Is Boris Johnson planning to abandon the 1.5C climate target to secure a COP26 agreement?
In this newsletter:
1) Net Zero is an existential threat to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives, furious Tory MPs warn
Global Warming Policy Forum, 11 August 2021
2) Boris Johnson will be hammered by Red Wall voters over cost of green revolution, furious Tory MPs say in WhatsApp tirade
The Sun, 11 August 2021
3) Is Boris Johnson planning to abandon the 1.5C climate target to secure a COP26 agreement?
Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 August 2021
4) The hurdles Boris Johnson faces in tackling the climate crisis in the UK and globally
ITV News, 9 August 2021
5) Dan Wooton: If Boris thinks Brits are going to pay through the nose for green boilers and electric cars while the Chinese are burning coal like there's no tomorrow he's signing his own death warrant
Daily Mail, 11 August 2021
Global Warming Policy Forum, 11 August 2021
2) Boris Johnson will be hammered by Red Wall voters over cost of green revolution, furious Tory MPs say in WhatsApp tirade
The Sun, 11 August 2021
3) Is Boris Johnson planning to abandon the 1.5C climate target to secure a COP26 agreement?
Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 August 2021
4) The hurdles Boris Johnson faces in tackling the climate crisis in the UK and globally
ITV News, 9 August 2021
5) Dan Wooton: If Boris thinks Brits are going to pay through the nose for green boilers and electric cars while the Chinese are burning coal like there's no tomorrow he's signing his own death warrant
Daily Mail, 11 August 2021
6) Boris Johnson poised to backtrack on gas boiler ban
Financial Times, 11 August 2021
7) Ross Clark: The true cost of net zero
The Spectator, 14 August 2021
Financial Times, 11 August 2021
7) Ross Clark: The true cost of net zero
The Spectator, 14 August 2021
8) ‘Greenflation’ threatens to derail climate change action
Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times, 2 August 2021
Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times, 2 August 2021
9) And finally: Joe Biden sticks two fingers up at the greens and the IPCC. Anyone would think there was an election coming up...
Bloomberg, 11 August 2021
Bloomberg, 11 August 2021
Full details:
1) Net Zero is an existential threat to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives, furious Tory MPs warn
Global Warming Policy Forum, 11 August 2021
The SUN is reporting that the astronomical costs of Net Zero are seen by ‘Red Wall’ Tory MPs as an existential threat to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives.
According to the report, Tory backbench MPs from the North of England launched a blistering private assault on the Climate Change Minister in a fiery WhatsApp tirade seen by The Sun.
In reality, most UK household, not just poorer ones in Red Wall constituencies, will be hit hard by Net Zero — and will hit back hard as the cost burden and pain rises.
Ultimately, only a realistic alternative to unilateral and unaffordable climate targets will be able to save the Conservative Party from the fury of voters when the economic and social disaster of Net Zero unfolds.
In the meantime, there are no signs that China, India or other emerging powers will sign up to the West’s Net Zero agenda at COP26.
2) Boris Johnson will be hammered by Red Wall voters over cost of green revolution, furious Tory MPs say in WhatsApp tirade
The Sun, 11 August 2021
Raging Red Wall Tory MPs turned fire on ministers last night after shock polling revealed Tory voters will be hit hardest by Boris Johnson’s expensive green revolution.
The PM’s Northern troops launched a blistering private assault on the Climate Change Minister in a fiery WhatsApp tirade seen by The Sun.
Stark polling shared in a private text chat for Tory MPs revealed that 44 per cent of all car owners backed the Conservative voters, rising to 47 per cent of all petrol drivers.
Just one in five hybrid-owners backed the party, and nearly seven in ten electric car drivers opted for Labour instead.
With Ministers urging Brits to switch as soon as possible away from combustible engines – tensions boiled over with claims the Tories would be hit hardest by the government diktat.
A string of rising stars first elected in 2019 took to the Conservative MP WhatsApp group chat to hammer lofty Anne Marie Trevelyn, the Business Department minister.
And they pleaded it would be MPs not ministers who had to sell the plans on the doorstep or risk losing thousands of voters – and even the next Election.
The angry Tories expressed their deep concern over the electoral cost of pursuing green policies, with just three months to go before Mr Johnson hosts a crucial COP26 climate change summit in November.
Ministers are yet to lay out their plans for how Brits will have to rip out their boilers and make their homes more environmentally friendly to meet Net Zero goals by 2050 – over internal wrangling about the price tag.
But Ashfield MP Lee Anderson fumed: “This will not go down well in Red Wall seats at all.”
Former minister Jackie Doyle-Price added: “The reason we have won Red Wall seats is because Labour lost working class voters over decades as the party has become increasingly metropolitan.
We won’t keep those voters if they see us behaving in the same way. We do need to get our approach to net zero right.”
Lincoln’s Karl McCartney added: “All the builders, mechanics, petrol-heads and even EV lovers across the country will be rolling their eyes at this ‘idealism’.
“Maybe the SpAds/advisers in No10 and certain departments should leave their protective bubble ever recess and head ‘north’.”
And Bassetlaw’s Brendan Clarke-Smith hit out at the international approach too, adding: “It’s a hard sell asking people to make sacrifices when the rest of the world, China/Russia etc, are carrying on as usual.
“It can’t happen overnight – and others need to pull their weight, rather than us doing all the legwork.”
Workington MP Mark Jenkinson, who has rallied against the decision to hit pause on a new coal mine in Cumbria, warned of the risks of shutting them all down to simply buy it all in from China and Russia to make steel.
And he warned that developing countries benefiting from coal at the moment were never going to get on side ahead of COP26.
He stressed: “We are ultra-parochial on Net Zero, and we’re simply not the problem.
“We’re pulling up the drawbridge and expecting others to leapfrog the path we took to prosperity. It hasn’t happened in any developed country.”
Full story
3) Is Boris Johnson planning to abandon the 1.5C climate target to secure a COP26 agreement?
Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 August 2021
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, US climate envoy John Kerry set out the Biden administration’s key goal for the UN climate summit (COP26) later this year.
US special envoy for climate John Kerry at the Kew Gardens in London in July © AFP via Getty Images
Kerry made clear that in order to limit global warming to the 1.5C target enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord, China would have to cut CO2 emissions much sooner than the Paris Agreement allows, warning that China’s failure to agree stronger cuts now could lead the US to impose punitive carbon border taxes.
"Kerry, who has criss-crossed the world to promote President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, in his speech singled out China and said it would be “impossible” to limit warming to 1.5C unless the planet’s biggest emitter changed its targets. The 1.5C target is enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.”
China, however, is opposed to committing to the 1.5 C goal and objects to any changes to the Paris Agreement which adopted a pledge to cap global surface temperature rise at “well below” two degrees Celsius and an aspirational limit of 1.5 degrees.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate diplomat, recently warned that "some countries are pushing to rewrite the Paris Agreement. That is, they want to strive to change the target of control for the rise of temperature from two degrees Celsius to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We have to understand the different situations in different countries, and strive to reach a consensus.”
China argues that industrialised nations, especially in the West, were able to get wealthy before CO2 reduction controls were adopted and that it and other developing economies should not be expected to make as heavy reductions as developed nations.
It has been evident for years that the climate and energy demands by China, India and other emerging nations and those by the US, the UK and the EU remain incompatible. There is, in short, a serious risk of another Copenhagen-type COP fiasco, something Boris Johnson urgently needs to avoid for his own reputation and job security.
Now reports in the British media suggest that he may consider abandoning the 1.5C goal in order to avoid a COP-flop in Glasgow in November.
If the ITV story below is accurate, 10 Downing Street seems to be sending out the message it may be shifting the COP26 goal posts away from the 1.5C goal and towards China’s 2C target.
However, if the price for a COP26 compromise is the abandonment of John Kerry’s 1.5C goal, the West’s unilateral 2050 Net Zero agenda itself would become largely obsolete.It will be very interesting to see how Boris Johnson and Joe Biden will try to square this COP circle and avoid a political fiasco later this year.
4) The hurdles Boris Johnson faces in tackling the climate crisis in the UK and globally
ITV News, 9 August 2021
Anushka Asthana, Deputy Political Editor
Monday’s landmark scientific report into the climate crisis – the culmination of eight years of work, pulling together the expertise of hundreds of scientists – makes for deeply depressing reading.
And its ‘code red’ warning is not related to obscure predictions for the future.
The “unprecedented” impact of human activity, which it outlines, can be seen everywhere – from the underground rail passengers shoulder deep in flood water in China, to the people in Greece, Turkey and America watching their homes devoured by wildfires to the dramatic flooding in Germany and Belgium.
But there is one thing in this report that could be seen as hopeful.
I recently had a conversation with a senior figure advising the UK government on the question of climate change and they said that the chances of keeping heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels had now virtually disappeared. Instead, they argued that 2C would be a good outcome and that we, as a country, should start to prepare for it.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not ready to let go of the original target of the Paris Agreement. It says that while temperatures are now likely to rise by 1.5C a decade earlier than expected (by 2040), it is still possible to prevent us crossing that tipping point.
However, to do so will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale” reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. To put the scale of the challenge in context, one of the authors of the IPCC report, Dr Amanda Maycock, said last year’s global lockdown achieved a 6% reduction in emissions. What is now needed is a 5% reduction in emissions year-on-year for decades.
So, is that possible? Well, Cop26 – the next major climate conference to be hosted by Britain in November- is going to be key. This report makes clear that what emerges from those few days in Glasgow could ultimately decide whether the world can remain within that target – or not. […]
ITV News, 9 August 2021
5) Dan Wooton: If Boris thinks Brits are going to pay through the nose for green boilers and electric cars while the Chinese are burning coal like there's no tomorrow he's signing his own death warrant
Daily Mail, 11 August 2021
I fear that Boris' zealotry on the issue is so out of step with his Tory base that it could end up his undoing.
Just imagine if Boris Johnson's pitch to voters at the last election had included the stark reality of his Net Zero by 2050 agenda.
GREEN PLEDGE 1: 'Er, well, you're going to have to get rid of your gas boiler – but don't worry the replacement heat pump or hydrogen boiler (which probably won't work very well) will only set you back something like £12,000.'
GREEN PLEDGE 2: 'Oh, and if you want a new car, you're going to have to upgrade to an expensive electric model, even though we don't have anywhere near enough places to actually charge the damn thing at the moment.'
GREEN PLEDGE 3: 'And we're doing all of this even though China is going to keep destroying the environment with unrestrained zeal, but let's just not talk about that.'
Brits are an environmentally friendly bunch – the vast majority believe that climate change poses a threat that the government should be dealing with over time.
We're happy to be leading the way internationally on a number of sensible initiatives to reduce our emissions.
But it's a matter of degree.
I've been an environmentalist my entire life and have learned that doomsday predictions like the forecast destruction of the ozone layer can be reversed with human ingenuity and moderate policy changes.
But I fear that Boris' zealotry on the issue is so out of step with his Tory base that it could end up his undoing.
Ordinary Brits are worried about keeping a roof over their head, feeding their family, being treated by the NHS and getting their children properly educated after a devastating 18 months that has caused brutal economic devastation to many.
And that includes the government books, which haven't been in this bad shape in the modern era.
So where is all this money coming from?
Who will be paying for Net Zero? Is it you and me?And how is it fair that we're having to shoulder this overwhelming toll when other major emitters like Germany, Canada, Australia, the US and – yes – China continue to drag their feet to say the least?
Boris prides himself on having a common touch but his messaging is so out of touch it's like he's the ventriloquist dummy for his campaigning wife Carrie.
In all seriousness, I don't think our predicament is helped by the fact the PM is surrounded every day by privileged eco campaigners who think of little else.
Carrie is employed as a senior adviser to the ocean conservation charity Oceana.
And even Boris' affable dad Stanley has been known to support the lunatic extremist fringe group Extinction Rebellion, which is currently intending to pursue a miserable strategy of never-ending civil disobedience to make life even more difficult for ordinary Brits.
I'm also sick to death of being lectured by privileged leaders who aren't prepared to make the changes they're attempting to enforce on the rest of us.
Cop26 boss Alok Sharma and his gaffe prone spokeswoman Allegra Stratton have both been forced to admit they drive diesel cars, even though they're enforcing all of us to go electric.
And Sharma has been on a whistle-stop tour of the globe, burning up more carbon emissions than other celebrity eco hypocrites like Prince Harry and Leonardo DiCaprio, even though the government has insisted none of us should be flying anywhere for the past 18 months.
It's in this context that Conservative MPs are rightly staging a fightback.
They're well aware that it's completely delusional to think this sort of eco extremism will be electorally popular.
This week Red Wall Tories have been privately seething about polling that shows their voters are much more likely to be petrol drivers rather than own hybrid or electric cars.
A leaked transcript of a WhatsApp conversation hammering minister Anne Marie Trevelyn was leaked to The Sun and shows just how worried the MPs are that the green policies could cost the party the next election.
Former minister Jackie Doyle-Price raged: 'The reason we have won Red Wall seats is because Labour lost working class voters over decades as the party has become increasingly metropolitan. We won't keep those voters if they see us behaving in the same way. We do need to get our approach to net zero right.'
Lincoln MP Karl McCartney added: 'All the builders, mechanics, petrol-heads and even EV lovers across the country will be rolling their eyes at this 'idealism'. Maybe the SpAds/advisers in No10 and certain departments should leave their protective bubble over recess and head 'north'.'
Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith wrote: 'It's a hard sell asking people to make sacrifices when the rest of the world, China/Russia etc, are carrying on as usual. It can't happen overnight – and others need to pull their weight, rather than us doing all the legwork.'
Perhaps this sort of pressure is starting to get to Boris.
The Times reported today that he is considering reversing a ban on the installation of new gas boilers from 2035, instead making the measure advisory.
There also needs to be a reversal of the over ambitious plan to ban the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2040.
The problem is that every time Boris tries to implement a common sense change like this I have no doubt Carrie will insist on sleeping in the spare bedroom for a week.
But the PM's domestic bliss should have nothing to do with him enforcing completely unrealistic and financially devastating policies on his people.
This quagmire is also one of the worries of having a failed opposition.
The Leader of No Opposition, as I've christened Keir Starmer, this week ridiculously branded Boris a 'climate delayer'.
Yup, despite moving faster than virtually any other developed country, the bloke with the quiff wants us to do even more.
I'm not sure what he means exactly, but presumably enforcing veganism and banning all international flights for anyone other than MPs on 'important business' would be a good start for Keir.
And at the same time both Boris and Keir fail to utter the C-word – and when it comes to climate change it's the only word that actually matters: CHINA!
You know the country responsible for 27 per cent (and growing) of all global emissions, when the UK emits less than one per cent.
It's about time this government banishes the authoritarian streak it has developed over the Covid crisis and starts letting citizens make common sense decisions.
Educate us, sure. Give us the choice, absolutely.
But do not put us through such financially devastating measures until you ensure China will stop opening new coal plants by the month.
As Boris loves to point out, the UK has already halved our emissions in the last three decades.
Given our incredible progress, a big bang approach is unnecessary and, if he's not careful, it could end up costing Boris his job.
Global Warming Policy Forum, 11 August 2021
The SUN is reporting that the astronomical costs of Net Zero are seen by ‘Red Wall’ Tory MPs as an existential threat to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives.
According to the report, Tory backbench MPs from the North of England launched a blistering private assault on the Climate Change Minister in a fiery WhatsApp tirade seen by The Sun.
In reality, most UK household, not just poorer ones in Red Wall constituencies, will be hit hard by Net Zero — and will hit back hard as the cost burden and pain rises.
Ultimately, only a realistic alternative to unilateral and unaffordable climate targets will be able to save the Conservative Party from the fury of voters when the economic and social disaster of Net Zero unfolds.
In the meantime, there are no signs that China, India or other emerging powers will sign up to the West’s Net Zero agenda at COP26.
2) Boris Johnson will be hammered by Red Wall voters over cost of green revolution, furious Tory MPs say in WhatsApp tirade
The Sun, 11 August 2021
Raging Red Wall Tory MPs turned fire on ministers last night after shock polling revealed Tory voters will be hit hardest by Boris Johnson’s expensive green revolution.
The PM’s Northern troops launched a blistering private assault on the Climate Change Minister in a fiery WhatsApp tirade seen by The Sun.
Stark polling shared in a private text chat for Tory MPs revealed that 44 per cent of all car owners backed the Conservative voters, rising to 47 per cent of all petrol drivers.
Just one in five hybrid-owners backed the party, and nearly seven in ten electric car drivers opted for Labour instead.
With Ministers urging Brits to switch as soon as possible away from combustible engines – tensions boiled over with claims the Tories would be hit hardest by the government diktat.
A string of rising stars first elected in 2019 took to the Conservative MP WhatsApp group chat to hammer lofty Anne Marie Trevelyn, the Business Department minister.
And they pleaded it would be MPs not ministers who had to sell the plans on the doorstep or risk losing thousands of voters – and even the next Election.
The angry Tories expressed their deep concern over the electoral cost of pursuing green policies, with just three months to go before Mr Johnson hosts a crucial COP26 climate change summit in November.
Ministers are yet to lay out their plans for how Brits will have to rip out their boilers and make their homes more environmentally friendly to meet Net Zero goals by 2050 – over internal wrangling about the price tag.
But Ashfield MP Lee Anderson fumed: “This will not go down well in Red Wall seats at all.”
Former minister Jackie Doyle-Price added: “The reason we have won Red Wall seats is because Labour lost working class voters over decades as the party has become increasingly metropolitan.
We won’t keep those voters if they see us behaving in the same way. We do need to get our approach to net zero right.”
Lincoln’s Karl McCartney added: “All the builders, mechanics, petrol-heads and even EV lovers across the country will be rolling their eyes at this ‘idealism’.
“Maybe the SpAds/advisers in No10 and certain departments should leave their protective bubble ever recess and head ‘north’.”
And Bassetlaw’s Brendan Clarke-Smith hit out at the international approach too, adding: “It’s a hard sell asking people to make sacrifices when the rest of the world, China/Russia etc, are carrying on as usual.
“It can’t happen overnight – and others need to pull their weight, rather than us doing all the legwork.”
Workington MP Mark Jenkinson, who has rallied against the decision to hit pause on a new coal mine in Cumbria, warned of the risks of shutting them all down to simply buy it all in from China and Russia to make steel.
And he warned that developing countries benefiting from coal at the moment were never going to get on side ahead of COP26.
He stressed: “We are ultra-parochial on Net Zero, and we’re simply not the problem.
“We’re pulling up the drawbridge and expecting others to leapfrog the path we took to prosperity. It hasn’t happened in any developed country.”
Full story
3) Is Boris Johnson planning to abandon the 1.5C climate target to secure a COP26 agreement?
Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 August 2021
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, US climate envoy John Kerry set out the Biden administration’s key goal for the UN climate summit (COP26) later this year.
US special envoy for climate John Kerry at the Kew Gardens in London in July © AFP via Getty Images
Kerry made clear that in order to limit global warming to the 1.5C target enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord, China would have to cut CO2 emissions much sooner than the Paris Agreement allows, warning that China’s failure to agree stronger cuts now could lead the US to impose punitive carbon border taxes.
"Kerry, who has criss-crossed the world to promote President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, in his speech singled out China and said it would be “impossible” to limit warming to 1.5C unless the planet’s biggest emitter changed its targets. The 1.5C target is enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.”
China, however, is opposed to committing to the 1.5 C goal and objects to any changes to the Paris Agreement which adopted a pledge to cap global surface temperature rise at “well below” two degrees Celsius and an aspirational limit of 1.5 degrees.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate diplomat, recently warned that "some countries are pushing to rewrite the Paris Agreement. That is, they want to strive to change the target of control for the rise of temperature from two degrees Celsius to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We have to understand the different situations in different countries, and strive to reach a consensus.”
China argues that industrialised nations, especially in the West, were able to get wealthy before CO2 reduction controls were adopted and that it and other developing economies should not be expected to make as heavy reductions as developed nations.
It has been evident for years that the climate and energy demands by China, India and other emerging nations and those by the US, the UK and the EU remain incompatible. There is, in short, a serious risk of another Copenhagen-type COP fiasco, something Boris Johnson urgently needs to avoid for his own reputation and job security.
Now reports in the British media suggest that he may consider abandoning the 1.5C goal in order to avoid a COP-flop in Glasgow in November.
If the ITV story below is accurate, 10 Downing Street seems to be sending out the message it may be shifting the COP26 goal posts away from the 1.5C goal and towards China’s 2C target.
However, if the price for a COP26 compromise is the abandonment of John Kerry’s 1.5C goal, the West’s unilateral 2050 Net Zero agenda itself would become largely obsolete.It will be very interesting to see how Boris Johnson and Joe Biden will try to square this COP circle and avoid a political fiasco later this year.
4) The hurdles Boris Johnson faces in tackling the climate crisis in the UK and globally
ITV News, 9 August 2021
Anushka Asthana, Deputy Political Editor
Monday’s landmark scientific report into the climate crisis – the culmination of eight years of work, pulling together the expertise of hundreds of scientists – makes for deeply depressing reading.
And its ‘code red’ warning is not related to obscure predictions for the future.
The “unprecedented” impact of human activity, which it outlines, can be seen everywhere – from the underground rail passengers shoulder deep in flood water in China, to the people in Greece, Turkey and America watching their homes devoured by wildfires to the dramatic flooding in Germany and Belgium.
But there is one thing in this report that could be seen as hopeful.
I recently had a conversation with a senior figure advising the UK government on the question of climate change and they said that the chances of keeping heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels had now virtually disappeared. Instead, they argued that 2C would be a good outcome and that we, as a country, should start to prepare for it.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not ready to let go of the original target of the Paris Agreement. It says that while temperatures are now likely to rise by 1.5C a decade earlier than expected (by 2040), it is still possible to prevent us crossing that tipping point.
However, to do so will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale” reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. To put the scale of the challenge in context, one of the authors of the IPCC report, Dr Amanda Maycock, said last year’s global lockdown achieved a 6% reduction in emissions. What is now needed is a 5% reduction in emissions year-on-year for decades.
So, is that possible? Well, Cop26 – the next major climate conference to be hosted by Britain in November- is going to be key. This report makes clear that what emerges from those few days in Glasgow could ultimately decide whether the world can remain within that target – or not. […]
ITV News, 9 August 2021
5) Dan Wooton: If Boris thinks Brits are going to pay through the nose for green boilers and electric cars while the Chinese are burning coal like there's no tomorrow he's signing his own death warrant
Daily Mail, 11 August 2021
I fear that Boris' zealotry on the issue is so out of step with his Tory base that it could end up his undoing.
Just imagine if Boris Johnson's pitch to voters at the last election had included the stark reality of his Net Zero by 2050 agenda.
GREEN PLEDGE 1: 'Er, well, you're going to have to get rid of your gas boiler – but don't worry the replacement heat pump or hydrogen boiler (which probably won't work very well) will only set you back something like £12,000.'
GREEN PLEDGE 2: 'Oh, and if you want a new car, you're going to have to upgrade to an expensive electric model, even though we don't have anywhere near enough places to actually charge the damn thing at the moment.'
GREEN PLEDGE 3: 'And we're doing all of this even though China is going to keep destroying the environment with unrestrained zeal, but let's just not talk about that.'
Brits are an environmentally friendly bunch – the vast majority believe that climate change poses a threat that the government should be dealing with over time.
We're happy to be leading the way internationally on a number of sensible initiatives to reduce our emissions.
But it's a matter of degree.
I've been an environmentalist my entire life and have learned that doomsday predictions like the forecast destruction of the ozone layer can be reversed with human ingenuity and moderate policy changes.
But I fear that Boris' zealotry on the issue is so out of step with his Tory base that it could end up his undoing.
Ordinary Brits are worried about keeping a roof over their head, feeding their family, being treated by the NHS and getting their children properly educated after a devastating 18 months that has caused brutal economic devastation to many.
And that includes the government books, which haven't been in this bad shape in the modern era.
So where is all this money coming from?
Who will be paying for Net Zero? Is it you and me?And how is it fair that we're having to shoulder this overwhelming toll when other major emitters like Germany, Canada, Australia, the US and – yes – China continue to drag their feet to say the least?
Boris prides himself on having a common touch but his messaging is so out of touch it's like he's the ventriloquist dummy for his campaigning wife Carrie.
In all seriousness, I don't think our predicament is helped by the fact the PM is surrounded every day by privileged eco campaigners who think of little else.
Carrie is employed as a senior adviser to the ocean conservation charity Oceana.
And even Boris' affable dad Stanley has been known to support the lunatic extremist fringe group Extinction Rebellion, which is currently intending to pursue a miserable strategy of never-ending civil disobedience to make life even more difficult for ordinary Brits.
I'm also sick to death of being lectured by privileged leaders who aren't prepared to make the changes they're attempting to enforce on the rest of us.
Cop26 boss Alok Sharma and his gaffe prone spokeswoman Allegra Stratton have both been forced to admit they drive diesel cars, even though they're enforcing all of us to go electric.
And Sharma has been on a whistle-stop tour of the globe, burning up more carbon emissions than other celebrity eco hypocrites like Prince Harry and Leonardo DiCaprio, even though the government has insisted none of us should be flying anywhere for the past 18 months.
It's in this context that Conservative MPs are rightly staging a fightback.
They're well aware that it's completely delusional to think this sort of eco extremism will be electorally popular.
This week Red Wall Tories have been privately seething about polling that shows their voters are much more likely to be petrol drivers rather than own hybrid or electric cars.
A leaked transcript of a WhatsApp conversation hammering minister Anne Marie Trevelyn was leaked to The Sun and shows just how worried the MPs are that the green policies could cost the party the next election.
Former minister Jackie Doyle-Price raged: 'The reason we have won Red Wall seats is because Labour lost working class voters over decades as the party has become increasingly metropolitan. We won't keep those voters if they see us behaving in the same way. We do need to get our approach to net zero right.'
Lincoln MP Karl McCartney added: 'All the builders, mechanics, petrol-heads and even EV lovers across the country will be rolling their eyes at this 'idealism'. Maybe the SpAds/advisers in No10 and certain departments should leave their protective bubble over recess and head 'north'.'
Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith wrote: 'It's a hard sell asking people to make sacrifices when the rest of the world, China/Russia etc, are carrying on as usual. It can't happen overnight – and others need to pull their weight, rather than us doing all the legwork.'
Perhaps this sort of pressure is starting to get to Boris.
The Times reported today that he is considering reversing a ban on the installation of new gas boilers from 2035, instead making the measure advisory.
There also needs to be a reversal of the over ambitious plan to ban the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2040.
The problem is that every time Boris tries to implement a common sense change like this I have no doubt Carrie will insist on sleeping in the spare bedroom for a week.
But the PM's domestic bliss should have nothing to do with him enforcing completely unrealistic and financially devastating policies on his people.
This quagmire is also one of the worries of having a failed opposition.
The Leader of No Opposition, as I've christened Keir Starmer, this week ridiculously branded Boris a 'climate delayer'.
Yup, despite moving faster than virtually any other developed country, the bloke with the quiff wants us to do even more.
I'm not sure what he means exactly, but presumably enforcing veganism and banning all international flights for anyone other than MPs on 'important business' would be a good start for Keir.
And at the same time both Boris and Keir fail to utter the C-word – and when it comes to climate change it's the only word that actually matters: CHINA!
You know the country responsible for 27 per cent (and growing) of all global emissions, when the UK emits less than one per cent.
It's about time this government banishes the authoritarian streak it has developed over the Covid crisis and starts letting citizens make common sense decisions.
Educate us, sure. Give us the choice, absolutely.
But do not put us through such financially devastating measures until you ensure China will stop opening new coal plants by the month.
As Boris loves to point out, the UK has already halved our emissions in the last three decades.
Given our incredible progress, a big bang approach is unnecessary and, if he's not careful, it could end up costing Boris his job.
6) Boris Johnson poised to backtrack on gas boiler ban
Financial Times, 11 August 2021
PM under pressure from Tory MPs concerned about high cost to households of green alternatives
Boris Johnson is expected to water down plans to ban the sale of new gas boilers in the UK from the mid-2030s over concerns from ministers and Conservative MPs about the cost to consumers of transitioning to net zero emissions.
Replacing millions of gas boilers is a key part of the UK’s strategy to hit its 2050 net zero target. Any move by the UK prime minister to backtrack would likely trigger a backlash from climate scientists and environmental activists, ahead of Britain hosting the UN COP26 climate summit in November.
Emissions from buildings have remained stubbornly high. The residential sector accounted for nearly 21 per cent of all UK carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, with natural gas heating the main culprit.
The Climate Change Committee, the government’s official advisers, said last year that all gas boilers should be banned by 2033 if the UK wants to meet its legally binding net zero emissions target.
But ministers have become concerned about the costs of heat pumps — one of the few viable green options to replace traditional gas heating systems — according to those with knowledge of the plans.
This follows growing pressure in recent weeks from a number of Conservative backbenchers who have warned about the cost to consumers of the government’s net zero policies.
A final decision is not expected until the government publishes its long-awaited Heat and Buildings Strategy document, which is now expected this autumn.
Earlier this week, environment groups such as Greenpeace called on Johnson to set out “concrete policies to cut carbon emissions as fast as possible” after a landmark report by more than 230 international scientists warned the world was warming much faster than forecast.
One senior government insider said a full ban on gas boilers by 2035 was unlikely, citing the concerns of ministers about the cost. “We were never going to definitely ban, this is a marathon not a sprint. It’s all about the transition: everyone rips out their boiler every 10 years so it’s going to be in the normal course of things,” they said.
A senior Whitehall official said the government was focused on ensuring the transition would be affordable. “We’ll incentivise people to switch to low-carbon alternatives and build up a domestic heat pump manufacturing base from scratch to drive down costs,” they said.
The official said ministers were exploring “other low-carbon alternatives” to heat pumps, which can cost more than £10,000, such as hydrogen-fired boilers.
The debate on transitioning to net zero has caused consternation among some Conservative MPs, particularly libertarian campaigners and those representing the so-called red wall of former Labour heartland seats in England who are worried about the cost burden.
Craig Mackinlay, the MP for South Thanet, said he and fellow Conservatives were planning to formalise their opposition once parliament returns in September into a group called the net zero scrutiny group.
“I want to leave this planet in a better place than we found it. But I got elected as a Conservative to make people’s lives better, cleaner and cheaper,” he said
“Those on lower incomes always seem to suffer from high fuel taxes rather than the wealthy. There could be a disproportionate impact on the lower paid, and that is not in my view what Conservatives should be doing.”
Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, has warned that the boiler ban could “leave Britain’s poorest out in the cold” and argued that the government needed to be clearer on the costs of achieving net zero.
One senior Tory said MPs were concerned for political and ideological reasons. “Some don’t want to be told what to do. There is a level of determinism involved in this they don’t like — that’s a perfectly valid Tory position. Others have particular local issues.”
A minister added that the government was “working really hard” to engage with MPs about their concerns. “There are no easy answers but we appreciate there will be some stressful decisions,” they added.
7) Ross Clark: The true cost of net zero
The Spectator, 14 August 2021
When Theresa May committed the government to achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2050, Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, likened it to President Kennedy’s 1961 promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. How we would achieve net zero might not yet be clear, but a combination of ambition and ingenuity would somehow see us through. Still, at least JFK had some idea about the cost and he did not make it a legally binding obligation for the US to visit the moon, thus inviting activists to sue the government if it failed.
Rishi Sunak is now understood to be in rebellion against the costs of net zero — whatever they might be. The Treasury was supposed to have published its assessment in March, but that is yet to see the light of day (one leaked official assessment put it at £1 trillion). Nor has the government yet published its ‘heat and buildings strategy’, which is supposed to lay out its plans for overhauling the country’s heating systems — and, no less importantly, who will pay.
Boris Johnson is getting ready to establish himself as a green prime minister ahead of the coming COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow. Since 2010 Britain has reduced its territorial carbon emissions by 28 per cent, more than any G20 country, when the rest of the G7 managed just 5 per cent. Our progress is less impressive when you count ‘non-territorial’ emissions (e.g. aviation and imports). But the UK has made impressive progress in phasing out coal-fired power stations, which will be gone within three years, and investing in renewable energy instead.
As a result, the UK’s carbon emissions are now lower than at any time since Victorian days. So Britain does have a claim to be an environmental leader. But to go from here to net zero — where carbon emissions are minimised and remaining ones offset by tree-planting or similar activity — by 2050 is a huge and expensive jump.
Tory leaders have a tradition of refusing to level with the public about the cost of their green ideas. It wasn’t long ago that David Cameron’s coalition was claiming that giving up fossil fuels would actually save us money because it would make usless dependent on rocketing oil and gas prices. That argument died with the 2014 oil price crash.
The government Climate Change Committee (CCC) has admitted that yes, there would be a cost to going to net zero of £50 billion a year from 2030 until 2050. That figure was the basis on which MPs approved the net zero pledge. It is astonishing that the biggest change to be inflicted on British society in modern times was not even the subject of a full parliamentary bill, just an order amending an existing piece of legislation.
To put that £50 billion in perspective, it wasn’t so long ago that Sir Kevan Collins quit as a government adviser because he was told that £15 billion was too much to spend repairing the damage lockdown caused on children’s education. Denying nurses a 3 per cent pay rise saved £300 million. This is what net zero could cost in two days.
But might £50 billion be an understatement? The CCC never properly explained its working, and refused to give other details when asked in a Freedom of Information request from Andrew Montford of the Global Warming Policy Forum. Its refusal was taken to the Information Tribunal, which last week ordered that it come clean and produce the full spreadsheets it had used for its calculations.
In the meantime, National Grid has come up with its own estimate. It has published four scenarios in which this could conceivably be achieved by 2050 — using various baskets of measures such as wind and solar energy, efficiency gains, citizens agreeing to travel less and so on. In each case it estimates the cost at around £3 trillion. And that only includes decarbonising energy. It excludes agriculture, rail, aviation, shipping, industrial processes and many other things.
As for decarbonising everything, no one can put a price on it because a lot of the technology needed doesn’t yet exist (or certainly not in commercial form). Take iron and steel production, which currently accounts for 7.2 per cent of global emissions. It is possible to recycle steel using electric arc furnaces, but as for making steel from scratch, from iron ore — which a growing global economy will always need to do — at present the only commercially available way of doing it is using coking coal.
It may be possible in future to produce steel using hydrogen instead of coal as a reducing agent: there have been efforts to do this since the 1950s without commercial success. But no one yet knows at what cost. As for cement — which accounts for 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions — we still have no idea how it can be decarbonised. It is possible, though, to put some figures on the bills which individual households could soon be facing.
If the government adopts the CCC’s proposals, it will mean the sale of new fossil fuel-powered boilers to be phased out entirely in 2033, followed by their compulsory replacement over the following 17 years, either with hydrogen boilers or electric heat pumps. It is not certain, however, that it will be practical to switch homes to hydrogen.
All remaining cast-iron gas pipes, which are unsuitable for hydrogen, will have to be replaced with plastic ones.
Then there is the issue of the hydrogen itself. Installing a hydrogen boiler might cut emissions from a house, but it will not get us nearer the net zero target unless the production of the hydrogen itself is decarbonised. You can’t mine or drill for hydrogen; it doesn’t exist on Earth in its free state. And at the moment, most hydrogen production is ‘brown’ hydrogen — i.e. it is made from hydrocarbons, and releases large quantities of greenhouse gases. The CCC’s strategy depends on being able to produce ‘blue’ hydrogen (where the carbon dioxide produced by the process is captured and stored underground) or ‘green’ hydrogen (where the gas is produced through electrolysis — passing electric current through water).
Efforts are being made to prove these technologies on a commercial scale — Scottish Power has a demonstration project for green hydrogen attached to a wind farm on the Clyde. But as yet, no one has any idea how much the resulting fuel will cost homeowners relative to what they currently pay for their gas. It stands to reason, however, that blue hydrogen would cost significantly more than natural gas — it can’t be cheaper to manufacture a fuel from a fuel than it is to burn the source fuel itself.
That is one reason why the CCC is also hedging on an alternative approach: it envisages the number of heat pumps being installed rising from 38,000 last year to 600,000 a year by 2028. But the Prime Minister himself admitted the flaw: they currently cost around £10,000 to install. As he put it, ‘a lot of money for ordinary people’. Moreover, because these pumps work at lower water temperatures than a traditional heating system, they don’t work well in badly insulated homes, such as the eight million homes in Britain with solid walls, many of them concentrated in former ‘red wall’ seats.
According to the government’s own energy advice quango, the Energy Savings Trust, solid wall insulation for a three-bedroom semi will typically cost £8,200, if fitted internally, and £10,000 if fitted externally — with additional costs if, as can easily happen, poorly executed insulation work exacerbates damp problems. Millions of homeowners, then, could face capital costs of around £20,000 to decarbonise their homes — before we even get round to thinking about the cost of generating the electricity entirely by zero-carbon means.
Like an HS2 on rocket-boosters, the estimated costs of net zero spiral out of control in all manner of ways.
Full post
8) ‘Greenflation’ threatens to derail climate change action
Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times, 2 August 2021
The world faces a growing paradox in the campaign to contain climate change. The harder it pushes the transition to a greener economy, the more expensive the campaign becomes, and the less likely it is to achieve the aim of limiting the worst effects of global warming.
New government-directed spending is driving up demand for materials needed to build a cleaner economy. At the same time, tightening regulation is limiting supply by discouraging investment in mines, smelters, or any source that belches carbon. The unintended result is “greenflation”: rising prices for metals and minerals such as copper, aluminium and lithium that are essential to solar and wind power, electric cars and other renewable technologies.
In the past, the transition to a new energy source provided a big boost to the old one. The advent of steam power inspired the makers of sailing ships to innovate more in 50 years than they had in the previous 300. Electricity had a similar impact on gas lighting. Now, building green economies will consume more oil in the transition period, but producers are not responding the same way because political and regulatory resistance has darkened the future of fossil fuels.
Even as oil prices rise, investment by the big hydrocarbon companies and countries continues to fall. Instead, oil powers are reinventing themselves as clean energy powers. One broker recently wrote that of his firm’s 400 institutional clients, only one was still willing to invest in oil and gas. Even in shale oil, a corner of the market dominated by private players, rising prices are triggering an unusually weak increase in supply.
Two of the most important metals for green electrification are copper and aluminium. But investment in these metals has also been depressed by environmental, social and governance issues. The world needs more copper to stop global warming, but environmentalists recently helped block a new Alaska mine over rival concerns: the impact on local communities and salmon.
ESG used to be a luxury of rich nations. No longer. These pressures are restraining supplies even from Latin America, once the wild west of global mining. Almost 40 per cent of copper supply comes from Chile and Peru, and in both countries mining projects that used to take five years can now take 10 or more. One big copper project in Peru, scheduled to open in 2011, remains unfinished owing to resistance from the local community. This year alone, Chile has adopted two sweeping environmental rules and is considering a new royalty that could make some of its biggest mines unprofitable.
China’s role as a big commodity supplier has also been turned on its head. A decade ago, the country was still overproducing raw materials such as iron ore and steel and dumping the excess in foreign markets. Now, Beijing has cut production as part of its campaign to reach carbon neutrality. Nearly 60 per cent of aluminium comes from China, which recently capped new smelting because of its fat carbon footprint.
This certainly looked like the green thing to do. Aluminium is one of the dirtiest metals to produce. Yet it is also one of the metals most vital to solar and other green energy projects, and it is set to face a particularly sharp increase in demand in coming decades, according to the World Bank.
In the 2000s, analysts were bullish on commodity prices, owing to demand from China. Now, if they are bullish it is because of increasing demand from green projects. The green economy is the new China.
Renewable technologies require more wiring than the fossil fuel variety. Solar or wind power plants use up to six times more copper than conventional power generation. Over the past 18 months, as governments announced new green spending plans and pledges, analysts steadily increased their estimates for growth in demand for copper. Green regulation is thus spurring demand as it tightens supply, fuelling greenflation. Since the low point early last year, the price of copper is up more than 100 per cent, while aluminium is up 75 per cent. Unusually, their upward climb has barely weakened with recent signs of waning momentum in global growth.
Solving this conundrum — how to supply enough dirty old material to build a new green economy — will require balance. Blocking new mines and oil rigs will not always be the environmentally and socially responsible move. Governments, and greens in particular, need to recognise that trying to shut down the old economy too fast threatens to push the price of building a cleaner one out of reach.
Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times, 2 August 2021
The world faces a growing paradox in the campaign to contain climate change. The harder it pushes the transition to a greener economy, the more expensive the campaign becomes, and the less likely it is to achieve the aim of limiting the worst effects of global warming.
New government-directed spending is driving up demand for materials needed to build a cleaner economy. At the same time, tightening regulation is limiting supply by discouraging investment in mines, smelters, or any source that belches carbon. The unintended result is “greenflation”: rising prices for metals and minerals such as copper, aluminium and lithium that are essential to solar and wind power, electric cars and other renewable technologies.
In the past, the transition to a new energy source provided a big boost to the old one. The advent of steam power inspired the makers of sailing ships to innovate more in 50 years than they had in the previous 300. Electricity had a similar impact on gas lighting. Now, building green economies will consume more oil in the transition period, but producers are not responding the same way because political and regulatory resistance has darkened the future of fossil fuels.
Even as oil prices rise, investment by the big hydrocarbon companies and countries continues to fall. Instead, oil powers are reinventing themselves as clean energy powers. One broker recently wrote that of his firm’s 400 institutional clients, only one was still willing to invest in oil and gas. Even in shale oil, a corner of the market dominated by private players, rising prices are triggering an unusually weak increase in supply.
Two of the most important metals for green electrification are copper and aluminium. But investment in these metals has also been depressed by environmental, social and governance issues. The world needs more copper to stop global warming, but environmentalists recently helped block a new Alaska mine over rival concerns: the impact on local communities and salmon.
ESG used to be a luxury of rich nations. No longer. These pressures are restraining supplies even from Latin America, once the wild west of global mining. Almost 40 per cent of copper supply comes from Chile and Peru, and in both countries mining projects that used to take five years can now take 10 or more. One big copper project in Peru, scheduled to open in 2011, remains unfinished owing to resistance from the local community. This year alone, Chile has adopted two sweeping environmental rules and is considering a new royalty that could make some of its biggest mines unprofitable.
China’s role as a big commodity supplier has also been turned on its head. A decade ago, the country was still overproducing raw materials such as iron ore and steel and dumping the excess in foreign markets. Now, Beijing has cut production as part of its campaign to reach carbon neutrality. Nearly 60 per cent of aluminium comes from China, which recently capped new smelting because of its fat carbon footprint.
This certainly looked like the green thing to do. Aluminium is one of the dirtiest metals to produce. Yet it is also one of the metals most vital to solar and other green energy projects, and it is set to face a particularly sharp increase in demand in coming decades, according to the World Bank.
In the 2000s, analysts were bullish on commodity prices, owing to demand from China. Now, if they are bullish it is because of increasing demand from green projects. The green economy is the new China.
Renewable technologies require more wiring than the fossil fuel variety. Solar or wind power plants use up to six times more copper than conventional power generation. Over the past 18 months, as governments announced new green spending plans and pledges, analysts steadily increased their estimates for growth in demand for copper. Green regulation is thus spurring demand as it tightens supply, fuelling greenflation. Since the low point early last year, the price of copper is up more than 100 per cent, while aluminium is up 75 per cent. Unusually, their upward climb has barely weakened with recent signs of waning momentum in global growth.
Solving this conundrum — how to supply enough dirty old material to build a new green economy — will require balance. Blocking new mines and oil rigs will not always be the environmentally and socially responsible move. Governments, and greens in particular, need to recognise that trying to shut down the old economy too fast threatens to push the price of building a cleaner one out of reach.
9) And finally: Joe Biden sticks two fingers up at the greens and the IPCC. Anyone would think there was an election coming up...
Bloomberg, 11 August 2021
President Joe Biden has pledged to wean the U.S. off of fossil fuels, and never has that call been more urgent than now, with United Nations-backed scientists warning of a point of no return (sic).
And yet, the Biden administration Wednesday called on Saudi Arabia and its allies to unleash more crude onto global markets, stressing the importance of “affordable energy.” That doesn’t mean the U.S. president has suddenly turned his back on clean energy, but he’s facing the political reality that scores of voters won’t put up with a steady rise in the cost of fuels.
The jarring contradiction highlights the challenges that politicians around the world face in pushing for a transition away from oil, while also seeking to keep a lid on prices at the pump. It also underscores how political barriers could force the administration to scale back some of its green ambitions, including new limits on oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico and on federal land that Biden promised on the campaign trail.
And as the administration tries to navigate the political hurdles of fighting climate change without burdening voters, it’s stoking strong criticism after getting tough on fracking and oil pipelines at home.
“The White House doubles down on favoring OPEC production while giving the middle finger to American energy jobs, American energy consumers, climate advantaged American production,” said Scott Angelle, a Republican former lieutenant governor of Louisiana and secretary of natural resources.
Sonya Savage, the energy minister of Alberta, Canada’s oil heartland, was even more blunt. She said pleading with OPEC after killing the Keystone XL pipeline that would have shipped oil sands crude to U.S. refineries “smacks of hypocrisy.”
The administration’s appeal to OPEC came just two days after Monday’s rallying cries to shift away from fossil fuels amid “unequivocal” warnings from the world’s top climate scientists to eliminate carbon emissions as quickly as possible. John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy on climate, urged “aggressive climate action.” ....
Bloomberg, 11 August 2021
President Joe Biden has pledged to wean the U.S. off of fossil fuels, and never has that call been more urgent than now, with United Nations-backed scientists warning of a point of no return (sic).
And yet, the Biden administration Wednesday called on Saudi Arabia and its allies to unleash more crude onto global markets, stressing the importance of “affordable energy.” That doesn’t mean the U.S. president has suddenly turned his back on clean energy, but he’s facing the political reality that scores of voters won’t put up with a steady rise in the cost of fuels.
The jarring contradiction highlights the challenges that politicians around the world face in pushing for a transition away from oil, while also seeking to keep a lid on prices at the pump. It also underscores how political barriers could force the administration to scale back some of its green ambitions, including new limits on oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico and on federal land that Biden promised on the campaign trail.
And as the administration tries to navigate the political hurdles of fighting climate change without burdening voters, it’s stoking strong criticism after getting tough on fracking and oil pipelines at home.
“The White House doubles down on favoring OPEC production while giving the middle finger to American energy jobs, American energy consumers, climate advantaged American production,” said Scott Angelle, a Republican former lieutenant governor of Louisiana and secretary of natural resources.
Sonya Savage, the energy minister of Alberta, Canada’s oil heartland, was even more blunt. She said pleading with OPEC after killing the Keystone XL pipeline that would have shipped oil sands crude to U.S. refineries “smacks of hypocrisy.”
The administration’s appeal to OPEC came just two days after Monday’s rallying cries to shift away from fossil fuels amid “unequivocal” warnings from the world’s top climate scientists to eliminate carbon emissions as quickly as possible. John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy on climate, urged “aggressive climate action.” ....
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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