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/

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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

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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."

https://mailchi.mp/967191964873/uk-health-security-agency-boss-criticised-for-tropical-disease-claims-200084?e=cc88839e92

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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.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/09/climate-talks-newest-threat-interest-rates-00130949?mc_cid=e75737b61a&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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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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 Milanković [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 𝑇→[CO2] direction.

https://principia-scientific.com/another-new-paper-shows-temp-changes-before-co2/

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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.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/18/exclusive-conservative-state-files-first-nation-lawsuit-blackrock-deceptive-climate-policies

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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.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/09/20/woke-duke-energy-jacks-up-electric-rates-pay-esg-zero-carbon-mandates

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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.

https://www.wionews.com/world/elon-musk-talks-about-advertising-italys-declining-birth-rate-in-rome-670411?mc_cid=bb19ed71b4&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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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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.

https://principia-scientific.com/uk-governmental-agency-claims-climate-change-threatens-health-in-report/

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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.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/13/fearmongering-facts-leads-60-believing-climate-change-will-end-mankind

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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.”

https://climatechangedispatch.com/paris-accord-policy-costs-greatly-exceed-any-net-benefit-from-averted-warming/

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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.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/steven-miles-guarantees-future-of-queensland-coal-mining-gas-production/news-story/cbe7fc1e6c85f17cd0a2f04a5773bdbc

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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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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.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-15/new-report-shows-himalayan-glaciers-cooling-and-drying/103231372

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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/

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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.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/nz-deputy-pm-under-pressure-from-greens-over-mining-permits-5546424

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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."

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-renewable-energy-green-lacking-funds-budget-guillotine-defense-immigration-climate-change/

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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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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

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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.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/americas-energy-boom-crude-exports-soar-to-record-high?mc_cid=1823584603&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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.

https://www.oedigital.com/news/509938-leave-no-stone-unturned-in-gas-exploration-norway-tells-industry?mc_cid=1823584603&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2023/12/06/why-the-residential-solar-industry-is-in-danger-of-imploding/

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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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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.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2023/12/09/climate-change/cop28-oil-gas-presence/?mc_cid=f79ac17ab8&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-09/us-opts-out-of-dutch-plan-to-end-fossil-fuel-subsidies-at-cop28?mc_cid=f79ac17ab8&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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.

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/12/09/net-zero-requires-new-high-voltage-power-lines-to-be-wrapped-around-the-earth-2000-times-within-17-years/?mc_cid=f79ac17ab8&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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.

https://opinion.inquirer.net/168830/net-zero-is-not-the-answer-to-climate-change?mc_cid=f79ac17ab8&mc_eid=cc88839e92

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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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