GWPF Newsletter: Europe's Business Lobby Finally Fights EU's Unilateral Climate Policy

Release Of New Climategate Emails Imminent

In this newsletter:

1) Europe’s Business Lobby Prepares Pushback Against EU’s New Climate Goals
EurActiv, 19 September 2018
 
2) Climategate Continues: Release Of University Of Arizona Climate Emails Imminent
Watts Up With That, 19 September 2018

 
3) Old King Coal Is Back As Gas Costs Rise
The Times, 18 September 2018
 
4) Higher Carbon Price Is Boosting Coal Demand In Europe
Bloomberg, 19 September 2018
 
5) India Powers Past Poverty, With Coal
GWPF Energy, 18 September 2018
 
6) Chinese Govt: ‘The Future Is Green Coal’
China Daily, 18 September 2018
 
7) Cuadrilla To Start Fracking In England In Weeks
Reuters, 19 September 2018
 
8) Green Tory MPs Plot Rebellion Against Bid To Get Britain Fracking
The Times, 20 September 2018
 
9) And Finally: Scientists Seek To Subject Us To Socialism
Ivo Vegter, Daily Maverick, 18 September 2018

Full details:

1) Europe’s Business Lobby Prepares Pushback Against EU’s New Climate Goals
EurActiv, 19 September 2018

A leaked internal memo, obtained by EURACTIV, gives a rare glimpse into the communication strategy of Europe’s main business lobby group ahead of the COP24 conference later this year, showing how it plans to “oppose” any increase in the EU’s climate ambition for 2030.

The memo from BusinessEurope, dated 13 September, shows how Europe’s biggest employer association intends to “challenge” EU plans to aim higher in the fight against climate change.
 
The document, which will be discussed at an internal meeting on Wednesday, says the main line to take about the EU’s climate policy should be “rather positive, as long as it remains a political statement with no implications” on the EU’s existing commitments under the Paris Agreement.
 
Miguel Arias Canete, the EU climate action commissioner, has suggested updating the EU’s greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030, arguing that the EU’s level of ambition had “de facto” been raised after an agreement was struck on renewables and energy efficiency targets earlier in June.
 
Currently, the EU envisages cutting its emissions by “at least 40%” by 2030 based on 1990 levels. That target would effectively be raised to 45% following the deal on renewables and energy efficiency, Cañete said.
 
The EU’s top energy and climate official revealed on Wednesday (20 June) that the bloc is now set to increase its emissions reduction pledge from 40% by 2030 to 45%, after EU negotiators sealed agreements on three clean energy laws in the past fortnight.
 
That was later backed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said in his annual “State of the Union” address to Parliament that it was “scientifically right” to raise the EU’s climate goals.
 
But Germany is sceptical of any such move, fearing for the competitiveness of its export-dependent industry.
In August, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out against revising the EU’s climate objectives, saying “we should first stick to the goals we have already set for ourselves”.
 
The internal memo from BusinessEurope follows the same line, recommending “to oppose the new increase in ambition, using the usual arguments” that Europe cannot take action on its own, and should seek a level playing field with global competitors before making any moves.
 
It suggests “to minimise the issue” by arguing that raising the ambition “is not what matters most. What is key is to persuade other major economies to catch up with the EU’s ambition,” the memo argues.
 
BusinessEurope also recommends “to challenge the process” by asking for more cost-benefit studies and requiring “more transparency on the calculations”.
 
Full story
 
See also GWPF News 27 August 2018: Angela Merkel Rejects New Climate Targets
 
2) Climategate Continues: Release Of University Of Arizona Climate Emails Imminent
Watts Up With That, 19 September 2018
Press Release

Nearly seven years ago, on December 7^th, 2011, the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic’s (FME Law) sought public records from the University of Arizona related to the Mann-Bradley-Hughes temperature reconstruction that looks like a hockey stick, and development of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. They refused much of the request and FME Law sued. Now (on September 18^th, 2018) legal counsel for the University informed FME Law that they were done, that they would be withdrawing their appeal of the trial court’s decision, end the case and disclose the records.

Included in the release will be emails that, for example, provide the full context of the discussions between Michael Mann and colleagues and Chick Keller on whether there was a medieval warm period and a little ice age.  Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH) were the authors of the “hockey stick” graph that became the icon of climate alarmism. Dr. Keller was, at the time, Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the Los Alamos National Lab and affiliated with the University of California at San Diego, and wanted to reconcile data which appeared to refute the MBH papers.

Also within this collection will be the full discussion on events surrounding an effort to remove editors of journals willing to publish peer-reviewed papers that contradicted the MBH and related papers on which climate alarmism was built.  This collection of emails is particularly important in that they will provide the full context of Climategate emails that have been described as “cherry picking.” […]

What remains is for the University to hand over the documents they improperly withheld and do so in the manner the Court directed – word searchable and easily readable.  This will not be easy to do.  While Professor Hughes’ emails are in an acceptable form, those of Professor Overpeck are not.  There are over 90,000 pages of Overpeck material yet to be disclosed.  To place this in perspective, the University’s original and voluntary disclosure consisted of 2,438 pages.

Full post
 
3) Old King Coal Is Back As Gas Costs Rise
The Times, 18 September 2018
Emily Gosden

High gas prices have triggered a resurgence in electricity generation from coal as it becomes the cheaper option.

Britain could see its first increase in carbon emissions in six years if coal-fired power plants continue to undercut gas ones, according to Imperial College London.

Coal plants were the biggest source of electricity as recently as 2013 but their share of the energy mix fell precipitously and they supplied less than 7 per cent of UK power last year.

Their demise was driven by environmental legislation, carbon pricing, which penalises polluting coal more than cleaner burning gas, and low gas prices. However, gas prices have risen over recent months after supply disruptions and low storage levels, and are at ten-year highs. That has made coal competitive once more, despite rising European carbon prices.

“It became cheaper to generate power from coal than from gas in late August,” Iain Staffell, a lecturer in sustainable energy at the centre for environmental policy of Imperial College said. “Coal plants are consistently ‘in the money’ at the moment, meaning they can generate power profitably all day and night.”

Full story
 
4) Higher Carbon Price Is Boosting Coal Demand In Europe
Bloomberg, 19 September 2018

If you thought the surging price of fossil-fuel emissions in Europe would hurt coal demand, think again.

The highest prices for carbon credits in a decade have also lifted natural gas, discouraging power stations from making the switch away from coal. As a result, demand remains strong for the dirtiest fossil fuel in the continent that’s doing the most to clean up its economy. Coal prices as a result reached their highest in five years on Tuesday.

Gas futures would need to plunge by more than 20 percent before coal-fired power stations become uneconomic to run, based on current market prices for fuel and electricity, according to Georgi Slavov, head of research at broker Marex Spectron.

“This is highly unlikely” through at least November, Slavov said. “There are no plausible scenarios which support pricing out of coal.”

Front-year coal for delivery in Europe has been poised to push past $100 a ton for the first time in half a decade, lifting the cost of electricity across the continent. It’s already exceeded that level for nearer-term contracts.

Demand for coal in China and India is drawing in cargoes that otherwise would land at plants in Europe from the Netherlands to Germany. The Dutch front-year contract recovered from losses early in the year to rise almost 13 percent, climbing alongside gas and oil.

Gas-fired generators, Chinese importers of liquefied natural gas and storage sites in mainland Europe are all competing for the same shipments, stoking the cleaner fuel’s rally. There simply hasn’t been much spare gas supply to allow switching from coal because of carbon’s surge.

Chinese coal imports hit 29 million tons in July, the highest level since 2014, while the country’s electricity production hit a record 640.02 billion kilowatt-hours.

Global coal imports are set to reach record levels of 1.01 billion tons this year, exceeding 2013’s level, which was just below 1 billion tons, according to Guillaume Perret, founder and director of Perret Associates Ltd., a London-based research company.

Full story
 
5) India Powers Past Poverty, With Coal
GWPF Energy, 18 September 2018
Dr John Constable: GWPF Energy Editor

British and Indian ministers met last week at the “UK-India Energy for Growth Dialogue”. If fossil fuels were discussed at the event, and they must have been for they are of overwhelming significance to India, one would never guess it from the UK government’s official statement. Lack of candour in the face of such realities leaves the UK government looking disengaged from reality and even evasive.

The Indian Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Mr Raj Kumar Singh, has been in London within the last week, and met with his counterpart in the UK government, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Mr Greg Clark.

The occasion was the second “UK-India Energy for Growth Dialogue” (see press release).


Mr Greg Clark, the UK’s Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and Mr Raj Kumar Singh, Indian Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy, London 13 September 2018.

Their discussions apparently focused on “power sector reform and the development of renewable energy”. Mr Singh was also taken to see an offshore wind farm, and renewables figured prominently in the UK government statement:

The ministers endorsed a forward action plan for collaboration, and agreed to develop a proposal for a joint programme on Clean Energy for Growth to support the rapid and sustainable growth of India’s energy sector. In addition to key actions to accelerate energy efficiency, this programme may include elements on renewable energy, power sector reform and elements of green finance.

Doubtless this is all very well meaning and genuinely friendly, but in a conference explicitly designated to discuss “Energy for Growth”, it has the air of polite irrelevance, even of evasion, for as both ministers will have been very well aware, the vast expansion in India’s energy supply is firstly, in no need of support, having more than doubled since 1990, and secondly nothing to do with renewables, since almost all of the growth has come from coal, oil and natural gas, as the following chart drawn from the freely available five yearly data published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) clearly shows:

Total Primary Energy (ktoe) consumption in India, 1990 to 2015 (five year increments). Source:  International Energy Agency.

As for renewables, it is true that the “Biofuel and Waste” category, mostly traditional biomass (the burning of wood and dung for heat), has increased slightly over that time, and still accounts for well over 20% of India’s primary energy, but that is a huge decline in proportional significance from the 1990s when it made up over 40% of India’s total. The modern renewables, wind, solar, geothermal and so on, comprise about 0.6%, and are insignificant to the astonishing societal change currently underway in India and more broadly in Asia overall. – Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution, has called it “the most rapid expansion of the middle class, at a global level, that the world has ever seen”(2017).

The simple truth is that India’s economic growth in the last decades has been and still is being fuelled by growth in the use of fossil fuel. No wonder, then, that Mr Modi’s administration has not joined the British government’s “Powering Past Coal Alliance”. India is far too busy powering past poverty.
 6) Chinese Govt: ‘The Future Is Green Coal’
China Daily, 18 September 2018

China has become the world's largest producer of electricity based on low-carbon coal. The country will continue to promote efficient and environmentally friendly use of coal, in line with the policy to develop clean energy, said a high-ranking Chinese government official.

"China has abundant resources of coal. The several varieties of coal are the main source for energy consumption. Promoting green and efficient coal production and use is equally important as developing new energy," said Liu Baohua, deputy head of the National Energy Administration.

Liu made the remarks at the Taiyuan Energy Low-Carbon Development Forum, which began in the capital city of Shanxi province on Sunday and will end on Tuesday.

In 2017, China's energy industry consumed 4.49 billion metric tons of standard coal, up 2.2-percentage points year-on-year.

Coal consumption accounted for 60.4 percent of total energy sources, down an accumulative 8.1 percentage points in the last five years, according to the NEA.

By the end of 2017, about 658 million kilowatts of installed coal-fired capacity achieved low-carbon emissions, causing less pollution than that of gas-fired power stations, Liu said. Gas-fired power is generally considered a relatively cleaner form of energy.

Wu Lixin, deputy director of the Coal Strategic Planning Research Institute, which is under the China Coal Research Institute, said that over 70 percent of coal-fueled power generation achieved low-carbon emissions as per the Chinese criteria in 2017.

That is the world's strictest, with sulfur dioxide discharged in gas waste less than 30 milligrams per cubic meter and nitrogen oxide less than 50 milligrams per cubic meter.

Total capacity of currently installed coal-fueled electricity generators in China reached 990 million kilowatts in 2017 and topped the global ranks, she said.

"The country is likely to see all coal-fired power generation realize low-carbon emissions by 2020," Wu said.

Full story
 
7) Cuadrilla To Start Fracking In England In Weeks
Reuters, 19 September 2018

LONDON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Shale gas developer Cuadrilla will start fracking at its Preston New Road site in northwest England in the next few weeks, it said on Wednesday as it announced government approval for a second well.



Hydraulically fracturing, or fracking, involves extracting gas from rocks by breaking them up with water and chemicals at high pressure and was halted in Britain seven years ago after causing earth tremors.

But the British government, keen to cut its reliance on imports as North Sea supplies dry up, has tightened regulation of the industry and gave consent in July for Cuadrilla to start fracking a first well at Preston New Road.

After approval for a second well at the site, Cuadrilla said on Wednesday that it would begin work "in readiness to start hydraulically fracturing both wells in the next few weeks."

Cuadrilla said it would run an initial flow test of the gas produced from both wells for approximately six months.

The British Geological Survey estimates shale gas resources in northern England alone could amount to 1,300 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, 10 percent of which could meet the country's demand for almost 40 years.

However, attempts to extract the gas have come under fire from local communities and campaigners concerned about the potential effect on the environment and ground water, and arguing that extracting more fossil fuel is at odds with the country's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

British energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry said consent for the second well had been granted after the company had met a number of criteria, including showing it had the necessary funds to carry out work at the site until at least June 30, 2019.

"Shale gas has the potential to be a new domestic energy source, further enhancing our energy security and helping us with our continued transition to a lower-carbon economy," she said in an emailed statement.

Full story
 
8) Green Tory MPs Plot Rebellion Against Bid To Get Britain Fracking
The Times, 20 September 2018
Ben Webster

Conservative MPs are preparing to rebel against the government over its proposal to allow fracking companies to carry out exploratory drilling without [local] planning permission.

About 20 Conservative MPs are expected to vote against the proposal, which is subject to a public consultation, if ministers decide to try to push it through parliament next year. Labour has pledged to ban fracking and the government has a working majority of only 13.

Cuadrilla is preparing to start the first fracking in the UK since the process of forcing water, sand and chemicals down a well to fracture rock was temporarily banned in 2011 after the company caused minor earthquakes near Blackpool. The government has given Cuadrilla final approval for the fracking of two wells at Preston New Road in Lancashire. Ministers approved the process for the first in July and the second yesterday.

The threatened Tory rebellion will not prevent fracking taking place but might slow down the development of the industry, which has been hampered by local authorities taking more than a year to decide applications for test drilling to check if a site is suitable.

The government published proposals in July to treat test drilling as permitted development, meaning that the companies would no longer need to gain local authority approval. They would still have to seek planning permission for fracking but the government has said that this could be determined by ministers.

Conservative MPs including Lee Rowley, Greg Knight, Mark Menzies, Nick Herbert and Bob Seely raised concerns about the loss of local decision-making in a parliamentary debate on the government’s proposal. Mr Rowley, MP for North East Derbyshire, opposes Ineos’s plans to extract shale gas in his constituency and is helping to lead the Conservative rebellion as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the impact of shale gas.

Full story
 
9) And Finally: Scientists Seek To Subject Us To Socialism
Ivo Vegter, Daily Maverick, 18 September 2018

A tiny and hitherto unknown Finnish research outfit is advising the UN on transforming the global economy. It wants to collectivise the economy, revoke economic freedom, give us guaranteed, state-funded, low-skilled jobs so we don’t go around destroying the environment, and pay for this socialist utopia with magic monopoly money. 

The United Nations is working on its Global Sustainable Development Report for 2019. It will include a chapter entitled Transformation: The Economy. It commissioned five Finnish scientists associated with a small, recently-founded organisation known as the BIOS Research Unit, led by Paavo Järvensivu, to write a background paper for this chapter.

“The era of cheap energy is coming to an end,” they write, based on old peak oil theories that stubbornly refuse to come true, and theories about declining energy return on investment that are contradicted by the global oil price.

Neither electricity not oil prices have shown any indication of an irreversible upward swing. The electricity price (in the US) is lower than it was in the early 1960s and throughout the 1980s. In the last three years, crude oil has traded at its lowest level in 15 years, well below half of its peaks in 1980 and 2008.

Their belief about the end of cheap energy, combined with the fact that “economies have used up the capacity of planetary ecosystems to handle the waste generated by energy and material use”, leads them to declare that existing economic theories are incapable of meeting the needs of the future, and that we need an “economic transition”, away from neoclassical economics and market capitalism.

They wish to replace globalisation with localisation, limit international trade to urgent needs such as food security instead of general free trade, substitute private enterprise with strong government control over the factors of production, and enforce limits on all economic production in line with what they believe the limits on resources, energy and ecosystems to be.

“Economic activity will gain meaning not by achieving economic growth but by rebuilding infrastructure and practices toward a post-fossil fuel world with a radically smaller burden on natural ecosystems,” they fantasise.
“In rich countries, citizens would have less purchasing power than now, but it would be distributed more equally. Citizens in all countries would have access to meaningful jobs and they could trust that a desirable future is being constructed on the collective level.”

So they propose a collectivist, centrally-planned, government-run economy. If their report is included in the UN’s Global Sustainable Development Report, it would betray the UN’s objective to not merely protect a threatened environment, but to achieve a global economic transition to socialism.

Full post

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.