High-income countries with high energy use can afford to remove the worst criteria pollutants from the atmosphere.
Many pundits at COP28 will ignore these realities and blame the harnessing of hydrocarbons as an environmental disaster that has befallen the world, despite hydrocarbons’ many benefits.
COP28 officials should be careful about advocating for solar and wind power without acknowledging their respective drawbacks in terms of cost, their lack of reliability as energy sources, pollution from the manufacture and disposal of solar panels, and the harm to wildlife that wind turbines pose.
COP28 attendees should also recognize how dependent the world, and especially America, are on the Chinese Communist Party for critical minerals that are used in the manufacture of renewables and battery technology. In fact, China already produces 80% of solar components and 65% of lithium-ion batteries that the world uses.
Furthermore, attendees should be cautious about advocating for zero-carbon emissions mandates paid for by raising energy rates on consumers (a form of regressive taxation that hurts the poorest the hardest) or letting supranational bureaucrats intervene in contracts because their preferred energy company did not win.
While some policymakers advocate “allowing” poor people to have air conditioning, some COP28 attendees were against plug-in air conditioners for the poor. We should be wary of such officials using “climate change” as a mechanism to hold back low-income individuals and those in developing nations. Those attending COP28 should not distribute untransparent powers to governments and bureaucrats while also signing expensive deals with dictators like the president of China.
Policymakers at COP28 need to get out of the way of companies that are harnessing energy responsibly and innovatively and recognize the need to pave the way for a legacy of human advancement worldwide. In energy lies not just the power to create but also the power to conserve and protect all that has been created.
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Mind-Bogglingly Costly Green Boondoggles Leave Carbon, Temperatures Virtually Untouched
Through Dec. 12, the “Climate!” crowd is swarming COP28, Dubai’s carbophobia cavalcade.
(COP28 refers to the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, under way in the United Arab Emirates.)
The fact that these global-warming alarmists are surrounded by Earth’s deepest pools of fossil fuels makes their Hajj infinitely ironic.
Also astonishing is the nearly immeasurable impact of these people’s gyrations. They blow trillions of dollars, bludgeon human freedom, and yet do shockingly little to fix their vaunted “climate crisis.” One practically needs an electron microscope to find their promised reductions in allegedly venomous carbon dioxide or supposedly lethal temperatures.
According to #ActInTime’s Climate Clock high above Manhattan’s Union Square, humans have—at this writing—five years and 228 days until we boil to death in a cauldron of steaming carbon.
Since The End is scheduled for Saturday, July 21, 2029 (mark your calendars!), Big Government liberals offer jaw-droppingly paltry climate benefits, despite their spine-chilling predictions and unbridled interventionism.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s proposed Clean Power Plan was a diamond-encrusted specimen of do-nothingism. According to a May 2015 analysis by their own Energy Information Agency, between 2015 and 2025, the Clean Power Plan would have slashed real gross domestic product by $993 billion, or an average of $39.7 billion per year. It would have sliced real disposable income by $382 billion, or $15.3 billion annually. It also would have chopped manufacturing shipments by $1.13 trillion, or $45.4 billion per year.
The Energy Information Agency forecast a decrease of 0.035 degrees Fahrenheit. This would have cranked a thermometer from 72 degrees Fahrenheit way down to 71.965 degrees.
As Billy Joel once sang: “Is that all you get for your money?”
Biden’s blessed Inflation Reduction Act budgeted $369 billion for green-energy projects. Goldman Sachs subsequently slapped a $1.2 trillion price tag on it.
Danish environmental expert Bjorn Lomborg ran the Inflation Reduction Act through the United Nations’ climate models. “Impact of new climate legislation,” Lomborg specified. “Unnoticeable: 0.0009°F to 0.028°F in [the year] 2100.”
That would chill thermostats from 72 degrees to 71.9991 degrees. If we get lucky: 71.972 degrees.
Biden said on Jan. 31 that “if we don’t stay under 1.5 degrees Celsius” or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, “we’re going to have a real problem.” If a 0.0009 degrees Fahrenheit reduction costs $369 billion, then Biden’s 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit goal would devour—brace yourself—$1.107 quadrillion—with a Q.
Emperor Biden’s electric-vehicle decree would require that two-thirds of all new cars sold in 2032 be electric. This edict already is stalling the auto industry. Last week, 3,902 U.S. car dealers from all 50 states wrote to Biden. Message: Stop tailgating!
“Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots,” the dealers complained. “The majority of customers are simply not ready to make the change.”
This chaos aside, Biden’s mandate would limit carbon dioxide by 10 billion tons through 2055. Alas, China is expected to generate 320 billion tons of carbon in the next 32 years. So, Biden’s “savings” will asphyxiate in a giant Chinese carbon cloud.
The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins calculates that Biden’s EV order would decrease planetary emissions by a whopping 0.18%. “The climate effect of the extravagantly expensive Biden plan will steadily approach zero,” Jenkins anticipates.
Rather than jail criminals or deport illegal aliens, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul bans gas stoves and demands that gas heaters yield to electric heat pumps—never mind that her constituents freeze to death during post-blizzard blackouts.
“The global effect of the costly program of compulsory electrification will be a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of less than 0.05%,” the Empire Center for Public Policy calculates.
Obama, Biden, Hochul, and their comrades might respond that no single bauble will fix everything, and every shiny object helps. Maybe. But these four schemes alone carry an enormously high price in shredded freedom and incinerated taxpayer dollars, yet still leave at least 99.82% of emissions untouched.
As Groundskeeper Willie of “The Simpsons” once said: “Now we’re wasting more energy than Ricky Martin’s girlfriend.”
To quote another Briton, William Shakespeare, perhaps this “sound and fury, signifying nothing” is not about cutting emissions or curbing Earth’s temperatures. Maybe it’s designed to help liberals spend trillions of dollars to signal virtue, bark orders at the American people, and lavish taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on their politically connected pals—from the Potomac to the Persian Gulf.
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Mugged by reality, climate scientists concede defeat
Leading scientists worldwide delivered a striking dose of reality to the United Nations on Sunday: it’s “becoming inevitable” that countries will miss the ambitious target they set eight years ago for limiting the warming of the Earth.
The ominous estimate points to the growing likelihood that global warming will shoot past 1.5 degrees Celsius before the end of this century, inflicting what scientists describe as an overwhelming toll from intensifying storms, drought and heat on people and the economy. It also injects an urgent message into global climate talks in Dubai, where the debate over ramping down fossil fuels is set to flare over the next two weeks.
Surpassing the temperature threshold — even temporarily — would be a major blow to the international Paris climate agreement from 2015, which called for nations to keep global temperatures well within 2 degrees Celsius of their preindustrial levels, and within 1.5 degrees if at all possible. The findings come amid climate talks that for the first time are focused on taking stock of whether almost 200 nations are meeting that goal. Early indications offer a bleak picture.
The 1.5-degree target has become a rallying point for nations attending the COP28 climate talks, despite rising certainty among scientists that the world will spill over that threshold, potentially within a decade. Temperatures have already risen between 1.1 and 1.3 degrees.
It may be possible to bring global temperatures back down again, using still-unproven technological means to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But at least some overshoot is probably unavoidable, scientists said in the new report to the U.N.
The looming shadow of overshoot is one of 10 stark warnings the researchers presented Sunday in an annual report on top climate science insights from the past year. Launched in 2017, the series is coordinated by scientific organizations Future Earth and Earth League, alongside the World Climate Research Programme, whose scientific work helps inform national climate commitments worldwide. The report is presented each year to the U.N. during its annual climate conference.
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7 December, 2023
Car Dealers Send Biden a Letter
On Tuesday, thousands of car dealers across the country sent a message to President Joe Biden, urging him to reconsider his administration's expectations for the automotive industry to help ensure that two-thirds of all cars on the road are electrified by 2032.
The dealers, who collectively employ thousands of Americans, expressed their concerns in a letter, stating that the new electric vehicle mandates would limit their ability to manufacture compliant vehicles while consumers are hesitant to pay higher prices for electric models during a period of rampant inflation.
"We are small businesses that are deeply committed to our customers and the communities where we operate. That is why we are asking you to slow down your proposed regulations mandating battery electric vehicle production and distribution," the letter read.
While acknowledging the appeal of electric vehicles, the dealers point out that the demand for them is not keeping up with the influx of vehicles currently arriving at their dealerships. Despite deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and government subsidies, the supply of unsold electric vehicles is surging, as they are not selling as fast as they are being produced.
The dealers also highlighted the mismatch between the goals of the regulations and the current and forecasted customer demand. They emphasized that consumer acceptance is critical for electric vehicles to become a reality and that the attempted mandate is unrealistic.
This pushback comes as a blow to Biden's green energy agenda, which has already faced criticism from progressives due to executive orders expanding domestic drilling in Alaska and other areas. The recent strike by auto union workers also cited unrealistic EV mandates and the closure of long-standing production plants as major concerns.
The lack of charging infrastructure across the country has also been a source of embarrassment for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who recently faced backlash from climate activists during a cross-country EV tour. In one instance, a family, whose spot in line for a charger was taken by Buttigieg's entourage, called out the Deputy Secretary and got their spot back.
The setback from car dealers adds to the challenges faced by the Biden administration in achieving its ambitious goals for electric vehicle adoption. It highlights the need for a more comprehensive and feasible strategy that takes into account various factors such as consumer demand, infrastructure, and economic realities. The letter from the dealers serves as a reminder that for electric vehicles to become a widespread reality, it must be a balanced and well-thought-out transition.
https://leadpatriot.com/car-dealers-send-biden-letter/?email=jonjayray%40hotmail.com&ptn=LP
**********************************************************Three COP28 Updates to Be Concerned About
Last Thursday, November 30th, the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC) was kicked off in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The cool kids simply call it COP28.
This year’s conference is the hottest climate event in 2023. Eighty thousand attendees are reportedly there. I understand the appeal. Dubai is a warm, inviting, and modern city. I don’t blame conferencegoers for jetting there, except when they bemoan air travel for us plebeians. But the selection of the UAE and this year’s conference chair, Sultan al-Jaber, has made climate alarmists more unhinged than usual.
Extinction Rebellion UK said, “Despite over 130 lawmakers urging the UN to remove Al Jaber as president of #COP28 due to being CEO and founder of ADNOC - a company who has the largest net-zero-busting expansion plans of any company in the world - he has remained centre stage.”
And unsurprisingly, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres - who benefits from fossil fuel usage yet calls for eliminating them - doubled down on decarbonization, tweeting, “We can't save a burning planet with a firehose of fossil fuels. We must accelerate a just, equitable transition to renewables. The science is clear: The 1.5°C warming limit is only possible if we stop burning fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate. Phase out.”
This anti-fossil fuel rhetoric, however, is not the craziest observation from this year’s summit.
One proposal is a “non-binding” net-zero plan for global meat consumption. The UN wants it to align with the 2015 Paris Climate Accords. This proposal stems from the July 2023 COP28 Food Systems and Agriculture Agenda.
Billed as a “global food systems’ road map to 1.5C,” the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) will “tell” rich nations to scale down agriculture practices on “equity” grounds while giving developing nations with worse environmental footprints a pass.
“The world’s most-developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat as part of the first comprehensive plan to bring the global agrifood industry into line with the Paris climate agreement,” Bloomberg reported. “Nations that over-consume meat will be advised to limit their intake, while developing countries — where under-consumption of meat adds to a prevalent nutrition challenge — will need to improve their livestock farming, according to the FAO.”
But the outlet observed, “The guidance on meat is intended to send a clear message to governments. But politicians in richer nations typically shy away from policies aimed at influencing consumer behavior, especially where it involves cutting consumption of everyday items.”
Our media and elected Democrats have dismissed similar efforts like this as a Republican culture war. Except it’s not. NYC wants to reduce food-based emissions–including that of meat– by 33%. Scientific American says eating unquestionable plant-based meat will fight the climate crisis–a sentiment echoed by The Guardian, The Hill, Harvard University, and preservationist environment group Center for Biological Diversity, among many searchable public endorsements calling for red meat phaseouts.
Another concerning item is a petition circulating in Dubai calling to shut down U.S. natural gas production. Fox News reports a letter boasting the signature of Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) is the source of this effort.
"At COP26, the United States and 39 governments and institutions signed the Glasgow Statement, pledging to prioritize the clean energy transition and end new direct public support for the international fossil fuel sector by 2022," the letter states. "This is the very least we can do, considering that even existing production capacities already exceed the limits set by the Paris Agreement."
The report continued: “The letter further argues that while liquefied natural gas (LNG) — natural gas that has been cooled to enable easier transport — was originally looked to as a means to "tackle the consequences of the global energy crisis," additional LNG capacity is "not needed." Climate advocates have long opposed LNG and natural gas production since, when burned for power production, it produces greenhouse gas emissions.”
The letter, Fox adds, will be finalized and published during the conference in concert with the "Global Parliamentary Inquiry on the Progress of the Fossil Fuel Phase-out."
Natural gas is clean, affordable, and essential for daily life. It also ensures energy security and has lower emissions. No wonder why the decarboniser hates it.
The third concerning proposal is a new $250 billion fund called Alterra to fuel “smart” climate investments in the Global South. Alterra will be chaired by the aforementioned COP28 Chair, Sultan al-Jaber, who heads Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) as chief executive. CNBC reports the fund will “direct private markets towards climate investments,” emphasizing “energy transition, industrial decarbonization, and climate technology.” The host nation reportedly will pitch in $30 billion of that $250 billion amount.
This is in response to the oil and gas hub's criticism for leading climate talks at this year’s summit. Reports suggest the UAE is, ironically, using the annual climate conference to lobby for more oil and gas development deals.
Climate pledges do little to bolster the environment except for inviting energy insecurity and poverty while inviting lectures from eco-hypocrites who have big individual footprints.
Governments worldwide are greenlighting more fossil fuel production despite these flashy proclamations of going net-zero and pledging decarbonization. Perhaps it’s because renewables, even with subsidies and government backing, don’t power efficiently, are unreliable, and have a worse environmental footprint.
COP28 might be far away, but the impact could be felt here should these proposals be adopted.
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Why isn’t the media challenging the $60 trillion Net Zero cult?
Those who believe renewable energy will save the planet generally have very little understanding about what the apocalypse is meant to look like … or the engineering reality of the proposed solution.
This is not a criticism.
Climate Change is a political movement. The renewable transition is a collection of opaque policies and corporate deals negotiated in secret. Their failures are a matter for complex engineering reviews and guesswork.
Expecting anyone to understand something that has been deliberately blurred from public view is unfair.
Those who are curious enough to ask questions quickly discover that politicians have no idea what their policies mean in the real world. MPs and Senators struggle to make it through cover speeches written by their advisers, tripping over the big words and mumbling their way in and out of statistics that look fabricated or, at the very least, incomplete.
Net Zero 2050? ‘Decarbonisation’? They are bits of nonsense that look good on a campaign banner.
Political parties, mining companies, and tech firms are pilfering a fortune in public and private money to ‘do things’ that sound ‘green’ – almost all of which are damaging the environment. Is there proof that anything is truly ‘net zero’? No. ‘Carbon neutral’? That is gibberish. But no one asked for proof, so it doesn’t matter.
Where are, for example, the total costings of a wind farm over a 100-year period including ripping it out of the ground and re-building it every 25 years concealed under the feel-good heading ‘re-powering’? What about the construction and maintenance of transmissions lines, the building of the battery backup, and the replacement of that backup at least four times during the life of the wind farm? We haven’t seen that on any of Chris Bowen’s glossy press releases. His department did not include those costs when formulating the ‘cheap energy’ narrative. I am not suggesting that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy (notice the priority order in that title) is hiding the figures, I am suggesting the government has not bothered figuring them out.
Green-tinged governments were either too dumb or lazy to check the detail before signing over billions. They were bamboozled by pitch meetings given by a hungry private sector chasing a piece of the tens of trillions on offer in the energy transition. This negligence in duty is almost more depressing than conspiracy.
That said, the public are starting to realise that having their pristine landscapes draped in wires, blades, solar panels, and batteries is not the environmentally-friendly Utopia they were promised. The industrialisation of our beaches, rainforests, and oceans feels wrong. It looks wrong. It is wrong.
Under Chris Bowen and state Labor Premiers, Australia is vandalising its natural assets in service of backroom handshakes at international talk-fests – the purpose of which is to make money and empower dangerous foreign governments. Ask why mining companies would support a Net Zero ideology that pretends to hate the industry. Ask how much money these companies are making from publicly-funded grants for ‘green’ solutions. Ask how much the price of previously worthless minerals has increased now that they are used for the renewable industry. Ask how much they are making on Lithium with global government policy mandating the market create unsustainable demand. Ask who is making a fortune while pretending to close down… Ask who is keeping their fossil fuel and nuclear assets in the back pocket for a time when all this green zealotry runs out of belief… Ask who profits from your good will.
Australia’s soft-press is refusing to ask these meaningful questions or to risk embarrassing politicians either because they are incapable or, more likely, they want to protect their seat on the press bus (and clicks for their network).
Politicians and the press have developed a sick dependency on each other. Politicians are frightened of the press and the press has grown lazy and ideologically obedient. Yes, those of us who ask uncomfortable questions get quickly cut out of the media circuit and there is no requirement for politicians to suffer the indignity of a tricky interview.
Meanwhile, the independent press, who are at the door with claws and teeth, are held at bay by Silicon Valley tech giants who would prefer to work with the easily-manipulated status quo. Whenever they want another billion-dollar tech contract out of the government, they send memos to the press. It’s win-win-win for them.
Big Tech has teamed up with the Climate Change movement, expanding the pool of potential revenue upward of $60 trillion worldwide. When we take into account the money to be made from Big Pharma’s global health passports, Digital Identity, ‘smart’ cities, fake food, and 15-minute surveillance towns – the cookie jar of corporate sin expands beyond description.
The public asks why there is a consensus of lies and the answer is: money.
This money doesn’t belong to politicians – it belongs to us – and because there are no consequences for this lightweight political class, they are more than happy to wedge the door open for Silicon Valley in exchange for a friendly press and zero push-back to their mistakes thanks to ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ social media guidelines.
Look what happened during Covid. The press, including allegedly conservative-friendly media around the world, took money to promote Covid health policies and then quietly refused to openly acknowledge mounting safety concerns. They laughed at accusations of social media censorship instead of demanding the truth from the Department of Home Affairs which later had to acknowledge leaning on Facebook and Twitter to remove factual information that harmed government message of vaccine safety when those vaccines were later revealed to be as the public had warned – potentially dangerous.
This is not a functioning society. It is a democracy crumbling with the consent of those who see anything with the word ‘free’ as a risk.
During Covid, the public allowed their fear to hold them back from asking questions.
Now, when it comes to the Green Era, ‘virtue’ and embarrassment are playing the role of duct-tape.
Start asking questions.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/why-isnt-the-media-challenging-the-60-trillion-net-zero-cult
******************************************************Australian PM under pressure to lift nuclear ban from senior Labor, union figures
Senior Labor and union figures are pushing the Albanese government to lift the ban on nuclear energy to help shield jobs and achieve net zero emissions, as new polling reveals urban voters support cheaper and reliable energy supply ahead of the renewables rollout.
After Emmanuel Macron and former Labor minister Joel Fitzgibbon called on the government to remove prohibitions on nuclear energy at the COP28 summit, Australian Workers’ Union national secretary Paul Farrow said nuclear energy must be on the table to protect heavy industry.
Ahead of Chris Bowen flying to Dubai for the UN climate change conference on Wednesday, Mr Farrow said “if you really believe climate change is a crisis you should be open minded to every single emission reduction option on the table”.
The AWU national secretary, who in July replaced long-time nuclear energy advocate Daniel Walton, said it is “better for the planet if Australia makes steel and aluminium and glass than if those products are made in less regulated countries”.
“But if we want those industries to stay standing we need to accept that some combination of coal, gas or nuclear power is necessary. If nuclear power doesn’t stack up on cost today, that’s one thing. But objecting because of outdated twentieth century ideology is another,” Mr Farrow told The Australian.
“Right now Australia cannot sustain, let alone grow, its heavy industry sector on renewables alone. One day we’ll get there, but anyone serious will tell you that day is a fair way off.”
Mr Fitzgibbon, a former defence and agriculture minister who represented the coalmining electorate of Hunter for 26 years, said the nuclear ban “makes no sense” because every option should be considered.
As the Coalition ramps-up pressure on the government over its renewables-only focus, Mr Fitzgibbon said the world won’t meet its net zero emissions aspirations without installing more nuclear plants.
Another senior Labor figure, who didn’t want to speak publicly, said there was an inevitability in the science community that there’d be a public debate on the uses of nuclear energy, which was only accentuated by the AUKUS agreement.
Mr Fitzgibbon, who led pushback inside Labor ranks following the 2019 election to present a more realistic climate change plan, warned too much faith in a few favoured technologies was a “recipe for failure and economic harm”.
“On the question of whether Australia should also embrace nuclear generation, that should be a matter for the market. Therefore, the prohibition on nuclear generation in Australia should be lifted. It simply makes no sense and every electricity generation option should be readily available to us,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“Having said that, if the ban was lifted, it would be a long time – if ever – before we saw a nuclear generator in Australia. It’s hard enough to secure an approval for gas extraction, let alone for a nuclear plant.”
Jim Chalmers, a member of the AWU, rejected any push to lift the moratorium on nuclear power, saying the economics didn’t stack up.
“Nuclear energy doesn’t make sense for Australia, it doesn’t make economic sense and even if it did, it would take too long. We have remarkable advantages here – geological, geographical meteorological – and we need to maximise those advantages,” Dr Chalmers said.
“That means getting more renewable energy into the system so that we can get cleaner and cheaper energy, and broaden and deepen our industrial base.”
The Coalition for Conservation group is hosting Liberal and Nationals MPs and senators at COP28 including opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, Bridget McKenzie, Kevin Hogan, David Gillespie, Dean Smith, Andrew Bragg and Perin Davey.
The fight over nuclear power comes as new CT Group polling testing climate change and energy sentiment in capital cities across the globe reveals a majority of Sydney and Melbourne voters support more investment in combating climate change. However, the poll found support plunged if monthly taxes increased by $15 or $100 per month.
The Global Energy Insights survey found urban voters in the two capital cities ranked keeping energy prices down (40 per cent) as the top priority ahead of keeping energy supply reliable (31 per cent) and transitioning to renewables (29 per cent). The poll showed a +6 favourability towards nuclear, well behind solar, wind and hydro.
CT Group Australia managing-director Catherine Douglas said “costs are the prism through which Australians are measuring everything at the moment”.
“While some segments of the community are advocating for extreme solutions or for government to back winners like nuclear, solar, or wind farms, what the electorate is looking for is a sensible transition to lower emissions energy supply,” Ms Douglas said.
“The business community and voters are of one mind on the need for a pragmatic approach that is not captive to special interests or extremist advocacy at either end of the debate.”
A US-led pledge on the COP28 sidelines to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050, which the government shunned, was endorsed by more than 20 countries. Of the 22 countries who joined the pledge, 18 have existing nuclear energy industries. Fourteen countries with nuclear energy industries, including Germany, did not sign the pledge.
Investor Group on Climate Change chief executive Rebecca Mikula-Wright, who represents super funds and investors managing more than $30tn in assets, said investors were looking for the least-cost pathways for decarbonisation. The IGCC chief said there was “no interest right now” among investors about using nuclear energy to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
“Comparatively, nuclear has project time blowouts of anything from seven to 15+ years and cost blowouts in the 10s of billions. It just means that, as a technology, it is much further down the field when you’ve got the lowest cost technologies, renewables, batteries and so on, that are available to deploy now, that are more on budget and more on time comparatively than nuclear,” Ms Mikula-Wright said.
Peter Dutton said it was sensible for Australia to embrace nuclear energy just as other developed countries had done, labelling Mr Macron’s call to revoke the nuclear power ban “a cry of common sense”.
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6 December, 2023
‘Dinosaurs’ rise from the ashes of green madness
The science journal Nature has reacted badly to the Argentine president-elect’s pledge to take a chainsaw to public spending.
Javier Milei, who describes global warming as “another socialist hoax”, assumes office on December 10 as the 2023 UN Climate Conference draws to a close in Dubai.
Milei’s 56 per cent to 44 per cent win over Peronist candidate Sergio Massa appears to have caught left-wing establishments on the hop. For the rest of us, it has reinforced the impression that COP 28 is being held in a bubble. In the real world, the political tide is moving forcefully in the opposite direction.
Milei intends to close the country’s leading science agency, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, raising the prospect that the 12,000 bureaucrats and researchers it employs could join the 40 per cent of Argentinians below the poverty line.
Matilde Rusticucci, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Buenos Aires, told Nature Milei would give industry the green light to pollute rivers “as much as they want to” and claims members of his party, La Libertad Avanza, support privatising the high seas.
“Milei is denying the value of science, denying the value of the environment, denying climate change,” Rusticucci says. “His government will be a massive setback for the entire scientific community.”
In the minds of the global intelligentsia, Milei is Argentina’s Donald Trump, one of a growing number of dinosaurs from the imagined far right, roaming the Earth and winning free and fair elections seemingly at will. Their attempt to dignify their criticism of Milei as a threat to the planet cannot disguise a greater fear: the threat to their comfortable, state-funded jobs. The chronic collapse of the country’s economy is but a footnote in The Guardian’s coverage of the election.
Inflation has risen to 143 per cent under Massa’s watch as economics minister, cutting the value of wages by a third. Yet the sobering economic figures have neither weakened the Peronistas’ conviction that their big-government instincts are correct, nor dulled their belief in the rank stupidity of ordinary Argentinians.
How could these people not see their problems would be solved by more currency controls, welfare and generous funding for the arts? Do they not understand the full employment of sustainability consultants, mime artists and central bankers is good for everyone?
On the other side of the Atlantic, commentators have been tweeting like a tree full of galahs since Geert Wilder’s PPV won the popular vote in the recent Dutch election. Almost every woke trope has been used to condemn the revival of Wilder’s fortunes. In their world, it is the beginning of the end for racial harmony, democracy and the planet.
“This outcome will likely mean a rollback of climate measures, new fossil investments, exclusion of marginalised groups, and more,” Extinction Rebellion Netherlands told Euronews.
A Wilders government would herald “four years of climate change denial, exclusion and a breakdown of the rule of law”, predicted Friends of the Earth Netherlands. The comfortable progressive left has seldom appeared less comfortable in the face of rising contempt for its failing technocratic vision. Yet only one governing coalition in Western Europe, Giorgia Meloni’s Italian coalition, is drawn exclusively from parties on the right.
Anti-elitism has gone mainstream. Many European governments despised by the intelligentsia are coalitions led by parties of the left or centre right.
Like Slovakia’s new Prime Minister, Robert Foco, a former member of the Communist Party, they have registered the change in the wind and entered into alliances with nationalist parties.
Sweden’s Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, leader of the Moderate Party, is challenging the woke agenda purely out of pragmatism. He has engineered a historic shift towards nuclear power and toughened internal checks on migrants, much to the disgust of the elite.
The insurrections against the global intelligentsia are neither planned nor co-ordinated. There are common themes of nationalism, but no consistent ideology. The movements, on the whole, are not particularly well-organised or well-funded; their energy and direction come from the grassroots.
Hence, the growing feeling of impotence among the intelligentsia as they stand armed with soft mallets playing a game of political whack-a-mole, uncertain where the next cartoonish pest will pop up and unsure of their ability to squash it.
Worse news might lie ahead for the European elites. The dinosaurs could be on the verge of achieving an outright majority in the European parliament, once the bastion of supranational, technocratic politicians are relieved of the pressure of chasing the popular vote.
The European Climate Action Network has set out the political fault lines in Strasbourg and Brussels, based on the signature woke issue of the climate emergency. ECAN classifies the eight political groupings as defenders, delayers or dinosaurs. The defenders, from the progressive socialist and green alliances, hold 250 votes in the 750-seat current parliament.
The dinosaurs, primarily conservatives, hold 304. The delayers, predominantly social democrats, have the balance of power with 101 seats. Non-Inscrits, or independents, make up the rest.
A net dinosaur gain of 72 seats may be too much to hope for at next June’s election. Yet the appetite for radical climate action among the delayers is weakening as Europe’s energy crisis bites, and popular discontent against mandating electric vehicles, de-stocking farms, the loss of jobs in heavy manufacturing and processing, and rising electricity prices add momentum.
It seems doubtful that an Australian government, led by a self-styled progressive Prime Minister and a cabinet utterly convinced about matters it barely understands, will remain immune from this backlash. Indeed, the dinosaurs, in coalition with the dickheads, have handed the Prime Minister one defeat from which he has barely recovered.
The uprising is getting closer. New Zealand could be the next woke domino to fall, thanks to an unexpectedly united three-way coalition led by the National Party’s Christopher Luxon. Could the mild-mannered former business executive and conservative evangelical break out of his well-tailored suit to bare his scaly limbs and giant claws, ready to rip apart Jacinda Ardern’s limp legacy?
Welcome to Jurassic Park
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Global greenhouse gas emissions soar – with China, US and India most at fault
Electricity generation in China and India, and oil and gas production in the US, have produced the biggest increases in global greenhouse gas emissions since 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was signed, new data has shown.
Emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, have also risen, despite more than 100 countries signing up to a pledge to reduce the gas, according to data published on Sunday by the Climate Trace project.
The data shows that countries and companies are failing to report their emissions accurately, despite obligations to do so under the Paris agreement. More than 190 countries have been meeting in Dubai since Thursday in an attempt to put the world on track to meet the Paris goal of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
At the core of the Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai is a process known as the “global stocktake” – an assessment of progress towards meeting the emissions cuts needed to stay within the 1.5C limit. Many countries, however, have failed to make updates.
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COP28 host UAE to massively ramp up oil production, BBC learns
The country hosting COP28 climate talks aimed at cutting fossil fuel emissions is massively ramping up its own oil production, the BBC has learned.
The United Arab Emirates' state oil firm Adnoc may drill 42% more by 2030, according to analysts considered the international gold standard in oil market intelligence.
Between 2023 and 2050, only Saudi Arabia is expected to produce more.
Adnoc says projections show capacity to produce oil, not actual production.
It said it had already clearly stated plans to boost its production capacity by 7% over the next four years.
The firm said it was widely accepted that some oil and gas would be needed in decades ahead and that it was making its activities more climate-friendly, including by expanding into renewable energy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67513901?mc_cid=5f58d8297a&mc_eid=cc88839e92
*******************************************************Australian Wind turbines are killing rare Aussie wildlife - and wind farm operators are being trained to 'kill' koalas 'humanely'
It's the massacre of Australian wildlife no-one wants to talk about. But the reality is for every wind turbine that's built in Australia, there's a grim body count that follows.
It's almost a contradiction in terms; wind is at the centre of Australia's optimistic goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
But the unique wildlife Australians hope to protect by reducing emission and thereby slowing global warming, including wedge-tail eagles, falcons, magpies and other birds and animals, are falling victim to wind farms throughout the nation every day.
Meanwhile, other wind farms are being built in prime koala habitat, meaning some will starve and die.
The detail comes from the reports of billionaire Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest's Squadron Energy, the biggest provider of renewables in Australia, in which wild farm operators must provide the 'carcass reports' of dead wildlife.
Squadron has a portfolio of 11 wind farms throughout Victoria and NSW, as well as the Clarke Creek site in Queensland, which is up to the second stage of development.
And while the company has repeatedly expressed a commitment to protecting wildlife, compulsory carcass reports posted by each wind farm during the early stages of development indicate that is not always possible.
A biodiversity management plan for Clarke Creek notes the project may result in the destruction of up to 1,513 hectares of koala habitat.
In addition to habitat loss, there have already been mass bird and bat casualties on these wind farms due to collisions with turbine blades and throughout vegetation clearing processes, and that number is only expected to rise further.
Bango Wind Farm in south-west NSW detailed a carcass count from September 2022 to August 2023, during which six wedge-tailed eagles, one peregrine falcon, six magpies and 10 dead bats were found.
And at Crudine Ridge Wind Farm, in northwest NSW, 19 dead bats were found, along with five wedge-tailed eagles, two falcons and five kestrels.
Clarke Creek also had a 'fauna euthanasia' clause, which vividly detailed how 'blunt force trauma' should be administered to injured koalas which could not be saved.
Squadron Energy said in a statement they have 'a zero-harm policy for native animals and holds itself to the highest environmental standards.
'No koala has been injured or killed during construction of the Clarke Creek Wind Farm and clearing for stage one is 60 per cent complete.
'We have experienced wildlife officers on site who conduct assessments 24 hours before work starts and monitor and supervise work as it occurs, to prevent injury to fauna. They are qualified to respond to fauna encounters and relocate animals if required.
'In the unlikely event of injury—any animals encountered must be assessed for injury to determine whether the animal requires further treatment and care by a vet or wildlife carer.'
The biodiversity management report details how 'euthanasia' should be carried out using 'blunt force trauma' when a dying animal can't be saved.
'This is a hard, sharp blow to the base of the back of the skull with a blunt metal or heavy wooden bar,' the report stated.
The report was written prior to March 2022, when Mr Forrest's Squadron Energy acquired the project, and was signed off by the then Coalition government, under Scott Morrison.
Michelle Landry, the Liberal Party MP for Central Queensland electorate Capricornia, said she was 'horrified' by the Clarke Creek Wind Farm proposal.
'203 animal species have been identified in the region where these wind farms are being constructed. It is prime habitat for Koalas, Greater Gliders and Squatter Pigeon.'
She described the fauna euthanasia clause as 'absolutely sickening'.
Ms Landry said local grazier Glen Kelly warned 'there is going to be dozens upon dozens of animals killed and maimed in this process'.
'There is areas in the region where there is cleared land. Why is this not used instead of knocking down the habitat of our native animals?,' he argued.
Squadron has committed to providing a third of the clean energy the Labor government needs to hit the targeted 82 per cent renewables on the grid by 2030.
Australia has committed to growing its renewable energy sector, with more than 300 wind farm projects currently operating, under construction or proposed throughout the nation, according to the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner.
Meanwhile the Coalition advocates an 'all of the above' approach which would combine the use of small doses of nuclear alongside renewable energy, to keep prices down.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is expected to take a nuclear energy policy to the next election.
Just last week, Energy Minister Chris Bowen slammed the nuclear proposal as 'a fantasy wrapped in a delusion, accompanied by a pipe dream'.
He said nuclear energy 'would not move the dial at all' on transitioning to renewables and described the support from the Coalition as 'an attempt at a distraction'.
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5 December, 2023
Global emissions at record highs as world continues to overspend on 'carbon budget'
This is essentially non-news. Global CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been gradually rising for many decades. At the same time temperatures have increased in annual amounts measured only in hundredths and thousands of one degree. Such slow change is no challenge to cope with, if coping is needed
Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have increased over the past year despite most of the world committing to net zero targets, according to new research.
The Global Carbon Project releases its carbon budget each year, with this year's figures showing a 1.1 per cent increase in emissions across the world.
The report found there was no sign of the rapid and deep decrease in total emissions needed to prevent dangerous climate change.
CSIRO chief research scientist and executive director of the Global Carbon Project Pep Canadell said despite a slowdown in emissions growth, the world was not moving fast enough to reduce emissions.
"We need more renewable energy, we need it faster, we need it bigger, we need it everywhere, we need everything," Dr Canadell said.
"But we will not solve the climate problem unless at the same time we bring fossil fuel emissions down very, very quickly."
There was some good news, with emissions falling in some regions, including Europe and the United States, but it was not enough to offset the increases in places such as China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
The fall in the US was driven largely by a decline in the use of coal, with emissions from coal dropping to levels last seen in 1903.
But emissions from coal globally were at record highs and they are expected to grow as India and China continue building new coal-fired power stations.
The carbon budget report found atmospheric CO2 levels were projected to average 419.3 parts per million in 2023, 51 per cent above pre-industrial levels.
Global fossil CO2 emissions are now 6 per cent higher than they were in 2015, the year the global community committed to keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius under the Paris Agreement.
"We continually see record growth in clean energy, but we have failed to put sufficient controls on the growth of fossil fuels and therefore CO2 emissions just keep rising," said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research.
"Net zero has become the common catchphrase for doing something on climate but at its core is the necessity to reduce CO2 emissions to near zero."
"If countries and companies are not radically reducing CO2 emissions, then they are in no way consistent with the scientific concept of net zero emissions."
Emissions from land-use change such as deforestation are projected to decrease slightly but they are still too high to be offset by current levels of reforestation.
While emissions from bushfires contributed to the global increase, due to an extreme wildfire season in Canada, where emissions were six to eight times higher than average.
Technology-based carbon dioxide removal was a drop in the ocean, amounting to just 0.01 million tonnes of CO2, more than a million times smaller than current emissions.
The study also estimated the remaining carbon budget — how much the world can emit before breaching the 1.5C target.
It found the world was overspending on its emissions budget consistently over multiple years, with a 50 per cent chance global warming would exceed 1.5C consistently in about seven years.
While those estimates are subject to uncertainties the report said it was clear time was running out fast to limit the worst impacts of climate change.
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The Cult of Climate Change Convenes Church in Dubai
Until December 12, leftists worldwide will meet in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for COP28, the 28th annual meeting of the “Conference of Parties” of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Initially, the conference attracted only 5,000 attendees; however, 70,000 will attend this event. Ironically, many attendees will be flying into Dubai on their private jets. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, private jets emit ten times “more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger.”
One presenter who could not attend in person was Pope Francis due to “inflammation of the lungs.” His speech was given by his representative, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Once again, the Pope lamented the evils of nationalism and capitalism and stressed that the road forward needed to be one of “multilateralism.” He declared that he could hear “the cry of the earth” for a “decisive acceleration of ecological transition” and “the elimination of fossil fuels.”
With all the problems in the Catholic Church, it is sad that the Pope is such a leftwing ideologue, focused on a political agenda of open borders, socialism, and climate change. Instead, the Pope should be focused on saving the souls of the faithful, growing Church attendance and donations for worldwide missions, dealing with the damaging pedophilia scandal, and recruiting devout people to join the clergy and laity to ensure the future survival of the Catholic Church.
Another famous leftist who presented in Dubai was the king of climate alarmism, King Charles III. He arrived at “Green Davos” in a private jet. The King preached about “transformational action” and “warned…we’re seeing alarming tipping points being reached.” The King claimed that “the Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth.”
It is disgusting to hear such demands from the wealthy and privileged King, who enjoys a huge staff of sycophants, a massive fleet of cars and aircraft and a personal train at his disposal. Most workers around the world are struggling during these tough economic times. To reach the King’s unrealistic “net zero” goal, which is the complete negation of greenhouse gases produced by human beings, the additional costs placed on average citizens worldwide will be significant.
The dream for King Charles and his fellow “climate change” fanatics is for meat to be removed from our diets, nitrogen fertilizer to be drastically reduced, and methane emissions from cows to be significantly curtailed. Such changes to our agriculture and diet will lead to “worldwide famine,” but the “climate change” zealots believe it is necessary to combat the dangers of taking no action.
One of the theoretical pieces of evidence of “climate change” is the increase of extreme “weather emergencies.” However, a study by four Italian scientists shows that the number of cyclones and hurricanes occurring worldwide has not increased in the last fifty years.
The “climate change” devotees also claim that wildfires are occurring in greater numbers due to this supposed crisis. Yet, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that wildfires mostly occur due to human activities such as arson and improper land management. In addition, science researcher Roger Pielke, Jr. discovered that global wildfires have decreased in the last twenty years.
The “doom and gloom” reports from “climate change” alarmists are not sufficient to support the change in lifestyles that they want to enforce on humanity. Not only will economic activity be curtailed, but trillions of dollars in wealth will be transferred from the middle class to the elitists.
No wonder there is no mass popular movement for these changes. In the last annual Gallup survey of Americans, “climate change” did not list the top 14 problems facing Americans. Instead of worrying about something that may or may not be man-made or impact them in the decades to come, the poll indicates Americans are more concerned about the problems we face today: dissatisfaction with government, high inflation, the poor economy, and the massive increase in illegal immigration.
Regardless of Americans' true concerns, the Biden administration is investing heavily in the “green agenda.” The U.S. Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, promised that the United States will “stop building new unabated coal power plants.” President Joe Biden has already committed to replacing all coal plants in the country with “wind and solar.” A study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Finance Analysis estimated that 173 coal plants would close by 2030.
While the United States moves away from coal toward more expensive energy sources, China is massively increasing its “coal power capacity,” permitting 106 gigawatts in 2022, a 400% increase from the previous year. Instead of attempting to rein in China, delegates at the Dubai conference were circulating a petition demanding the United States and other Western nations end the construction of new natural gas infrastructure projects. Those who signed the anti-natural gas petition must have overlooked that natural gas is very efficient, producing only 117 pounds of “heat-trapping carbon dioxide per million BTUs of energy produced,” much less than gasoline or coal.
For the “climate change” radicals, the facts do not matter; they are obsessed with eliminating fossil fuels. Not surprisingly, the Biden administration is fully supportive of this effort. At COP28, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the United States will contribute $3 billion to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, supporting poor countries' transition from fossil fuels.
Fortunately, not all world leaders subscribe to this radical agenda. Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott blasted the “green cult” and said these climate goals are “ahistorical and utterly implausible.” Abbott noted, “10,000 years ago, we had an Ice Age, that was rather dramatic climate change, but presumably that had nothing to do with mankind’s carbon dioxide emissions.” Well said, Prime Minister.
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Fury as COP28 head and UAE energy tsar Sultan Al Jaber says there is 'no science' to suggest phasing out fossil fuels will limit global warming to 1.5C - and doing so would 'take us back to caves'
There is 'no science' behind phasing out fossil fuels and the policy will take the world 'back to caves', according to the head of COP28.
The president of the Dubai climate change summit, Sultan al Jaber, made the comments during an online question and answer session at a She Changes Climate event.
As well as running Cop28, Al Jaber is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates' state oil company, Adnoc.
His appointment as head of the Cop28 was branded 'completely ridiculous' by eco-warrior Greta Thunberg.
In the recently emerged video, obtained by The Guardian, the sultan was responding to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change.
Ms Robinson said: 'We're in an absolute crisis that is hurting women and children more than anyone... and it's because we have not yet committed to phasing out fossil fuel.
'That is the one decision that Cop28 can take and in many ways, because you're head of Adnoc, you could actually take it with more credibility.'
Al Jaber replied: 'I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation.
'I'm not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.
'There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5C.'
He added: 'Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.'
Video of the question and answer session took place on November 21 but it only emerged on Sunday.
More than 100 countries already support a phase-out of fossil fuels.
It is believed that cutting out fossil fossils will stop the world's temperatures rising by 1.5C.
The video emerged days after UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres called on the world to cut emissions to 'save' the planet.
Mr Guterres told the conference: 'The science is clear: The 1.5C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels.
'Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.'
Climate leaders have since reacted with fury over the sultan's controversial remarks.
Chief executive of Climate Analytics Bill Hare said the comments were 'verging on climate denial'.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Adow director of Power Shift Africa said: 'The recent comments from the COP28 president show how entrenched he is in fossil fuel fantasy and is clearly determined that this COP doesn't do anything to harm the interests of the oil and gas industry.'
When the United Arab Emirates announced in January that Sultan Al Jaber would lead this year's COP28 climate talks, the news was met with high praise and harsh criticism in equal measure.
For some, Al Jaber - who earned his PhD in business and economics from Coventry University - was a fantastic choice.
In 2006, he was put in charge of Masdar, the UAE's renewable energy vehicle, and set off on a global fact-finding mission to assess obstacles and opportunities.
The UAE has since invested heavily in its nuclear and solar sector, building a massive state-of-the-art nuclear power plant, and Masdar has made shrewd investments in technologies in over 40 countries - moves which have earned Jaber a reputation for getting results.
But for others, there's one incontrovertible problem.
Because for all his work on renewable energy, 'Dr Sultan' also happens to be the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company - a giant producer of fossil fuels which plans to up its output to 5 million barrels of oil per day by 2027.
And Amnesty International has accused him of being responsible for instituting a stringent media censorship programme when he served as chairman of the National Media Council (NMC).
The backlash following the announcement earlier this year was significant, with some campaigners comparing the decision to 'appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures'.
Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at ActionAid, made a similar comparison, likening the appointment to 'putting the fox in charge of the henhouse'.
There have also been accusations that he plans to hash out new oil and gas deals on the sidelines of Cop28.
They are the latest claims to cast doubt on whether the talks will boost efforts to cut emissions of planet-heating gases, or are more akin to a public relations exercise for the Gulf petro-monarchy.
The Cop28 is the United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC.
This is the 28th conference and it is being held from November 30 until December 12 at Epo City, Dubai.
Cop28 is to serve as a formal meeting to negotiate and agree on action about how to tackle climate change.
The event has attracted such big names as King Charles III and Pope Francis. US President Joe Biden is however skipping the talks.
More than 70,000 officials, campaigners, and experts are expected to attend COP28 in Dubai.
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Green Groups Are No Longer Promoting a Cleaner Environment
The late, great humorist P.J. O'Rourke used to quip that everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to wash the dishes.
Well, now that can be said for traditional environmental groups that seem to have lost their way.
Green groups are supposed to be about keeping our rivers, lakes and streams clean. They are supposed to be about fighting litter and keeping toxic chemicals out of the air. Their job is to maintain the beauty of our national parks and save elephants and tigers.
Not anymore. The New York Times recently reported in a disturbing headline: "Environmental Groups Cut Programs as Funding Shifts to Climate Change."
In other words, the Left's climate change hysteria and its campaign to end fossil fuels is interfering with a commonsense green agenda. Worse than that, the climate agenda is in some ways making the condition of the environment worse.
According to the Times story: "A significant shift in donor contributions to nonprofits fighting climate change in recent years has left some of the nation's biggest environmental organizations facing critical shortfalls in programs on toxic chemicals, radioactive contamination and wildlife protection."
The Natural Resources Defense Council, "the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Environmental Working Group, which have been at the forefront of efforts to clean up waste water, regulate pesticides and adopt tougher standards for atomic power plants, are facing similar financial problems," said Times reporter Ralph Vartabedian.
This is all being driven by a mad pursuit of billions of green dollars for stopping global warming. That is, they are chasing and spending money on a cause -- changing the planet's temperature -- that they can have almost no impact on.
How much money are we talking about? In 2022, environment groups spent and raised $8 billion on climate change activities. That doesn't fully include the tens of billions of dollars that central governments are spending on climate issues. All of this money has funded scores of ritzy climate change conferences around the globe, as well as virtue-signaling protests, propaganda campaigns in schools, and a war against oil, gas and coal, cars, stoves and air conditioners. And now eating meat is verboten.
Yet, the climate agenda is often pushing policies that destroy the planet rather than save it. In poor countries, the war against fossil fuels has meant that villages are burning wood, or even feces. Instead of spending money on ensuring the world's poor have safe drinking water, we are spending billions of dollars pushing windmills and solar power.
These "green energies" use 10 times more land than a coal or gas plant. The landscape of America is being paved over and industrialized by our pursuit of zero-carbon policies. How is that a pro-environment policy?
Moreover, raising the cost of energy makes people poorer, which is counterproductive if we want to keep the planet clean. The richer a country, the more money they spend to clean the air, the water and to preserve wildlife.
The bigger question environmentalists should be asking is: What has the half-trillion dollars that have been spent on climate change bought? No measurable results.
Fossil fuel use reached an all-time high in 2022 and 2023, and carbon emissions have been climbing rather than receding. The more governments spend, the more money the United Nations insists we need to spend. The U.N.'s latest report says more than $4 trillion needs to be spent each year until 2030 to stop global warming.
With that much money, we can end global hunger and illiteracy.
Instead, the fanatics in the Biden administration and the billionaire donor class demand that we save the planet from carbon emissions at any cost, and if that means diminishing funds for fighting real pollution that kills people, so be it.
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4 December, 2023
Tackling carbon emissions in a steel-hungry world
Note that there is no mention of costs in "alternative" steel making
Steel is a material that will need to be used extensively in lower carbon emission energy technology and infrastructure. In particular, wind generation and hydro require significant amounts of steel in their construction relative to traditional fossil-based power generation.
Steel will be used extensively in lower carbon emission energy technology and infrastructure. iStock
According to global engineering consultancy Hatch, an offshore wind turbine requires 190 tonnes of steel per megawatt of power generation capacity, whereas a gas-fired power facility only requires 35 tonnes per megawatt.
However, the production of steel globally is a significant greenhouse gas emitter as most steel around the world is produced in blast furnaces using iron ore and metallurgical coal. The world is looking at a range of solutions to make steel with a lower carbon emission intensity. Yet high temperature renewable energy sources and new lower carbon emission chemistries for steelmaking are nascent and need further R&D and investment at present, so there’s no silver bullet yet to success.
Moreover, harsher weather projected to be a part of climate change would put more wear and tear on infrastructure, which could mean that it will need to be repaired or replaced more often creating more demand for steel.
According to the recent The brown to green transition - Unleashing the energy transition paper released by BlackRock, one of the world’s leading providers of investment, advisory and risk management services, with insight and analysis from BHP, this need for more steel will see global demand rise to the equivalent of adding another South Korea to global markets by 2050.
And with steel set to continue playing a major role in the world’s so-called “brown to green” transition (which is the transition from an energy system that’s carbon-intensive today to a world of deep electrification backed by a range of renewable, low or zero carbon-emission energy sources), BHP is working hard right now to support industry efforts to find ways to progressively decarbonise the steelmaking sector.
For example, earlier this year BHP and Hatch signed an agreement to design an electric smelting furnace (ESF) pilot plant. The facility will aim to demonstrate a pathway to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity in steel production using iron ore from BHP’s Pilbara mines.
The small-scale demonstration plant would be used to collaborate with steel producers and technology providers to generate and share learnings with the aim of accelerating scale up of ESF plant designs.
The pilot facility would be intended to test and optimise production of iron from the ESF, a new type of furnace that is being developed by leading steel producers and technology companies targeting low CO2 emission-intensity steel. The ESF is capable of producing steel from iron ore using renewable electricity and hydrogen replacing metallurgical coal, when combined with a direct reduced iron (DRI) step.
Current estimates show that reductions of more than 80 per cent in CO2 emission intensity are potentially achievable processing Pilbara iron ore through a DRI-ESF pathway, compared with the current industry average for the conventional blast furnace steelmaking route.
BHP and Hatch are assessing several locations in Australia for the proposed facility based on supporting infrastructure, technology skills and the availability of local partnerships to build and operate the facility.
According to BHP’s chief commercial officer Vandita Pant, the company sees the ESF process as a critical breakthrough in significantly reducing the carbon emissions intensity of steel production and “one that provides an opportunity for iron ore from our Pilbara mines”.
“The steel industry has identified the ESF as a viable option to use a wider range of raw materials, and steel companies globally are looking to build commercial-scale ESF plants as part of their CO2 emission reduction roadmaps,” said Pant.
Hatch’s managing director for bulk metals, Joe Petrolito, said the project marks a significant milestone in the pursuit of decarbonisation within a challenging sector that underpins global infrastructure and progress.
Additionally, BHP is collaborating with ArcelorMittal, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering (MHIENG) as well as Mitsubishi Development Pty Ltd on a multi-year trial of MHIENG’s carbon capture technology.
The agreement involves a trial at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Gent, Belgium and another site in North America, and brings together the expertise of the various partners in identifying ways to enhance carbon capture and utilisation and/or storage (CCUS) technologies in the steelmaking industry.
The steel industry is estimated to account for around 7-9 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and CCUS has the potential to be a key technology for reducing emissions from existing global blast furnaces, which are anticipated to remain a significant portion of steel production over coming decades.
The International Energy Agency estimates CCUS technology needs to apply to more than 53 per cent of primary steel production by 2050 under its Net Zero Emissions scenario.
At present, there are no full scale operational CCUS facilities in blast furnace steelmaking operations, with only a limited number of small capacity carbon capture or utilisation pilots underway or in the planning phases globally. However, late last year ArcelorMittal Gent opened its Steelanol project, a scale demonstration plant that will capture carbon-rich process gases from the blast furnace and convert them into ethanol.
“There is currently no certain or single pathway to net zero for steelmaking,” BHP’s Pant said.
“CCUS is one of the key abatement technologies with potential to support development of some of those pathways, so working with industry leaders like ArcelorMittal, Mitsubishi Development and MHIENG, we hope to arrive at scalable solutions more quickly to help reduce carbon emissions in steelmaking.”
“Steel is a critical product for the world to develop and decarbonise, and we must work hard, together, to enable lower GHG emissions steel, support the reduction of carbon intensity in the blast furnace and test new technologies for steel production.”
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Woke ESG assets have collapsed by $5 trillion in just two years
Global investments in trendy sustainability assets shrank by nearly $5 trillion over two years, researchers say, as US and other financiers soured on investments seen as risky and opaque.
In its biannual assessment, the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) said on Wednesday that investors had $30.3 trillion in sustainable assets in 2022, down from $35.3 trillion in 2020.
In the US, where Republicans have railed against ESG funds, which push for environmental, social, and governance benefits, such assets plunged from more than $17 trillion to just $8.4 trillion over the same period.
The drop in part reflected changes in how ESG assets were measured and classified.
Will Hild, executive director of Consumers' Research, a non-profit, called the drop-off 'startling.'
'The market for ESG bonds decreased significantly in the past two years as state leaders from across the country have fought back against the injection of woke politics into the bond market,' he told DailyMail.com.
The strategy gets more controversial when it guides funding to firms promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) schemes, which irk conservatives, who say they help women and minorities by sidelining white men.
This has spawned a fractious debate about whether efforts to make society fairer and cut carbon emissions are in the strategic interest for investors, by mitigating the risks of climate chaos and social disorder.
ESG investing boomed in the pandemic, when lockdowns caused energy prices to fall and buoyed portfolios that shunned fossil fuels.
Those same strategies have floundered as lockdowns ended and economic activity resumed.
Questions about the future of sustainable finance persist in the US as lawmakers from more than a dozen states, from Florida to Utah, try to fight the incorporation of ESG principles into business and investing. […]
A recent Bloomberg survey showed that investors expect the downturn to continue into 2024, with the negative sentiment extending to Tesla and other electric carmakers.
'Sustainable bonds make for bad investments when they actually meet the radical left's definition of sustainable, and when they don't, Wall Street greenwashes them to justify the higher fees they charge for selling them,' added Hild.
'It's a scam on investors either way.'
GSIA researchers said the trend was downward — the proportion of sustainable assets is shrinking by 5 percent each year, as regulators ratchet up disclosure requirements and the definition of ESG assets are tightened.
'The industry is maturing,' James Alexander, the chairman of GSIA, told reporters.
'We're thinking more carefully about how do we avoid inadvertently perhaps greenwashing through the actions that we take.'
New regulations across jurisdictions is forcing asset managers to justify ESG claims that previously went unchecked, researchers said in their report.
There's a 'need for clearer definitions and a more shared understanding around what makes a sustainable asset 'sustainable,' said the 47-page document.
Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management, which manages 'non-woke' funds, said the ESG sector was a covert vehicle for liberal politics and was ripe for a reckoning.
'Companies have a fiduciary duty to shareholders and should not be trying to do things that they can't get done at the ballot box,' Tuttle told DailyMail.com.
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‘Carbon offsets are not credible’: the travel boss exposing the truth about the industry’s sustainability
Having dodged corporate jobs to find a way to keep travelling, Darrell Wade was, as he tells it, pretty pleased with life as his business took off. But the climate crisis wasn’t yet on his radar.
The Australian entrepreneur was on holiday in Botswana in 2005, fresh from winning an award for responsible travel, when he read The Weather Makers – a book by scientist Tim Flannery spelling out the causes and consequences of global heating. “I was feeling chuffed, and then I read that book. And I thought, holy shit, we’re a disaster – we’re doing the wrong thing.”
The co-founder and chair of Intrepid Travel – the world’s largest travel company to be accredited as a B Corporation for its social and environmental performance – Wade appears genial and self-deprecating, frequently laughing, but not pulling punches. Minutes earlier, he had told delegates attending the Abta convention, the UK travel industry’s annual get-together, that their record on climate was a clear “fail”, sparking a brief outbreak of self-flagellation in the conference hall in Bodrum, Turkey.
After spending years as an advocate for sustainability standards within the industry, Wade told them, he had found one in three travel firms were still “actively hostile” to policies aimed at reducing travel’s carbon footprint. Another third were ambivalent – and the better ones, well, they weren’t doing enough.
That includes his own company, he admits – even though Intrepid’s adventure travel holidays have been audited as climate neutral since 2010. “So in theory, we’re doing our bit, but, you know, the reality is, we weren’t doing enough.”
That carbon audit has, as Wade acknowledges, one very big caveat: Intrepid does not sell the flights that take its customers, mainly from the UK, US and Australia, to the starting point of their low-impact, sustainable tours. Is that not a bit like Heathrow proudly claiming to be net zero, if it wasn’t for all the pesky planes? “That’s right, it’s very similar,” he says. “Consumers want to take a holiday. Let’s say half of those holidays are taken with aviation – we’ve got to fix our industry.”
He believes there is a role for offsetting and, eventually, sustainable aviation fuels, when (or if) they are made on a large scale from green hydrogen. But, he says, travel has to move from relying on offsets to “definitely now reducing emissions per person per day”. “Offsets have to be credible,” he says. “And at the moment, they’re not. That’s the reality.”
There are good business incentives to go greener, Wade points out, not least cost savings in fuel bills. And despite there being no imminent answer to travel’s environmental footprint, he maintains: “You’ve just got to hold people’s feet to the fire, talk about it, [say] that hey, we do have a problem. And all the rhetoric in the world is not going to solve this problem. You need taxation, you need regulation, you need media pressure – you need litigation as a last resort.”
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Climate reparations are an awful idea
There is a word that we are going to hear once COP28 gets underway in Dubai later this week: ‘reparations’. While US climate envoy John Kerry has tried to rule out any US agreement to pay reparations to countries affected by what he himself might claim were ‘climate-related disasters’, many developing countries are determined to put compensation top of the agenda, and push it far further than the agreement last year at COP27 to create a ‘loss and damage’ fund whereby developed nations hand out money to poor ones deemed to be affected by climate change.
The demands for reparations will be helped along the way by western academics and pressure groups. A paper published by a pair of British environmentalists in the journal Nature Sustainability earlier this year claimed that Britain owed £6.2 trillion in ‘compensation for atmospheric appropriation’ as a result of historic emissions. But that was based only on UK-based emissions. Now, the website Carbon Brief has found a new way of counting Britain’s historic carbon emissions, so that we are responsible for greenhouse gases in our colonies, too (though they don’t call for reparations) – including every puff of carbon dioxide spewed out in India between 1850 and 1947. That nearly doubles our historic emissions and moves us up to fourth in the table of the world’s biggest emitters, behind the US, China and Russia. Climate reparations, of course, will be on top of the £18 trillion we apparently owe in slavery reparations, as calculated by a UN judge Patrick Robinson last year.
It would be tempting to dismiss climate reparations as a rather silly parlour game carried out by left-wing academics. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that if anyone is expecting co-operation from developing countries on cutting carbon emissions, it is going to be accompanied by ever-more fanciful demands for handouts. And, true, if you are the president of a developing country being told by western governments that you mustn’t industrialise if it means relying on cheap and reliable coal power, why wouldn’t you want to screw an awful lot of money out of the governments telling you this?
The West has brought these demands for climate reparations on itself, through catastrophising the climate. Every time a UK government minister or official uses the word ‘crisis’, tells us we have ‘only five years to save the planet’, or lazily tries to blame every storm on climate change, they stoke the boilers of the reparations industry.
The West has brought these demands for climate reparations on itself
As I wrote here a year ago, John Kerry is one of the biggest offenders in this, trying to claim that 10 million people a year are being killed by excessive heat caused by climate change, which seems to have been based on a misreading of a paper that claimed 5 million a year die of extreme temperatures, 90 per cent of them from the cold. Climate change has long since shifted from reasoned debate into a crude morality tale of goodies and baddies, perpetrators and victims. Never mind that some of the countries backing the demands for reparations – such as China and India – are far bigger present-day emitters of carbon dioxide. Never mind that the fossil fuels emitted in UK colonies during the Empire helped lift those countries from pre-industrial poverty, extending life expectancy in India from around 25 in 1850 to 70 now. Britain must be put on trial for the industrial revolution.
Never mind, either, that the nation-to-nation transfers which the climate reparations movement demands make no sense from an ethical perspective – it would mean, for example, a transfer of cash from poor black Britons to wealthy tax exiles living in the Caribbean. The reparations demands are going to carry on growing so long as we try to force carbon reduction targets onto the developing world. The claimants, I fear, are not going to be satisfied with a few million to clear up after storms.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/climate-reparations-are-an-awful-idea/ ?
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3 December, 2023
Controversial study suggesting ozone hole isn't recovering is skewed by bad data, experts say
There seems to be no dispute that the ozone hole has fluctuated a lot in recent years and that it has often been large. The fluctuations are alone troubling to the accepted theory as they are not predicted by it but the prevalence of large holes is directly contradictory to the theory. The record is much more suggestive of random fluctuations than of systematic shrinking.
So the issue is WHY. Critics of a recent heretical paper say that the larger holes are explainable by special factors and thus do not call the conventional understanding into doubt.
There is a philosophical problem here, though: When do you stop explaining the failure of a theory by special factors? We are getting into the realm of unfalsifiability here. I would submit that the large deviation from the projected trajectory of the hole is sufficient to resist explanation by special factors. I suggest that that there is a large reality we should accept rather than keep explaining it away
A controversial new study has sparked concerns that the ozone hole above Antarctica is not recovering as fast as we thought it was, and may even be getting bigger. However, many experts who were not involved in the study have rejected those claims, criticizing the quality of the research.
The ozone layer is a section of Earth's atmosphere between 9 and 22 miles (15 and 35 kilometers) above the surface, where there is a high concentration of ozone — an oxygen molecule variant with three atoms instead of the usual two. This layer blocks out harmful levels of ultraviolet rays from the sun that could otherwise cause serious damage to life, including humans.
In the mid-1980s, scientists began to notice that large holes in the ozone layer were appearing above the North and South poles as a result of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which break down and react with ozone, thus splitting the molecules and decreasing ozone levels. In 1987, world governments united to sign the Montreal Protocol, which would ban the use of CFCs that had, until then, been used heavily in aerosol cans, packing materials and refrigerators.
The ozone holes have persisted, particularly above Antarctica, due to lingering CFC levels and increasingly erratic climate conditions. However, they are smaller than they used to be and scientists have long expected that the holes will eventually fully recover. In January, a United Nations report on ozone depletion revealed that ozone levels are on track to return to pre-1980 levels by 2045 in the Arctic and 2066 in Antarctica.
However, the controversial new study, published Nov. 21 in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that the concentration of ozone in Antarctica's ozone hole is decreasing. The new paper sparked a wave of stories from major news outlets claiming that the "ozone hole may not be recovering at all" and may even be growing. However, many experts have argued that the study's findings are dubious and that the resulting coverage is very misleading.
The study analyzed the concentration of ozone at the center of Antarctica's ozone hole between 2001 and 2022 and found that the concentration of ozone at the heart of the hole had decreased by an average of 26% during this time.
However, other ozone experts are not at all convinced by the results or the methods used to get them.
Parts of the paper are "terribly unclear" and "wildly speculative," and despite the researchers' claims, the study "tells us nothing new," Susan Solomon, an atmospheric scientist at MIT who was part of the team that first linked ozone holes to CFCs in 1986, told Live Science.
The biggest problem with the new paper is that it does not properly account for why ozone concentrations have decreased in recent years, Solomon said.
Since 2020, the size of the ozone hole has increased year over year, with the largest gap occurring this year. These unusually large holes are the result of a number of known factors, including three successive years of La Niña from 2020 to 2022, which created colder air around Antarctica, making it harder for ozone to form; and the massive wildfires in Australia during 2020, which released particulates that depleted ozone. This year's extremely large hole has also been attributed to water vapor injected into the upper atmosphere from Tonga's underwater eruption in January 2022.
A simulation of an ozone hole opening up
This year's ozone hole was unusually large but that does not mean that ozone hole recovery has stalled, experts say. (Image credit: ESA/Copernicus Sentinel data (2023)/processed by CAMS/ECMWF)
But the authors do not explain why the "past few years have been quite unusual," which makes it seem like there is some unknown factor that is limiting ozone recovery when, in reality, there is not, Solomon said. "This is a big, big deal" and is "very disappointing," she added.
The researchers also chose to omit data from 2002, when ozone levels were unusually high, and 2019, which had one of the smallest ozone holes on record. The researchers argue that these anomalies would unfairly skew the results, but other scientists have criticized this decision, especially considering that the recent anomalous years were still included.
"It is questionable how the authors can remove 2002 and 2019 from the record but not 2020-22, given that all of these years have been shown to be dominated by very special and rare events," Martin Jucker, an atmospheric scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said in a Scimex statement. "Including those events would probably have nullified any long-term negative trend in ozone concentrations."
Both Solomon and Jucker also believe that the time period analyzed in the new study is too short, which has given too much weight to recent years and produced unrealistic results.
In addition, the new study also focuses only on the ozone concentration at the heart of the ozone hole and not on wider ozone concentration levels, which do not tell the whole story, Solomon said. Without providing any models for how these central concentrations affect wider ozone concentrations, the study provides little information that other researchers can follow up on, she added.
The time of year the ozone hole data comes from is also problematic, Solomon said. The researchers focused on data from October and November, when ozone holes reach their maximum size, which is influenced by a range of factors. If the team wanted to study ozone recovery, then using data from September would have been a better point of comparison, Solomon said.
As a result of these oversights and omissions, the paper cannot be relied upon to infer much about global ozone recovery trends, Solomon said.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/weather/controversial-study-suggesting-ozone-hole-isnt-recovering-is-skewed-by-bad-data-experts-say ?
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Cooking oil won’t help the aviation industry reach net zero
Two decades ago, motorists in South Wales realised that they could power their diesel cars with used cooking oil, thereby cutting their fuel bills substantially. They were fined for trying to avoid road fuel duty, but perhaps they should have been bunged £1 million by the government for demonstrating a greener future.
£1 million is the sum the government handed Virgin to enable today’s pioneering transatlantic flight using 100 per cent sustainable airline fuel (SAF). SAF is a blend of 88 per cent hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), manufactured from waste cooking oil, and 12 per cent synthetic aromatic kerosene, made from plant sugars from waste vegetable material.
Running a jet on low-carbon fuels would only reduce its total ‘climate impact’ by between 30 and 60 per cent
The attraction of SAF for airlines is obvious. As today’s flight will demonstrate, it is a ‘drop-in’ fuel which can be used in existing aircraft. Other suggested ways in which aviation might be decarbonised have serious problems of practicality. Try to stuff a Boeing 777 with enough batteries to supply the power needed to cross the Atlantic and the plane would become as heavy as the Eiffel Tower – it wouldn’t get off the ground at all. It would require a couple of magnitudes of improvements in battery technology to make long-haul electric jets a possibility. Hydrogen, by contrast, has a high energy-to-mass ratio but a low energy-to-density ratio, meaning that it would require a wholesale redesign of planes, which would become bulkier, slower and generally less useful.
SAF will do the job – albeit at a current cost of around four times that of normal jet fuel. However, it is also something of a dead end, as there are only so many chip shops producing so much waste oil. Using waste plant material to generate energy makes sense from a waste disposal perspective, but how much is actually potentially available?
Look beyond waste cooking oil, claims the US Bioenergy Technologies Office, and the US could, just about, power its current fleet of jets entirely with SAF – if it could harness every last twig and leaf of available biomass. It calculates that if you could collect all waste food from households and businesses, forestry residues, solids from sewage plants, algae from rivers and lakes, agricultural waste and add it to some dedicated biomass crops it would be enough to produce between 50 and 60 billion gallons of fuel. In 2021 alone, US airlines between them used 57 billion gallons of fuel.
All of this would involve a hugely dispersed supply chain which would have to be brought together. Moreover, woody biomass does not exactly come in as convenient a form for conversion into liquid fuels as used cooking oil – so the costs are going to be substantially greater.
There is another potential – and possibly even more expensive – solution involving making synthetic fuels from hydrogen and carbon. Hydrogen is extracted via electrolysis of water and carbon extracted from carbon dioxide in the air. But that is a technology which is some way into the future, given the problems encountered in scaling up the production of hydrogen via electrolysis.
But would sustainable and synthetic airline fuels allow the airline industry to reach net zero in any case? There’s the rub. Neither solution avoids water vapour emissions via the con-trails spewed out of the back of jet engines, which contribute a substantial proportion of a jet aircraft’s greenhouse gas emissions. According to a study by McKinsey&Co in 2020, running a jet on low-carbon fuels would only reduce its total ‘climate impact’ by between 30 and 60 per cent.
That might be a useful contribution, but it gets the airline industry nowhere near the holy grail of net zero. Trouble is, this is the target we have legally committed ourselves too, and we still have no idea of how industries like aviation can get there.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/cooking-oil-wont-help-the-aviation-industry-reach-net-zero/ ?
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Biden Admin and Eco Groups Strike Secret Deal
A group of House lawmakers representing the Pacific Northwest have revealed a confidential mediation agreement between the Biden administration and environmental groups, which aims to remove four hydroelectric dams in Washington to protect salmon.
The document, which was drafted on November 2nd as part of an agreement to pause litigation against the federal government, has been made public by lawmakers led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and her colleagues Reps. Dan Newhouse, Cliff Bentz, and Russ Fulcher. The agreement was made between the activist groups and the federal government, who were in favor of breaching the federally-managed dams due to declining salmon populations in the lower Snake River.
In a letter to President Biden, the lawmakers expressed their concern about the impacts of this agreement on the region, stating that it is their duty to ensure that any action taken does not bypass congressional authorization. They also questioned the Biden administration’s intentions and demanded to know which scientific reports the government has used to come to its conclusions.
The Biden administration is quietly discussing a potentially far-reaching settlement with environmental groups that advocate for tearing down four hydroelectric dams in Washington to protect salmon.
The confidential mediation document states, “the science is clear, and now so must be our path forward,” and argues for quick deployment of green energy to compensate for the lost power if the four dams are removed. However, multiple government and private reports have concluded that breaching the dams would have a devastating effect on energy production, climate goals, and transportation in Washington.
The dams, built in the 1960s and 1970s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, were primarily constructed to facilitate barge transportation on the Snake River. However, they now provide reliable clean energy, generating about 8% of the state’s electricity and having a total capacity of 3,000 megawatts. Removing these dams would not only impact energy and climate goals but also damage the regional economy and agriculture exports, which heavily rely on the Columbia River system.
Industry groups, including Northwest RiverPartners, Public Power Council, and Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, have expressed their concerns about being excluded from the negotiations and the potential harm to millions of residents who were not represented in the process. According to Northwest RiverPartners, the mediation document goes beyond breaching the four Snake River dams and could jeopardize the entire Federal Columbia River Power System.
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‘Net Zero’ Fails the Cost-Benefit Test
The Left’s real climate agenda is green on the outside, red on the inside. It’s totalitarian control over virtually every aspect of our economic lives. Bjorn Lomborg is a longtime critic of that agenda, though he isn’t averse to taking some measures to mitigate climate change. In light of the beginning of the UN’s COP28 climate summit — minus Joe Biden — he explains a basic economic lesson.
World leaders are gathering in Dubai for another climate conference, which will no doubt yield heady promises along the lines of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to keep the global temperature’s rise “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees. But they’d be wiser not to. New research shows how extravagant climate promises are far more wasteful than useful.
A new special issue of the journal Climate Change Economics contains two ground-breaking economic analyses of policies to hold global temperatures to 1.5 degrees and its practical political interpretation, mandates to reach net zero, usually by 2050. Though more than 130 countries, including most of the globe’s big emitters, have passed or are considering laws mandating net-zero carbon emissions, there’s been no comprehensive cost-benefit evaluation of that policy — until now.
Lomborg proceeds to briefly unpack this research. The first one presents an “underwhelming” case for restrictions to maintain lower temperature increases, and Lomborg says even the “substantial” are likely underestimated by as much as half. “In real life,” he says, “climate policy has been needlessly expensive, with a plethora of inefficient, disconnected measures such as electric-vehicle subsidies.”
This is borne out in the second Climate Change Economics study. The peer-reviewed paper from MIT economists identifies the cost of holding the temperature’s rise below 1.5 degrees as well as that of achieving net zero globally by 2050. The researchers find that these Paris policies would cost 8% to 18% of annual GDP by 2050 and 11% to 13% annually by 2100.
Climate economic models all show that moderate policies make sense — initial carbon cuts are cheap and prevent the most damaging temperature rise — but net zero doesn’t. Averaged across the century, delivering the Paris climate promises would create benefits worth $4.5 trillion (in 2023 dollars) annually. That’s dramatically smaller than the $27 trillion annual cost that Paris promises would incur, as derived from averaging the three cost estimates from the two Climate Change Economics papers through 2100.
In other words, each dollar spent will avoid less than 17 cents of climate damage. The total, undiscounted loss over the century is beyond $1,800 trillion. For comparison, global GDP last year was a little over $100 trillion. Although well-intentioned, current climate policy would end up destroying a sizable fraction of future prosperity.
He concludes that although this research and the track record of climate intervention is persuasive, “a serious cost-benefit discussion isn’t likely to make the Dubai agenda.”
Wall Street Journal subscribers can [read the whole thing here[(https://www.wsj.com/articles/net-zero-fails-the-cost-benefit-test-paris-climate-accord-cop28-748ae52d).
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102536-in-brief-net-zero-fails-the-cost-benefit-test-2023-12-01
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A $30 billion meltdown in renewable energy puts Biden’s climate goals at risk
No one expected the transition from fossil fuels to be easy. But a year after President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law promised billions of dollars for America’s switch to clean energy, some of the nation’s most ambitious renewable power projects have been shelved, electric car sales are missing targets and investors are fleeing the sector in droves.
The result is a $30 billion collapse in US clean energy stocks in the last six months—a market many investors expected to flourish in the aftermath of the law’s passage.
Few industries have been unscathed by soaring interest rates, but perhaps none has been harder hit than renewable energy. For a sector that builds big, expensive facilities such as solar plants and wind farms, high rates cut profit margins enough to sink projects and bankrupt companies. The giddy enthusiasm that followed the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage evaporated, wiping out a quarter of the market value of US companies in the S&P Global Clean Energy Index in the six months ended Nov. 27.
It’s a meltdown that underscores the obstacles standing in the way of Biden’s ambitious climate goals.
Along with sky-high financing costs, clean energy companies face the problems of winning over potential neighbors for their projects, securing government permits and plugging into a creaky power grid unable to handle all the renewable power that’s planned. Oil and gas producers, meanwhile, are doubling down on plans to keep pumping.
The warnings are clear: America’s road to achieving a zero-carbon electricity grid by 2035 is getting rockier by the day.
“We’re in the moment of realization now where some of the euphoria has worn off and we’re starting to realize it’s still not going to be easy,” says Eric Scheriff, senior managing director at Capstone, a Washington, DC-based consulting firm.
The specter of bankruptcies now haunts the sector.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-29/clean-energy-stocks-30-billion-dive-exposes-biden-s-climate-law-hurdles?mc_cid=d0ed989b90&mc_eid=cc88839e92
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Why no one wants to pay for the green transition
In the past few years, Washington and Wall Street started fantasizing that the transition to net-zero carbon emissions could be an economic bonanza. This year the fantasy ended.
In the past few years, Washington and Wall Street started fantasizing that the transition to net-zero carbon emissions could be an economic bonanza. “When I think climate change, I think jobs,” President Biden said. When Wall Street heard green energy, it saw profits. As Ford Motor launched an electric Mustang and pickup truck, its market value topped $100 billion for the first time.
This year the fantasy ended. With electric vehicle demand falling short of expectations, manufacturers are dialing back production and buying back stock instead. Offshore wind developers have canceled projects. The S&P Global Clean Energy Index has fallen 30% this year. Ford’s market cap is down to $42 billion.
This doesn’t mean the transition to net zero is over. Officials meeting this week at the United Nations climate conference are just as worried about climate change. Renewable energy continues to expand. In the very long run, it is still the case that economic welfare will be higher with less global warming.
But the economics of getting to net zero remain, fundamentally, dismal: Someone has to pay for it, and shareholders and consumers decided this year it wouldn’t be them.
Politicians and the public tend to think all investment is good for growth, an error that leads to all sorts of muddled thinking about climate.
Technological transformations are positive supply shocks: a new, more efficient technology comes along, and investment naturally gravitates toward this new technology because it is profitable.
By contrast, the green transition is driven by public policy. It is “a negative supply shock, with an accompanying need to finance investments whose profitability cannot be taken for granted,” French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry wrote in a report commissioned by the French prime minister and released in English in November. “By putting a price—financial or implicit—on a free resource (the climate), the transition increases production costs, with no guarantee that the reduction in energy costs will eventually offset them, while the investments it calls for do not increase productive capacity but must nevertheless be financed.”
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/why-no-one-wants-to-pay-for-the-green-transition-aed6ba74?mc_cid=d0ed989b90&mc_eid=cc88839e92
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Electric Cars Are Way Less Reliable Than ICE Cars, Says Consumer Reports
EVs have 79 percent more problems than gas vehicles on average, according to Consumer Reports' reliability study.
Electric vehicles are far less reliable than vehicles powered by combustion engines, according to Consumer Reports' 2024 reliability owner satisfaction survey results published on Wednesday.
Data gathered by Consumer Reports from owners of over 330,000 vehicles ranging from model years 2000 to 2024 show that EVs are 79 percent less reliable than ICE-powered vehicles on average, despite fewer moving parts and simpler drivetrain designs. Plug-in hybrids are even worse when it comes to reliability, with a staggering 146 percent more problems versus traditional gas-powered cars. Interestingly, traditional hybrid vehicles scored best, producing 26 percent fewer problems versus ICE-powered vehicles.
Consumer Reports suggests that new technologies arising from the development of electric vehicles mean early adopters will have to deal with some kinks before reliability improves.
"The longer a vehicle or a technology is in production, the more the bugs are worked out," CR Senior Director of Auto Testing Jake Fisher told Automotive News. "The automakers that have produced EVs earlier, they're improving the reliability."
Fisher goes on to suggest that if you're in the market for a Tesla you should buy a Model 3 rather than a Cybertruck, as the Model 3 has been in production for years, meaning most of the production flaws have been fixed. The Cybertruck, on the other hand, is an entirely new vehicle that will likely have "many growing pains" once it goes on sale.
The electric truck segment fared the worst in Consumer Reports' study. The group currently consists of just two vehicles: the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Rivian R1T. While Ford is dealing with troubles related to batteries and charging, Rivian is facing challenges with things like build quality and climate control functions, according to the survey. It's proof that neither new start-ups nor legacy automakers are immune to the teething problems that come with EVs.
The biggest surprise of the study comes from regular hybrids, positioned as the most reliable drivetrain type. Consumer Reports says this is because traditional hybrid tech has been around for many years, with buyers that aren't as concerned with owning the latest tech.
"When it comes to reliability, the slow and steady are winning the race," Fisher told Automotive News. "The manufacturers that are making quick moves, those are the ones struggling with some of the new technology."
https://www.msn.com/en-au/motoring/news/electric-cars-are-way-less-reliable-than-ice-cars-says-consumer-reports/ar-AA1kK5cm
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Australian Government rejects mandate for households to buy EVs or greener appliances
Households will be spared a national mandate to change their energy appliances or embrace electric vehicles after the federal government dismissed a call from its own climate advisor to set the new targets, amid a Labor debate on the need to cut the cost of living.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen dismissed the proposals from the Climate Change Authority to set the goals for the sale of cleaner cars and impose bans on gas connections to homes, saying the government was focused on “reliable and affordable” power.
The decision came as Labor MPs urged Treasurer Jim Chalmers to deliver new policies to put downward pressure on the cost of living, such as by making federal assistance more widely available to Australians who currently miss out on the help.
The moves are another sign of the pressure within the government for policies that deliver cost relief and avoid placing any new burden on households while Chalmers and other ministers devise new measures for the May budget.
Chalmers made no comment after meeting the Labor caucus members on Thursday, but one of the MPs in the talks, Jerome Laxale, told his constituents that he asked the treasurer to extend the eligibility for federal assistance.
“Many more of you have been telling me that you’re struggling,” said Laxale, the member for Bennelong in Sydney, in a Facebook post to voters. “Our cost-of-living relief to date has been targeted and measured. For those eligible, it has helped and has been welcome.”
“Today, I asked the treasurer to consider widening the eligibility of some of these effective policies through the budget process. As the impacts of interest rates linger, I believe more Australians will require access to targeted, measured and effective cost-of-living relief.”
Existing government assistance measures include the energy bill subsidies unveiled last December and opposed by the Coalition in parliament in a vote on whether to restrict coal and gas exports and increase local energy supply.
While the energy bill subsidies were targeted at people on the Age Pension and federal income support, Laxale’s call suggests these or other policies could be extended to more households.
The Climate Change Authority, an independent agency that provides expert advice to government, called on the Albanese government in its Annual Progress Report to do more to meet its emissions reduction targets.
It issued a total of 42 recommendations to boost climate action, 39 of which the government either agreed with, agreed in principle or merely noted.
Greens leader Adam Bandt backed the authority’s call for bans on petrol cars and gas connections.
“It’s very disappointing that Labor won’t listen to the Climate Change Authority and help homes get off gas and get into electric cars,” Bandt said.
Grattan Institute’s Getting Off Gas report, released in August, found rising gas use risked the nation’s climate goals. The 5 million houses with a gas connection account for about 17 per cent of Australia’s fossil fuel consumption.
Bowen defends ‘incremental’ climate progress but flags tougher curbs
A ban on gas connections will apply to new houses and apartments in Victoria and the ACT from next year. But other states have not indicated any plans to follow suit and the Albanese government said it would work with states to increase uptake of cleaner appliances, including through its $1.7 billion Energy Savings Package.
Bowen also dismissed the authority’s call for a binding target that drives uptake of electric vehicles to 100 per cent of new car sales by 2040.
The European Union, Canada, UK and Japan have pledged for 100 per cent of new passenger car sales to be electric by at least 2035.
Official figures released on Thursday showed Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rose four million tonnes in the 12 months to June as the economy continued to bounce back from the COVID-19 contraction, hitting a total of 467 million tonnes.
While the rise is at odds with public claims about cutting emissions, the government insists greenhouse emissions are on track to fall 42 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 – just shy of Labor’s 43 per cent target.
Bowen and Transport Minister Catherine King have pledged to introduce a new electric vehicle policy that encourages carmakers to sell more electric vehicles. Consultation is under way on fuel efficiency standards to limit average emissions, measured in grams of CO2 per kilometre, produced by the overall fleet of vehicles sold into the market by a manufacturer, to encourage them to sell more EVs.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-compulsion-for-households-to-buy-evs-or-greener-appliances-government-pledges-20231130-p5eo1m.html
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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