COP26 in trouble as Boris Johnson's government split over new coal mine
In this newsletter:
1) European Union plans to tax developing nations to fund its Green Deal
EurActiv, 25 January 2021
2) Macron demands Biden respect 'EU sovereignty' as bloc panics ahead of climate summit
Daily Express, 25 January 2021
3) COP26 in trouble as Boris Johnson's government split over new coal mine
The Sunday Times, 24 January 2021
4) Net Zero agenda is making new houses unaffordable for ordinary Britons
GWPF & The Guardian, 23 January 2021
5) Europe's welcome gift to Joe Biden: Norway awards oil and gas exploration rights to 30 firms
Reuters, 19 January 2021
6) John Kerry: China’s Net Zero pledge ‘not good enough’
Reuters, 23 January 2021
Reuters, 21 January 2021
9) Germany preparing for electricity rationing to stabilise green power grid
Natural News, 25 January 2021
EurActiv, 25 January 2021
2) Macron demands Biden respect 'EU sovereignty' as bloc panics ahead of climate summit
Daily Express, 25 January 2021
3) COP26 in trouble as Boris Johnson's government split over new coal mine
The Sunday Times, 24 January 2021
4) Net Zero agenda is making new houses unaffordable for ordinary Britons
GWPF & The Guardian, 23 January 2021
5) Europe's welcome gift to Joe Biden: Norway awards oil and gas exploration rights to 30 firms
Reuters, 19 January 2021
6) John Kerry: China’s Net Zero pledge ‘not good enough’
Reuters, 23 January 2021
7) US Republican bill to block Paris climate agreement reignites Senate ratification debate
Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 23 January 2021
8) China’s energy dilemma: between green pledges and blackoutsValerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 23 January 2021
Reuters, 21 January 2021
9) Germany preparing for electricity rationing to stabilise green power grid
Natural News, 25 January 2021
10) And finally: SUVs are conquering the world as car buyers ignore climate message
Scott Carpenter, Forbes, 22 January 2021
Scott Carpenter, Forbes, 22 January 2021
Full details:
1) European Union plans to tax developing nations to fund its Green Deal
EurActiv, 25 January 2021
Revenues from the European Union’s upcoming carbon border charge will be “recycled” to replenish the EU budget and finance the bloc’s green transition, senior officials have said.
EurActiv, 25 January 2021
Revenues from the European Union’s upcoming carbon border charge will be “recycled” to replenish the EU budget and finance the bloc’s green transition, senior officials have said.
However, this won’t be the main goal, they cautioned, saying the new levy must pursue environmental objectives to comply with WTO rules.
The European Commission’s proposal for a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” will be tabled in June, as part of a wider package of laws aimed at cutting the EU’s emissions by 55% below 1990 levels before the end of the decade.
“It’s a matter of survival for our industry,” said Commission climate chief Frans Timmermans during an online debate last week, adding that Europe will impose the levy on non-EU competitors unless they commit to lowering their emissions.
Timmermans said the goal is to avoid the risk of “carbon leakage,” whereby companies relocate manufacturing abroad to countries where pollution costs are lower.
Although there is little evidence of carbon leakage to date, “the risk is real,” said Mauro Petriccione, director general at the Commission’s climate action department.
“And as we strengthen our climate ambition, that risk grows,” the official told an online event organised on 14 January by AFEP, the French association of large companies.
EU sees carbon border levy as 'matter of survival' for industry
The European Union’s proposed carbon border charge is essential to the survival of its own industries and the bloc will impose the levy on non-EU competitors unless they commit to lowering their emissions, the bloc’s climate policy chief said on Monday (18 January).
Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of French oil and gas major Total, said putting a carbon price on imported goods was “a very logical extension of the EU’s carbon price policy” and a necessary step to ensure a level playing field between EU industries and foreign competitors.
“It could be a protective instrument but also a proactive instrument in terms of reducing carbon emissions in other parts of the world,” he told participants at the event.
The stakes are high for Europe’s industry. According to a study by AFEP, the price of CO2 allowances on the EU carbon market are set to reach stratospheric levels in Europe as the EU tightens its climate goals, from around €30 per tonne of CO2 today, to around €40/t by 2030 and above €230/t by 2050.
Without a carbon border adjustment mechanism, EU industries would be beaten by foreign competitors in countries that do not have a similar carbon cost, Pouyanné argued.
Full story
see also - EU’s Carbon Border Taxes and Joe Biden’s Clean Energy plans: A double threat for developing countries
2) Macron demands Biden respect 'EU sovereignty' as bloc panics ahead of climate summit
Daily Express, 25 January 2021
France's's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned the EU should be treated as a sovereign state as the bloc jitters over President Biden's return to the Paris Agreement.
Less than a week after President Joe Biden announced the return of the United States to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, his Special Climate Envoy John Kerry will join China's's Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders at the Climate Adaptation Summit.
Ahead of the meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter Radio that France is not happy with the lessons learned from the Trump administration's era.
He said: “It will no longer be the same as before, because … perhaps indirectly linked to Trump, the EU has gained self-confidence, the EU has grown, the EU came out of its naïveté.
"The Europe that is there now is not the same as it was four years ago.”
He added the EU “could have its own sovereignty".
The anxiety over the possibility powers will shift back between the US and China when it comes to climate geopolitics is palpable among Brussels officials.
One senior EU official told Politico last week: “Kerry will go around [to] everyone, [saying] we will give you money to buy American clean technology.
“Everyone is infatuated with John Kerry now but actually the Europeans should win the Nobel prize."
Full story
3) COP26 in trouble as Boris Johnson's government split over new coal mine
The Sunday Times, 24 January 2021
Boris Johnson’s climate change tsar is “apopletic” with a cabinet minister for approving Britain’s first new deep coalmine in decades.
The European Commission’s proposal for a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” will be tabled in June, as part of a wider package of laws aimed at cutting the EU’s emissions by 55% below 1990 levels before the end of the decade.
“It’s a matter of survival for our industry,” said Commission climate chief Frans Timmermans during an online debate last week, adding that Europe will impose the levy on non-EU competitors unless they commit to lowering their emissions.
Timmermans said the goal is to avoid the risk of “carbon leakage,” whereby companies relocate manufacturing abroad to countries where pollution costs are lower.
Although there is little evidence of carbon leakage to date, “the risk is real,” said Mauro Petriccione, director general at the Commission’s climate action department.
“And as we strengthen our climate ambition, that risk grows,” the official told an online event organised on 14 January by AFEP, the French association of large companies.
EU sees carbon border levy as 'matter of survival' for industry
The European Union’s proposed carbon border charge is essential to the survival of its own industries and the bloc will impose the levy on non-EU competitors unless they commit to lowering their emissions, the bloc’s climate policy chief said on Monday (18 January).
Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of French oil and gas major Total, said putting a carbon price on imported goods was “a very logical extension of the EU’s carbon price policy” and a necessary step to ensure a level playing field between EU industries and foreign competitors.
“It could be a protective instrument but also a proactive instrument in terms of reducing carbon emissions in other parts of the world,” he told participants at the event.
The stakes are high for Europe’s industry. According to a study by AFEP, the price of CO2 allowances on the EU carbon market are set to reach stratospheric levels in Europe as the EU tightens its climate goals, from around €30 per tonne of CO2 today, to around €40/t by 2030 and above €230/t by 2050.
Without a carbon border adjustment mechanism, EU industries would be beaten by foreign competitors in countries that do not have a similar carbon cost, Pouyanné argued.
Full story
see also - EU’s Carbon Border Taxes and Joe Biden’s Clean Energy plans: A double threat for developing countries
2) Macron demands Biden respect 'EU sovereignty' as bloc panics ahead of climate summit
Daily Express, 25 January 2021
France's's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned the EU should be treated as a sovereign state as the bloc jitters over President Biden's return to the Paris Agreement.
Less than a week after President Joe Biden announced the return of the United States to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, his Special Climate Envoy John Kerry will join China's's Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders at the Climate Adaptation Summit.
Ahead of the meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter Radio that France is not happy with the lessons learned from the Trump administration's era.
He said: “It will no longer be the same as before, because … perhaps indirectly linked to Trump, the EU has gained self-confidence, the EU has grown, the EU came out of its naïveté.
"The Europe that is there now is not the same as it was four years ago.”
He added the EU “could have its own sovereignty".
The anxiety over the possibility powers will shift back between the US and China when it comes to climate geopolitics is palpable among Brussels officials.
One senior EU official told Politico last week: “Kerry will go around [to] everyone, [saying] we will give you money to buy American clean technology.
“Everyone is infatuated with John Kerry now but actually the Europeans should win the Nobel prize."
Full story
3) COP26 in trouble as Boris Johnson's government split over new coal mine
The Sunday Times, 24 January 2021
Boris Johnson’s climate change tsar is “apopletic” with a cabinet minister for approving Britain’s first new deep coalmine in decades.
Alok Sharma, who quit as business secretary this month to devote himself full-time to the presidency of the COP26 summit, is said to be furious with Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, for not stopping the mine in Cumbria.
On January 6, Jenrick formally refused to intervene in the £165m Whitehaven project to remove coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea for steel-making. Jenrick, 39, decided not to use his powers to call in the scheme, which would have given him the right to block it, instead telling councillors he was “content” for the decision to be made locally. A government source said Jenrick did not consult Sharma or other ministers on the plan, in line with planning guidance.
Work is likely to begin on the first deep coalmine for 30 years as the government tells other nations to slash carbon emissions. The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 18, said the approval of the mine showed that Britain’s commitment to go carbon neutral by 2050 “basically means nothing”.
The decision could complicate efforts to forge an alliance with Joe Biden’s White House, which has described international action on climate change as a key foreign policy goal.
Full story (£)
4) Net Zero agenda is making new houses unaffordable for ordinary Britons
GWPF & The Guardian, 23 January 2021
As the astronomical cost of Net Zero becomes ever more evident and ordinary Britons begin to realise they can’t afford ‘green houses’ mandated by the Govt, public anger and political backlash are now inevitable.
On January 6, Jenrick formally refused to intervene in the £165m Whitehaven project to remove coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea for steel-making. Jenrick, 39, decided not to use his powers to call in the scheme, which would have given him the right to block it, instead telling councillors he was “content” for the decision to be made locally. A government source said Jenrick did not consult Sharma or other ministers on the plan, in line with planning guidance.
Work is likely to begin on the first deep coalmine for 30 years as the government tells other nations to slash carbon emissions. The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 18, said the approval of the mine showed that Britain’s commitment to go carbon neutral by 2050 “basically means nothing”.
The decision could complicate efforts to forge an alliance with Joe Biden’s White House, which has described international action on climate change as a key foreign policy goal.
Full story (£)
4) Net Zero agenda is making new houses unaffordable for ordinary Britons
GWPF & The Guardian, 23 January 2021
As the astronomical cost of Net Zero becomes ever more evident and ordinary Britons begin to realise they can’t afford ‘green houses’ mandated by the Govt, public anger and political backlash are now inevitable.
Buyers of brand-new homes face £20,000 bill to make them greener
Householders buying brand new homes in the next four years are likely to find an unpleasant surprise awaiting them in the future: homes built today will have to be retrofitted with energy efficiency measures and low-carbon technology, at an average cost of more than £20,000.
The extra costs will amount to more than £20bn for the whole of the UK, if the government’s targets of building 300,000 new homes a year are met. Critics say the costs could have been avoided if ministers had agreed to bring in low-carbon standards sooner.
The government this week set out proposals to change building regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but declined to bring forward its proposed future homes standard from the scheduled 2025 commencement date, disappointing advocates of greener homes.
Building a new house with high energy efficiency standards and a heat pump instead of a gas boiler costs about £4,800 more than building to current standards. However, building to current standards and then retrofitting the house with the same would cost an average of £26,300, or about £21,500 more than installing the technology in the first place, according to an analysis by the Labour party of data from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC)….
All UK homes will need to be brought up to high standards of efficiency and equipped with low-carbon heating in place of gas boilers if the government is to meet its target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Full story
see also GWPF Net Zero cost sheet: The costs of decarbonising housing
5) Europe's welcome gift to Joe Biden: Norway awards oil and gas exploration rights to 30 firms
Reuters, 19 January 2021
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway awarded 61 offshore exploration blocks to 30 oil firms in its latest pre-defined areas (APA) licensing round as it seeks to find more resources close to existing fields, Energy Minister Tina Bru said on Tuesday.
A view of the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, January 7, 2020. Carina Johansen/NTB Scanpix/via REUTERS
Norway, which began to extract oil and gas from its offshore continental shelf 50 years ago, believes it has still only pumped about half of its available resources.
Firms that won stakes in the licences included Equinor, Shell, Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, Total, Lundin Energy and Eni’s Vaar Energi.
“These companies have shown great interest in gaining access to new exploration acreage, illustrating the industry’s confidence in continued profitability from exploration on the Norwegian continental shelf,” Bru said.
“The broad interest shows that companies still believe in the Norwegian continental shelf and in the future profitability of exploration,” said Anniken Hauglie, who heads the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, an industry group.
Sweden’s Lundin received stakes in 19 licences, followed by Equinor with stakes in 17 licences, while Aker BP and DNO each got 10. ConocoPhillips received stakes in four licences, Total in three and Shell in one….
Norway has also invited oil firms to submit applications by Feb. 23 for 136 exploration blocks in frontier areas in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
Last December, the country’s top court dismissed a lawsuit by environmental groups against oil exploration in Arctic waters.
Norway is western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, with a daily output of around 4 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Full story
6) John Kerry: China’s Net Zero pledge ‘not good enough’
Reuters, 23 January 2021
John Kerry, Biden’s special climate envoy, warns a recent Net Zero pledge by China, the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, was “not good enough”.
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s administration next week will release more policies it believes are needed to tackle climate change and is urging China to toughen one of its targets on greenhouse gas emissions, his top climate advisers said on Saturday (Jan 23).
Gina McCarthy, the White House’s national climate adviser, did not say what policies would be released. A memo seen by Reuters on Thursday showed Biden will unveil a second round of executive orders as soon as Jan 27 that include an omnibus order to combat climate change domestically and elevate the issue as a national security priority.
“We’ve already sent signals on the things that we don’t like that we’re going to roll back, but this week you’re going to see us move forward with what’s the vision of the future,” McCarthy told a virtual meeting of the US Conference of Mayors.
Biden, a Democrat who took office on Jan 20, quickly issued executive orders cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline that would import tar sands oil from Canada and rejoining the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Both of those moves reversed former President Donald Trump’s policies. During his four years in office, Trump rolled back about 100 regulations on climate and the environment as he pursued a policy of “energy dominance” to maximise output and exports of oil, gas and coal.
John Kerry, Biden’s special climate envoy, said a recent pledge by China, the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, was “not good enough”. In September, Chinese President Xi Xingping set a goal for his country to become carbon neutral by 2060, 10 years after the 2050 time frame favoured by most countries, while also pledging a more ambitious short-term goal on emissions.
As secretary of state under former President Barack Obama in 2015, Kerry helped bring China to the table at the UN climate conference in Paris. Now, the Biden administration has begun to apply diplomatic pressure on countries to work harder on climate, said Kerry.
Full story
8) China’s energy dilemma: between green pledges and blackouts
Reuters, 21 January 2021
HONG KONG – China’s President Xi Jinping has promised to turn the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels into a carbon-neutral nation by 2060, but that might make it harder to keep the lights on.
Widespread electricity rationing in December stoked fears of another harsh winter for the country’s households. A clunky grid monopoly is the culprit.
Reviving industrial activity and a coal shortage aggravated by bans on Australian imports combined to unbalance power supply and demand in many regions just as the temperature dropped. Some residents in Hunan province, for example, have had to use flashlights and work in unheated offices, local media reported, after the provincial government introduced usage restrictions. Chinese people have become accustomed to occasional shortages of power or gas in winter months, as local governments strain to meet emissions reductions targets. Xi’s new plans may make such brownouts even more frequent.
Wind and solar capacity is supposed to triple from 2019 levels by 2030, but it might not solve the problem. China’s total installed electricity capacity exceeded the annual maximum load of all provinces combined in 2019, yet outages occurred the following year. That’s mostly thanks to China State Grid, a largely unreformed bureaucratic dinosaur from China’s command-economy past.
The operator distributes electricity across 90% of the country, but unlike utilities in market-driven economies, it also dictates prices and volumes to generators and downstream buyers. This system it controls has long been inadequate at getting renewable power from rural hinterlands to cities, despite frenetic investment in ultra-high voltage lines and smart grid technology.
The windswept province of Inner Mongolia has been turning off turbines because the grid cannot absorb them. A group of investors complained to energy authorities in December that public-private projects to expand distribution capacity had been unable to integrate with State Grid’s network and were losing money.
Full post
9) Germany preparing for electricity rationing to stabilise green power grid
Natural News, 25 January 2021
Germany is now looking to ration its electricity supply to stabilize its green power grid. The European country mulled over the measure amid looming blackouts due to its unstable energy supply.
The country’s energy issues have also threatened the stability of the larger European Union grid.
Germany once had one of the most stable and reliable power grids worldwide when the business of power generation was in the hands of engineers and experts. However, the rise of climate alarmism in the 1990s empowered activists and their political allies to push for “green energy.” Fluctuating and intermittent energy supply could be easily managed at a low cost, they insisted.
Their efforts led to the passing of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in 2000. As it turned out, the EEG’s effectivity caused more harm than good to Germany’s power supply. It currently has the highest electricity prices in the world, forcing it to rely more on imports. It has also consistently failed to meet its emissions targets.
Ironically, the German parliament has addressed these issues by relying even more on green energy. It has ordered the closure of the more stable and productive coal and nuclear power plants. Politicians in the country have also passed legislation to limit the amount of power consumed by companies and individuals.
Germany’s economic affairs minister proposes a law limiting power for electric vehicle charging stations
The magazine Tichys Einblick reported that Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier proposed a law permitting “peak smoothing” for energy providers. Altmaier’s peak smoothing law allows utilities to “temporarily cut off charging power for e-cars” when there is insufficient electricity available. Power utilities have demanded laws similar to what the energy minister proposed, given the instability of wind and solar energy sources.
Full story
Householders buying brand new homes in the next four years are likely to find an unpleasant surprise awaiting them in the future: homes built today will have to be retrofitted with energy efficiency measures and low-carbon technology, at an average cost of more than £20,000.
The extra costs will amount to more than £20bn for the whole of the UK, if the government’s targets of building 300,000 new homes a year are met. Critics say the costs could have been avoided if ministers had agreed to bring in low-carbon standards sooner.
The government this week set out proposals to change building regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but declined to bring forward its proposed future homes standard from the scheduled 2025 commencement date, disappointing advocates of greener homes.
Building a new house with high energy efficiency standards and a heat pump instead of a gas boiler costs about £4,800 more than building to current standards. However, building to current standards and then retrofitting the house with the same would cost an average of £26,300, or about £21,500 more than installing the technology in the first place, according to an analysis by the Labour party of data from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC)….
All UK homes will need to be brought up to high standards of efficiency and equipped with low-carbon heating in place of gas boilers if the government is to meet its target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Full story
see also GWPF Net Zero cost sheet: The costs of decarbonising housing
5) Europe's welcome gift to Joe Biden: Norway awards oil and gas exploration rights to 30 firms
Reuters, 19 January 2021
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway awarded 61 offshore exploration blocks to 30 oil firms in its latest pre-defined areas (APA) licensing round as it seeks to find more resources close to existing fields, Energy Minister Tina Bru said on Tuesday.
A view of the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, January 7, 2020. Carina Johansen/NTB Scanpix/via REUTERS
Norway, which began to extract oil and gas from its offshore continental shelf 50 years ago, believes it has still only pumped about half of its available resources.
Firms that won stakes in the licences included Equinor, Shell, Aker BP, ConocoPhillips, Total, Lundin Energy and Eni’s Vaar Energi.
“These companies have shown great interest in gaining access to new exploration acreage, illustrating the industry’s confidence in continued profitability from exploration on the Norwegian continental shelf,” Bru said.
“The broad interest shows that companies still believe in the Norwegian continental shelf and in the future profitability of exploration,” said Anniken Hauglie, who heads the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, an industry group.
Sweden’s Lundin received stakes in 19 licences, followed by Equinor with stakes in 17 licences, while Aker BP and DNO each got 10. ConocoPhillips received stakes in four licences, Total in three and Shell in one….
Norway has also invited oil firms to submit applications by Feb. 23 for 136 exploration blocks in frontier areas in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
Last December, the country’s top court dismissed a lawsuit by environmental groups against oil exploration in Arctic waters.
Norway is western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, with a daily output of around 4 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Full story
6) John Kerry: China’s Net Zero pledge ‘not good enough’
Reuters, 23 January 2021
John Kerry, Biden’s special climate envoy, warns a recent Net Zero pledge by China, the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, was “not good enough”.
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s administration next week will release more policies it believes are needed to tackle climate change and is urging China to toughen one of its targets on greenhouse gas emissions, his top climate advisers said on Saturday (Jan 23).
Gina McCarthy, the White House’s national climate adviser, did not say what policies would be released. A memo seen by Reuters on Thursday showed Biden will unveil a second round of executive orders as soon as Jan 27 that include an omnibus order to combat climate change domestically and elevate the issue as a national security priority.
“We’ve already sent signals on the things that we don’t like that we’re going to roll back, but this week you’re going to see us move forward with what’s the vision of the future,” McCarthy told a virtual meeting of the US Conference of Mayors.
Biden, a Democrat who took office on Jan 20, quickly issued executive orders cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline that would import tar sands oil from Canada and rejoining the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Both of those moves reversed former President Donald Trump’s policies. During his four years in office, Trump rolled back about 100 regulations on climate and the environment as he pursued a policy of “energy dominance” to maximise output and exports of oil, gas and coal.
John Kerry, Biden’s special climate envoy, said a recent pledge by China, the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, was “not good enough”. In September, Chinese President Xi Xingping set a goal for his country to become carbon neutral by 2060, 10 years after the 2050 time frame favoured by most countries, while also pledging a more ambitious short-term goal on emissions.
As secretary of state under former President Barack Obama in 2015, Kerry helped bring China to the table at the UN climate conference in Paris. Now, the Biden administration has begun to apply diplomatic pressure on countries to work harder on climate, said Kerry.
Full story
7) US Republican bill to block Paris climate agreement reignites Senate ratification debate
Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 23 January 2021
Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, has introduced a bill to block the Biden administration from reentering the Paris agreement until it receives Senate confirmation, a nod to the longstanding debate over the accord’s legitimacy.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, introduced legislation Jan. 21, 2021, to require Senate ratification of the Paris climate agreement.
Her bill, which has 11 GOP cosponsors, bars Congress from appropriating funds to implement the international climate accord until it receives Senate ratification, a step that former President Obama skipped when he used his executive authority to enter the agreement in 2016.
“My bill prohibits Congress from spending a single penny on the Paris Agreement until this treaty is ratified by the United States Senate,” said Ms. Boebert in a Thursday press release. “Joe Biden took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. If he wants to keep it, he must transmit the job-killing Paris Agreement to the U.S. Senate for ratification.”
The bill has little chance of passing the Democrat-controlled House, but the legislation has drawn attention to the debate over whether the Paris accord is an executive agreement, as the Obama administration maintained, or a treaty that requires the advice and consent of the Senate under the Constitution.
Mr. Biden, citing “a climate in crisis,” signed an executive order Wednesday to rejoin the Paris agreement after former President Trump set into motion the process to exit the accord via his 2017 executive order. The U.S. withdrawal became official on Nov. 4.
“Unilaterally entering the Paris Agreement was wrong in 2016 and it’s wrong now,” Ms. Boebert said. “Responsible energy production supports more than 230,000 Colorado jobs. The Paris Agreement puts these jobs at risk and will increase energy costs. $4 per gallon gasoline, here we go again!”
Ratifying a treaty requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which Mr. Biden would be unlikely to secure in the 50-50 Senate.
Full story
Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 23 January 2021
Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, has introduced a bill to block the Biden administration from reentering the Paris agreement until it receives Senate confirmation, a nod to the longstanding debate over the accord’s legitimacy.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, introduced legislation Jan. 21, 2021, to require Senate ratification of the Paris climate agreement.
Her bill, which has 11 GOP cosponsors, bars Congress from appropriating funds to implement the international climate accord until it receives Senate ratification, a step that former President Obama skipped when he used his executive authority to enter the agreement in 2016.
“My bill prohibits Congress from spending a single penny on the Paris Agreement until this treaty is ratified by the United States Senate,” said Ms. Boebert in a Thursday press release. “Joe Biden took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. If he wants to keep it, he must transmit the job-killing Paris Agreement to the U.S. Senate for ratification.”
The bill has little chance of passing the Democrat-controlled House, but the legislation has drawn attention to the debate over whether the Paris accord is an executive agreement, as the Obama administration maintained, or a treaty that requires the advice and consent of the Senate under the Constitution.
Mr. Biden, citing “a climate in crisis,” signed an executive order Wednesday to rejoin the Paris agreement after former President Trump set into motion the process to exit the accord via his 2017 executive order. The U.S. withdrawal became official on Nov. 4.
“Unilaterally entering the Paris Agreement was wrong in 2016 and it’s wrong now,” Ms. Boebert said. “Responsible energy production supports more than 230,000 Colorado jobs. The Paris Agreement puts these jobs at risk and will increase energy costs. $4 per gallon gasoline, here we go again!”
Ratifying a treaty requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which Mr. Biden would be unlikely to secure in the 50-50 Senate.
Full story
8) China’s energy dilemma: between green pledges and blackouts
Reuters, 21 January 2021
HONG KONG – China’s President Xi Jinping has promised to turn the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels into a carbon-neutral nation by 2060, but that might make it harder to keep the lights on.
Widespread electricity rationing in December stoked fears of another harsh winter for the country’s households. A clunky grid monopoly is the culprit.
Reviving industrial activity and a coal shortage aggravated by bans on Australian imports combined to unbalance power supply and demand in many regions just as the temperature dropped. Some residents in Hunan province, for example, have had to use flashlights and work in unheated offices, local media reported, after the provincial government introduced usage restrictions. Chinese people have become accustomed to occasional shortages of power or gas in winter months, as local governments strain to meet emissions reductions targets. Xi’s new plans may make such brownouts even more frequent.
Wind and solar capacity is supposed to triple from 2019 levels by 2030, but it might not solve the problem. China’s total installed electricity capacity exceeded the annual maximum load of all provinces combined in 2019, yet outages occurred the following year. That’s mostly thanks to China State Grid, a largely unreformed bureaucratic dinosaur from China’s command-economy past.
The operator distributes electricity across 90% of the country, but unlike utilities in market-driven economies, it also dictates prices and volumes to generators and downstream buyers. This system it controls has long been inadequate at getting renewable power from rural hinterlands to cities, despite frenetic investment in ultra-high voltage lines and smart grid technology.
The windswept province of Inner Mongolia has been turning off turbines because the grid cannot absorb them. A group of investors complained to energy authorities in December that public-private projects to expand distribution capacity had been unable to integrate with State Grid’s network and were losing money.
Full post
9) Germany preparing for electricity rationing to stabilise green power grid
Natural News, 25 January 2021
Germany is now looking to ration its electricity supply to stabilize its green power grid. The European country mulled over the measure amid looming blackouts due to its unstable energy supply.
The country’s energy issues have also threatened the stability of the larger European Union grid.
Germany once had one of the most stable and reliable power grids worldwide when the business of power generation was in the hands of engineers and experts. However, the rise of climate alarmism in the 1990s empowered activists and their political allies to push for “green energy.” Fluctuating and intermittent energy supply could be easily managed at a low cost, they insisted.
Their efforts led to the passing of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in 2000. As it turned out, the EEG’s effectivity caused more harm than good to Germany’s power supply. It currently has the highest electricity prices in the world, forcing it to rely more on imports. It has also consistently failed to meet its emissions targets.
Ironically, the German parliament has addressed these issues by relying even more on green energy. It has ordered the closure of the more stable and productive coal and nuclear power plants. Politicians in the country have also passed legislation to limit the amount of power consumed by companies and individuals.
Germany’s economic affairs minister proposes a law limiting power for electric vehicle charging stations
The magazine Tichys Einblick reported that Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier proposed a law permitting “peak smoothing” for energy providers. Altmaier’s peak smoothing law allows utilities to “temporarily cut off charging power for e-cars” when there is insufficient electricity available. Power utilities have demanded laws similar to what the energy minister proposed, given the instability of wind and solar energy sources.
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10) And finally: SUVs are conquering the world as car buyers ignore climate message
Scott Carpenter, Forbes, 22 January 2021
SUVs are conquering the world. That’s a problem for efforts to reign in emissions from the global transportation sector, which accounts for roughly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Scott Carpenter, Forbes, 22 January 2021
SUVs are conquering the world. That’s a problem for efforts to reign in emissions from the global transportation sector, which accounts for roughly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
For the first time ever in the U.S. last year, sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) likely accounted for half or just over half of all vehicles sold, according to recent data from IHS Markit, a data and analytics firm. Others are rapidly catching up. Between 2010 and 2019, the share of SUVs in overall car sales in China jumped from 14% to 44%. In Europe the SUV share climbed from 10% to 36%.
The SUV’s popularity is effectively negating the annual fuel efficiency gains from better technology and tightening fuel economy standards. The average fuel efficiency increases of light-duty vehicles per year has slowed to only around 1.3% in recent years — down from the roughly 2% per year in the handful of years prior, and well below the roughly 3% needed merely to keep total global emissions from cars from rising.
“Consumer demand for larger vehicles has risen significantly,” says a report released last year by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), a partnership between the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and others. This “has led to a slackening – or in some cases even reversal – of national rates of fuel consumption improvements.” […]
SUVs are also harder to electrify than sedans and other passenger cars, presenting another challenge to reigning in auto sector emissions. Their larger bodies and powertrains require bigger batteries capable of pumping out more electricity.
Of the roughly 27.5 million SUVs sold around the world last year, only 1.8% were pure electric (excluding hybrids), said Felipe Munoz, a senior analyst at JATO Dynamics, an auto data provider, in an email. “Bear in mind that most of the current SUV offers do not feature pure electric versions, and the very few are quite expensive.”
If they offer any electric SUVs, major automakers so far offer only about one apiece, a minuscule number compared to the array of traditional SUVs on offer.
Full post
The SUV’s popularity is effectively negating the annual fuel efficiency gains from better technology and tightening fuel economy standards. The average fuel efficiency increases of light-duty vehicles per year has slowed to only around 1.3% in recent years — down from the roughly 2% per year in the handful of years prior, and well below the roughly 3% needed merely to keep total global emissions from cars from rising.
“Consumer demand for larger vehicles has risen significantly,” says a report released last year by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), a partnership between the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and others. This “has led to a slackening – or in some cases even reversal – of national rates of fuel consumption improvements.” […]
SUVs are also harder to electrify than sedans and other passenger cars, presenting another challenge to reigning in auto sector emissions. Their larger bodies and powertrains require bigger batteries capable of pumping out more electricity.
Of the roughly 27.5 million SUVs sold around the world last year, only 1.8% were pure electric (excluding hybrids), said Felipe Munoz, a senior analyst at JATO Dynamics, an auto data provider, in an email. “Bear in mind that most of the current SUV offers do not feature pure electric versions, and the very few are quite expensive.”
If they offer any electric SUVs, major automakers so far offer only about one apiece, a minuscule number compared to the array of traditional SUVs on offer.
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.
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