Jersey faces blackouts as France threatens to cut off electricity
In this newsletter:
1) UK manufacturers call for petrol and diesel car ban to be delayed
Daily Express, 5 May 2021
2) Jersey faces blackouts as France threatens to cut off electricity
GWPF Energy, 5 May 2021
3) UK Environment ministry has no plan to meet Net Zero target
The Times, 5 May 2021
4) MI6 goes green: Agent 007, meet Inspector Clouseau
Climate Discussion Nexus, 5 May 2021
5) High metal prices could delay energy transition, says IEA
Financial Times, 5 May 2021
6) Senator John Barrasso: China's goal is domination, not cooperation. It's playing Biden and America for fools.
USA Today, 1 May 2021
7) Harry Wilkinson: A climate apocalypse now? Er, well, not really
The Conservative Woman, 5 May 2021
The Times, 5 May 2021
4) MI6 goes green: Agent 007, meet Inspector Clouseau
Climate Discussion Nexus, 5 May 2021
5) High metal prices could delay energy transition, says IEA
Financial Times, 5 May 2021
6) Senator John Barrasso: China's goal is domination, not cooperation. It's playing Biden and America for fools.
USA Today, 1 May 2021
7) Harry Wilkinson: A climate apocalypse now? Er, well, not really
The Conservative Woman, 5 May 2021
8) And finally: A realistic global energy review, for a change
JP Morgan, May 2021
Full details:
1) UK manufacturers call for petrol and diesel car ban to be delayed
Daily Express, 5 May 2021
Plans for a petrol and diesel car ban to be introduced by the end of the decade have taken a major setback as car manufacturers call for the scheme to be pushed back by five years.
Daily Express, 5 May 2021
Plans for a petrol and diesel car ban to be introduced by the end of the decade have taken a major setback as car manufacturers call for the scheme to be pushed back by five years.
The new boss of Vauxhall has warned that its car production plant in the UK is at risk from the government’s Net Zero plan to ban the sale of petrol cars by 2030.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has revealed car makers told him 2035 would be a more “realistic” target for the implementation of the ban. According to Mr Shapps, manufacturers said an extended deadline worth extra financial support would help further “drive the acceleration of zero-emission vehicles”.
Firms hope “price parity” between electric models and traditional petrol cars can be achieved by this date, which would convince drivers to switch en masse.
The comments are understood to have come at a meeting with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) back in March.
Mr Shapps said: “Many of the manufacturers felt the DfT needed to set an end date for sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines, with many suggesting a realistic phase-out date could be 2035.
“Combined with incentives and tax support, they thought that such a deadline would help drive the acceleration of zero-emission vehicles until the time when price parity is achieved with petrol models.”
Manufacturers have made clear to the DfT the need for investment in more charging infrastructure.
The development of batteries was also highlighted as a must for a thriving electric car market.
The Department for Transport has now invited car manicures to present their plans to phase out petrol and diesel models.
Full story
see also: The Battery Car Delusion (pdf)
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has revealed car makers told him 2035 would be a more “realistic” target for the implementation of the ban. According to Mr Shapps, manufacturers said an extended deadline worth extra financial support would help further “drive the acceleration of zero-emission vehicles”.
Firms hope “price parity” between electric models and traditional petrol cars can be achieved by this date, which would convince drivers to switch en masse.
The comments are understood to have come at a meeting with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) back in March.
Mr Shapps said: “Many of the manufacturers felt the DfT needed to set an end date for sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines, with many suggesting a realistic phase-out date could be 2035.
“Combined with incentives and tax support, they thought that such a deadline would help drive the acceleration of zero-emission vehicles until the time when price parity is achieved with petrol models.”
Manufacturers have made clear to the DfT the need for investment in more charging infrastructure.
The development of batteries was also highlighted as a must for a thriving electric car market.
The Department for Transport has now invited car manicures to present their plans to phase out petrol and diesel models.
Full story
see also: The Battery Car Delusion (pdf)
2) Jersey faces blackouts as France threatens to cut off electricity
GWPF Energy, 5 May 2021
France is threatening to cut off Jersey’s electricity supply in a row over access to fishing waters. President Macron’s blackmail and the risk of devastating blackouts are real since the island has taken the foolish decision to prioritise decarbonisation over energy security, abandoning most of its on-Island electricity generation to imported nuclear and hydro-electricity from France.
Around 95% of the island’s electricity is imported from France (of which 65% is nuclear and 35% is hydro) through three undersea supply cables (see map below). These imports have enabled the island to completely de-carbonise it electricity supply, becoming entirely dependent on the shenanigans of French politicians.
France’s new energy threat is a continuation of President Macron’s nationalistic strategy to punish Britons for their democratic vote to exit the European Union. During the Brexit negotiations last year, Macron had already started to use France’s energy weapon by threatening to embargo British imports of French nuclear-generated electricity unless Britain ceded fishing rights in British territorial waters. He is now wielding his energy weapon in an attempt to score points at home and blackmail the UK.
GWPF Energy, 5 May 2021
France is threatening to cut off Jersey’s electricity supply in a row over access to fishing waters. President Macron’s blackmail and the risk of devastating blackouts are real since the island has taken the foolish decision to prioritise decarbonisation over energy security, abandoning most of its on-Island electricity generation to imported nuclear and hydro-electricity from France.
Around 95% of the island’s electricity is imported from France (of which 65% is nuclear and 35% is hydro) through three undersea supply cables (see map below). These imports have enabled the island to completely de-carbonise it electricity supply, becoming entirely dependent on the shenanigans of French politicians.
France’s new energy threat is a continuation of President Macron’s nationalistic strategy to punish Britons for their democratic vote to exit the European Union. During the Brexit negotiations last year, Macron had already started to use France’s energy weapon by threatening to embargo British imports of French nuclear-generated electricity unless Britain ceded fishing rights in British territorial waters. He is now wielding his energy weapon in an attempt to score points at home and blackmail the UK.
France threatened to cut off Jersey’s electricity supplies on Tuesday as the row over post-Brexit fishing rights between Paris and London deepened.
Jersey faces blackout as fishing row with France escalates.
“We are ready to use these retaliation measures,” Annick Girardin, the maritime minister, told lawmakers in the French parliament. “I am sorry it has come to this. We will do so if we have to.”
Ms Giradin mentioned the underwater cables that supply Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, with about 95 percent of its electricity and suggested they could be shut down. The remaining five per cent of its electricity is provided by on-island diesel generators.
The self-governing British Crown Dependency would face all-island power cuts if the French threat was carried out. There were three island-wide power cuts in six years until a new £40 million pound, 16.7-mile cable was laid between Jersey and France in 2016.
On Friday, the UK authorised 41 ships to fish in waters off Jersey. The French fisheries ministry said this was accompanied by new demands “which were not arranged or discussed, and which we were not notified about”.
The new measures set out “where the ships can go and cannot go”, as well as the number of days the fishermen can spend at sea and using what machinery, the ministry claimed.
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” Ms Girardin said. “If we accept this for Jersey, it would imperil our access everywhere.”
David Jones, the deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory MPs, told The Telegraph: “This is straightforward demanding money with menaces, which is not the way a 21st century democratic country behaves. The simple fact is this is bullying in order to get the UK to back down on fishing.”
Full story
8) And finally: A realistic global energy review, for a change
JP Morgan, May 2021
Jersey faces blackout as fishing row with France escalates.
“We are ready to use these retaliation measures,” Annick Girardin, the maritime minister, told lawmakers in the French parliament. “I am sorry it has come to this. We will do so if we have to.”
Ms Giradin mentioned the underwater cables that supply Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, with about 95 percent of its electricity and suggested they could be shut down. The remaining five per cent of its electricity is provided by on-island diesel generators.
The self-governing British Crown Dependency would face all-island power cuts if the French threat was carried out. There were three island-wide power cuts in six years until a new £40 million pound, 16.7-mile cable was laid between Jersey and France in 2016.
On Friday, the UK authorised 41 ships to fish in waters off Jersey. The French fisheries ministry said this was accompanied by new demands “which were not arranged or discussed, and which we were not notified about”.
The new measures set out “where the ships can go and cannot go”, as well as the number of days the fishermen can spend at sea and using what machinery, the ministry claimed.
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” Ms Girardin said. “If we accept this for Jersey, it would imperil our access everywhere.”
David Jones, the deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory MPs, told The Telegraph: “This is straightforward demanding money with menaces, which is not the way a 21st century democratic country behaves. The simple fact is this is bullying in order to get the UK to back down on fishing.”
Full story
3) UK Environment ministry has no plan to meet Net Zero target
The Times, 5 May 2021
The environment secretary George Eustice is under pressure from Downing Street after a leaked memo revealed that his department still had no plan to meet its carbon emissions targets.
All ministers have been told by Boris Johnson to develop workable strategies to cut emissions in their sectors as part of his roadmap to net zero by 2050.
However, an internal memo revealed that, despite being responsible for a tenth of the total UK emissions, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had yet to agree policies that can deliver this.
Eustice is also facing criticism from environmental groups who believe he is watering down commitments made by Michael Gove to use Brexit to reform farming and combat climate change.
Some see Eustice as too close to the farming lobby and say he has not done enough to capitalise on the freedoms of Brexit to change incentives for farmers.
The memo, seen by The Times, reveals Defra officials are concerned that at present ministers have no agreed plan to meet the reductions in carbon emissions over the next 30 years that have been set by the Climate Change Act.
“Defra is currently not on track to deliver against its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for CB [carbon budget] 4, 5, 6 and does not have an agreed policy pipeline that allows us to meet them,” it states.
Full story (£)
4) MI6 goes green: Agent 007, meet Inspector Clouseau
Climate Discussion Nexus, 5 May 2021
Britain’s spy agency has announced that it’s making monitoring China’s compliance with its Paris commitments a top priority. Agent 007, meet Inspector Clouseau. Because China has no Paris commitments worth monitoring.
The IPCC may call The Paris Agreement “a legally binding international treaty on climate change” (and fuel paranoia by declaring that “Implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation, based on the best available science”). But the actual text merely commits participants to “undertake and communicate ambitious efforts as defined in Articles 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 13 with the view to achieving the purpose of this Agreement as set out in Article 2.”
And behind that gooblahoy lurks, in Article 4, “Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts, and are encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances.” So “C” and his MI6 will be monitoring China’s progress toward moving toward doing some vague thing later. At least the work shouldn’t be dangerous… unlike the delusion that spy agencies should focus on empty words from tyrants rather than cyberwar, intellectual property theft and subversion.
Hard-bitten investigative journalists also missed China’s lack of commitment, evidently. According to that Telegraph story “Richard Moore, head of the UK’s foreign intelligence service, described climate change as the ‘foremost international foreign policy item for this country and for the planet’. It means the big industrial countries will be monitored by MI6 to ensure they are upholding their commitments to combating rising global temperatures. Mr Moore, known as ‘C’, took charge of the intelligence agency in October and has become the first head of the service to ever give a broadcast interview. He indicated that British spies will make China the focus of much of their climate-related espionage by pointing out that Beijing is ‘certainly the largest emitter’ of carbon. ‘Our job is to shine a light in places where people might not want it shone and so clearly we are going to support what is the foremost international foreign policy agenda item for this country and for the planet, which is around the climate emergency, and of course we have a role in that space,’ he told Times Radio. ‘Where people sign up to commitments on climate change, it is perhaps our job to make sure that what they are really doing reflects what they have signed up to.’”
Or not. A better use of MI6’s time would be tracking China’s support for environmental activists who are convincing the west to hobble itself in the name of fighting climate change while China marches on towards its 2050 ambitions. Now that would be shining a light in places where people might not want it shone.
5) High metal prices could delay energy transition, says IEA
Financial Times, 5 May 2021
The International Energy Agency has warned that high mineral prices could delay a transition to clean energy owing to the amount of metals needed for batteries, solar panels and wind turbines.
Reaching the goals of the Paris climate agreement would result in a quadrupling of mineral demand by 2040, the IEA said. Yet a lack of investment in new mines risks substantially raising the costs of clean energy technologies, it said in a report published on Wednesday.
“Meeting the climate goals will turbocharge demand for critical minerals,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, told the Financial Times. “It [the energy transition] could definitely slow down as a result of increasing costs.”
Prices for commodities — from lithium to cobalt — have rallied this year as demand for clean energy technologies has increased and governments have rolled out green stimulus packages. Sales of electric cars rose by 41 per cent last year, according to the IEA, with about 3m sold globally.
“To have enough electric cars, wind turbines, hydrogen, solar, batteries — for these we need critical minerals at affordable prices otherwise it will be a formidable barrier to reach our climate goals,” Birol said.
The group of raw materials used in batteries are expected to garner the biggest surge in demand, the report said. Demand for lithium is set to grow by more than 40 times if countries want to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, it said.
Full story
6) Senator John Barrasso: China's goal is domination, not cooperation. It's playing Biden and America for fools.
USA Today, 1 May 2021
China pretends it’s a developing country, steals technology, uses forced labor and manipulates markets to its advantage. It's a grand deception.
China has a well-deserved reputation for deceit.
That’s what makes a recent statement from China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng so remarkable: It is honest. He said it’s “not realistic” to expect China to make a new pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
There’s every reason to believe him, but the Biden administration is ignoring reality.
President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, has embarked on a quixotic diplomatic quest to get China to cooperate with the United States and do something meaningful to combat climate change.
China might say there’s a climate crisis in a non-binding joint statement with the United States, but its real goal is to become the world’s dominant power — a dangerous prospect for the United States and China’s neighbors.
One reason China gets away with this is because it has made the most of its “developing” country status in the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under this treaty, developing countries have far fewer responsibilities.
China is far from a 'developing' nation
The Framework Convention was signed in 1992, a time when China really was a developing country. Since then, its economy has grown more than 1,000% and its emissions more than 250%. It’s now the world’s second largest economy and largest emitter — twice as large as the United States.
Despite this, in an April 16 video meeting with Mr. Kerry, Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng argued that as the largest developing and developed countries, China and the United States should observe their “common but differentiated responsibilities.” A polite way of saying, “You first.”
The Paris Agreement Mr. Kerry negotiated in 2015 did nothing to get rid of this developed-developing country divide. It perpetuated it instead. China could volunteer to be included among the developed nations, but that would mean giving up its strategic advantage. It won’t do that, so instead we have a commitment from China that allows it to emit with abandon until at least 2030.
Meanwhile, China is perfectly willing to exploit Western climate change concerns for its own ends. Fueled by subsidies, the Chinese solar industry has cornered the global market. They have stifled innovation and caused many cutting-edge companies in America and Europe to call it quits. China now supplies more than two-thirds of all solar modules. Chinese companies also make up seven of the top 10 wind turbine manufacturers.
Key parts of Chinese solar panels are manufactured in Xinjiang province, where the Muslim Uyghur minority is used as forced labor. Though the Chinese government denies this, it has not permitted independent inspectors access to the manufacturing facilities. A big red flag for an entire green industry.
Where it can’t innovate advanced energy technologies, China isn’t above stealing them. The recent Annual Threat Assessment from the Director of National Intelligence warned that the Chinese are specifically targeting the American defense, energy, and finance sectors. It reports the Chinese have no qualms with using espionage and theft as means to steal American technologies.
Full post
7) Harry Wilkinson: A climate apocalypse now? Er, well, not really
The Conservative Woman, 5 May 2021
Runaway climate chaos, catastrophic climate breakdown, the climate apocalypse. It’s happening now! So what is it like?
A report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation looks at extreme weather trends around the world and reveals all. Climate chaos, it turns out, is all right, and certainly no worse than whatever the climate was before it earned this dramatic new moniker. The number of climate-related disasters, down 11 per cent since 2000.
The Times, 5 May 2021
The environment secretary George Eustice is under pressure from Downing Street after a leaked memo revealed that his department still had no plan to meet its carbon emissions targets.
All ministers have been told by Boris Johnson to develop workable strategies to cut emissions in their sectors as part of his roadmap to net zero by 2050.
However, an internal memo revealed that, despite being responsible for a tenth of the total UK emissions, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had yet to agree policies that can deliver this.
Eustice is also facing criticism from environmental groups who believe he is watering down commitments made by Michael Gove to use Brexit to reform farming and combat climate change.
Some see Eustice as too close to the farming lobby and say he has not done enough to capitalise on the freedoms of Brexit to change incentives for farmers.
The memo, seen by The Times, reveals Defra officials are concerned that at present ministers have no agreed plan to meet the reductions in carbon emissions over the next 30 years that have been set by the Climate Change Act.
“Defra is currently not on track to deliver against its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for CB [carbon budget] 4, 5, 6 and does not have an agreed policy pipeline that allows us to meet them,” it states.
Full story (£)
4) MI6 goes green: Agent 007, meet Inspector Clouseau
Climate Discussion Nexus, 5 May 2021
Britain’s spy agency has announced that it’s making monitoring China’s compliance with its Paris commitments a top priority. Agent 007, meet Inspector Clouseau. Because China has no Paris commitments worth monitoring.
The IPCC may call The Paris Agreement “a legally binding international treaty on climate change” (and fuel paranoia by declaring that “Implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation, based on the best available science”). But the actual text merely commits participants to “undertake and communicate ambitious efforts as defined in Articles 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 13 with the view to achieving the purpose of this Agreement as set out in Article 2.”
And behind that gooblahoy lurks, in Article 4, “Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts, and are encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances.” So “C” and his MI6 will be monitoring China’s progress toward moving toward doing some vague thing later. At least the work shouldn’t be dangerous… unlike the delusion that spy agencies should focus on empty words from tyrants rather than cyberwar, intellectual property theft and subversion.
Hard-bitten investigative journalists also missed China’s lack of commitment, evidently. According to that Telegraph story “Richard Moore, head of the UK’s foreign intelligence service, described climate change as the ‘foremost international foreign policy item for this country and for the planet’. It means the big industrial countries will be monitored by MI6 to ensure they are upholding their commitments to combating rising global temperatures. Mr Moore, known as ‘C’, took charge of the intelligence agency in October and has become the first head of the service to ever give a broadcast interview. He indicated that British spies will make China the focus of much of their climate-related espionage by pointing out that Beijing is ‘certainly the largest emitter’ of carbon. ‘Our job is to shine a light in places where people might not want it shone and so clearly we are going to support what is the foremost international foreign policy agenda item for this country and for the planet, which is around the climate emergency, and of course we have a role in that space,’ he told Times Radio. ‘Where people sign up to commitments on climate change, it is perhaps our job to make sure that what they are really doing reflects what they have signed up to.’”
Or not. A better use of MI6’s time would be tracking China’s support for environmental activists who are convincing the west to hobble itself in the name of fighting climate change while China marches on towards its 2050 ambitions. Now that would be shining a light in places where people might not want it shone.
5) High metal prices could delay energy transition, says IEA
Financial Times, 5 May 2021
The International Energy Agency has warned that high mineral prices could delay a transition to clean energy owing to the amount of metals needed for batteries, solar panels and wind turbines.
Reaching the goals of the Paris climate agreement would result in a quadrupling of mineral demand by 2040, the IEA said. Yet a lack of investment in new mines risks substantially raising the costs of clean energy technologies, it said in a report published on Wednesday.
“Meeting the climate goals will turbocharge demand for critical minerals,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, told the Financial Times. “It [the energy transition] could definitely slow down as a result of increasing costs.”
Prices for commodities — from lithium to cobalt — have rallied this year as demand for clean energy technologies has increased and governments have rolled out green stimulus packages. Sales of electric cars rose by 41 per cent last year, according to the IEA, with about 3m sold globally.
“To have enough electric cars, wind turbines, hydrogen, solar, batteries — for these we need critical minerals at affordable prices otherwise it will be a formidable barrier to reach our climate goals,” Birol said.
The group of raw materials used in batteries are expected to garner the biggest surge in demand, the report said. Demand for lithium is set to grow by more than 40 times if countries want to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, it said.
Full story
6) Senator John Barrasso: China's goal is domination, not cooperation. It's playing Biden and America for fools.
USA Today, 1 May 2021
China pretends it’s a developing country, steals technology, uses forced labor and manipulates markets to its advantage. It's a grand deception.
China has a well-deserved reputation for deceit.
That’s what makes a recent statement from China’s Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng so remarkable: It is honest. He said it’s “not realistic” to expect China to make a new pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
There’s every reason to believe him, but the Biden administration is ignoring reality.
President Joe Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, has embarked on a quixotic diplomatic quest to get China to cooperate with the United States and do something meaningful to combat climate change.
China might say there’s a climate crisis in a non-binding joint statement with the United States, but its real goal is to become the world’s dominant power — a dangerous prospect for the United States and China’s neighbors.
One reason China gets away with this is because it has made the most of its “developing” country status in the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under this treaty, developing countries have far fewer responsibilities.
China is far from a 'developing' nation
The Framework Convention was signed in 1992, a time when China really was a developing country. Since then, its economy has grown more than 1,000% and its emissions more than 250%. It’s now the world’s second largest economy and largest emitter — twice as large as the United States.
Despite this, in an April 16 video meeting with Mr. Kerry, Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng argued that as the largest developing and developed countries, China and the United States should observe their “common but differentiated responsibilities.” A polite way of saying, “You first.”
The Paris Agreement Mr. Kerry negotiated in 2015 did nothing to get rid of this developed-developing country divide. It perpetuated it instead. China could volunteer to be included among the developed nations, but that would mean giving up its strategic advantage. It won’t do that, so instead we have a commitment from China that allows it to emit with abandon until at least 2030.
Meanwhile, China is perfectly willing to exploit Western climate change concerns for its own ends. Fueled by subsidies, the Chinese solar industry has cornered the global market. They have stifled innovation and caused many cutting-edge companies in America and Europe to call it quits. China now supplies more than two-thirds of all solar modules. Chinese companies also make up seven of the top 10 wind turbine manufacturers.
Key parts of Chinese solar panels are manufactured in Xinjiang province, where the Muslim Uyghur minority is used as forced labor. Though the Chinese government denies this, it has not permitted independent inspectors access to the manufacturing facilities. A big red flag for an entire green industry.
Where it can’t innovate advanced energy technologies, China isn’t above stealing them. The recent Annual Threat Assessment from the Director of National Intelligence warned that the Chinese are specifically targeting the American defense, energy, and finance sectors. It reports the Chinese have no qualms with using espionage and theft as means to steal American technologies.
Full post
7) Harry Wilkinson: A climate apocalypse now? Er, well, not really
The Conservative Woman, 5 May 2021
Runaway climate chaos, catastrophic climate breakdown, the climate apocalypse. It’s happening now! So what is it like?
A report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation looks at extreme weather trends around the world and reveals all. Climate chaos, it turns out, is all right, and certainly no worse than whatever the climate was before it earned this dramatic new moniker. The number of climate-related disasters, down 11 per cent since 2000.
Wildfires, down by 24 per cent since 1998. Drought, hurricanes and tropical storms, all relatively unchanged. And while precipitation levels are higher due to increased moisture in the atmosphere, this does not seem to have resulted in an increase in flooding globally. That’s just looking at the physical processes themselves. Where climate chaos turns out to be better than all right is in its increasingly limited ability to harm human beings.
Dr Ralph Alexander, the report’s author, points out that the number of people dying in extreme weather events has fallen dramatically since the 1920s, and the cost of the damage they do has fallen as a proportion of global Gross Domestic Product. That this good news story is not better known is a matter of distorted media coverage but also deliberate deception.
Two prominent studies, one from the International Red Cross and another joint study from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Centre of Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) both claimed that we were seeing a huge rise in climate-related disasters. To make this claim, they both relied on the same data – from CRED’s International Disaster Database, known as EM-DAT. This data does show a significant increase in the number of reported disasters since the 1960s, but the increase is almost wholly attributable to the fact that we have become much better at recording these events. The arrival of the internet has been transformative in this regard, as has the role of media organisations.It is impossible to believe that the authors of these reports didn’t know their purported ‘huge rise’ in climate-related disasters was illusory; they have acknowledged as much themselves.
On multiple occasions, CRED has explained how the number of recorded disasters is strongly linked to improvements in telecommunications, and increased reporting by press organisations and others.Clearly the authors have knowingly put out misleading headlines and conclusions to generate press attention, and further a political agenda related to climate change. It is hard to see another explanation for their actions.
One expects they always knew they would have cover from our bereft political and media establishment, which refuses to cast a critical eye over climate change claims.There is no doubt that the climate will continue to be chaotic, however. In his report, Dr Alexander concludes by noting that 2020, just like any other year, saw a series of weather extremes.
These included a heatwave in Siberia, a cold summer in the Northern hemisphere, an active hurricane season in the North Atlantic, and wildfires in the US and the Arctic. But he observes that there is little evidence of any long-term worsening of these events, and many can be linked to natural climatic cycles. If this is climate chaos, and we are assured that it is, then maybe we can breathe a little easier.
Extreme Weather in 2020 by Dr Ralph Alexander is available to read now on the GWPF website.
Dr Ralph Alexander, the report’s author, points out that the number of people dying in extreme weather events has fallen dramatically since the 1920s, and the cost of the damage they do has fallen as a proportion of global Gross Domestic Product. That this good news story is not better known is a matter of distorted media coverage but also deliberate deception.
Two prominent studies, one from the International Red Cross and another joint study from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Centre of Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) both claimed that we were seeing a huge rise in climate-related disasters. To make this claim, they both relied on the same data – from CRED’s International Disaster Database, known as EM-DAT. This data does show a significant increase in the number of reported disasters since the 1960s, but the increase is almost wholly attributable to the fact that we have become much better at recording these events. The arrival of the internet has been transformative in this regard, as has the role of media organisations.It is impossible to believe that the authors of these reports didn’t know their purported ‘huge rise’ in climate-related disasters was illusory; they have acknowledged as much themselves.
On multiple occasions, CRED has explained how the number of recorded disasters is strongly linked to improvements in telecommunications, and increased reporting by press organisations and others.Clearly the authors have knowingly put out misleading headlines and conclusions to generate press attention, and further a political agenda related to climate change. It is hard to see another explanation for their actions.
One expects they always knew they would have cover from our bereft political and media establishment, which refuses to cast a critical eye over climate change claims.There is no doubt that the climate will continue to be chaotic, however. In his report, Dr Alexander concludes by noting that 2020, just like any other year, saw a series of weather extremes.
These included a heatwave in Siberia, a cold summer in the Northern hemisphere, an active hurricane season in the North Atlantic, and wildfires in the US and the Arctic. But he observes that there is little evidence of any long-term worsening of these events, and many can be linked to natural climatic cycles. If this is climate chaos, and we are assured that it is, then maybe we can breathe a little easier.
Extreme Weather in 2020 by Dr Ralph Alexander is available to read now on the GWPF website.
8) And finally: A realistic global energy review, for a change
JP Morgan, May 2021
JP Morgan's 11th Annual Energy Paper
Executive Summary
President Biden just announced a new GHG emissions target: a 50% decline by 2030 vs a 2005 baseline. This very ambitious target implies a decarbonization pace in the next 10 years that’s four times faster than in the last 15 years. Even with the amount of money the administration plans to dedicate to the task, it’s an enormous hurdle. In this paper, we will be discussing some of the reasons why.
The even more important and larger question: even if the US succeeds, what about everyone else? Over the last 25 years, the developed world shifted much of its carbon-intensive manufacturing of steel, cement, ammonia and plastics to the developing world. As a result, developing world adoption of wind, solar, storage and nuclear power may end up being the primary determinant of future global emissions outcomes. That has certainly been the case over the last decade: Europe and Japan reduced primary energy use1 by 4%-6% but developing world increases were 6x higher than their reductions; China/India energy use is still soaring; and Africa’s energy use is rising from per capita levels seen in Europe in the 19th century. The world gets more energy efficient every year, but levels of emissions keep rising. That’s why most deep decarbonization ideas rely on replacement of fossil fuels rather than reducing fossil fuel consumption per capita or per unit of performance.
How is the global energy transition going? Taken together, the aggregate impact of nuclear, hydroelectric and solar/wind generation reduced global reliance on fossil fuels from ~95% of primary energy in 1975 to ~85% in 2020. In other words, energy transitions take a long time and lots of money. The IEA expects fossil fuel reliance to decline at a more rapid pace now, fueled in part by “Big Oil” companies becoming “Big Energy” companies and by a faster global EV transition. In 2021 renewables are for the first time expected to garner more capital spending than upstream oil & gas. This process is influenced by diverging costs of capital: 3%-5% for solar and wind, 10%-15% for natural gas and up to 20% for oil projects.
However, the IEA still projects that 70%-75% of global primary energy consumption may be met via fossil fuels in the year 2040. Why don’t rapid wind and solar price declines translate into faster decarbonization? As we will discuss, renewable energy is still mostly used to generate electricity, and electricity as a share of final energy consumption on a global basis is still just 18%. In other words, direct use of fossil fuels is still the primary mover in the modern world, as the demise of fossil fuels continues to be prematurely declared by energy futurists ....
Full report
President Biden just announced a new GHG emissions target: a 50% decline by 2030 vs a 2005 baseline. This very ambitious target implies a decarbonization pace in the next 10 years that’s four times faster than in the last 15 years. Even with the amount of money the administration plans to dedicate to the task, it’s an enormous hurdle. In this paper, we will be discussing some of the reasons why.
The even more important and larger question: even if the US succeeds, what about everyone else? Over the last 25 years, the developed world shifted much of its carbon-intensive manufacturing of steel, cement, ammonia and plastics to the developing world. As a result, developing world adoption of wind, solar, storage and nuclear power may end up being the primary determinant of future global emissions outcomes. That has certainly been the case over the last decade: Europe and Japan reduced primary energy use1 by 4%-6% but developing world increases were 6x higher than their reductions; China/India energy use is still soaring; and Africa’s energy use is rising from per capita levels seen in Europe in the 19th century. The world gets more energy efficient every year, but levels of emissions keep rising. That’s why most deep decarbonization ideas rely on replacement of fossil fuels rather than reducing fossil fuel consumption per capita or per unit of performance.
How is the global energy transition going? Taken together, the aggregate impact of nuclear, hydroelectric and solar/wind generation reduced global reliance on fossil fuels from ~95% of primary energy in 1975 to ~85% in 2020. In other words, energy transitions take a long time and lots of money. The IEA expects fossil fuel reliance to decline at a more rapid pace now, fueled in part by “Big Oil” companies becoming “Big Energy” companies and by a faster global EV transition. In 2021 renewables are for the first time expected to garner more capital spending than upstream oil & gas. This process is influenced by diverging costs of capital: 3%-5% for solar and wind, 10%-15% for natural gas and up to 20% for oil projects.
However, the IEA still projects that 70%-75% of global primary energy consumption may be met via fossil fuels in the year 2040. Why don’t rapid wind and solar price declines translate into faster decarbonization? As we will discuss, renewable energy is still mostly used to generate electricity, and electricity as a share of final energy consumption on a global basis is still just 18%. In other words, direct use of fossil fuels is still the primary mover in the modern world, as the demise of fossil fuels continues to be prematurely declared by energy futurists ....
Full report
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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