A bombshell report titled “Climate Control: Exposing the Decarbonization Collusion in ESG Investing” has exposed massive financial and shareholder coercion in climate finance
The climate cartel has declared war on the American way of life. The climate cartel is waging “a Global World War” for net zero against disfavored American companies, including those in the fossil fuel, aviation, and farming industries that allow Americans to drive, fly, and eat.
Issued by The US House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust the “Climate Control” report targets groups like Mark Carney’s GFANZ (Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero) and ClimateAction 100+ among others.
The report states: “The climate cartel has declared war on the American way of life. The climate cartel is waging “a Global World War” for net zero against disfavored American companies, including those in the fossil fuel, aviation, and farming industries that allow Americans to drive, fly, and eat.
It has described Climate Action 100+ as “the global Navy,” and compared Ceres’s efforts to “the Army ground troops” and “an ‘air cover’ strategic and silent bombing campaign by a newly funded division of the Air Force.”
Some 272,294 documents and 2,565,258 pages of non-public information were received and reviewed. Also noted in the report: “Due to their failure to produce responsive material timely and fulsomely, the Committee was forced to issue document subpoenas to GFANZ, Ceres, As You Sow, Arjuna, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, ISS, and Glass Lewis.”
The report claims that the “climate cartel imposes these radical policies by weaponizing ever-escalating pressure tactics…” on corporations. One of the tactics is forcing companies to make “immaterial disclosure of carbon emissions,” a tactic being pushed in the US and Canada.
In Canada, Friends of Science Society has issued a number of Open Letters to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Bank of Canada, and the Canadian Securities Administrator pointing out the folly of forcing corporations to waste time and money on climate risk reporting that is invalidated by the implausible climate scenarios recommended.
Furthermore, they argue, such reporting exposes companies to shareholder liabilities and lawfare by climate activists.
As reported by CBC’s “What on Earth?,” Environment Canada now claims to be able to attribute an extreme weather event to human-caused climate change within 7 days of the event, which CBC says “will help victims sue” as reported in this Western Standard article.
Canada has recently radically altered the framing of the Competition Bureau’s “greenwashing” legislation, within a few sections of legislation slipped into an economic Bill C-59.
In plain language, the actual standards are vague, but the financial penalties for violation are huge. Friends of Science Society says this presents an open invitation for radical climate lawfare.
Further, advertising claims, for instance, about a firm’s product, service, or actions to seek “Net Zero” must be provable according to an undefined international standard. More details are in this summary brief by Norton, Rose, Fulbright.
Much of this relates to the Catherine McKenna-led Nov. 2022 report “Integrity Matters” which demanded mandatory reporting and cracking down on greenwashing, shifting focus from national Paris Agreement reporting to reporting by corporations, cities and financial institutions.
Friends of Science Society issued a rebuttal statement at the time, pointing out that imposing regulations for a goal that cannot be met shows a lack of integrity. According to an in-depth, meticulous mining and minerals study by Prof. Simon Michaux for the Geological Society of Finland, there is no material supply chain for Net Zero 2030 or even 2050.
A recent Friends of Science review of three Canadian Net Zero plans shows the Canadian targets cannot be met without extreme degrowth and poverty, an abomination for a country with one of the richest resource and energy sectors in the world. Video explainer here.
In 2019, The Guardian reported that Mark Carney stated “Firms ignoring the climate crisis will go bankrupt.”
As the CLINTEL international network of 1,931 scientists and scholars have shown, there is no climate crisis or emergency. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Working Group I Physical Sciences report of August 2019 only mentions ‘climate emergency’ and ‘climate crisis’ once in reference to media coverage.
Thus, one can conclude the people doing the real greenwashing, misleading, and deception – perhaps ideological self-deception – are the climate cartel participants and advisors like Mark Carney and Catherine McKenna.
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International Climate Conference Debunks Science and Policy Consensus Claims
The Heartland Institute partnered with the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) and the U.S.-based Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) to hold a two-day climate conference on June 14-15 in Vienna, Austria. This was the 16th International Conference on Climate Change; Heartland has either hosted or participated in all of them.
As I write, videos of the conference sessions have not been posted; but below, I categorize and note some of the speakers and topics, and Taylor has provided brief descriptions of a few of the talks. On the science front, an international group of scientists, including Nicola Scafetta, Ph.D., Willie Soon, Ph.D., Nir Shaviv, Ph.D., and Henrik Svensmark, Ph.D., discussed the role the sun and cosmic rays play in warming and climate change. William Happer, Ph.D., described the role that clouds play in radiation transfer. Roy Spencer, Ph.D., discussed the idea that temperature extremes are becoming more common. Taylor, Craig Rucker, and Nobel Prize laureate John Clauser, Ph.D., each discussed how climate alarmists and the media are lying, either directly or through omission of key facts, to promote the idea of climate emergency in need of a big government fix—and discussed ways to successfully debate and debunk their claims.
Other researchers discussed the science and politics of energy and climate change, including the potential of different energy sources and how and why climate alarm is being fought in legislatures and the courts. They included such analysts as Marc Morano, Marcel Crok, László Csaba Szarka, Ph.D., Bernhard Strehl, Ph.D., Manfred Haferburg, Douglas Pollack, and Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D.
Below, Taylor briefly describes the content and impact of a few of the presentations, including his own.
To a packed house at the conference hall in Vienna, I (Taylor) set the stage for presentations by some of the world’s most accomplished climate scientists and climate policy experts. I explained how climate alarmism is a Trojan horse for the global left to consolidate money and power in global government institutions while depriving us of our most basic freedoms. After congratulating the audience on sending even more freedom-focused policymakers to the upcoming EU Parliament session, I noted how Heartland is working closely with EIKE and other public policy organizations and policymakers throughout Austria and throughout Europe. I gave a presentation on specific examples of climate change misinformation making the rounds in the establishment media. I then turned the floor over to presentations by participating scientists and policy experts.
“No chance” was the key takeaway from a presentation by Dr. Will Happer. Happer and a colleague, W. A. van Wijngaarden, Ph.D., published a paper in 2020 showing the atmosphere has nearly reached its carbon dioxide saturation point. Carbon dioxide impedes the flow of longwave radiation to space within a specific spectrum range. At current atmospheric CO2 levels of approximately 420 parts per million, atmospheric CO2 is nearly saturated, meaning nearly all potential warmth retention from atmospheric CO2 has already occurred, such that additional CO2 emissions will have almost no impact on global temperatures. During his presentation, Dr. Happer said there is no chance that the saturation effect he documented could be wrong. From the humble and affable Dr. Happer, that is as forceful a statement as you will ever hear. That is good news for people worried about future climate change, and should end the debate about any future climate change crisis.
In a subsequent one-on-one conversation that I had with Danish scientist Dr. Henrik Svensmark, he confirmed Happer’s assessment of the CO2 saturation effect, saying, “Dr. Happer is correct, CO2 saturation as described by Dr. Happer is a well-known and well-understood matter of science.
“Nobody with any basic understanding of atmospheric physics can claim it is wrong,” Svensmark concluded.
Dr. John Clauser, the 2022 Nobel Prize winner for physics, gave a compelling blow-by-blow takedown of climate alarmism. Among other things, Clauser emphasized that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its computer models are spectacularly wrong in their assumptions about clouds.
Clauser pointed out that average cloud cover throughout the planet is approximately 67 percent. IPCC claims clouds have an albedo of 0.34, meaning they reflect approximately 34 percent of sunlight back into space, with 66 percent of the sunlight that strikes cloud tops reaching Earth’s surface. In reality, Clauser emphasized, cloud albedo is approximately 0.80. The sun is a variable star, meaning the output of solar energy varies a significant amount. Compelling scientific evidence shows solar output has increased significantly during the 120-plus years since the beginning of the 20th century. Drastically underestimating cloud albedo allows IPCC to underreport the impact of the recent increase in solar output on global climate and allows IPCC to claim a much greater impact from carbon dioxide emissions than is justified by sound science.
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Could Courts Be Persuaded To Ban The Use Of ‘Fossil Fuels’?
Despite hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on ‘green’ energy over the past decade, the world and America used more ‘fossil fuels’ than ever before in history last year.
The electric vehicle movement is stalled out, solar and wind power are both still fringe forms of energy, and the green candidates got crushed in recent elections in Europe because voters are sick of the higher prices associated with ‘green’ policies.
So having struck out with consumers, businesses, and at the ballot box, now the greens are moving on to the courts. The climate industrial complex has now joined forces with trial lawyers to advance their war on ‘fossil fuels’.
One of the more absurd lawsuits happened in Hawaii.
There, a group of 13 teenagers — honest, I’m not making this up — sued Hawaii’s government over its use of ‘fossil fuels’. Environmental law firms Our Children’s Trust and Earthjustice claim that Hawaii’s natural resources are imperiled by CO2 emissions.
Even if that were true, shouldn’t they be suing China?
The settlement will require the state to eliminate ‘fossil fuels’ from its transportation system by 2045, and also formally recognizes the right to file future lawsuits against other parties.
Gov. Josh Green even stood next to the young plaintiffs as he read a statement claiming:
“This settlement informs how we as a state can best move forward to achieve life-sustaining goals.”
There’s so much that’s wrong about this decision. How did a bunch of teenagers possibly have standing to sue? What possible harm have they suffered from ‘fossil fuels’?
The irony is that this island paradise in the Pacific — whose primary industry is tourism — is going to collapse without ‘fossil fuels’. With no jets and cruise ships allowed, will tourists and business travelers have to arrive by sailboat?
This new technique of using lawsuits to advance the anti-‘fossil fuels’ movement has spread to other states. Last August, a judge ruled that GOP-dominated Montana violated its constitution when it approved ‘fossil fuel’ projects without taking ‘climate change’ into account.
After the recent flooding in Vermont, ‘green’ activists sued the state for not abolishing ‘fossil fuels’.
Massachusetts is suing Exxon Mobil for adverse weather conditions.
There are now 32 cases filed by state attorneys general, cities, counties, and tribal nations against companies including Exxon Mobil, BP, and Shell. The lawsuits claim that the industry tried to undermine ‘scientific consensus’ about the ‘crisis’.
Here’s what’s so frightening about these sham lawsuits from trial lawyers who hope to turn oil companies into cash cows similar to the tobacco lawsuits 20 years ago: The end game of lawsuits against states and oil and gas companies for using or producing energy because of alleged damage to the environment could bring about the abolition of ‘fossil fuels’ through the back door of the nation’s courthouses.
But what none of these judges or litigators take into account is the catastrophic economic effects of NOT using ‘fossil fuels’?
As an example, the Left wants to abolish air conditioning, which requires electricity, which mostly comes from ‘fossil fuels’. But air conditioning saves tens of thousands of lives a year.
What about the millions of jobs that would be wiped out with no ‘fossil fuels’? How many thousands of Americans would die in hospitals, assisted living centers, daycare centers, or schools if the lights went out with no ‘fossil fuel’ power plants?
‘Fossil fuels’ have saved millions of lives over the last century. They make Americans much richer, safer, happier, healthier, and more mobile.
Meanwhile, there is no evidence backing up the absurd claim by teenagers that if Hawaii stopped using ‘fossil fuels’, the state’s weather conditions would improve.
Will judges take that into consideration when they try to rob Exxon and coal companies of their profits for the sin of making life on Earth much better?
https://principia-scientific.com/could-courts-be-persuaded-to-ban-the-use-of-fossil-fuels/
**********************************************Science pushed aside as media backs renewables
How can journalists claim Coalition support for nuclear power is “Trumpian”, or part of a conservative “culture war”, when 32 countries use nuclear energy?
How do media critics of nuclear power explain commitments by more than 20 countries from four continents to treble their nuclear power generation capacity in the wake of warnings at the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai last year that the world is falling behind in its emissions-reduction targets?
It is, of course, incumbent on political reporters to demand details from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton about his nuclear power announcement of June 18. Yet many journalists have for years been incurious about details of the renewables rollout preferred by the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the previous Coalition government of Scott Morrison.
Aren’t the actual culture warriors the journalists who refuse to ask questions about problems in the renewables rollout, flagged publicly last August and again in May by the Grattan Institute, a strong renewables backer? Problems with the speed of the rollout were again admitted last week in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 2024 Integrated System Plan. Yet to read or listen to reporters from the ABC, the Guardian and The New Daily, you would think the entire world was following Australia down the road to 100 per cent renewables, problem free.
The truth is the renewables rollout is in trouble across the northern hemisphere and particularly in Europe. And emissions are rising in China, India, Russia, most of Asia and much of South America.
Countries with higher percentages of renewables than the 82 per cent by 2030 policy target of Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen depend on hydro-electric power generation because of their abundant water resources.
This column has quoted the International Energy Agency saying the technology to reach 100 per cent renewables is not yet available. On November 14, 2022, this column quoted former Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott telling ABC Radio National’s breakfast program host Patricia Karvelas about the scale of the energy transition and switching off coal. “Well, I think it may not be possible but I think we’ve got to try,” she said.
An ordinary listener might have expected RN to follow up that line. But no.
Critics on the right have often argued environmentalism, and particularly belief in renewables, has become a matter of quasi-religious fervour. Yet there are facts about power generation and grid stability that stubbornly refuse to evaporate in the face of the climate beliefs of left-wing journalists and Greens voters.
Chris Uhlmann, now with The Australian, felt the full fury of the pro-renewables camp when he wrote about the potential for high levels of renewables to destabilise the South Australian electricity grid after a statewide blackout on September 28, 2016. Critics accused Uhlmann of being a closet climate denier and insisting the blackout was entirely down to a storm.
They were – and largely remain – oblivious to Uhlmann’s central point about the engineering parameters needed to provide stability in all electricity grids. This is not just about the intermittent nature of wind and solar power, but about the effects of asynchronous renewables in synchronous power distribution systems.
This column, a fan of contributions by power generation specialists to Professor Judith Curry’s Climate Etc blog, recommends a three-part series by US “planning engineer” Russ Schussler, retired vice-president of system planning for the Georgia Transmission Corporation.
Schussler rates hydro as the best renewable resource for grid stability but also criticises the focus by critics of renewables on the intermittency of wind and solar.
“The major challenges associated with increased penetration of wind and solar … are not caused by intermittency, but rather from how the energy is injected into the grid,” he said. “The electric energy produced by wind and solar is transformed by a power converter using inverters in order to synchronise with the oscillating grid. In terms of reliability, resources that spin in synchronism with the grid as electricity is produced are much better for the grid than those resources which use inverter-based technology to convert for grid injection.”
This is the science: using asynchronous power from wind and solar in a synchronous system is a much bigger problem than environmentalists understand.
Power engineers say that as renewables penetration increases, so does the grid stability problem. This is the big “82 per cent renewables” question.
Add to that the ecological damage done to large areas of mainland Australia by building out 10,000km of new power lines, millions of solar panels and tens of thousands of wind turbines. All this as the rest of the world continues to increase CO2 emissions. Yet Bowen and others believe our comparative advantage in wind and sun will make Australia a green energy superpower.
Much of their optimism flows from predictions about the potential for exports of green hydrogen, a technology yet to be developed economically.
Even Grattan has sounded a warning about hydrogen, suggesting the extent of our comparative advantage might be limited to green steel and green fertiliser. There is another hint in the latest AEMO ISP as to why Labor’s green industry ambitions may falter. Page seven of the AEMO plan says “renewables accounted for almost 40 per cent of the electricity market” in 2023.
“Rooftop solar alone contributed more electricity to the grid in the first quarter of 2024 (13 per cent) than did grid-scale solar, wind, hydro or gas.” That’s right – suburban homes are generating much of our new renewable power. What does this mean for the government’s “future made in Australia” plans?
This column on May 5 analysed the draft ISP, the latest Grattan warnings on the slow pace of the renewables rollout, and a critique by the Centre for Independent Studies. The CIS goes to the heart of the point about rooftop solar.
Why does AEMO acknowledge the importance of rooftop solar as well as the future role for home batteries but not cost their installation? That is, this major cost is not included in the $122bn figure Bowen used to fob off ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson last Monday.
The CIS study said rooftop solar and home batteries would have cost $360bn at today’s prices by 2050. And the latest ISP press material on the AEMO website specifically acknowledges Bowen’s $122bn figure “does NOT include the cost of commissioned, committed or anticipated projects, consumer energy resources, distribution network upgrades”.
This column on March 17 was sceptical the Coalition would actually take a nuclear policy to the next election. Maybe that was wrong. Such a policy would be subject to the mother of all scare campaigns by the Greens and Labor.
All that political risk would be for a generation system that could have no influence on power prices or system reliability until the late 2030s when the first reactor came on stream.
Yet even if Dutton is writing the longest political suicide note since John Hewson’s Fightback, surely journalists owe the public genuine scrutiny of the costs, risks and benefits of both nuclear and renewables.
Especially since AEMO itself acknowledges Bowen’s $122bn figure is not the total cost of the renewables path.
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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)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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