Climate News – April 2023
The IPCC’s Synthesis Report (authored by political activists not scientists) states that emissions from “existing fossil fuel infrastructure without additional abatement would exceed the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C”
Employing “confected hysteria”, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, proposed an “acceleration agenda”, including the need to end new coal projects and phase out coal in OECD countries by 2030 and 2040 elsewhere.
A reminder that for 70 years noted scientists, climate catastrophists have been projecting Armageddon from – mainly human induced – increased cold or heat.
Zeke Hausfather reproduces IPCC material, which claims to find all warming over the past 170 years is human induced.
Ryan Maue rhetorically asks, “does that mean IPCC attributes the end of the Little Ice Age 100 percent to human activity?”.
Judith Curry asks what happened to natural changes like, “the grand solar maximum in the late 20th century, low volcanic activity since mid-19th century, Great Pacific Climate Shift in 1976 and shift to warm phase of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation in 1995”.
Recent temperature outcomes do not substantiate the extrapolated trends that are based on IPCC’s 3°C a century warming (a proxy for Al Gore’s 2007 prediction of a dangerous man-made global warming “tipping point”).
Amplification of political measures designed to combat ‘climate change’
Global investments in renewable energy must quadruple in order to stay in line with commitments made under the Paris climate accord, says the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
According to Reuters, while investments in renewable energies reached a record $1.3 trillion last year, that figure must rise to around $5 trillion annually (more than all global investment in its entirety) to even come close to meeting the key Paris accord target of limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Germany (which has appointed the head of Greenpeace as a special envoy for international climate policy) and the US are pushing for a fundamental reform of the World Bank with an increased focus on the ‘climate crisis’, at the institution’s next annual meeting in October.
UN level support for action on ‘climate change’ is bolstered by subsidies to developing countries. Thunder Said Energy estimates, “CO2 removal credits could add 6-60 percent to the GDP of 47 countries.” Unsurprisingly, the UN General Assembly has called for the world body’s top court to outline nations’ legal obligations related to curbing warming.
As part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan, the European Commission has proposed the Net-Zero Industry Act.
This will support the “clean energy transition” with technologies driving decarbonisation, including carbon capture and storage.
It is claimed to “strengthen the resilience and competitiveness of net-zero technologies manufacturing in the EU, and make our energy system more secure and sustainable”.
The EU says it will exceed the subsidies available in the US ($369 billion) and China for making clean tech products and accessing raw materials required for the ‘green transition’ through the Net-Zero Industry Act and Critical Raw Materials Act. Goldman Sachs projects the US Inflation Reduction Act’s green subsidies will cost $1.2 trillion—more than three times its budget allocation.
Germany last year saw a coal resurgence that took it to a 33 per cent share of electricity supply, from eight per cent in 2021. Having subsidised wind to eliminate coal, Germany now intends to subsidise 25 new gas plants in order to make wind reliable.
But, being more advanced along the “green revolution” path, it has electricity prices twice the US (and Australian) average.
However green energy is dominating new capacity throughout the western woke world – and is a major component in China.
In the US only 15 per cent of new capacity comprises ‘fossil fuel’ plant (but the 80 per cent comprising wind/solar/batteries provides less actual capacity than the 20 per cent that is gas/nuclear).
High electricity prices are driving out EU manufacturing (exacerbated by the US’s Inflation Reduction Act subsidies). Half of Europe’s aluminium capacity has been shut, the latest being Germany’s Speira.
Britain (like the EU) is planning a carbon border tax on imports from countries that do not implement their strict carbon abatement measures (which is acknowledged as costly).
The minister prefers China, India etc voluntarily raise their own costs rather than be forced to do so!
The “Powering up Britain” plan has the whole enchilada: Carbon capture technology, boosts for offshore wind, green hydrogen, nuclear, building insulation. But the fraudulent £2bn planned to allow the wood burning Drax plant to be counted as carbon capture has been rejected.
Australia has added the “Safeguard Mechanism”, a further component to its ‘carbon’ restraint policies. This requires the 215 largest CO2 emitters to reduce their emissions by a further 30 per cent by 2030.
Echoing Barrack Obama’s 2008 declaration, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said, “Today is an historic day for the country to ensure our economy can take advantage of the opportunities of ‘decarbonisation’ and meet our ambitious climate targets (to reverse climate change)”.
The measures also include additional barriers to the politically motivated restraint on new coal and gas facilities.
Ex Australian PM, climate alarmist Malcolm Turnbull’s vanity $2 billion Snowy 2 pumped hydro has been billed as the antidote to wind/solar unreliability.
It is now likely to cost over $14 billion and instead of 2 years will take 8 years to complete. Aussie Green folk remain unfazed and are calling for more government intervention and ownership in energy!
Turning back the tide of climate regulation
There is scepticism about the EU’s plans for 45 per cent “renewable” energy by 2030. At present 60 per cent of the renewables are wood and a further 20 per cent are hydro; only 20 per cent of electricity (nine per cent of total energy) is from the highly subsidised wind and solar.
Reality has already forced a backtrack on the proposed 2035 ban on the internal combustion engine.
Italy turns against a greening of energy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s government demanded that the European Union water down a directive aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings and re-write plans to phase out combustion engine cars.
The Italians also questioned a drive to slash industrial emissions and reneged on a 2021 pledge to stop financing international ‘fossil fuel’ projects.
German Vice Chancellor, Robert Habeck (Green Party), accused his coalition partners of lacking ambition in climate policies; one minister is arguing that the subsidies to energy ($290 billion last year) are unsustainable. A Berlin referendum failed to pass net zero for the city (half of voters supported it but only 18 per cent of people actually voted).
BBB, the farmer-citizen party that became the biggest party in the Dutch senate has its key goal of stopping farmer buy-outs and decarbonisation of energy to meet climate goals. The EU has warned that there are no other ways to meet those goals.
Facing energy reality, the Biden administration gave the green light to the Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope, effectively reversing a 2020 election policy pledge. Christy Goldfuss, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the decision, “green-lights a carbon bomb, sets back the climate fight and emboldens an industry hell-bent on destroying the planet”.
The Republicans are using energy to differentiate themselves from Biden’s policies. They seek to expedite oil and gas approvals, lift LNG import and export restrictions, prohibit a ban on fracking, and expedite approval of more oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
The Japanese Ambassador to Australia has warned that Australia’s many energy interventions to reduce ‘carbon’ emissions and fossil fuel exports mean the “investment climate in Australia appears to be deteriorating”, that the country is now lagging far behind the rest of the world in the global race for investment and there could be serious adverse outcomes in the western world’s supply chains.
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Finally, some good news. Lobsters that acclimatised to the warmer water were better able to tolerate higher temperatures than lobsters that got used to cold water.
See more here regulationeconomics.com
Bold emphasis added
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