In this newsletter:
1) Beware the habitual El Niño hype
Net Zero Watch, 11 July 2023
2) New study: Ten times more European deaths per year are attributed to cold weather than to hot weather
Lancet, 16 March 2023
3) VW electric car sales “fall to zero” as Tesla and China EV makers win price war
The Driven, 12 July 2023
4) EU conservatives’ anti-Green Deal push falls short
Politico, 12 July 2023
5) Net Zero Britain: ‘UK energy prices could rise this summer due to gas field outages’
Energy Live News, 13 July 2023
6) Matthew Lynn: Britain should place a big bet on the petrol engine
The Spectator, 12 July 2023
Net Zero Watch, 11 July 2023
2) New study: Ten times more European deaths per year are attributed to cold weather than to hot weather
Lancet, 16 March 2023
3) VW electric car sales “fall to zero” as Tesla and China EV makers win price war
The Driven, 12 July 2023
4) EU conservatives’ anti-Green Deal push falls short
Politico, 12 July 2023
5) Net Zero Britain: ‘UK energy prices could rise this summer due to gas field outages’
Energy Live News, 13 July 2023
6) Matthew Lynn: Britain should place a big bet on the petrol engine
The Spectator, 12 July 2023
7) John Lee Shaw: Is this the Dutch farmers’ moment?
Spiked, 11 July 2023
Spiked, 11 July 2023
8) Andrew Montford: The religious cult of climate catastrophism
The Conservative Woman, 13 July 2023
9) Mark Lawson: Gone with the wind
Spectator Australia, 12 July 2023
10) Met Office doubles recent U.K. warming trend in just 13 months, abolishing 15-year flatlining trend
The Conservative Woman, 13 July 2023
9) Mark Lawson: Gone with the wind
Spectator Australia, 12 July 2023
10) Met Office doubles recent U.K. warming trend in just 13 months, abolishing 15-year flatlining trend
11) And finally: Climate Politics in One Lesson
The Wall Street Journal, 11 July 2023
Full details:
1) Beware the habitual El Niño hype
Net Zero Watch, 11 July 2023
Dr David Whitehouse, Science Editor
Net Zero Watch, 11 July 2023
Dr David Whitehouse, Science Editor
The world is once again in the grip of a semi-regular climate alarm. I’m not referring to the latest onset of the El Niño cycle, declared in action on July 4th by the United Nations, but the amplified rhetoric about the pace and scale of warming temperatures that always accompanies such El Niño periods.
Do you remember what happened last time we had a record El Niño in 2015/16? Global temperatures increased rapidly – as they do during such an event – and, according to some, it was full speed ahead to a runaway thermal apocalypse … until global temperatures started to fall again.
Earlier this month, the world broke global temperature records for several days, inevitably leading to renewed speculation about the onset of runaway global warming. The Guardian asked if we have entered a more erratic and dangerous phase with the onset of an El Niño event on top of human-made global heating.
Well, not really, or at least not on the basis of the data we have so far.The global temperature data which started these claims are of course preliminary and are in any case a mixture of real data and input from models so a note of caution is needed. Nonetheless it is expected that the temperature records will be confirmed in coming months.The real situation is, as they say, a little more complicated than many of the exaggerated claims.
In recent months the atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic has been unusual. The Azores High – a semi-permanent area of high pressure – was much weaker than normal. To put this into context, for the past decade the Azores High was about or above average at this time of year. This years variation resulted in low wind speeds occurring at the same time as a so-called marine heatwave in the north Atlantic.
The lower wind speeds lead to a reduction in the mixing of surface water with the cooler water below, allowing the sea surface temperatures to increase. Another consequence is a reduction in the transport of dust from the Sahara westward over the north Atlantic. Usually Saharan dust reflects solar radiation back into space before it reaches the ocean surface, thereby cooling it. Another contributing factor is the decreasing particulate pollution over the northern hemisphere as the air gets cleaner over Europe and North America.
Now add all those effects to the multi-decadal fluctuation of north Atlantic circulation and the consequential transport of heat about which we have a very incomplete understanding.
Then there is the El Niño starting to snake its way across Pacific equatorial waters. All of this is against a backdrop of a global warming trend which, aside from the El Niño, hasn’t shown much of an increase, if at all in almost the past decade.
So looking at the events of the past few months, and the records broken, you would have to say it’s complicated and best left to a post-El Niño analysis. No such caution for the Met Office and the Guardian however:
“If a few decades ago, some people might have thought climate change was a relatively slow-moving phenomenon, we are now witnessing our climate changing at a terrifying rate,” they quote Prof Peter Stott, who leads the UK Met Office’s climate monitoring and attribution team.
Given the complexity and disparity of recent events I look forward to the Met Office’s post-El Niño analysis of such extreme and rather premature hype.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com
2) New study: Ten times more European deaths per year are attributed to cold weather than to hot weather
Lancet, 16 March 2023
Across the 854 urban areas in Europe, we estimated an annual excess of 203620 deaths attributed to cold and 20173 attributed to heat.
Do you remember what happened last time we had a record El Niño in 2015/16? Global temperatures increased rapidly – as they do during such an event – and, according to some, it was full speed ahead to a runaway thermal apocalypse … until global temperatures started to fall again.
Earlier this month, the world broke global temperature records for several days, inevitably leading to renewed speculation about the onset of runaway global warming. The Guardian asked if we have entered a more erratic and dangerous phase with the onset of an El Niño event on top of human-made global heating.
Well, not really, or at least not on the basis of the data we have so far.The global temperature data which started these claims are of course preliminary and are in any case a mixture of real data and input from models so a note of caution is needed. Nonetheless it is expected that the temperature records will be confirmed in coming months.The real situation is, as they say, a little more complicated than many of the exaggerated claims.
In recent months the atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic has been unusual. The Azores High – a semi-permanent area of high pressure – was much weaker than normal. To put this into context, for the past decade the Azores High was about or above average at this time of year. This years variation resulted in low wind speeds occurring at the same time as a so-called marine heatwave in the north Atlantic.
The lower wind speeds lead to a reduction in the mixing of surface water with the cooler water below, allowing the sea surface temperatures to increase. Another consequence is a reduction in the transport of dust from the Sahara westward over the north Atlantic. Usually Saharan dust reflects solar radiation back into space before it reaches the ocean surface, thereby cooling it. Another contributing factor is the decreasing particulate pollution over the northern hemisphere as the air gets cleaner over Europe and North America.
Now add all those effects to the multi-decadal fluctuation of north Atlantic circulation and the consequential transport of heat about which we have a very incomplete understanding.
Then there is the El Niño starting to snake its way across Pacific equatorial waters. All of this is against a backdrop of a global warming trend which, aside from the El Niño, hasn’t shown much of an increase, if at all in almost the past decade.
So looking at the events of the past few months, and the records broken, you would have to say it’s complicated and best left to a post-El Niño analysis. No such caution for the Met Office and the Guardian however:
“If a few decades ago, some people might have thought climate change was a relatively slow-moving phenomenon, we are now witnessing our climate changing at a terrifying rate,” they quote Prof Peter Stott, who leads the UK Met Office’s climate monitoring and attribution team.
Given the complexity and disparity of recent events I look forward to the Met Office’s post-El Niño analysis of such extreme and rather premature hype.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@netzerowatch.com
2) New study: Ten times more European deaths per year are attributed to cold weather than to hot weather
Lancet, 16 March 2023
Across the 854 urban areas in Europe, we estimated an annual excess of 203620 deaths attributed to cold and 20173 attributed to heat.
Pierre Masselot et al. (2023) Excess mortality attributed to heat and cold: a health impact assessment study in 854 cities in Europe
Background
Heat and cold are established environmental risk factors for human health. However, mapping the related health burden is a difficult task due to the complexity of the associations and the differences in vulnerability and demographic distributions. In this study, we did a comprehensive mortality impact assessment due to heat and cold in European urban areas, considering geographical differences and age-specific risks.
Methods
We included urban areas across Europe between Jan 1, 2000, and Dec 12, 2019, using the Urban Audit dataset of Eurostat and adults aged 20 years and older living in these areas. Data were extracted from Eurostat, the Multi-country Multi-city Collaborative Research Network, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, and Copernicus. We applied a three-stage method to estimate risks of temperature continuously across the age and space dimensions, identifying patterns of vulnerability on the basis of city-specific characteristics and demographic structures. These risks were used to derive minimum mortality temperatures and related percentiles and raw and standardised excess mortality rates for heat and cold aggregated at various geographical levels.
Findings
Across the 854 urban areas in Europe, we estimated an annual excess of 203 620 (empirical 95% CI 180 882–224 613) deaths attributed to cold and 20 173 (17 261–22 934) attributed to heat. These corresponded to age-standardised rates of 129 (empirical 95% CI 114–142) and 13 (11–14) deaths per 100 000 person-years. Results differed across Europe and age groups, with the highest effects in eastern European cities for both cold and heat.
Full paper
3) VW electric car sales “fall to zero” as Tesla and China EV makers win price war
The Driven, 12 July 2023
Background
Heat and cold are established environmental risk factors for human health. However, mapping the related health burden is a difficult task due to the complexity of the associations and the differences in vulnerability and demographic distributions. In this study, we did a comprehensive mortality impact assessment due to heat and cold in European urban areas, considering geographical differences and age-specific risks.
Methods
We included urban areas across Europe between Jan 1, 2000, and Dec 12, 2019, using the Urban Audit dataset of Eurostat and adults aged 20 years and older living in these areas. Data were extracted from Eurostat, the Multi-country Multi-city Collaborative Research Network, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, and Copernicus. We applied a three-stage method to estimate risks of temperature continuously across the age and space dimensions, identifying patterns of vulnerability on the basis of city-specific characteristics and demographic structures. These risks were used to derive minimum mortality temperatures and related percentiles and raw and standardised excess mortality rates for heat and cold aggregated at various geographical levels.
Findings
Across the 854 urban areas in Europe, we estimated an annual excess of 203 620 (empirical 95% CI 180 882–224 613) deaths attributed to cold and 20 173 (17 261–22 934) attributed to heat. These corresponded to age-standardised rates of 129 (empirical 95% CI 114–142) and 13 (11–14) deaths per 100 000 person-years. Results differed across Europe and age groups, with the highest effects in eastern European cities for both cold and heat.
Full paper
3) VW electric car sales “fall to zero” as Tesla and China EV makers win price war
The Driven, 12 July 2023
Volkswagen’s domestic sales of electric cars in Germany are far behind the company’s plans, insiders told business daily Handelsblatt.
Executives at some VW plants said demand for particular battery-electric models had fallen “to zero,” while car dealers pointed to a general reluctance of European consumers to buy electric cars, blaming subsidy cuts, high inflation and comparatively high prices.
Executives at some VW plants said demand for particular battery-electric models had fallen “to zero,” while car dealers pointed to a general reluctance of European consumers to buy electric cars, blaming subsidy cuts, high inflation and comparatively high prices.
With reference to price cuts by US rival Tesla, company insiders told the newspaper “the development is fatal,” adding there was also a “clear fall in orders” for combustion models. A VW spokesperson pointed to “a general reluctance to buy electric cars”.
The German car giant is facing stiff competition at home and abroad. Volkswagen entered into a price war with U.S. rival Tesla, which has cut prices and is now significantly outselling VW.
VW produced 97,000 battrey-electric vehicles between January and May of this year but only sold 73,000 of them, compared to 100,000 Tesla Model Y sales in the same period, according to data service provider Marklines, Handelsblatt wrote.
VW is also rapidly losing market share to low-cost Chinese manufacturers in the electric-heavy Chinese market, VW’s most important export market by far.
Full story
4) EU conservatives’ anti-Green Deal push falls short
Politico, 12 July 2023
The German car giant is facing stiff competition at home and abroad. Volkswagen entered into a price war with U.S. rival Tesla, which has cut prices and is now significantly outselling VW.
VW produced 97,000 battrey-electric vehicles between January and May of this year but only sold 73,000 of them, compared to 100,000 Tesla Model Y sales in the same period, according to data service provider Marklines, Handelsblatt wrote.
VW is also rapidly losing market share to low-cost Chinese manufacturers in the electric-heavy Chinese market, VW’s most important export market by far.
Full story
4) EU conservatives’ anti-Green Deal push falls short
Politico, 12 July 2023
Manfred Weber’s right-wing alliance still wants to block other climate and environmental laws. As Europe veers to the right, with populist farmers' parties threatening to take votes away from traditional conservatives in places like the Netherlands, there are signs that the margins in favor of far-reaching Green Deal laws are thinning.
STRASBOURG — In an extremely tight vote on Wednesday, lawmakers in the European Parliament sent a message to their conservative colleagues: Don't mess with the Green Deal.
The result — after a bruising debate — saw MEPs fend off a deeply polarizing right-wing effort to kill EU legislation aimed at restoring nature.
It was an embarrassing outcome for European People’s Party leader Manfred Weber, who for months had plotted to ensure the Parliament would torpedo the proposal, arguing against scientists and the Commission that it will destroy farmers' livelihoods and put food security at risk.
“We have fought for our convictions and we came very close,” Weber said at a press conference, seeking to downplay the defeat, which saw 15 of the EPP's 176 members breaking ranks by refusing to kill the bill outright.
The campaign saw Weber square off with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a fellow EPP member and the Green Deal’s original architect. Von der Leyen, who attracted criticism from left-leaning MEPs for not publicly defending her flagship environmental proposal, held private meetings with MEPs ahead of the vote, according to her spokesperson Eric Mamer.
The tight result showed that the fledgling alliance Weber had built to send the bill back to the drawing board — spanning business-minded liberals, conservatives and the far right — wasn't robust enough to kill off one of the flagship initiatives of the EU's Green Deal.
Lead negotiator César Luena, a member of the Socialists & Democrats, punched the air with both fists and broke into a huge grin after the EPP’s first attempt to reject the law was defeated by just 12 votes. "This is a huge victory," he told reporters after a second vote saw the entire amended proposal accepted by 336 votes to 300.
But the nail-biting vote also highlighted the fragility of the majority in favor of the bloc's green agenda and foreshadows more closely-run climate fights in future.
As Europe veers to the right, with populist farmers' parties threatening to take votes away from traditional conservatives in places like the Netherlands, there are signs that the margins in favor of far-reaching Green Deal laws are thinning.
Full story
5) Net Zero Britain: ‘UK energy prices could rise this summer due to gas field outages’
Energy Live News, 13 July 2023
Prices are increasing due to low levels of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes reaching UK ports and a greater reliance on gas caused by low wind levels.
Energy market prices could see a rise this summer due to unplanned outages at gas fields, warns a report by commercial energy and sustainability consultancy Advantage Utilities.
These outages are limiting the UK’s gas-fired power generation capacity, which may be further affected by yearly maintenance during the summer.
As a result, energy prices are expected to increase significantly, especially during the summer months, experts have said.
Although wholesale prices have dropped compared to last year, they remain higher than pre-2021 levels.
However, since early June, there has been a slight rebound in the market, with prices increasing due to low levels of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes reaching UK ports and a greater reliance on gas caused by low wind levels.
Full story
6) Matthew Lynn: Britain should place a big bet on the petrol engine
The Spectator, 12 July 2023
STRASBOURG — In an extremely tight vote on Wednesday, lawmakers in the European Parliament sent a message to their conservative colleagues: Don't mess with the Green Deal.
The result — after a bruising debate — saw MEPs fend off a deeply polarizing right-wing effort to kill EU legislation aimed at restoring nature.
It was an embarrassing outcome for European People’s Party leader Manfred Weber, who for months had plotted to ensure the Parliament would torpedo the proposal, arguing against scientists and the Commission that it will destroy farmers' livelihoods and put food security at risk.
“We have fought for our convictions and we came very close,” Weber said at a press conference, seeking to downplay the defeat, which saw 15 of the EPP's 176 members breaking ranks by refusing to kill the bill outright.
The campaign saw Weber square off with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a fellow EPP member and the Green Deal’s original architect. Von der Leyen, who attracted criticism from left-leaning MEPs for not publicly defending her flagship environmental proposal, held private meetings with MEPs ahead of the vote, according to her spokesperson Eric Mamer.
The tight result showed that the fledgling alliance Weber had built to send the bill back to the drawing board — spanning business-minded liberals, conservatives and the far right — wasn't robust enough to kill off one of the flagship initiatives of the EU's Green Deal.
Lead negotiator César Luena, a member of the Socialists & Democrats, punched the air with both fists and broke into a huge grin after the EPP’s first attempt to reject the law was defeated by just 12 votes. "This is a huge victory," he told reporters after a second vote saw the entire amended proposal accepted by 336 votes to 300.
But the nail-biting vote also highlighted the fragility of the majority in favor of the bloc's green agenda and foreshadows more closely-run climate fights in future.
As Europe veers to the right, with populist farmers' parties threatening to take votes away from traditional conservatives in places like the Netherlands, there are signs that the margins in favor of far-reaching Green Deal laws are thinning.
Full story
5) Net Zero Britain: ‘UK energy prices could rise this summer due to gas field outages’
Energy Live News, 13 July 2023
Prices are increasing due to low levels of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes reaching UK ports and a greater reliance on gas caused by low wind levels.
Energy market prices could see a rise this summer due to unplanned outages at gas fields, warns a report by commercial energy and sustainability consultancy Advantage Utilities.
These outages are limiting the UK’s gas-fired power generation capacity, which may be further affected by yearly maintenance during the summer.
As a result, energy prices are expected to increase significantly, especially during the summer months, experts have said.
Although wholesale prices have dropped compared to last year, they remain higher than pre-2021 levels.
However, since early June, there has been a slight rebound in the market, with prices increasing due to low levels of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes reaching UK ports and a greater reliance on gas caused by low wind levels.
Full story
6) Matthew Lynn: Britain should place a big bet on the petrol engine
The Spectator, 12 July 2023
It would be far better to accept that the internal combustion engine is likely to have a role in moving people and stuff around the place for quite a long time yet. Indeed, EVs may turn out to be a massive and expensive mistake.
Ministers should be hailing it as a major vote of confidence in the economy. King Charles should be clearing his diary to make sure he is available for the opening ceremony. And the broadcasters should be leading the news with it. In normal circumstances, you might expect the announcement that two major global corporations will headquarter their new €7 billion joint venture in the UK to be greeted as a huge win for the country.
The trouble is, the Renault joint-venture with China’s Geely has been designed to produce petrol and hybrid engines and not fashionable battery powered cars.
But hold on. With the rest of the world pouring vast subsidies into electric vehicles, spending money the UK cannot hope to compete with, it is increasingly obvious that the UK should make a big bet on petrol. It may not be popular with the green elite, but it is a lot more likely to be successful.
It is a rare piece of good news for the battered British economy, and its beleaguered car industry. The French giant Renault and the emerging Chinese automaker Geely want to manufacture these engines to supply to brands such as Volvo and Nissan. While EVs are taking an increasing slice of the market, the logic is that petrol will still have a big role to play, and there will be plenty of space for engines that still burn some fossil fuels, and preferably as little as possible, with minimal emissions. And they have decided to headquarter the new company in the UK.
If our political leaders were smart enough, they would jump on that. We hear a lot about how the UK is not competitive in electric vehicles. There are endless demands for more subsidies for battery plants and factories. The trouble is, it is hopeless. The United States is spending hundreds of billions of dollars in making itself a global leader in EVs, the EU is trying to match that spending, and now China is rapidly making inroads into the market with its own low-cost vehicles (most of them so good and so cheap we will all be driving them quite soon). For the UK, with an almost bankrupt government, and representing just 3.2 per cent of global GDP, to possibly think it can compete with this is, to put it mildly, completely batty.
Instead, it would be far better to accept that the internal combustion engine is likely to have a role in moving people and stuff around the place for quite a long time yet. Indeed, with questions emerging about whether EVs are genuinely better for the environment – given all the minerals extracted to make them and their relatively short life – it is increasingly open to debate whether they are really the answer to combating climate change. They may turn out to be a massive and expensive mistake.
Full post
11) And finally: Climate Politics in One LessonMinisters should be hailing it as a major vote of confidence in the economy. King Charles should be clearing his diary to make sure he is available for the opening ceremony. And the broadcasters should be leading the news with it. In normal circumstances, you might expect the announcement that two major global corporations will headquarter their new €7 billion joint venture in the UK to be greeted as a huge win for the country.
The trouble is, the Renault joint-venture with China’s Geely has been designed to produce petrol and hybrid engines and not fashionable battery powered cars.
But hold on. With the rest of the world pouring vast subsidies into electric vehicles, spending money the UK cannot hope to compete with, it is increasingly obvious that the UK should make a big bet on petrol. It may not be popular with the green elite, but it is a lot more likely to be successful.
It is a rare piece of good news for the battered British economy, and its beleaguered car industry. The French giant Renault and the emerging Chinese automaker Geely want to manufacture these engines to supply to brands such as Volvo and Nissan. While EVs are taking an increasing slice of the market, the logic is that petrol will still have a big role to play, and there will be plenty of space for engines that still burn some fossil fuels, and preferably as little as possible, with minimal emissions. And they have decided to headquarter the new company in the UK.
If our political leaders were smart enough, they would jump on that. We hear a lot about how the UK is not competitive in electric vehicles. There are endless demands for more subsidies for battery plants and factories. The trouble is, it is hopeless. The United States is spending hundreds of billions of dollars in making itself a global leader in EVs, the EU is trying to match that spending, and now China is rapidly making inroads into the market with its own low-cost vehicles (most of them so good and so cheap we will all be driving them quite soon). For the UK, with an almost bankrupt government, and representing just 3.2 per cent of global GDP, to possibly think it can compete with this is, to put it mildly, completely batty.
Instead, it would be far better to accept that the internal combustion engine is likely to have a role in moving people and stuff around the place for quite a long time yet. Indeed, with questions emerging about whether EVs are genuinely better for the environment – given all the minerals extracted to make them and their relatively short life – it is increasingly open to debate whether they are really the answer to combating climate change. They may turn out to be a massive and expensive mistake.
Full post
7) John Lee Shaw: Is this the Dutch farmers’ moment?
Spiked, 11 July 2023
Spiked, 11 July 2023
The fall of Mark Rutte’s government presents a real opportunity for change.
Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister for over 12 years, has announced he is resigning and leaving politics. He delivered the news on Monday morning, after the collapse of his coalition government on Friday.
The immediate cause of the government’s collapse is a row over the Netherlands’ growing immigration crisis. The issue has plagued the government for months, after chaotic scenes at a migrant-registration centre in Ter Apel near Groningen last autumn. People were sleeping outside for days and a baby was left to die in a crowded sports hall.
Rutte and his People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) wanted to impose tighter curbs on immigration. But the other three parties in the coalition objected. And so Rutte, unable to break the deadlock, gave the government’s collective resignations to King Willem-Alexander on Friday. Rutte and his cabinet will stay on in government in a caretaker capacity until a General Election, which is expected to take place in November.
A row over immigration may have been the immediate cause of the government’s downfall. But its problems went far deeper. As with almost everywhere else in Europe, crippling Covid lockdowns have cast a long shadow. There was also the child-benefits scandal in 2021, in which 26,000 parents were wrongly accused of making fraudulent claims. Now there is an energy crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, polling suggests that voters feel Rutte and his cabinet have been doing a bad job in general.
Arguably, the Rutte government’s biggest challenge came from the agricultural sector. Indeed, Dutch farmers have been in open revolt against the government for four years now. And for good reason. Under pressure from the EU, the Dutch government has been trying to cut nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands by half in order to meet Net Zero targets. This policy would be devastating to farmers’ livelihoods. It amounts to an order to significantly reduce fertiliser use and to cut livestock numbers. To ensure emissions are reduced, the Dutch government is targeting around 3,000 of the most polluting farms for closure.
In response, the Dutch farmers have staged large-scale protests in towns and on highways. And, in November 2019, they formed a political party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB). Throughout this time, the farmers have won considerable popular support. At the Dutch local elections in March, the BBB inflicted heavy losses on Rutte’s VVD, and became the largest party in the senate. Recent polls put the BBB in a tie for the lead with the VVD.
So the BBB and its supporters will see the upcoming General Election as a real opportunity to gain significant political power. This would be a chance not only to stop the destruction of farmers’ livelihoods, but also to make a decisive break with the politics of the Dutch establishment.
It will not be easy. The BBB knows that in order to halt the closure of thousands of farms, any future government would butt heads with the EU. It would have to resist the EU’s Net Zero crusade. And everyone knows how ruthlessly the EU tends to respond to resistance from member states. While some Eurosceptic voters might relish a conflict with the EU, this prospect could also put off some voters who are otherwise sympathetic to the BBB’s cause.
Furthermore, the resignation of the unpopular Rutte could end up leading to a revival of the VVD’s fortunes. It’s entirely possible a new leader might be able to rebuild some of the bridges he broke over the past few years. A renewed VVD might start to look like a safe option for voters again.
So, in the run-up to this winter’s General Election, the Dutch farmers and their supporters will need to be brave. They will need to show that they are willing and able to take on the EU – and that there is an alternative to the Dutch establishment. The whole of Europe will be watching.
Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister for over 12 years, has announced he is resigning and leaving politics. He delivered the news on Monday morning, after the collapse of his coalition government on Friday.
The immediate cause of the government’s collapse is a row over the Netherlands’ growing immigration crisis. The issue has plagued the government for months, after chaotic scenes at a migrant-registration centre in Ter Apel near Groningen last autumn. People were sleeping outside for days and a baby was left to die in a crowded sports hall.
Rutte and his People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) wanted to impose tighter curbs on immigration. But the other three parties in the coalition objected. And so Rutte, unable to break the deadlock, gave the government’s collective resignations to King Willem-Alexander on Friday. Rutte and his cabinet will stay on in government in a caretaker capacity until a General Election, which is expected to take place in November.
A row over immigration may have been the immediate cause of the government’s downfall. But its problems went far deeper. As with almost everywhere else in Europe, crippling Covid lockdowns have cast a long shadow. There was also the child-benefits scandal in 2021, in which 26,000 parents were wrongly accused of making fraudulent claims. Now there is an energy crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, polling suggests that voters feel Rutte and his cabinet have been doing a bad job in general.
Arguably, the Rutte government’s biggest challenge came from the agricultural sector. Indeed, Dutch farmers have been in open revolt against the government for four years now. And for good reason. Under pressure from the EU, the Dutch government has been trying to cut nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands by half in order to meet Net Zero targets. This policy would be devastating to farmers’ livelihoods. It amounts to an order to significantly reduce fertiliser use and to cut livestock numbers. To ensure emissions are reduced, the Dutch government is targeting around 3,000 of the most polluting farms for closure.
In response, the Dutch farmers have staged large-scale protests in towns and on highways. And, in November 2019, they formed a political party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB). Throughout this time, the farmers have won considerable popular support. At the Dutch local elections in March, the BBB inflicted heavy losses on Rutte’s VVD, and became the largest party in the senate. Recent polls put the BBB in a tie for the lead with the VVD.
So the BBB and its supporters will see the upcoming General Election as a real opportunity to gain significant political power. This would be a chance not only to stop the destruction of farmers’ livelihoods, but also to make a decisive break with the politics of the Dutch establishment.
It will not be easy. The BBB knows that in order to halt the closure of thousands of farms, any future government would butt heads with the EU. It would have to resist the EU’s Net Zero crusade. And everyone knows how ruthlessly the EU tends to respond to resistance from member states. While some Eurosceptic voters might relish a conflict with the EU, this prospect could also put off some voters who are otherwise sympathetic to the BBB’s cause.
Furthermore, the resignation of the unpopular Rutte could end up leading to a revival of the VVD’s fortunes. It’s entirely possible a new leader might be able to rebuild some of the bridges he broke over the past few years. A renewed VVD might start to look like a safe option for voters again.
So, in the run-up to this winter’s General Election, the Dutch farmers and their supporters will need to be brave. They will need to show that they are willing and able to take on the EU – and that there is an alternative to the Dutch establishment. The whole of Europe will be watching.
8) Andrew Montford: The religious cult of climate catastrophism
The Conservative Woman, 13 July 2023
I have been working in climate and energy for nearly 15 years, and it’s fair to say that it’s not often I find something that makes me radically change the way I look at the domain. But a new book, by Andy A West, has done just that.
The Grip of Culture makes the case that climate catastrophism is cultural – akin to religion or one of the extreme political movements that have assailed the world from time to time. This is not an entirely new idea; lots of people have alluded to the possibility that a religion has formed around the belief that we are facing a weather wipeout. You can certainly see lots of behaviour among climate zealots that is identical to that of zealots from other, older religious systems. So opponents are demonised, and waverers are threatened with expulsion to keep them on the straight and narrow. They have a hallowed text that few have tried to read, and fewer can understand. There are prophets and prophetesses, and a dizzying and ever-changing narrative of fear and redemption which is impossible to escape.
Circumstantially then, climate catastrophism looks exactly like a religion. Intriguingly though, West argues that he can prove the point, and at the heart of the book is a set of measurements of public attitudes to global warming from around the world. At first these seem very strange – inexplicable even – with national publics apparently simultaneously greatly concerned by climate change and not at all keen to do anything about it. Bizarrely, the more religious a country is, the more worried the populace is about the issue, and the less inclined to prioritise addressing it.
West shows that these apparently schizophrenic attitudes can be explained as the interaction between traditional religion and a new faith of climate catastrophism. The measurement chapters are really rather remarkable, with extraordinarily strong statistical relationships emerging between national religiosity and climate change attitudes: correlations where questions invite virtue signalling responses (‘How worried are you about climate change’) and equally strong anti-correlations when hard reality gets involved (‘How much are you willing to spend each week to reduce climate change’). Opinion polling on the subject will never be the same again.
It’s deliciously counterintuitive, and very powerful. For example, West shows that you can use the results to predict real-world phenomena such as the spread of renewables across different nations. Remarkably, he gets a better result from using religiosity as a predictor than, say, GDP, political inclination. And if you think sunshine hours should be a great predictor of solar power usage, think again; not only is religiosity far better, but absurdly there turns out to be a much stronger commitment to solar in cloudy (European) nations than in sunny ones!
Full review
9) Mark Lawson: Gone with the wind
Spectator Australia, 12 July 2023
The Conservative Woman, 13 July 2023
I have been working in climate and energy for nearly 15 years, and it’s fair to say that it’s not often I find something that makes me radically change the way I look at the domain. But a new book, by Andy A West, has done just that.
The Grip of Culture makes the case that climate catastrophism is cultural – akin to religion or one of the extreme political movements that have assailed the world from time to time. This is not an entirely new idea; lots of people have alluded to the possibility that a religion has formed around the belief that we are facing a weather wipeout. You can certainly see lots of behaviour among climate zealots that is identical to that of zealots from other, older religious systems. So opponents are demonised, and waverers are threatened with expulsion to keep them on the straight and narrow. They have a hallowed text that few have tried to read, and fewer can understand. There are prophets and prophetesses, and a dizzying and ever-changing narrative of fear and redemption which is impossible to escape.
Circumstantially then, climate catastrophism looks exactly like a religion. Intriguingly though, West argues that he can prove the point, and at the heart of the book is a set of measurements of public attitudes to global warming from around the world. At first these seem very strange – inexplicable even – with national publics apparently simultaneously greatly concerned by climate change and not at all keen to do anything about it. Bizarrely, the more religious a country is, the more worried the populace is about the issue, and the less inclined to prioritise addressing it.
West shows that these apparently schizophrenic attitudes can be explained as the interaction between traditional religion and a new faith of climate catastrophism. The measurement chapters are really rather remarkable, with extraordinarily strong statistical relationships emerging between national religiosity and climate change attitudes: correlations where questions invite virtue signalling responses (‘How worried are you about climate change’) and equally strong anti-correlations when hard reality gets involved (‘How much are you willing to spend each week to reduce climate change’). Opinion polling on the subject will never be the same again.
It’s deliciously counterintuitive, and very powerful. For example, West shows that you can use the results to predict real-world phenomena such as the spread of renewables across different nations. Remarkably, he gets a better result from using religiosity as a predictor than, say, GDP, political inclination. And if you think sunshine hours should be a great predictor of solar power usage, think again; not only is religiosity far better, but absurdly there turns out to be a much stronger commitment to solar in cloudy (European) nations than in sunny ones!
Full review
9) Mark Lawson: Gone with the wind
Spectator Australia, 12 July 2023
A perfect storm of costs
In the renewable energy industry hope ever springs eternal, with Australia and the US forging ahead with plans to build a host of offshore wind turbines just as the UK is realising its large offshore wind sector is only adding to its power woes.
After years of assurances from renewable energy advocates that the UK’s offshore wind farm sector will deliver cheap and plentiful power, with the equivalent of more than 15 gigawatts of capacity now installed, the country’s power prices are amongst the highest in all Europe.
A major reason for the increase is the price of gas, with wholesale power from gas plants three times more expensive than before the crisis, according to the UK media, but wind power is simply adding to the problem. By some estimates power from the offshore turbines is even more expensive than gas power during the crisis.
The costs of building wind turbines capable of surviving major storms well out to sea are immense and increasing, as are the costs of maintaining generators mounted at the top of 200-metre poles far from land. Despite subsidies and a system for allocating power contracts which greatly favours the industry, UK wind lobby groups have written to the government asking for a vast increase in assistance, including tilting the auction system for power contracts further in their favour.
However, Australia and the US seem determined to repeat all the mistakes of their UK cousins and add a few of their own. In Australia, plans for offshore wind are still in the early stages. A wind farm zone has been designated in the relatively shallow waters off Victoria’s southern coast east of Melbourne which also happens to be within easy range of major transmission lines. Although considerable interest in building 300-metre tall towers (the same height as the Eiffel tower in Paris) has been reported, the project is not expected to deliver power until 2032. Other wind zones are still being discussed.
In the US, the country’s third offshore wind farm was given federal government permission in early July, with several more in the approvals pipeline. However, the latest project, including 100 turbines to be built within sight of the tourist havens of Atlantic City and Ocean City, has generated considerable opposition from community groups objecting to the beach view being spoiled.
All these proposals come with the usual blather about how cheap such power will be, despite the fact that in the UK the cost of the ruling Tory government’s obsession with wind farms is now becoming apparent.
As an example, the UK Telegraph states that the offshore wind farms Hornsea Two and Moray East were completed in 2022 with capital costs of about £2.75 billion ($A5.28 billion) per GW, or more than four times the cost of closed cycle gas turbine capacity. Estimates of maintenance costs, according to the Telegraph, are as high as £200 million per GW installed, per annum. That adds up to a nominal cost of offshore wind generation of £170/MWh, or about the same or somewhat higher than for gas turbines, even in these dire times of high gas prices.
On top of that figure must be added the costs of accommodating the variable output of such turbines. This includes keeping conventional, that is fossil-fuel, capacity on standby to fill the power gap when wind dies. In addition, in the UK, a large, and growing, contribution to these balancing costs involves paying a wind farm not to put power onto the grid when there is an excess, say when it is windy in the middle of the night. (In Australia, wind farms over a certain size are simply required to stay off the grid when directed by power grid managers.)
Full post
In the renewable energy industry hope ever springs eternal, with Australia and the US forging ahead with plans to build a host of offshore wind turbines just as the UK is realising its large offshore wind sector is only adding to its power woes.
After years of assurances from renewable energy advocates that the UK’s offshore wind farm sector will deliver cheap and plentiful power, with the equivalent of more than 15 gigawatts of capacity now installed, the country’s power prices are amongst the highest in all Europe.
A major reason for the increase is the price of gas, with wholesale power from gas plants three times more expensive than before the crisis, according to the UK media, but wind power is simply adding to the problem. By some estimates power from the offshore turbines is even more expensive than gas power during the crisis.
The costs of building wind turbines capable of surviving major storms well out to sea are immense and increasing, as are the costs of maintaining generators mounted at the top of 200-metre poles far from land. Despite subsidies and a system for allocating power contracts which greatly favours the industry, UK wind lobby groups have written to the government asking for a vast increase in assistance, including tilting the auction system for power contracts further in their favour.
However, Australia and the US seem determined to repeat all the mistakes of their UK cousins and add a few of their own. In Australia, plans for offshore wind are still in the early stages. A wind farm zone has been designated in the relatively shallow waters off Victoria’s southern coast east of Melbourne which also happens to be within easy range of major transmission lines. Although considerable interest in building 300-metre tall towers (the same height as the Eiffel tower in Paris) has been reported, the project is not expected to deliver power until 2032. Other wind zones are still being discussed.
In the US, the country’s third offshore wind farm was given federal government permission in early July, with several more in the approvals pipeline. However, the latest project, including 100 turbines to be built within sight of the tourist havens of Atlantic City and Ocean City, has generated considerable opposition from community groups objecting to the beach view being spoiled.
All these proposals come with the usual blather about how cheap such power will be, despite the fact that in the UK the cost of the ruling Tory government’s obsession with wind farms is now becoming apparent.
As an example, the UK Telegraph states that the offshore wind farms Hornsea Two and Moray East were completed in 2022 with capital costs of about £2.75 billion ($A5.28 billion) per GW, or more than four times the cost of closed cycle gas turbine capacity. Estimates of maintenance costs, according to the Telegraph, are as high as £200 million per GW installed, per annum. That adds up to a nominal cost of offshore wind generation of £170/MWh, or about the same or somewhat higher than for gas turbines, even in these dire times of high gas prices.
On top of that figure must be added the costs of accommodating the variable output of such turbines. This includes keeping conventional, that is fossil-fuel, capacity on standby to fill the power gap when wind dies. In addition, in the UK, a large, and growing, contribution to these balancing costs involves paying a wind farm not to put power onto the grid when there is an excess, say when it is windy in the middle of the night. (In Australia, wind farms over a certain size are simply required to stay off the grid when directed by power grid managers.)
Full post
10) Met Office doubles recent U.K. warming trend in just 13 months, abolishing 15-year flatlining trend
The Daily Sceptic, 12 July 2023
The Daily Sceptic, 12 July 2023
Chris Morrison
What a difference a year makes at the Met Office. In just 13 months, the 15-year temperature warming trend in the U.K. has doubled to a helpful 0.2°C. In the process it changes an inconvenient flat-lining trend, with warming of around 0.1°C, to the more Net Zero-friendly hike of nearly 0.2°C.
No doubt the Met Office has a simple explanation for this sensational statistical discovery. But as we have seen in past articles, these uplifts are common at the Met Office in both the national and global record.
First we can see the U.K. trend as published in a Daily Sceptic article early last year. Note the developing plateau over the last 15 years.
Just 13 months later, any pause has disappeared to be replaced with a considerable rise. Suddenly a near plateau over 15 years has been turned into a substantial long-term trend increase.
Last year was hot, but only 0.15°C warmer than 2014 which is shown on the two graphs above, and 2014 did not prevent the near-plateau forming. Statistically, a trendline for an uptrend would usually be based on low points rather than high points, to avoid potentially anomalous highs like 2022 radically altering the trend. The Met Office might be using some smoothing effect to produce the sudden jump in the trendline – it’s hard to tell as the forecaster doesn’t explain how it calculates its trendline anywhere that I could find. But even so, one year’s temperature should not radically alter the whole trend for the past 15 years, as has happened here.
Another explanation might lie in the recent adjustments made by the Met Office to the Central England Temperature, the oldest continuous surface temperature collection dating back to around 1660. The diligent climate journalist Paul Homewood discovered that for most of the record up to 1970, the adjustments were small and have no obvious pattern. There are then notable downward adjustments from 1970 to 2003, and from that date the temperatures have been adjusted markedly upwards.
Last Sunday, Richard Tice discussed the frequent Met Office record tampering with Andrew Montford from Net Zero Watch on his Sunday Talk TV show. Tice has taken a keen interest in the subject, and the issue is starting to attract public concern. As we have noted in past articles, the Met Office is being questioned on a number of fronts. Last year it claimed a U.K. heat record of 40.3°C half way down the runway at RAF Coningsby. A subsequent Freedom of Information request by the Daily Sceptic identified at least three Typhoon fighter jets using the runway at or around the time of the 60-second record. Many of the Met Office’s recording devices are sited at British airports, with records often declared at Heathrow and RAF Northolt. As we have noted, airports are one of the least suitable sites imaginable for collecting long-term information about climate temperature trends.
Another recent FOI request from Paul Homewood made the shocking discovery that the Met Office will use data and declare records from sites labelled class 4 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). This class comes with an error estimate of up to 2°C from the WMO, although the Met Office calls it an “acceptable” rating. It is of course completely unacceptable. It is next to the lowest rating class 5 which comes with a 5°C error estimate. Homewood declared himself “lost for words” that the Met Office was happy to use a class 4 site, “even though that class is next to junk status”.
All of these non-climatic corruptions along with adjustments, mostly up for recent data and down for historical figures, are fed into a dataset that tries to estimate a global temperature. Again, as we have seen in past articles, removing inconvenient temperature pauses on a retrospective basis is a common occurrence. Over the last 10 years, the Met Office has added around 30% of extra heating from around 2000 in its HadCRUT global record. The move from version 3 to HadCRUT4 in 2013 added about 15% with a similar 2020 rise pumped into version 5. These were significant increases, and they wiped out the pause from around 2000-2012, a hiatus the Met Office wrote about in a 2013 paper titled ‘The recent pause in global warming‘.
Full story
What a difference a year makes at the Met Office. In just 13 months, the 15-year temperature warming trend in the U.K. has doubled to a helpful 0.2°C. In the process it changes an inconvenient flat-lining trend, with warming of around 0.1°C, to the more Net Zero-friendly hike of nearly 0.2°C.
No doubt the Met Office has a simple explanation for this sensational statistical discovery. But as we have seen in past articles, these uplifts are common at the Met Office in both the national and global record.
First we can see the U.K. trend as published in a Daily Sceptic article early last year. Note the developing plateau over the last 15 years.
Just 13 months later, any pause has disappeared to be replaced with a considerable rise. Suddenly a near plateau over 15 years has been turned into a substantial long-term trend increase.
Last year was hot, but only 0.15°C warmer than 2014 which is shown on the two graphs above, and 2014 did not prevent the near-plateau forming. Statistically, a trendline for an uptrend would usually be based on low points rather than high points, to avoid potentially anomalous highs like 2022 radically altering the trend. The Met Office might be using some smoothing effect to produce the sudden jump in the trendline – it’s hard to tell as the forecaster doesn’t explain how it calculates its trendline anywhere that I could find. But even so, one year’s temperature should not radically alter the whole trend for the past 15 years, as has happened here.
Another explanation might lie in the recent adjustments made by the Met Office to the Central England Temperature, the oldest continuous surface temperature collection dating back to around 1660. The diligent climate journalist Paul Homewood discovered that for most of the record up to 1970, the adjustments were small and have no obvious pattern. There are then notable downward adjustments from 1970 to 2003, and from that date the temperatures have been adjusted markedly upwards.
Last Sunday, Richard Tice discussed the frequent Met Office record tampering with Andrew Montford from Net Zero Watch on his Sunday Talk TV show. Tice has taken a keen interest in the subject, and the issue is starting to attract public concern. As we have noted in past articles, the Met Office is being questioned on a number of fronts. Last year it claimed a U.K. heat record of 40.3°C half way down the runway at RAF Coningsby. A subsequent Freedom of Information request by the Daily Sceptic identified at least three Typhoon fighter jets using the runway at or around the time of the 60-second record. Many of the Met Office’s recording devices are sited at British airports, with records often declared at Heathrow and RAF Northolt. As we have noted, airports are one of the least suitable sites imaginable for collecting long-term information about climate temperature trends.
Another recent FOI request from Paul Homewood made the shocking discovery that the Met Office will use data and declare records from sites labelled class 4 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). This class comes with an error estimate of up to 2°C from the WMO, although the Met Office calls it an “acceptable” rating. It is of course completely unacceptable. It is next to the lowest rating class 5 which comes with a 5°C error estimate. Homewood declared himself “lost for words” that the Met Office was happy to use a class 4 site, “even though that class is next to junk status”.
All of these non-climatic corruptions along with adjustments, mostly up for recent data and down for historical figures, are fed into a dataset that tries to estimate a global temperature. Again, as we have seen in past articles, removing inconvenient temperature pauses on a retrospective basis is a common occurrence. Over the last 10 years, the Met Office has added around 30% of extra heating from around 2000 in its HadCRUT global record. The move from version 3 to HadCRUT4 in 2013 added about 15% with a similar 2020 rise pumped into version 5. These were significant increases, and they wiped out the pause from around 2000-2012, a hiatus the Met Office wrote about in a 2013 paper titled ‘The recent pause in global warming‘.
Full story
The Wall Street Journal, 11 July 2023
Ride a bike for 100 meters and save the planet. Or not.
Ride a bike for 100 meters and save the planet. Or not.
European ministers of environment and energy are gathered in Valladolid, Spain, this week for an informal climate meeting. High on the agenda is “bicycle policy,” which is aimed at reducing the use of vehicles powered by fossil fuels. They’re not kidding.
Spain’s Ecological Transition Minister, Teresa Ribera, a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, is hosting the event. To get things going on Monday she cruised on a city bike through the streets of the small metropolis on her way to the conference. Cameras were rolling. The message was unmistakable: Pedal to your destination like me and save the planet.
The proletariat wasn’t buying it. The video of the minister’s “green” bike ride shows her escorted by two security cars—one in front and one behind. Besides allegedly snarling traffic, her carbon footprint was twice what was required. Some reports said that the minister had emerged from a limousine 100 meters from the event and got on the bike there.
Ms. Ribera certainly didn’t cycle from Madrid, 120 miles away, which led to more speculation about her carbon emissions. According to Falcon Despega, a website that tracks Spanish government-owned aircraft, a military jet traveled from Madrid early Monday to Valladolid. Its passenger list isn’t known, and Ms. Ribera’s office tweeted that she didn’t use a plane. Press reports indicate that the minister’s office originally said she traveled by train but later said she used a hybrid car to make the trip. Either way, carbon emitted.
All of this is highly amusing because the climate glitterati want so much to appear virtuous but can’t give up the travel and other benefits of evil fossil fuels. Politico reported in March that European Council President Charles Michel used commercial aircraft for a mere 18 out of 112 flights from 2019 to December 2022. His use of chartered air taxis included his travel to the U.N. climate summits last year and in 2021. Jets for the grandees, but bikes for the masses.
Spain’s Ecological Transition Minister, Teresa Ribera, a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, is hosting the event. To get things going on Monday she cruised on a city bike through the streets of the small metropolis on her way to the conference. Cameras were rolling. The message was unmistakable: Pedal to your destination like me and save the planet.
The proletariat wasn’t buying it. The video of the minister’s “green” bike ride shows her escorted by two security cars—one in front and one behind. Besides allegedly snarling traffic, her carbon footprint was twice what was required. Some reports said that the minister had emerged from a limousine 100 meters from the event and got on the bike there.
Ms. Ribera certainly didn’t cycle from Madrid, 120 miles away, which led to more speculation about her carbon emissions. According to Falcon Despega, a website that tracks Spanish government-owned aircraft, a military jet traveled from Madrid early Monday to Valladolid. Its passenger list isn’t known, and Ms. Ribera’s office tweeted that she didn’t use a plane. Press reports indicate that the minister’s office originally said she traveled by train but later said she used a hybrid car to make the trip. Either way, carbon emitted.
All of this is highly amusing because the climate glitterati want so much to appear virtuous but can’t give up the travel and other benefits of evil fossil fuels. Politico reported in March that European Council President Charles Michel used commercial aircraft for a mere 18 out of 112 flights from 2019 to December 2022. His use of chartered air taxis included his travel to the U.N. climate summits last year and in 2021. Jets for the grandees, but bikes for the masses.
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.
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