In this newsletter:
1) One in ten German companies is planning to relocate production to other countries
Reuters, 1 March 2023
2) "Red Alert" for 900,000 car workers in Germany as EU plans ban of combustion engine
Focus Magazin, 28 February 2023
3) Germany & Italy signal they could block EU combustion-engine ban
The Wall Street Journal, 2 March 2023
4) Germany threatens to throw EU's electric car dream into reverse
The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2023
5) Global CO2 emissions rise as Ukraine war results in return to coal
The Times, 2 March 2023
The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2023
The Times, 2 March 2023
Financial Post, 28 February 2023
Net Zero Watch, 2 March 2023
Unherd, 2 March 2023
11) And finally: Thanks to Sunak's crazy fracking ban, Ineos invests $1.4 billion in US rather than UK shale assets
The Wall Street Journal, 22 February 2023
Full details:
1) Green Germany: One in ten German companies is planning to relocate production to other countries
Reuters, 1 March 2023
23% of German vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are considering relocating production.
BERLIN, March 1 (Reuters) - The Biden administration's effort to promote climate-friendly technologies through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is attracting German companies to the United States, a survey of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry DIHK released on Wednesday showed.
According to the DIHK survey of 2,400 companies from all sectors, one in 10 German companies is already planning to relocate production to other countries.
The report showed that North America, and particularly the U.S., have become more popular for business.
European Union leaders have expressed concern that local content requirements of much of the $369 billion of subsidies in the IRA, which was enacted in 2022, would encourage companies to abandon Europe for the United States.
According to the survey, 23% of vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are considering relocating production. Under Washington's scheme, new electric vehicle tax credits apply to those with final assembly as well as key inputs made in North America.
An above-average number of mechanical engineering companies and businesses from the chemicals and plastics sectors are also thinking about relocating, the survey shows.
A different DIHK survey showed that 17% of German companies in the U.S. are considering investing more in the country. "The IRA has made building a U.S. plant for electric cars very attractive," Audi Chief Executive Markus Duesmann said. Tesla Inc has scaled back plans to produce batteries at its site in Brandenburg, Germany, and is prioritising cell production in the U.S. because of the IRA.
Full story
2) "Red Alert" for 900,000 car workers in Germany as EU plans to ban combustion engine
Focus Magazin, 28 February 2023
The Bosch works council and the IG Metall union are reacting to the EU decision to phase out combustion engines from 2035 and are announcing a works meeting at ten locations in Germany. There is fear of massive job cuts, Bamberg's works council chairman, Mario Gutmann, told the "Bayerischer Rundfunk".
Many employees are also worried about the possible relocation of production facilities abroad. Gutmann warned that parts for combustion engines are manufactured in Germany which are unusable after the EU ban from 2035 at the latest.
Two thirds of the approximately 6,300 employees in Bamberg are currently concentrating solely on the production of parts for combustion engines.
Martin Feder from the IG Metall union issued a "red alert" and warned: "The future of industrial production is in danger." This is not only felt at Bosch, but applies to many companies. 900,000 employees are currently involved “directly and indirectly” in the production of combustion engines in Germany.
Feder cites the actions of the car manufacturer Ford as a cautionary tale. Almost 2,300 jobs are to be cut in Cologne and Aachen. Meanwhile, Ford is already building a new factory in the US that will cost several billion dollars. Ford soon wants to produce batteries for electric cars there.
Thanks to subsidies and tax breaks, the USA and China are particularly strong promoters of production in their own countries. The head of the Bamberg works council, Gutmann, warned about the resulting de-industrialization in Germany.
Full story (in German)
3) Germany & Italy signal they could block EU combustion-engine ban
The Wall Street Journal, 2 March 2023
Opposition to a major plank of the bloc’s climate plans comes as the move to EVs threatens jobs in Europe
A group of large European Union countries is threatening to block a plan by Brussels to effectively ban the internal combustion engine, endangering the bloc’s ambitious agenda to combat climate change.
Germany and Italy said this week they could block the plan’s formal approval at crucial meetings this week and next. Berlin said it would oppose the plan unless Brussels agrees to allow so-called synthetic fuels that can burn like gasoline and diesel but spew fewer climate-damaging emissions alongside fully electric vehicles.
Under the leadership of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, Europe has adopted an ambitious plan to fight climate-change-causing greenhouse-gas emissions. The plan relies heavily on the mass adoption of electric vehicles and effectively bans new combustion-engine vehicles from 2035.
Parts of the auto industry, which employs 3.4 million people in the EU—nearly 12% of all manufacturing jobs—have pushed back, arguing that including so-called e-fuels into the plan would allow emission targets to be hit while stretching the costly move away from combustion engines over decades.
Some governments have expressed sympathy with the demand as the move to electric vehicles, which are less complex to produce than their combustion rivals, threatens large numbers of jobs in the region.
Under a compromise reached last October, lawmakers agreed that the European Commission could put forward additional rules allowing new vehicles with engines that use carbon-neutral fuels to continue to be sold, but it has yet to do so.
German Transport Minister Volker Wissing on Tuesday said Berlin now wanted Brussels to present this legislation ahead of the plan’s approval, saying that because it had yet to do so, “the German government cannot approve the compromise.”
Italy’s Environment Ministry said that environmental targets should be pursued in a way that avoids harming jobs and production and that electric vehicles shouldn’t be seen as the only route to zero emissions.
Two other countries have also pushed back on the legislation. Poland has informed other member states it plans to vote against the plan, and Bulgaria has indicated it plans to abstain, four EU diplomats said. Poland’s government has previously said that such a ban would restrict consumer choice and lead to higher costs. By acting together, those countries have enough votes to block the plan’s approval.
A spokesman for the commission said it is up to the commission’s political leadership to determine what legislation to propose and when to do so. “The transition to zero-emissions vehicles is absolutely necessary” to meet the bloc’s climate targets, he said.
Full story
4) Germany threatens to throw EU's electric car dream into reverse
The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2023
Veto threat leaves country looking like it is in thrall to its powerful automotive giants
As Olaf Scholz addressed world leaders and financiers on the ski slopes of Davos in January, the German Chancellor sought to portray his country as the emerging leader in Europe’s green transition.
Looking at what his successors might tell the gathering in 2045, he predicted a utopia powered by green electricity, emissions-free vehicles and energy-efficient buildings.
“What is more,” Scholz added, “they are the ones who will have driven this transition.”
Behind this rosy picture, however, is a more complicated backdrop at home.
Despite Scholz’s insistence that Germany is leading the way, the Chancellor is facing political embarrassment as ministers in his coalition threaten to frustrate Europe’s efforts to move away from petrol and diesel cars.
Under plans going to a vote by European Union ministers on Tuesday, the bloc will effectively ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles from 2035. The proposals were agreed in principle last year and are designed to cement the transition to electric cars.
But with just days to go until the final decision, Scholz’s coalition partners in the Free Democratic Party (FDP) are mounting a rearguard action that risks morphing into a diplomatic fiasco.
Finance minister Christian Lindner and transport minister Volker Wissing have called for combustion engine vehicles to be exempt from the ban if they can run on so-called e-fuels, synthetic concoctions which some automakers are touting as an alternative to battery-powered cars.
Environmentalists say the intervention is a cynical attempt to woo FDP voters and extend the lifetime of a technology that has had its day.
But Wissing is vowing to veto the vehicle emission laws unless the EU agrees – with his efforts expected to secure backing from Italy, Poland and eastern European countries which provide supplies to the German car industry as well.
The move puts the FDP at odds with its bigger partners in government, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Greens, while leaving Germany looking like a recalcitrant outlier in thrall to its powerful automotive industry.
Full story
5) Global CO2 emissions rise as Ukraine war results in return to coal
The Times, 2 March 2023
Carbon (sic) emissions related to global energy grew by almost 1 per cent last year to a record high, partly because countries had to burn more coal to cope with surging gas prices linked to the war in Ukraine.
The findings by the International Energy Agency (IEA) are bad news for hopes of hitting the temperature targets set out in the Paris agreement, which include holding warming to well below 2C.
Experts say that the accord’s toughest goal, of arresting warming at 1.5C to avert the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, would require emissions to fall about 5 per cent every year this decade. Yet last year emissions jumped 0.9 per cent, or 321 million tonnes of CO2, to a new high of 36.8 billion tonnes.
“We still see emissions growing from fossil fuels, hindering efforts to meet the world’s climate targets,” said Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, which was founded in 1974 amid the oil crisis.
Coal emissions grew 1.6 per cent, the same amount as gas emissions fell, as companies chose to run coal power stations instead of gas ones. Europe and other continents abruptly tried to wean themselves off Russian gas, leaving countries such as Germany scrambling to keep open power plants burning coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. As air travel rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels, emissions from oil increased even faster than coal, by 2.5 per cent.
Full story
The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2023
Residents of Whitby, in Ellesmere Port, have protested against proposals for the gas grid in their area to be switched to hydrogen in 2025 as part of net zero trials.
The Government says it wants to test the viability of the fuel for home heating before making a decision on further rollout. But residents and experts have raised concerns over safety, costs, air pollution and the green credentials of the gas.
Whitby, home to around 2,000 people, is one of two neighbourhoods being considered for the trial, alongside Redcar in Teesside.
Ofgem is due to make a decision by the end of this year over which village will be switched to hydrogen based on bids by the two relevant gas networks, Cadent in Cheshire and Northern Gas Networks in Teesside. The trials are being funded through levies on consumer bills, including £9m for the initial bidding stage.
Although residents will have a choice between a hydrogen boiler and heat pump, they would not be able to opt out of the trial once a decision has been made.
Their gas supply would be turned off and the gas companies could force entry into their homes to switch appliances if necessary.
But at a meeting organised by Cheshire West and Chester Council on Tuesday night, the Government said in a prepared statement that it would “not go ahead with a trial in an area where there is not strong local support”.
The concession raises doubts about the viability of the trial, given significant opposition to the plans.
Full story
7) Iain Martin: Biden's climate agenda puts western alliance at risk
The Times, 2 March 2023
Any ally of the United States knows that it lives in the shadow of an empire. And, like any of the great empires in history, America will often do what is in its own interests, whether that annoys or pleases its allies.
Britain was reminded of this truth in the Second World War. Although the US was the greatest ally of the wartime coalition led by Winston Churchill, it also sought the destruction of the British Empire and loaded the UK with debt.
Today it is Europe, Britain included, that is about to feel once again the effects of America doing what suits America. The Biden administration is introducing enormous industrial subsidies that threaten to deindustrialise Europe over the course of this decade.
Investment will be sucked into the US and Europe will struggle to respond. With deindustrialisation will come unemployment, social unrest and, perhaps, the rise of crazy populism, with all that entails. In the past few months I have seen this explained to several audiences of policymakers and business folk and each time the response is similar. A handful look worried by what they hear, more look baffled. Perhaps this threat involves sums so vast it sits outside the realms of what is imaginable. Why would the US deindustrialise Europe, just when it is helping Ukraine so effectively and investing in Nato to protect security? How has the US come up with a policy that accidentally threatens to impoverish its friends? Here’s my attempt at an explanation.
After the Covid crisis, President Biden’s administration was rightly fixated on the urgent need to reshore industry and reduce reliance on Chinese manufacturing. There is a bipartisan consensus that China is the main threat to the US and its allies. This helps explain the creation of the Inflation Reduction Act — misleadingly named because it is about green industrial investment, putting nearly $400 billion into subsidies and tax breaks for “clean energy” projects and electric vehicles.
As well as the IRA there is also the Chips Act, another subsidy programme to encourage investors to build factories in the US. The West has become exposed, with so much microchip processing power produced near China. This is what powers computers, smartphones, the modern economy. Taiwan, at risk of Chinese invasion, makes 37 per cent of all logic chips, so the American government wants to increase domestic production.
From a European perspective, these developments are a potential disaster. The new subsidies and tax breaks in the US are so attractive they will suck in money from global investors and companies keen to enjoy American subsidies. Why build or fund a solar or battery factory that counts as green in Warsaw or Wigan when Wisconsin is available with a wheelbarrow full of subsidies?
American friends respond that it is a bit rich of Europe to complain. Europeans were thrilled when the US signed up at Cop26 and other global gatherings to deliver more green energy. Now European governments object. It’s also true that Europe has been subsidising industry for years. But the difference is that for every dollar the US government throws at subsidies, the private sector will be able to marshal ten more, assembling perhaps $4.5 trillion of investment in the coming years. The US is an investment machine. Europe doesn’t work that way. American policymakers tend to take for granted one of their main advantages as an imperial power. With the dollar they have unified rules and deep capital markets. There are vast pools of wealth available to be harnessed at speed, with investors ready to pounce on the best return, and they can attract global funds too.
Europe simply does not have an equivalent. Lord Hill, the former European commissioner, attempted to devise an EU Capital Markets Union. It has been talked about for years but the member states squabble.
The European Commission is alert to the danger and has been making trips to Washington seeking opt-outs. Although the EU will try to agree its own subsidies, they are likely to be piddling without the kind of investor leverage America enjoys. Rishi Sunak is aware of the difficulties too, but for the Treasury it is just another item on a long list of problems in post-Brexit Britain.
In recent days, the Biden administration seems to have woken up to the criticism. John Podesta, a Democrat veteran and adviser to the president on clean energy, said at the weekend that it was perfectly understandable for the US to concentrate on boosting American investment and employment. On Monday, the US energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, was more conciliatory. Everyone should “stay tuned”, she said, noting that the US wanted Europe and the UK to thrive. We’ll see, but going into the presidential electoral cycle, when anything delivering jobs and investment for America is going to be popular, the subsidies will stay.
In Europe, it is easy to see how this will embolden those who say America is too self-interested and that a limit should be set on helping it push back against China. This will be in the minds of industrialists and politicians when Germany is on the edge of a recession and China wants to boost trade. France, too, insists that Europe should prioritise so-called “strategic autonomy”, organising more of its own defences. Even if that is impractical, given the sheer power America brings to Nato, it will be a potent theme.
What the US is doing counts, I think, as potentially the single greatest threat to the western alliance. The danger is that it will make it more difficult for European states to respond positively when America asks, in relation to China: whose side are you on? The US administration says, absolutely rightly, that the democracies should stick together in the coming decades, against Russia and then against China. Yet the deindustrialisation of Europe undoes that vital policy right from the off.
Financial Post, 28 February 2023
The green agenda helps China several ways: It saps the West’s economic prosperity and undermines its energy independence, while bolstering China’s economy and strengthening its national security, thereby advancing President Xi Jinping’s geopolitical ambitions.
It is common knowledge how utterly useless Canada has been to its European and Japanese allies in answering their urgent need for natural gas (NG), in spite of our vast proven reserves. Not only have we forgone billions of dollars of lost exports, we missed an opportunity to help confront Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine. Ironically, our inability to export oil and gas to overseas markets means not reducing net global omissions by substituting NG for higher-emitting coal or wood pellets.
Additional resource revenue could significantly address Canada’s mediocre productivity, which, according to the OECD, will consign us to subpar growth over the long-term compared to every other wealthy country. When Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland presents her budget next month, she will face severe fiscal constraints. Jobs in Alberta and Saskatchewan, national economic growth and funds for social programs are sacrificed on the altar of climate alarmism, inciting regional tensions and threatening national unity.
Long overdue reconciliation with aboriginal peoples could be advanced by enormous economic benefits to First Nations eager to develop resources near their communities. The colossal cost of getting to net zero ($2 trillion by 2050 for Canada or $275 trillion globally) will inevitably lead to popular resistance.
China imports almost half its gas requirements, but has positioned itself as a swing supplier by becoming the world’s largest NG buyer. That parallels its strategic approach to mining, from copper to rare earths, with 92 per cent of rare earth magnet production. While China virtue-signals its green bona fides to gullible westerners, it resolutely expands an enormous fleet of coal-fired power plants to secure its own energy security. Since 2016 it has built three times more coal-powered electricity capacity than the rest of the world combined.
China also dominates the solar supply chain, with 84 per cent of global solar panel manufacturing. Last year, it was also the world’s largest manufacturer of equipment used to produce wind power. And it is the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles and accounts for roughly 60 per cent of the world’s lithium chemicals and 70 per cent of power battery production.
Even as China exploits the West’s green revolution, it pursues offensive behaviour internationally, as Canada can attest.
It organized a sophisticated, well-funded, illegal attempt to influence the 2021 Canadian election in favour of the Liberal party. Yet our government has done nothing to address this shocking assault on our democratic process, signalling to the world that the Chinese Communist Party can get away with outrageous behaviour without meaningful consequences. For some time, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has identified this as a serious problem, but the prime minister’s focus has been to uncover the whistleblower.
The brutal confinement of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor during 1,019 days of hostage diplomacy may seem like yesterday’s news, but it cannot be for them and their families. Two Canadian citizens, Fan Wei and Robert Schellenberg, are currently awaiting execution in China. In recent years, China imposed trade restrictions on Canadian canola and meat, while cyberattacks originating in China were launched on the National Research Council. China’s former ambassador, Lu Shaye, accused Canada of white supremacy and hypocrisy for our criticism of his government’s persecution of its Uighur minority, which the House of Commons later labelled a genocide.
Like a schoolyard bully, China picks on small countries, confident there won’t be repercussions for its bellicosity. But Canada has physical and diplomatic resources to reduce our vulnerability and make the relationship less asymmetrical, including immense reserves of oil and gas, if only we would use them. If China were importing Canadian fuel, it would be less likely to treat us with contempt. Moreover, it would be paying billions of dollars for resources that are currently stranded, like currency stashed under a mattress, and will eventually have no value. This is what the prime minister mindlessly calls “no business case.”
Canada’s refusal to join other resource-rich countries’ push to get oil and gas to market does not reduce global fossil fuel consumption. We are simply impoverishing ourselves to the benefit of petro-states with poor environmental standards and appalling human rights records.
The lights are going on globally about the downside of climate obsession, although Canada is late to the party. Trying to rapidly transition off fossil fuels is like taking a slow boat to China, both in time and direction. We may eventually get there, but we won’t be happy with the reception when our horribly expensive voyage ends.
Joe Oliver was minister of natural resources and minister of finance in the Harper government.
9) Antarctic Sea Ice: ‘The beginning of the end!’ – again
Net Zero Watch, 2 March 2023
Dr David Whitehouse, Science editor
According to CNN “Antarctic sea ice hits record lows again. Scientists wonder if it’s “the beginning of the end.” CNN also reports that, “90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.”
CNN are not the only media outlets to report on this years’ record low sea ice around Antarctica in apocalyptic terms, other media extremists are available. For Sky News it’s the accelerating melt of polar regions. For the BBC “There is now less sea-ice surrounding the Antarctic continent than at any time since we began using satellites to measure it in the late 1970s.”
All this is technically true, but misleading. When it’s put into context one sees a different picture.
So let’s have a look at the actual satellite data of Antarctic sea ice collected monthly since 1979. The NSIDC gives two data sets for what it calls i) sea ice extent, and ii) sea ice area. So let’s examine both of them.
The first graphs is sea ice area, the second sea ice extent.
Such a change is possibly associated with a long-term variability arising from ice–ocean feedbacks. Some evidence for this is that the transition was preceded by an increasing upper Southern Ocean density stratification, and an accumulation of heat at the subsurface; suggesting a decoupling of the surface from the subsurface ocean. In 2015/16, the upper ocean density stratification in the ice-covered region suddenly weakened, leading to a release of heat from the subsurface, contributing to the sea ice decline during winter. Perhaps this is a significant change in the coupled circumpolar ice–ocean system. Time will tell.
One could say that this prime example of science miscommunication is the fault of the NSIDC scientists and their comments posted on their website which were taken by journalists, and repeated without analysis or true context. So much of science journalism these days consists of “turning around” a press release.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzero.com
Unherd, 2 March 2023
One can — still — almost hear the collective sigh of relief throughout Europe that this year’s winter was one of the warmest in recorded history. While it might be tempting to point to the irony of global warming saving Europe from the consequences of its own climate change policies, the real question is whether the crisis is truly over.
Optimists draw attention to European prices for natural gas, which have slumped to their lowest level since 2021, surely an indicator that all the panicking of the past was baseless alarmism. But such optimism ignores that in addition to the fortunate weather, Europe bought every morsel of energy it could on the global markets.
In addition to spending $1.2 trillion on energy over the last 14 months, LNG imports in 2022 were 60% higher than in 2021, and Europeans outspent China, Japan, and South Korea combined, with an extra $25 billion dedicated to LNG alone. Keep in mind, though, that Chinese demand was severely reduced by its Zero Covid policy, a condition that is about to change soon with China’s factory activity hitting the highest level since 2012.
These panic-buys have left their scars on the global markets, and triggered a widespread return to coal as the primary source of energy, since developing countries in particular fear that Europe outbidding them on global LNG markets will leave them literally in the dark. In other words, Europe might have saved itself in 2022, but in doing so sacrificed addressing the global climate crisis. With most of the developing world building out coal — which is dirty but also reliable, cheap, and easily storable — global emissions will not be significantly reduced any time soon.
But it would be unfair to point to the developing world, since Germany has done exactly the same: in addition to LNG, it was “King Coal” that kept the lights on. Thus one should not put too much stock into German promises to exit coal by “2030 or earlier” given that it’s highly unlikely that there will be any significant improvement in 2023 and beyond when it comes to matters of energy, especially natural gas. This has been laid out in great detail by the most recent Shell LNG Outlook 2023, which predicts significant global supply gaps in LNG during the coming decade and warns of ongoing under-investments in fossil fuels, despite their continuously rising use.
Once again, the optimist will tell you that these issues can be overcome by reducing gas demand, which is certainly possible. Europe has curbed its industrial use significantly below the 2013-2019 average, but at significant costs to the production of fertilisers, chemicals, steel, and cement. These four materials are usually considered the most important ingredients to maintain modern civilisation.
This might also help to explain why sanctions on Russian energy have been somewhat disappointing in their effect so far. While they are of course painful for Russia’s economy, this pain has not exactly been terminal, and the sanctions are often circumvented by European states themselves, like Austria or Spain.
Looking at the European energy situation, it increasingly looks like 2022 is closer to a new norm than an outlier. The question of energy security in Europe remains unanswered. Hoping for warm winters in the year to come is not a strategy: it is an act of desperation.
11) And finally: Thanks to Sunak's crazy fracking ban, Ineos invests $1.4 billion in US rather than UK shale assets
The Wall Street Journal, 22 February 2023
Deal is U.K. firm’s first in U.S. oil and gas production, as Chesapeake increases its natural-gas focus
Chesapeake Energy Corp. said Tuesday that it has sold oil assets to a division of U.K. chemical maker Ineos Group AG for $1.4 billion.
The deal involves oil assets in the northern part of the Eagle Ford shale basin in South Texas. The sale marks the first foray of Ineos, one of the world’s largest chemical producers, into U.S. oil and gas production, Ineos said in a news release.
“We believe this acquisition will help us to serve our internal and external customers today as we continue to position our business to meet the energy transition,” Ineos Energy Chairman Brian Gilvary said.
Ineos is majority-owned by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s richest men. Mr. Ratcliffe last week made an official bid for soccer team Manchester United.
Oklahoma-based Chesapeake had announced its intention to divest itself of assets in the Eagle Ford to focus on natural-gas assets in the Marcellus gas field of Appalachia and in the Haynesville basin of Louisiana and East Texas, as part of its strategy to gain exposure to increasing exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas.
“Today marks another important step on our path to exiting the Eagle Ford as we focus our capital on the premium rock, returns and runway of our Marcellus and Haynesville positions,” Chesapeake Chief Executive Nick Dell’Osso said in a news release.
Full story
The London-based Net Zero Watch is a campaign group set up to highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. The Net Zero Watch newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.netzerowatch.com.
1 comment:
As I have commented before, I suspect a whole of life whole world CO2 comparison of ic vehicles optimised for long life and economy would likely compare favourably with heavy EVs and their elaborate short lived batteries. It might be worth stockpiling old Toyotas as they will likely become very sought after.
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