Climate News – May 2023
Developments in the science of ‘climate change’
Roger Pielke’s hypothesis that the land temperature measurements are biased upwards compared with the satellite data is corroborated by a paper from Zou et al.
Note the lack of warming for 10 years.
But, oblivious to any trends, apocalyptic scientists see all warming events as corroborating their predispositions.
Thus, with southern Europe experiencing a hot Spring, NewScientist says:
“Any heatwave today is made more severe because of the background rate of warming under climate change”.
And the heat wave in East Africa is also attributed to humans.
It is difficult to actually see a relationship between growing levels of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and climate.
And notions of increasingly severe weather due to the increase in CO2 are easily deflated.
“No one has ever shown that human emissions of carbon dioxide drive global warming. If someone did show that, they’d have to show that the 97 percent of the emissions which are natural, don’t drive global warming. So, the whole concept of global warming is actually underpinned by falsity.”
Revisiting Tim Flannery of 2007, “even the rain that falls will not fill the dams”, academics from Upsala, Manchester, Reading and Amsterdam confected a new study claiming ‘climate change’ means water shortages; they accuse the rich of being greedy for having swimming pools and watering their lawns.
‘Climate change’ and economic developments
The Bank of England’s Chief Economist says people must accept that they are now poorer, without specifying that this is due to the UK government’s energy policy. (PM, Sunak, as Treasurer added the goal of supporting the government’s net zero ambition to the Bank’s monetary and financial policy remits in 2021).
Benny Peiser and Andrew Montford demonstrate how the rot can only intensify if present policies are continued.
Climate activists inadvertently explain why world industrial supply is gravitating towards China and India. In 2022, 60 per cent of the 45.5 GW of newly commissioned coal generating capacity was in China. Outside China, the global coal fleet shrank at a slower rate than in previous years.
David Blackman notes:
“Even the International Energy Agency, which so often serves strictly as a megaphone for pro-energy transition narratives, projects that China’s consumption of coal will continue to rise for the foreseeable future.”
UK financial funds, in addition to rejecting coal generation investments are avoiding nuclear support claiming that they prefer funding wind/solar.
Zurich Insurance Group said it was quitting the Net Zero Insurance Alliance group of insurers focused on cutting carbon emissions. Munich Re, having co-founded the group two years ago has also left, according to Reuters ESG to avoid antitrust risks. Though claiming to be committed to ESG investment dogma, Hannover Re has also quit the group.
Companies sold about $6 billion in bonds during the last quarter to pay for projects that help the environment, achieve a social goal, or improve their governance. That’s down more than 50% from the same time last year.
‘Climate change’ and government policies
The European Union member countries agreed to cut their CO2 emissions to 62 percent below their 2005 levels by 2030. Only Poland and Hungary opposed.
Heavy industries will lose their free CO2 permits in 2034; airlines will lose theirs from 2026. Cuts will apply to emissions from ships after 2024. Also approved was the EU’s policy to phase-in a levy on imports of high-carbon goods from 2026, targeting steel, cement, aluminium, fertilisers.
Anticipating these policies, the price of EU carbon permits has tripled since 2020 to €88 per tonne, an impost which doubles or trebles electricity prices.
One result is that European air flights prices have already risen by one third. Cost increases are estimated at €819 billion more over the years to 2050.
The German government proposes to “aim to” reduce final energy consumption by 39 percent by 2040 and 45 percent by 2045. These long-term targets are to be reviewed in 2027 and revised if necessary.
Germany exacerbated its electricity supply precariousness by closing its last three nuclear reactors in April 2023.
Coalition partner, the Free Democrats, want the plants mothballed, as do the Opposition Christian Democrats, but Green economy and climate minister Robert Habeck opposes this. A survey had firms stating that 32 percent of new investments (compared to 20 per cent ten years ago) are being made abroad to save costs.
US solar and electric vehicle interests castigate the Republicans for seeking to slash federal spending in exchange for a hike in the U.S. debt ceiling. Without a trace of irony, while claiming their products are cost-competitive, they say this “could hobble the tax incentives that unleashed billions of dollars in green investment”.
Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax subsidies would save the United States $570 billion over the coming 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The United States, European Union and Japan are, however, pushing back on the United Kingdom’s proposal to phase out unabated domestic coal power generation by 2030.
Global average theoretical capacity of photovoltaics is 6.2 per cent. Spain, Greece, Chile, the Netherlands and Australia have the highest penetration, with Australia ahead of the Netherlands and Germany in watts per capita.
Australia will need 3,000 gigawatts of wind and solar for a net zero economy by 2030, at a cost of $9 trillion, according to a new report by renewable supporters.
That is 100 times the existing capacity and excludes additional costs of batteries.
In April, the 2000 MW Liddell NSW coal plant closed and a battery facility is planned for its site. The Hazelwood battery in Victoria has now charged up; it replaces 1,600 MW of continuous power with just 150 MW for only a single hour!
South Africa, having had low power prices under its Apartheid regime, now pursues net zero. Massive investment in wind/solar has resulted in these sources supplying just three percent of a market that has daily blackouts due to neglect of coal.
PM Ramaphosa’s response:
“In some cases, it may be necessary to re-examine the timeframe and the process of decommissioning or mothballing of coal-fired power stations temporarily to address our electricity supply shortfall,”
Whimsey becoming reality?
Alarmists: smeared red and black paint over a sculpture at the National Gallery of Art in Washington; in Berlin, they brought rush hour traffic to a standstill for a tenth day running; in Melbourne, protesters with slogans such as ‘Climate chaos = war + famine’ and ‘Business as usual = death’ supported a man who scaled the Arts Centre spire unfurling a banner.
Such fanatics spearhead an ill-educated majority of the politically active, which is taking control of government, business and educational institutions.
The effects in creating disinformation is seen in an Australian Environment Foundation survey on perceptions of the Great Barrier Reef; though the Reef now shows record levels of coral, 80 percent of the country falsely thought coverage was average or worse.
Having fomented children’s “eco-anxiety”, schools are now urged to help pupils:
“process the difficult emotions that often follow learning about climate change, so they are not alone in their distress, are validated in their concerns and can also be brought into conversations about solutions”.
The triumphal march of the woke may face one setback. Activist Ketan Joshi, analysing growth of followers of those he calls “deniers” (that would include most of us) and activists like Gore, Greta etc., found the former group are adding followers at a much faster rate, which he attributes to Musk changing twitter’s policy.
Forget about mass starvation, oceanic inundations and species loss, global warming is now getting serious with Federico Addiechi, FIFA’s head of ‘sustainability’, saying that ‘climate change’ is a threat to football itself.
Alongside other sports in the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework, soccer apparently needs such an official.
See more here regulationeconomics.com
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Charles Higley
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:Putting a straight line through the temperature data is juvenile and stupid. We all know that there are cycles and curves and trends need to be applied. It’s dumb and ingenuous to do a linear line. Learn more climate (real) science and stop with the dumbness.
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