China rolls back climate policies amid power shortages
In this newsletter:1) China, India ignore UN deadline to update emissions targets in COP26 warning shot
Global Warming Policy Forum, 2 August 2021
2) China, India miss UN deadline to update emissions targets
Associated Press, 31 July 2021
3) China rolls back climate policies amid power shortages
Bloomberg, 30 July 2021
4) China encourages coal mines to expand production capacity
Reuters, 30 July 2021
5) London climate summit: India absent, Africa demands $750 billion-a-year from rich countries
Gaia Fawkes, 2 August 2021
6) Carbon border tax may turn friends into enemies: South Korea troubled by US, EU talks of carbon border tax
The Korean Herald, 2 August 2021
7) Boris Johnson’s green dream is already turning toxic
The Sunday Times, 1 August 2021
8) Nick Timothy: Net-zero zealots take no notice of the hardship their haste will cause
The Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2021
Bloomberg, 30 July 2021
4) China encourages coal mines to expand production capacity
Reuters, 30 July 2021
5) London climate summit: India absent, Africa demands $750 billion-a-year from rich countries
Gaia Fawkes, 2 August 2021
6) Carbon border tax may turn friends into enemies: South Korea troubled by US, EU talks of carbon border tax
The Korean Herald, 2 August 2021
7) Boris Johnson’s green dream is already turning toxic
The Sunday Times, 1 August 2021
8) Nick Timothy: Net-zero zealots take no notice of the hardship their haste will cause
The Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2021
Full details:
1) China, India ignore UN deadline to update emissions targets in COP26 warning shot
Global Warming Policy Forum, 2 August 2021
In a warning shot across the bows of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, China, India and 85 other nations have decided to ignore a UN deadline to submit its pledges for cutting CO2 emissions in time for the UN climate summit in Glasgow later this year.
Global Warming Policy Forum, 2 August 2021
In a warning shot across the bows of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, China, India and 85 other nations have decided to ignore a UN deadline to submit its pledges for cutting CO2 emissions in time for the UN climate summit in Glasgow later this year.
To underscore their opposition to Joe Biden’s and Boris Johnson’s Net Zero agenda, India has snubbed the UK’s climate meeting last week while China is rolling back its climate policies in an attempt to prop up its economy.
Meanwhile South Africa has demanded that developed countries should set a target of $750 billion a year to transfer to green investors in poorer nations who plan to invest in renewable energy.
The latest demands and developments look increasingly like a farcical repeat of the fiasco of the Copenhagen climate summit (COP15) in 2009.
As seasoned COP observers will remember, after two weeks of deadlocked negotiations in Denmark’s capital, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the so-called BRICS nations) took charge of the climate summit which was on the brink of disaster and drafted the final communique behind closed doors.
A humiliated US President Obama had to gatecrash the meeting while the entire EU was excluded from the meeting and the final statement.
In many ways, Copenhagen’s diplomatic and political fiasco was a historical watershed that marked the turning point when 500 years of Western dominance was symbolically terminated by China and India.
If Boris and Biden are not very careful, they may face a very similar situation in Glasgow. If push comes to shove there is a pretty good chance that China and India (together with a number of emerging nations) could take over a deadlocked COP yet again and draft an agreement that suits them and humiliates the US, UK and the EU.
There is, of course, one shrewd game plan to avoid a Copenhagen-type fiasco: Boris Johnson could simply pull the plug on current summit plans, turn COP26 into a virtual conference and blame Covid for the failure to achieve a breakthrough. After all, Boris has become quite good at kicking irreconcilable issues into the long grass … just saying.
2) China, India miss UN deadline to update emissions targets
Associated Press, 31 July 2021
BERLIN (AP) — China and India have missed a U.N. deadline to submit fresh plans for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions in time for the global body to include their pledges in a report for governments at this year’s global climate summit, officials said Saturday.
The world’s two most populous countries are among dozens that failed to provide an update on their targets for curbing the release of planet-warming gases to the U.N. climate change agency by July 31.
China is the country with the world’s highest emissions, while India is third. The United States, which submitted its new target in April, is the second-biggest global emitter.
U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa welcomed that 110 signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had met the cut-off date, which was extended from the end of 2020 due to the pandemic. But she said it was “far from satisfactory” that only 58% had submitted their new targets in time.
Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria and 82 other nations also failed to update their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in time to include them in a report Espinosa’s office is preparing for the U.N. climate change conference in November.
Espinosa noted that a previous report found countries were doing too little to meet the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared with pre-industrial times, let alone the more ambitious target of capping warming at 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).
“Recent extreme heat waves, droughts and floods across the globe are a dire warning that much more needs to be done, and much more quickly, to change our current pathway,” said Espinosa. “This can only be achieved through more ambitious NDCs.”
Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, countries set their own emissions reduction goals but are required to be transparent about them and jointly raise their targets over time to ensure that global warming remains at agreed acceptable levels.
Full story
Meanwhile South Africa has demanded that developed countries should set a target of $750 billion a year to transfer to green investors in poorer nations who plan to invest in renewable energy.
The latest demands and developments look increasingly like a farcical repeat of the fiasco of the Copenhagen climate summit (COP15) in 2009.
As seasoned COP observers will remember, after two weeks of deadlocked negotiations in Denmark’s capital, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the so-called BRICS nations) took charge of the climate summit which was on the brink of disaster and drafted the final communique behind closed doors.
A humiliated US President Obama had to gatecrash the meeting while the entire EU was excluded from the meeting and the final statement.
In many ways, Copenhagen’s diplomatic and political fiasco was a historical watershed that marked the turning point when 500 years of Western dominance was symbolically terminated by China and India.
If Boris and Biden are not very careful, they may face a very similar situation in Glasgow. If push comes to shove there is a pretty good chance that China and India (together with a number of emerging nations) could take over a deadlocked COP yet again and draft an agreement that suits them and humiliates the US, UK and the EU.
There is, of course, one shrewd game plan to avoid a Copenhagen-type fiasco: Boris Johnson could simply pull the plug on current summit plans, turn COP26 into a virtual conference and blame Covid for the failure to achieve a breakthrough. After all, Boris has become quite good at kicking irreconcilable issues into the long grass … just saying.
2) China, India miss UN deadline to update emissions targets
Associated Press, 31 July 2021
BERLIN (AP) — China and India have missed a U.N. deadline to submit fresh plans for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions in time for the global body to include their pledges in a report for governments at this year’s global climate summit, officials said Saturday.
The world’s two most populous countries are among dozens that failed to provide an update on their targets for curbing the release of planet-warming gases to the U.N. climate change agency by July 31.
China is the country with the world’s highest emissions, while India is third. The United States, which submitted its new target in April, is the second-biggest global emitter.
U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa welcomed that 110 signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had met the cut-off date, which was extended from the end of 2020 due to the pandemic. But she said it was “far from satisfactory” that only 58% had submitted their new targets in time.
Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria and 82 other nations also failed to update their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in time to include them in a report Espinosa’s office is preparing for the U.N. climate change conference in November.
Espinosa noted that a previous report found countries were doing too little to meet the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared with pre-industrial times, let alone the more ambitious target of capping warming at 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).
“Recent extreme heat waves, droughts and floods across the globe are a dire warning that much more needs to be done, and much more quickly, to change our current pathway,” said Espinosa. “This can only be achieved through more ambitious NDCs.”
Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, countries set their own emissions reduction goals but are required to be transparent about them and jointly raise their targets over time to ensure that global warming remains at agreed acceptable levels.
Full story
3) China rolls back climate policies amid power shortages
Bloomberg, 30 July 2021
China’s top policy makers urged an easing of the aggressive measures taken to reduce carbon emissions as Beijing balances economic health with its climate goals.
The strict, top-down enforcement of China’s emission reduction goals is seen hampering the country’s efforts to stimulate slowing economic growth. The Communist Party’s Politburo urged a coordinated, orderly approach to reach carbon neutrality, according to a report published by the official Xinhua News Agency after a meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.
The July meeting of the 25-member Politburo is typically when they review the economy’s performance in the first half and set policy priorities for the rest of the year. The Xinhua report didn’t elaborate on what measures need to be taken on Xi’s target to reduce the top polluter’s emissions to zero by 2060.
The Politburo’s recommendation comes as coal, China’s principal energy source, is in short supply as a trade spat with Australia crimped imports, while a spate of fatal mining accidents has tightened safety inspections. At the same time, efforts to limit the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel have encouraged local authorities to phase out some mining operations, sharpening the deficit.
Full story
4) China encourages coal mines to expand production capacity
Reuters, 30 July 2021
China will encourage qualified coal mines to expand production capacity, the country’s state planner said on Friday, in an effort to boost coal supply and cool prices of the commodity.
Coal miners, who apply for capacity expansion before March 31, 2022 must promise to shut down a certain amount of outdated production capacity and complete the closure within three months after receiving the approvals, it said in a statement.
5) London climate summit: India absent, Africa demands $750 billion-a-year from rich countries
Gaia Fawkes, 2 August 2021
Bloomberg, 30 July 2021
China’s top policy makers urged an easing of the aggressive measures taken to reduce carbon emissions as Beijing balances economic health with its climate goals.
The strict, top-down enforcement of China’s emission reduction goals is seen hampering the country’s efforts to stimulate slowing economic growth. The Communist Party’s Politburo urged a coordinated, orderly approach to reach carbon neutrality, according to a report published by the official Xinhua News Agency after a meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping.
The July meeting of the 25-member Politburo is typically when they review the economy’s performance in the first half and set policy priorities for the rest of the year. The Xinhua report didn’t elaborate on what measures need to be taken on Xi’s target to reduce the top polluter’s emissions to zero by 2060.
The Politburo’s recommendation comes as coal, China’s principal energy source, is in short supply as a trade spat with Australia crimped imports, while a spate of fatal mining accidents has tightened safety inspections. At the same time, efforts to limit the use of the dirtiest fossil fuel have encouraged local authorities to phase out some mining operations, sharpening the deficit.
Full story
4) China encourages coal mines to expand production capacity
Reuters, 30 July 2021
China will encourage qualified coal mines to expand production capacity, the country’s state planner said on Friday, in an effort to boost coal supply and cool prices of the commodity.
Coal miners, who apply for capacity expansion before March 31, 2022 must promise to shut down a certain amount of outdated production capacity and complete the closure within three months after receiving the approvals, it said in a statement.
5) London climate summit: India absent, Africa demands $750 billion-a-year from rich countries
Gaia Fawkes, 2 August 2021
Alok Sharma hosted a pre-COP26 summit in London last week where he was attempting to shape the agenda and outcome of the event. India, which due to industrialisation in recent decades has raised the living standards of hundreds of millions of her citizens, made excuses for not attending. Continental Africa, which sent only a handful of countries, repeated demands for rich industrialised countries to transfers billions annually to fund green growth. This comes after Britain cut back billions from foreign aid this year, putting Sharma in a difficult position.
South African Environment Minister Barbara Creecy demanded countries at November’s UN COP26 climate talks in Glasgow should set a target of mobilising $750 billion-a-year from industrialised countries to help poorer nations transition to greener energy. Her goal is significantly higher than the $100 billion-a-year that was set for 2020, which rich countries have so far failed to deliver on. In negotiations leading up to COP26, a compromise is supposedly emerging to push the date to 2025. Which rich democratic countries will once again fail to deliver on.
The truth is that there will not be, whatever is promised in November, a $750 billion-a-year transfer of capital from the billion or so taxpayers in the industrialised world to the government elites in the developing world. No democratic country has a mandate to “tax and send” at that level – nor will they ever.
India is not going to change direction on the dash for industrialisation powered by coal, which has powered great rival China’s rapid industrialisation. India knows that vastly more people die as a consequence of poverty and disease each year than die as a consequence of global warming.
As in the past, we humans are capable of adapting to climate change in ways that can significantly mitigate its adverse effects, without choking off economic growth. A massive reduction in fossil fuels would exacerbate global poverty, cost-benefit analyses of climate policies reveal that there are better ways to alleviate human misery than spending taxpayer subsidies on panic-driven, political non-solutions to a changing climate. We need to develop more clean, green technology to save the planet and lift people out of poverty.
6) Carbon border tax may turn friends into enemies: South Korea troubled by US, EU talks of carbon border tax
The Korean Herald, 2 August 2021
Asia’s fourth-largest economy to shed an annual 1.1% or $7 billion in exports if carbon border tariff imposed, central bank says
Businesses and experts in export-reliant South Korea on Monday expressed concerns over the European Union and the United States’ moves to levy a carbon emissions tax on imported goods.
Jitters came as the EU last month put forward plans for the world’s first carbon border tax, which would be levied on imports of goods from economies with laxer climate rules from 2026. US lawmakers then began floating plans of including the tariff as part of a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.
The Federation of Korean Industries, a lobby organization representing more than 400 businesses here, including conglomerates Samsung and LG, requested the EU last month to exempt Korea from the tariff plan, officially called a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
The request sent to EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice President for the European Green Deal at the European Commission Frans Timmermans stresses that Korea has already employed its own emissions trading scheme, which is a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions, according to the FKI. The scheme, launched in 2015, is considered the second-largest in scale after the European Union Emissions Trading System.
The FKI complained that under the current circumstances, the EU’s decision to levy a carbon border tax on Korea would lead to unfair double taxation on one of the few economies that has adopted its own cap-and-trade system. It could grow into a new type of trade protectionism as well, the organization said, adding it has yet to receive a response from the EU. The organization has been closely monitoring the developments, but has yet to send a similar request as the US plans are in the early stages.
Cho Gyeong-lyeob, chief economist at the Korea Economic Research Institute, echoed the FKI’s concern that energy-intensive industries such as steel and cement are set to suffer. “If the carbon border tax is levied in a coercive manner, the industries will suffer and plan B won’t exist for them for a while,“ he said.
Cho added that the pace of cutting back carbon emissions in the industries have to be in line with the development of green technologies, which could reduce emissions at an affordable cost.
Full story
7) Boris Johnson’s green dream is already turning toxic
The Sunday Times, 1 August 2021
David Cameron once railed against ‘green crap’. Now this PM is finding that warning voters they will have to rip out their gas boilers is a hard sell
Rishi Sunak is concerned about the cost of eco-plans backed by Boris Johnson and wife Carrie - ILLUSTRATION: JAMES COWEN
Earlier this year Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympics and a longstanding ally of Boris Johnson, picked up the phone to two old friends and asked for their help.
The Tory peer had been roped in by the prime minister at the height of the pandemic to solve the problems with PPE procurement. Now Johnson had another job for him — helping to save the climate change conference that will be a centrepiece of his premiership later this year.
Deighton called Greg Nugent and Godric Smith, masterminds of the marketing and communications for the 2012 Games, to ask them to look at the plans for Cop26, the environmental conference in Glasgow in November. More than 150 countries are supposed to come together to outline how they will reach the goal of producing net-zero emissions by 2050.
They advised that the government needed a full spectrum effort with central control, just as in 2012, to ensure the whole of Whitehall was singing from the same hymn sheet and reinforcing the goals of the conference. That meant opposing plans for a coalmine in Cumbria, which the local council had backed.
Since then large parts of the government have been working flat out on preparations for the event and on Britain’s strategy to reduce its own carbon emissions, to show the world that the UK is leading the way.
The only problem is that different parts of government and the Cop26 team are at daggers drawn over the details, with little of the spirit of 2012 in evidence. With just 100 days to go, public awareness of the conference is minuscule and the policy solutions are mired in disagreements over funding.
The boiler strategy had been due to be published a month ago but is now delayed until September amid rows about how to pay for it. Plans to supply “green cheques” to people to switch are regarded as a “non-starter” by the Treasury and the business department.
Instead, work is continuing about how to help the least well-off transition to new technology, landing the middle classes with higher energy bills, estimated at an extra £170 a year. The third report will be the biggest, the comprehensive net-zero strategy, which will tie together all the other strands and outline how the UK reaches the goal. “The bottom line is that someone is going to end up paying for it, either as consumers or taxpayers,” an official said.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, who is Whitehall’s “net-zero enforcer” wants the strategy to be driven by market forces, with the government providing some initial capital for new industries and clear guidelines that force energy companies to develop new technologies and drive down prices. A heat pump now costs £10,000 to £15,000 but ministers expect demand and technology to reduce the price to that of a boiler.
Kwarteng and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, have been examining the case for carbon border taxes, which would force polluting nations to pay for the transition here — with a carbon tax levied on Chinese goods unless they cut emissions. But officials say that has been vetoed as a subject for discussion at Cop26 by Sharma, who thinks it is too provocative and would prevent a deal with the Chinese.
Sharma’s Cop26 unit is referred to as “the United Nations” or “the blue helmets” in Whitehall, for what is seen by some as a prim and proper attitude.
In turn, almost everyone has strained relations with Sunak, who some Tories say is keen to resist excessive spending on issues where many backbenchers think there are no votes to be won. [...]
Full story (£)
South African Environment Minister Barbara Creecy demanded countries at November’s UN COP26 climate talks in Glasgow should set a target of mobilising $750 billion-a-year from industrialised countries to help poorer nations transition to greener energy. Her goal is significantly higher than the $100 billion-a-year that was set for 2020, which rich countries have so far failed to deliver on. In negotiations leading up to COP26, a compromise is supposedly emerging to push the date to 2025. Which rich democratic countries will once again fail to deliver on.
The truth is that there will not be, whatever is promised in November, a $750 billion-a-year transfer of capital from the billion or so taxpayers in the industrialised world to the government elites in the developing world. No democratic country has a mandate to “tax and send” at that level – nor will they ever.
India is not going to change direction on the dash for industrialisation powered by coal, which has powered great rival China’s rapid industrialisation. India knows that vastly more people die as a consequence of poverty and disease each year than die as a consequence of global warming.
As in the past, we humans are capable of adapting to climate change in ways that can significantly mitigate its adverse effects, without choking off economic growth. A massive reduction in fossil fuels would exacerbate global poverty, cost-benefit analyses of climate policies reveal that there are better ways to alleviate human misery than spending taxpayer subsidies on panic-driven, political non-solutions to a changing climate. We need to develop more clean, green technology to save the planet and lift people out of poverty.
6) Carbon border tax may turn friends into enemies: South Korea troubled by US, EU talks of carbon border tax
The Korean Herald, 2 August 2021
Asia’s fourth-largest economy to shed an annual 1.1% or $7 billion in exports if carbon border tariff imposed, central bank says
Businesses and experts in export-reliant South Korea on Monday expressed concerns over the European Union and the United States’ moves to levy a carbon emissions tax on imported goods.
Jitters came as the EU last month put forward plans for the world’s first carbon border tax, which would be levied on imports of goods from economies with laxer climate rules from 2026. US lawmakers then began floating plans of including the tariff as part of a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.
The Federation of Korean Industries, a lobby organization representing more than 400 businesses here, including conglomerates Samsung and LG, requested the EU last month to exempt Korea from the tariff plan, officially called a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.
The request sent to EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice President for the European Green Deal at the European Commission Frans Timmermans stresses that Korea has already employed its own emissions trading scheme, which is a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions, according to the FKI. The scheme, launched in 2015, is considered the second-largest in scale after the European Union Emissions Trading System.
The FKI complained that under the current circumstances, the EU’s decision to levy a carbon border tax on Korea would lead to unfair double taxation on one of the few economies that has adopted its own cap-and-trade system. It could grow into a new type of trade protectionism as well, the organization said, adding it has yet to receive a response from the EU. The organization has been closely monitoring the developments, but has yet to send a similar request as the US plans are in the early stages.
Cho Gyeong-lyeob, chief economist at the Korea Economic Research Institute, echoed the FKI’s concern that energy-intensive industries such as steel and cement are set to suffer. “If the carbon border tax is levied in a coercive manner, the industries will suffer and plan B won’t exist for them for a while,“ he said.
Cho added that the pace of cutting back carbon emissions in the industries have to be in line with the development of green technologies, which could reduce emissions at an affordable cost.
Full story
7) Boris Johnson’s green dream is already turning toxic
The Sunday Times, 1 August 2021
David Cameron once railed against ‘green crap’. Now this PM is finding that warning voters they will have to rip out their gas boilers is a hard sell
Rishi Sunak is concerned about the cost of eco-plans backed by Boris Johnson and wife Carrie - ILLUSTRATION: JAMES COWEN
Earlier this year Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympics and a longstanding ally of Boris Johnson, picked up the phone to two old friends and asked for their help.
The Tory peer had been roped in by the prime minister at the height of the pandemic to solve the problems with PPE procurement. Now Johnson had another job for him — helping to save the climate change conference that will be a centrepiece of his premiership later this year.
Deighton called Greg Nugent and Godric Smith, masterminds of the marketing and communications for the 2012 Games, to ask them to look at the plans for Cop26, the environmental conference in Glasgow in November. More than 150 countries are supposed to come together to outline how they will reach the goal of producing net-zero emissions by 2050.
They advised that the government needed a full spectrum effort with central control, just as in 2012, to ensure the whole of Whitehall was singing from the same hymn sheet and reinforcing the goals of the conference. That meant opposing plans for a coalmine in Cumbria, which the local council had backed.
Since then large parts of the government have been working flat out on preparations for the event and on Britain’s strategy to reduce its own carbon emissions, to show the world that the UK is leading the way.
The only problem is that different parts of government and the Cop26 team are at daggers drawn over the details, with little of the spirit of 2012 in evidence. With just 100 days to go, public awareness of the conference is minuscule and the policy solutions are mired in disagreements over funding.
The boiler strategy had been due to be published a month ago but is now delayed until September amid rows about how to pay for it. Plans to supply “green cheques” to people to switch are regarded as a “non-starter” by the Treasury and the business department.
Instead, work is continuing about how to help the least well-off transition to new technology, landing the middle classes with higher energy bills, estimated at an extra £170 a year. The third report will be the biggest, the comprehensive net-zero strategy, which will tie together all the other strands and outline how the UK reaches the goal. “The bottom line is that someone is going to end up paying for it, either as consumers or taxpayers,” an official said.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, who is Whitehall’s “net-zero enforcer” wants the strategy to be driven by market forces, with the government providing some initial capital for new industries and clear guidelines that force energy companies to develop new technologies and drive down prices. A heat pump now costs £10,000 to £15,000 but ministers expect demand and technology to reduce the price to that of a boiler.
Kwarteng and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, have been examining the case for carbon border taxes, which would force polluting nations to pay for the transition here — with a carbon tax levied on Chinese goods unless they cut emissions. But officials say that has been vetoed as a subject for discussion at Cop26 by Sharma, who thinks it is too provocative and would prevent a deal with the Chinese.
Sharma’s Cop26 unit is referred to as “the United Nations” or “the blue helmets” in Whitehall, for what is seen by some as a prim and proper attitude.
In turn, almost everyone has strained relations with Sunak, who some Tories say is keen to resist excessive spending on issues where many backbenchers think there are no votes to be won. [...]
Full story (£)
8) Nick Timothy: Net-zero zealots take no notice of the hardship their haste will cause
The Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2021
Britain ploughs on with costly green policies while dozens of other countries break their promises
Earlier this year Ed Miliband launched Labour’s push for an “electric car revolution”. There was, he realised on live television, just one problem. While telling the country to buy electric cars, he had not bought one himself.
“We were on our way to buying one before lockdown,” Miliband squirmed. “It is going to happen, I promise you.” And then with comedic timing: “I have bought an electric bike, but it’s on its way.” It had not occurred to Miliband that the alternative to an electric bike is a simple bicycle, which after manufacture emits no carbon at all. Neither had he thought to pay to cut his own emissions before instructing the public to do the same.
The point of the story is not the hypocrisy, which is nothing new. Celebrity campaigners and politicians are as keen on promoting their green credentials as they are on luxury travel and private jets. David Cameron cycled to work for the cameras, but had his papers driven to the office separately.
The real point is how little thought goes into the politics of climate change. Since 1990, Britain has cut its carbon emissions at almost twice the rate of the European Union, and was the first country to put its net-zero objective into law. But Miliband still insists ministers are too slow.
Given the costs of moving to net zero, we should take stock of where we are, and what we can achieve. The impact assessment accompanying the 2008 Climate Change Act, introduced by Miliband, said, “the economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak”.
Yet even with treaties like the Paris Agreement, dozens of countries, including the United States and China, have failed to meet their promises.
Despite solemn pledges to cut carbon emissions radically, last year the number of coal-fired power stations approved to open around the world increased. China, the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases, was the worst offender, opening the equivalent of a new coal-fired plant every week, and building more than three times the coal-plant capacity as the rest of the world.
Inconvenient truths lie closer to home, too. In Germany, coal generates 24 per cent of electricity, and a new coal plant opened only last year. Six of the 10 largest European carbon emitters are German power stations.
With Britain responsible for around 1 per cent of global carbon emissions, does it really make sense to further increase industrial energy prices, make domestic energy bills unaffordable, and impose all sorts of other costs on consumers and taxpayers to reach net zero before everybody else?
Two years ago, when the Committee on Climate Change abruptly announced that Britain should adopt net zero as its new target, its chairman promised it could be achieved “within the very same costs” as the original Climate Change Act target to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
Others are not so sanguine. Treasury insiders claim that the debate about costs is “patronising and binary”. The costs, they say, “are completely uncertain. There are figures and models that get bandied about but you cannot cost what has not been invented or decisions that have not yet been taken.”
The Bank of England says its modelling, even in the best-case scenario, predicts lower growth as a result of carbon taxes and other policies to force the reduction of carbon emissions. Philip Hammond, the former chancellor, estimated the cost to the economy at £1 trillion.
The interim report of the Treasury’s net-zero review hints at where the burden might fall. While it is careful to talk up the opportunities of transition, it warns of “costs and major structural changes in the economy … unevenly felt across different sectors, regions and households”. Some industries, it warns, will “face greater challenges” than others.
But there is little sensible debate about the part Britain, on its own or going first, can play in fighting climate change. There is no debate about the speed of transition, the role of technology, the cost to households, the effects on productivity and competitiveness, the distribution of costs between regions, industries and families, or the wisdom of paying more early to develop technologies to reduce costs for others later.
Instead, the politicians, technocratic advisers and monomaniacal climate change campaigners present us with supposedly unanswerable facts. Britain is moving too slowly, they say. We have a duty to act before others, because we led the industrial revolution. The rest of the world will soon follow, they claim. We cannot rely on new technology, they insist, we must act now.
Some are honest enough to say we must accept lower living standards; others deny there are any trade-offs, and promise a bountiful future of green growth.
With its refusal to countenance alternatives, with its absolute conviction that the global transition to net zero is an inevitability, with its rejection of debate on the choices available to us, with its reliance on committees of technocrats and use of the courts to police policy, with its disregard for those who will lose out, with the support of the rent-seekers and quangocrats who stand to gain, with the naive expectation that British good faith will be reciprocated by the likes of China, the climate change debate increasingly resembles the globalisation debates of years past.
Then, as now, aloof experts refused to listen to ordinary people, and we are still paying the price for their arrogant complacency: whole regions ravaged by deindustrialisation and economic and social decay, a polarised labour market, the decline of Western power, broken trust, the rise of populists and shattered democratic systems.
The world must take action against climate change – this is not in doubt. But in Britain we should be mindful of what can be done alone, and what might be done together, what might be achieved through changing behaviour and what might be achieved with the help of technology.
The alternative – imposing reductions in living standards, without democratic debate, no public consent, and with little regard to whether it even works – is no strategy. It is nothing better than a recipe for disaffection and failure.
The Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2021
Britain ploughs on with costly green policies while dozens of other countries break their promises
Earlier this year Ed Miliband launched Labour’s push for an “electric car revolution”. There was, he realised on live television, just one problem. While telling the country to buy electric cars, he had not bought one himself.
“We were on our way to buying one before lockdown,” Miliband squirmed. “It is going to happen, I promise you.” And then with comedic timing: “I have bought an electric bike, but it’s on its way.” It had not occurred to Miliband that the alternative to an electric bike is a simple bicycle, which after manufacture emits no carbon at all. Neither had he thought to pay to cut his own emissions before instructing the public to do the same.
The point of the story is not the hypocrisy, which is nothing new. Celebrity campaigners and politicians are as keen on promoting their green credentials as they are on luxury travel and private jets. David Cameron cycled to work for the cameras, but had his papers driven to the office separately.
The real point is how little thought goes into the politics of climate change. Since 1990, Britain has cut its carbon emissions at almost twice the rate of the European Union, and was the first country to put its net-zero objective into law. But Miliband still insists ministers are too slow.
Given the costs of moving to net zero, we should take stock of where we are, and what we can achieve. The impact assessment accompanying the 2008 Climate Change Act, introduced by Miliband, said, “the economic case for the UK continuing to act alone where global action cannot be achieved would be weak”.
Yet even with treaties like the Paris Agreement, dozens of countries, including the United States and China, have failed to meet their promises.
Despite solemn pledges to cut carbon emissions radically, last year the number of coal-fired power stations approved to open around the world increased. China, the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases, was the worst offender, opening the equivalent of a new coal-fired plant every week, and building more than three times the coal-plant capacity as the rest of the world.
Inconvenient truths lie closer to home, too. In Germany, coal generates 24 per cent of electricity, and a new coal plant opened only last year. Six of the 10 largest European carbon emitters are German power stations.
With Britain responsible for around 1 per cent of global carbon emissions, does it really make sense to further increase industrial energy prices, make domestic energy bills unaffordable, and impose all sorts of other costs on consumers and taxpayers to reach net zero before everybody else?
Two years ago, when the Committee on Climate Change abruptly announced that Britain should adopt net zero as its new target, its chairman promised it could be achieved “within the very same costs” as the original Climate Change Act target to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
Others are not so sanguine. Treasury insiders claim that the debate about costs is “patronising and binary”. The costs, they say, “are completely uncertain. There are figures and models that get bandied about but you cannot cost what has not been invented or decisions that have not yet been taken.”
The Bank of England says its modelling, even in the best-case scenario, predicts lower growth as a result of carbon taxes and other policies to force the reduction of carbon emissions. Philip Hammond, the former chancellor, estimated the cost to the economy at £1 trillion.
The interim report of the Treasury’s net-zero review hints at where the burden might fall. While it is careful to talk up the opportunities of transition, it warns of “costs and major structural changes in the economy … unevenly felt across different sectors, regions and households”. Some industries, it warns, will “face greater challenges” than others.
But there is little sensible debate about the part Britain, on its own or going first, can play in fighting climate change. There is no debate about the speed of transition, the role of technology, the cost to households, the effects on productivity and competitiveness, the distribution of costs between regions, industries and families, or the wisdom of paying more early to develop technologies to reduce costs for others later.
Instead, the politicians, technocratic advisers and monomaniacal climate change campaigners present us with supposedly unanswerable facts. Britain is moving too slowly, they say. We have a duty to act before others, because we led the industrial revolution. The rest of the world will soon follow, they claim. We cannot rely on new technology, they insist, we must act now.
Some are honest enough to say we must accept lower living standards; others deny there are any trade-offs, and promise a bountiful future of green growth.
With its refusal to countenance alternatives, with its absolute conviction that the global transition to net zero is an inevitability, with its rejection of debate on the choices available to us, with its reliance on committees of technocrats and use of the courts to police policy, with its disregard for those who will lose out, with the support of the rent-seekers and quangocrats who stand to gain, with the naive expectation that British good faith will be reciprocated by the likes of China, the climate change debate increasingly resembles the globalisation debates of years past.
Then, as now, aloof experts refused to listen to ordinary people, and we are still paying the price for their arrogant complacency: whole regions ravaged by deindustrialisation and economic and social decay, a polarised labour market, the decline of Western power, broken trust, the rise of populists and shattered democratic systems.
The world must take action against climate change – this is not in doubt. But in Britain we should be mindful of what can be done alone, and what might be done together, what might be achieved through changing behaviour and what might be achieved with the help of technology.
The alternative – imposing reductions in living standards, without democratic debate, no public consent, and with little regard to whether it even works – is no strategy. It is nothing better than a recipe for disaffection and failure.
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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