GWPF Newsletter: European 'green recovery' falters as car sales continue to tumble

 

EU issues green energy warning

In this newsletter:

1) European 'green recovery' falters as car sales continue to tumble
Nasdaq, 24 November 2020
 
2) EU transport chief issues green energy warning
Financial Times, 24 November 2020 

 
3) Hungary and Poland threaten to split ‘woke’ EU over budget
The Times, 19 November 2020
 
4) Fearing break-up, Facebook plans to woo Joe Biden with new vaccine and climate change PR

Financial Times, 23 November 2020

5) Biden puts White House on climate war footing
Foreign Policy, 24 November 2020
  

6) Beware green appeasement: John Kerry & China’s price for climate promises
Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 24 November 2020 

 

7) Joel Kotkin: The Green End Game 
Real Clear Energy, 18 November 2020
 

8) And finally: Some Amazon rainforest regions more resistant to climate change than previously thought
University of Columbia, 20 November 2020

 

Full details:

1) European 'green recovery' falters as car sales continue to tumble
Nasdaq, 24 November 2020
 
Passenger car registrations in EU during the ten months ended October 2020 dipped around 27% year over year to 8 million units. This marked the worst decline, outpacing the slump during the 2009 financial crisis. 

The auto market in Europe is in murky waters. Production and sales of vehicles in Europe had already taken a hit amid economic slowdown, challenges associated with electric vehicle rollout and detrimental effects of the U.S.-Sino trade tiff.
 
The coronavirus outbreak further compounded the woes. European car registrations fell from January to August 2020 amid the pandemic-led sluggish demand, followed by a surprising one-month reprieve in September. However, the rebound failed to sustain amid another wave of coronavirus. Sales for October regressed as a result of reimposition of restrictions in many countries amid rising coronavirus cases.

Per European Automobile Manufacturers Association, passenger car sales in Europe again slipped into the negative territory in October, reversing the first increase this year in September. Registration of new cars in the European Union (EU) totaled 953,615 units in October, down 7.8% year over year.

Demand of vehicles declined across all the four major markets in Europe last month. While car sales plummeted 21% year over year in Spain, France witnessed a drop of 9.5% in new passenger car registrations. Sales in Germany and Italy slid 3.6% and 0.2%, respectively, on a year-over-year basis. In fact, sales declined across all EU markets expect Romania and Ireland.
 
Full story 
 
2) EU transport chief issues green energy warning
 Financial Times, 24 November 2020
 
Europe’s transport commissioner has warned that the EU does not have sufficient clean energy sources to support a direct transition to pure electric vehicles, as she defended interim technologies such as plug-in hybrid cars. 

Speaking at the FT’s Future of Mobility event on Tuesday, Adina Valean said that hybrids were “a very good solution for the moment, because we don’t have enough infrastructure, and we do not have enough clean electricity for zero emission vehicles, and we need to decarbonise fast”.

Plug-in hybrids, which combine a combustion engine with a small battery and tend to offer somewhere between 50km to 90km of emissions-free driving, have become a crucial part of many premium carmakers’ strategy to achieve fleet-wide CO2 reduction targets that were introduced by Brussels this year.

More than half a million plug-in hybrids are likely to be sold across Europe in 2020, thanks in part to generous purchase subsidies and tax breaks in many member states.
 
Full story (£)
 
3) Hungary and Poland threaten to split ‘woke’ EU over budget
The Times, 19 November 2020
 
Hungary and Poland are accusing “woke” western Europe of using EU funds to impose a liberal agenda on socially conservative governments as a new schism emerges within the bloc.

Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister, with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban
 
A video summit of EU leaders today will be dominated by a confrontation over the Brussels budget, underlining a deep cultural split between nationalist governments in central and eastern Europe and western member states.

The row follows Hungary and Poland’s vetoing of the EU’s €1.1 trillion 2021-2027 budget and a €750 billion pandemic recovery fund, over a clause that makes access to funding conditional on respecting the rule of law.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, even raised the previously taboo possibility of restarting the bloc without Hungary and Poland. In a recent parliamentary debate he asked Dutch MPs: “Can you found an EU without Hungary and Poland?” It stoked fears among eastern European countries that an inner core of nations would try to force them out.

Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has accused some countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, of turning longstanding “rule of law” debates into a political and ideological weapon.
 
Full story (£)
 

4) Fearing break-up, Facebook plans to woo Joe Biden with new vaccine and climate change PR
Financial Times, 23 November 2020

Facebook is plotting a charm offensive to repair ties with the incoming Biden administration, as it looks to stave off the threat of being more heavily regulated or even broken up during the president-elect’s term in office.

Company executives are planning a major push to encourage users to take a coronavirus vaccine, as well as incentivising people to share content related to the Paris climate agreement, which Joe Biden has promised to rejoin, in the hopes of winning favour in Washington.

The social media company has long been a source of anger among senior Democrats, many of whom blame it for not doing enough to combat misinformation.

In the days after this month’s election, Bill Russo, Mr Biden’s deputy communications director, posted a series of tweets attacking the company, saying: “If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.”

Facebook hopes that Nick Clegg, the company’s vice-president of global affairs, will help mend relations. The former British deputy prime minister struck up a rapport with Mr Biden when both were in office nearly a decade ago.

The next few years are likely to prove one of the most important periods in Facebook’s history, and could even determine whether it will survive in its current form. The company is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys-general for violating competition laws, and could face being broken up.

Full story ($)
 
5) Biden puts White House on climate war footing
Foreign Policy, 24 November 2020
 
Kerry’s return signals coming war on climate change 

         

Biden’s technocratic choices for his cabinet have raised eyebrows for their relatively low profiles, but one appointment still retains some big name appeal. John Kerry, last seen in government as the U.S. secretary of state who helped usher in the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accords, will soon be back at the White House.

As special presidential envoy for climate, Kerry will take up a post on the White House National Security Council, a move meant to signal how seriously the Biden administration will take the crisis of climate change while also sparing Kerry any Senate confirmation battle.

Kerry is unlikely to be the final Biden choice with a climate change remit outside of their traditional role. Janet Yellen, reported to be Biden’s pick for Treasury secretary, has endorsed a carbon tax as a means to cut greenhouse gas emissions. [...]
 
What to expect. In a Dec. 2019 interview with Emily Atkin of the climate newsletter Heated, John Kerry spoke about the launch of the climate initiative World War Zero, (so called, in Kerry’s words, because “we’ve got to treat this like a war”) which gives some insight into his possible big-tent approach.

“We’ve got to start by saying the basic overall plan we can all agree on is we’ve got to get to net zero, low carbon, no carbon economy by 2045, 2050, or earlier,” Kerry said. “The ‘or earlier’ is very important to that discussion, because with the right leadership, we can do this earlier. We could make that happen.”
 
“But right now, no country in the world is getting the job done. The United States’ emissions are going up this year. Europe’s going up this year. Russia’s going up. China’s going up. And that’s completely, totally unacceptable. We have every reason to be upset about it.”
 
Full story 
 

6) Beware green appeasement: John Kerry & China’s price for climate promises
Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 24 November 2020

‘Chinese leaders will be only too happy to make future promises on climate in return for American acquiescence today to their security priorities of Taiwan, the South China Sea and Huawei.’
 
 
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in this September 2016 file photo. Photo: AFP

Joe Biden is wasting no time selecting his governing team, and the initial choices for national security posts that he announced on Monday are heavy with Obama Administration veterans. This means they’ll know how to run a government, though we hope he plans better than a restoration of the status quo pre-Donald Trump.

Mr. Biden’s choices of Antony Blinken to run the State Department and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser will reassure world leaders discomfited by Mr. Trump’s disruption. Mr. Blinken has worked with Mr. Biden for years, which will give him significant policy influence. Mr. Sullivan worked with Hillary Clinton at the State Department and would have had a major job had she won the Presidency.
 
Both are mainstream liberal internationalists who believe in working on behalf of U.S. interests through multilateral institutions. They favor U.S. leadership as long as it is channeled through the United Nations, NATO and traditional alliances. To borrow a phrase from the Obama era, they favor leading from behind. They’re also enamored with arms control, and Mr. Sullivan criticized Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the 1987 nuclear arms treaty with Russia despite blatant Kremlin cheating. […]
 
The big disappointment is John Kerry as a cabinet-level special envoy for climate. As a negotiator, Mr. Kerry never drives a hard bargain, as his Iran nuclear deal showed. His cabinet status suggests that climate will be a special negotiating priority rather than one issue among many in foreign policy. Why can’t Mr. Blinken handle it?
 
Perhaps this is meant to be diplomatic theater to appease the climate left. But it is a bad signal if Mr. Biden considers climate to be a leading national security issue. The fracking-led boom in U.S. oil and gas production has enhanced American security in multiple ways.
 
It has made the U.S. less dependent on foreign producers and the U.S. economy less hostage to the vagaries of the world oil market. The fall in oil prices, thanks in part to U.S. production, has reduced the clout of dictators in oil-producing countries like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. U.S. natural gas sales also enhance America’s exports and economic influence.
 
Mr. Biden has pledged to return the U.S. to the Paris climate accord, which would be a boon to China. Under that agreement the People’s Republic doesn’t have to reduce carbon emissions at all until 2030, while the U.S. will have to impose vast new rules to cut emissions.
 
Chinese leaders will be only too happy to make future promises on climate in return for American acquiescence today to their security priorities of Taiwan, the South China Sea and Huawei. Sending Mr. Kerry to negotiate with Chinese President Xi Jinping on climate is a recipe for returning home dressed in a barrel. An obsession with climate will turn a U.S. security strength into a vulnerability.

Full op-ed ($)

 

7) Joel Kotkin: The Green End Game 
Real Clear Energy, 18 November 2020
 
With the election of Joe Biden, the environmental movement has now established suzerainty over global economics. Gone not only is the troublesome Donald Trump but also the Canadian skeptic Steven Harper. Outside of those dismissed as far right, there is virtually no serious debate about how to address climate change in the U.S. or Western Europe outside the parameters suggested by mainstream green groups.

In reality, though, few electorates anywhere are ready for extreme policies such as the Green New Deal, which, as its widely acknowledged architect, Saikat Chakrabarti, has acknowledged, is really a redder, more openly anti-capitalist version of the Great Depression-era original.

Yet getting hysterical about the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a waste of emotional energy. The real power of the environmental movement derives from those who occupy “the commanding heights” of our society – at the corporate, media, and academic realms. Though arguably not holding views as economically ludicrous as AOC’s, mainstream corporate greens are far more likely to successfully impose their version of environmental justice on the rest of us.
 
A finer shade of green
 
The modern environmental movement was launched from the top of the economic food chain. The Rockefeller Brothers, for example, funded some of the earliest environmental work, notably on population control. Today, these depositories of old money built on fossil fuels, including not just the Rockefellers but also the Fords, have become leading advocates of radical climate policies.

In 1972, the influential book Limits to Growth was published with backing from major corporate interests, led by Aurelio Peccei of Fiat. The book’s authors suggested that the earth was running out of natural resources at a rapid pace and called for establishing “global equilibrium” through restrictions on growth and “a carefully controlled balance” of population and capital. These conclusions, mostly accepted in top media, academic, and political circles, turned out to be almost comically off target, as production of food, energy, and raw materials accompanied not the predicted mass starvation but arguably the greatest rise of global living standards in history.

Yet despite this record, a growing and powerful faction of the corporate aristocracy still embraces the ideals of the Club of Rome, seeking to cut human consumption and limit economic progress. Like religious prelates in the Middle Ages, today’s environmentalists – who  The  Nation’s Alexander Cockburn has aptly named “greenhouse fearmongers” – see no contradiction between imposing austerity on the masses and excusing the excesses of their ultra-rich supporters. Like sinful aristocrats and merchant princes in medieval times, our “green rich” can even buy a modern version of indulgences through carbon credits and other virtue-signaling devices.
 
This allows them to save the planet in style. In 2019, an estimated 1,500 GHG-spewing private jets were flown to Davos carrying attendees to a conference to discuss the environmental crisis. Few high-profile climate activists, including celebrities, seem willing to give up their multiple houses, yachts, or plethora of cars.

The de-growth solution
 
These worthies likely don’t share the notion advanced by Barry Commoner, a founding father of modern environmentalism, that “capitalism is the earth’s number one enemy.” Today’s green elites have no interest in breaking up tech oligarchies, limiting Wall Street’s financial power, or lessening the burdens of green policies on the poor and working class. Nor are they likely, at least for now, to embrace such things now bandied about by extreme green academics and activists, such as considering an insect diet, restricting meat, curbing procreation, or even advocating total human extinction.

Rather, many elites have embraced the concept of “degrowth,” which foresees less economic expansion, a declining population, and a radical end to upward mobility. One set of proposals from the IPCC endorses this notion and openly rejects “a capital-oriented culture“ seeing a more centralized approach as critical to saving the planet.” The World Economic Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab, the lord of Davos, for example, envisions the rise of a new business class motivated by “virtuous instincts” that include such things as eliminating fossil fuels. This woke corporate mindset is sold as a form of “stakeholder capitalism,” while following the progressive cultural agenda on gender and race as well.

Though couched in laudable intentions, this agenda also is remarkably self-serving. The British Marxist historian James Heartfield suggests that “Green capitalism” provides a perfect opportunity to maximize return on artificially scarcer resources, like land and agricultural products, notably through mandates and tax breaks for renewable energy. The green economy has already spawned its first mega-billionaire, Elon Musk, whose core businesses benefited enormously on regulatory and tax policies that favor his products. In the future, expect other, less innovative oligarchs happy to take advantage of centrally imposed scarcity, making money under the pretext of “human survival.” [...]
 
Full essay
 

8) And finally: Some Amazon rainforest regions more resistant to climate change than previously thought
University of Columbia, 20 November 2020
 
New observational study demonstrates that increasing air dryness does not reduce photosynthesis in certain very wet regions of the Amazon rainforest, contradicting Earth System Models that show the opposite.
 
New York, NY—November 20, 2020—Forests can help mitigate climate change, by taking in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and storing it in their biomass (tree trunks, roots, etc.). In fact, forests currently take in around 25-30% of our human-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
 
Certain rainforest regions, such as the Amazon, store more carbon in their biomass than any other ecosystem or forest but when forests become water-stressed (not enough water in the soil, and/or air is extremely dry), forests will slow down or stop photosynthesis. This leaves more CO2 in the atmosphere, and can also lead to tree mortality.
 
The current Earth system models used for climate predictions show that the Amazon rainforest is very sensitive to water stress. Since the air in the future is predicted to get warmer and drier with climate change, translating to increased water stress, this could have large implications not just for the forest’s survival, but also for its storage of CO2. If the forest is not able to survive in its current capacity, climate change could greatly accelerate.
 
Columbia Engineering researchers decided to investigate whether this was true, whether these forests are really as sensitive to water stress as what the models have been showing. In a study published today in Science Advances, they report their discovery that these models have been largely over-estimating water stress in tropical forests.
 
Full post & details

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.