In this newsletter:
1) Tory MPs warn pursuit of ‘cultish’ eco-policies could see customers paying more
The Independent, 6 September 2023
2) Jacob Rees-Mogg and more senior Tory MPs blast PM's 'un-conservative' energy bill
Daily Express, 5 September 2023
3) ‘Horrific - completely offensive!’ Outrage as Britons risk jail for breaking Net Zero rules
GB News, 5 September 2023
4) Villagers ‘reject £5,000 payouts, oppose giant wind turbines in Wales’
Energy Live News, 5 September 2023
Energy Live News, 5 September 2023
5) Matt Goodwin: My polling suggests scepticism of expensive Net Zero commitments unites the 2019 Tory coalition
Conservative Home, 6 September 2023
6) Rupert Darwall: Rishi Sunak has been bullied into a catastrophic onshore wind U-turn by a cabal of rebel Tories in thrall to Europe's eco-zealots
Daily Mail, 6 September 2023
7) European Union, despite a growing backlash, forges ahead with costly Net-Zero climate policies
The New York Sun, 6 September 2023
10) Patrick T Brown: I left out the full truth to get my climate change paper published
The Free Press, 5 September 2023
Conservative Home, 6 September 2023
6) Rupert Darwall: Rishi Sunak has been bullied into a catastrophic onshore wind U-turn by a cabal of rebel Tories in thrall to Europe's eco-zealots
Daily Mail, 6 September 2023
7) European Union, despite a growing backlash, forges ahead with costly Net-Zero climate policies
The New York Sun, 6 September 2023
8) EU to import 1.2 million Chinese EVs
The Buzz EV News, 3 September 2023
The Buzz EV News, 3 September 2023
9) Orsted ready to abandon US wind projects unless Biden guarantees more $$$$
Bloomberg, 5 September 2023
Bloomberg, 5 September 2023
The Free Press, 5 September 2023
11) Chris Leithner: Why value investors should doubt “climate science”
Live Wire, 4 September 2023
12) Samuel Furfari: The BRICS and CO2 are reshuffling the geopolitical deck
Factuel, 1 September 2023
Live Wire, 4 September 2023
12) Samuel Furfari: The BRICS and CO2 are reshuffling the geopolitical deck
Factuel, 1 September 2023
13) And finally: Australia's National Party may dump its Net Zero commitment in attempt to become an opposition party
The Guardian, 6 September 2023
The Guardian, 6 September 2023
Full details:
1) Tory MPs warn pursuit of ‘cultish’ eco-policies could see customers paying more
The Independent, 6 September 2023
The Independent, 6 September 2023
Conservative MPs have warned that the flagship Energy Bill is a “recipe for energy disaster” and risks making customers pay more to deliver “cultish” eco-policies.
Former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was among a group of Tories who pressed ministers to “keep people with us” and avoid “undue burdens” while reforming the energy sector and pursuing net-zero emissions targets.
The Bill seeks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, unlock investment in low-carbon energy technologies, increase resilience and produce more energy in the UK, and lower energy bills in the longer term.
The Government avoided a potential rebellion from some of its backbenchers by announcing ahead of Tuesday’s report stage debate that planning permission for onshore wind farms was to be relaxed.
Energy minister Andrew Bowie also confirmed changes to remove the proposed hydrogen levy on households and said the Government will explore the potential of renewable liquid heating fuel for heat by issuing a consultation within 12 months.
But several Tory MPs expressed concerns over the wider impact of the Bill and suggested it risks going too far too soon.
The Bill cleared the Commons after MPs voted 280 to 19, majority 261, to approve it at third reading – although the division list showed nine Tory MPs, including Sir Jacob, rebelled to oppose it.
Another rebel Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the backbench Tory Net Zero Scrutiny Group, told the Commons: “I have to say, I absolutely despise this Bill.”
On the plans that could see property owners who fail to comply with new energy efficiency rules facing prison, he said: “I do feel that when we create criminal penalties in this place, it is a duty that it is discussed properly that we put our fellow citizens potentially in prison for 12 months for an unknown offence of the future relating to net zero.
“This is going to be the first time that we are potentially criminalising people in this country for not being adherent to this new code of net zero. We should not be doing this lightly.”
The MP for South Thanet also argued the Bill will “drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore and China will be very pleased that they can sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on their steel that are being produced on the back of very cheap coal power”.
He went on: “This is a recipe for not energy security, this is a recipe for energy disaster and I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net-zero proposals, banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this, banning that, that’s not what we do as Conservatives.
“We actually allow freedoms, we allow the market to decide and this Bill goes in the wrong direction.”
Sir Jacob said several amendments tabled by Mr Mackinlay sought to “ameliorate the burden this Bill is placing on all of our constituents”, adding: “Throughout this Bill, we are creating cost and regulation and penalties and obligations.”
He added: “We need to keep people with us and we risk losing them if we put undue burdens on them.”
Sir John Redwood, another Tory former minister, said: “The wish to carry through a great electrical revolution is going to require a lot of goodwill from the British people.
“My worry about this legislation is that it may antagonise them by being unduly restrictive and particularly by the threat of civil and even criminal penalties on some of their conduct.
“We need to persuade people that the green products are going to be cheaper, better, more acceptable and make a more general contribution, we shouldn’t be trying to bamboozle them.”
Richard Drax, Tory MP for South Dorset, said the “green revolution is coming”, but added: “We cannot impoverish our country to meet some, well, I’d like to call it in some cases almost cultish policy … until we can afford it, until it works, that’s when I think we should adopt all these policies.”
Full story
2) Jacob Rees-Mogg and more senior Tory MPs blast PM's 'un-conservative' energy bill
Daily Express, 5 September 2023
Former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was among a group of Tories who pressed ministers to “keep people with us” and avoid “undue burdens” while reforming the energy sector and pursuing net-zero emissions targets.
The Bill seeks to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, unlock investment in low-carbon energy technologies, increase resilience and produce more energy in the UK, and lower energy bills in the longer term.
The Government avoided a potential rebellion from some of its backbenchers by announcing ahead of Tuesday’s report stage debate that planning permission for onshore wind farms was to be relaxed.
Energy minister Andrew Bowie also confirmed changes to remove the proposed hydrogen levy on households and said the Government will explore the potential of renewable liquid heating fuel for heat by issuing a consultation within 12 months.
But several Tory MPs expressed concerns over the wider impact of the Bill and suggested it risks going too far too soon.
The Bill cleared the Commons after MPs voted 280 to 19, majority 261, to approve it at third reading – although the division list showed nine Tory MPs, including Sir Jacob, rebelled to oppose it.
Another rebel Craig Mackinlay, chairman of the backbench Tory Net Zero Scrutiny Group, told the Commons: “I have to say, I absolutely despise this Bill.”
On the plans that could see property owners who fail to comply with new energy efficiency rules facing prison, he said: “I do feel that when we create criminal penalties in this place, it is a duty that it is discussed properly that we put our fellow citizens potentially in prison for 12 months for an unknown offence of the future relating to net zero.
“This is going to be the first time that we are potentially criminalising people in this country for not being adherent to this new code of net zero. We should not be doing this lightly.”
The MP for South Thanet also argued the Bill will “drive even more of our high-energy businesses offshore and China will be very pleased that they can sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on their steel that are being produced on the back of very cheap coal power”.
He went on: “This is a recipe for not energy security, this is a recipe for energy disaster and I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net-zero proposals, banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this, banning that, that’s not what we do as Conservatives.
“We actually allow freedoms, we allow the market to decide and this Bill goes in the wrong direction.”
Sir Jacob said several amendments tabled by Mr Mackinlay sought to “ameliorate the burden this Bill is placing on all of our constituents”, adding: “Throughout this Bill, we are creating cost and regulation and penalties and obligations.”
He added: “We need to keep people with us and we risk losing them if we put undue burdens on them.”
Sir John Redwood, another Tory former minister, said: “The wish to carry through a great electrical revolution is going to require a lot of goodwill from the British people.
“My worry about this legislation is that it may antagonise them by being unduly restrictive and particularly by the threat of civil and even criminal penalties on some of their conduct.
“We need to persuade people that the green products are going to be cheaper, better, more acceptable and make a more general contribution, we shouldn’t be trying to bamboozle them.”
Richard Drax, Tory MP for South Dorset, said the “green revolution is coming”, but added: “We cannot impoverish our country to meet some, well, I’d like to call it in some cases almost cultish policy … until we can afford it, until it works, that’s when I think we should adopt all these policies.”
Full story
2) Jacob Rees-Mogg and more senior Tory MPs blast PM's 'un-conservative' energy bill
Daily Express, 5 September 2023
Senior Tory MPs, including Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sir John Redwood, slammed the Government's proposals this evening, decrying the bill as ‘un-conservative'.
The Government faced down a furious backbench rebellion this evening as top Tory MPs rounded on a new bill that could imprison Brits for transgressing against Net Zero.
The new flagship Energy Bill could lead to property owners being thrown in jail for up to 12 months if they fail to comply with new energy performance regulations.
Thanet South Tory MP Craig Mackinlay led the rebellion, saying “I absolutely despise this Bill”, and said that in his eight years in the Commons he has “rarely seen a Bill” like it.
The MP, who chairs the Net Zero Scrutiny Group in Parliament, spoke of an imaginary ‘Shawshank Redemption’-like scene in the future, where inmates are comparing the crimes that landed them behind bars.
"I can imagine the old lags in the future having a chat about why they are in prison.
“One might say, ‘I’ve done benefit fraud—£50,000-worth—and I got six months.’ Another might say, ‘I had dangerous driving causing an injury—8 months.’ The businessman talking to them will say, ‘I had a very good business with 20 people working for me in a factory. They have all been put out of work. My business has closed and my family are on the street.’
“The others will say, ‘What on earth did you do, sir?’ and he will say, ‘I infringed an energy performance certificate, and I got 12 months.’”
Mr Mackinlay blasted the Government, accusing them of being un-conservative in their love of banning things.
“I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net zero proposals banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this and banning that.
“That is not what we do as Conservatives. We actually allow freedoms. We allow the market to decide. The Bill goes in the wrong direction.” [...]
Mr Mackinlay said communist China “will be pleased that it will be able to sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on its steel, produced on the back of very cheap coal power”.
“That is what we are doing here: driving our high-energy businesses offshore. This is not a recipe for energy security; this is a recipe for energy disaster.”
10 Tory MPs voted against the bill, plus two former Tory independents. 62 Tory MPs failed to back the Government, including a number of known Net Zero sceptics.
Full story
The Government faced down a furious backbench rebellion this evening as top Tory MPs rounded on a new bill that could imprison Brits for transgressing against Net Zero.
The new flagship Energy Bill could lead to property owners being thrown in jail for up to 12 months if they fail to comply with new energy performance regulations.
Thanet South Tory MP Craig Mackinlay led the rebellion, saying “I absolutely despise this Bill”, and said that in his eight years in the Commons he has “rarely seen a Bill” like it.
The MP, who chairs the Net Zero Scrutiny Group in Parliament, spoke of an imaginary ‘Shawshank Redemption’-like scene in the future, where inmates are comparing the crimes that landed them behind bars.
"I can imagine the old lags in the future having a chat about why they are in prison.
“One might say, ‘I’ve done benefit fraud—£50,000-worth—and I got six months.’ Another might say, ‘I had dangerous driving causing an injury—8 months.’ The businessman talking to them will say, ‘I had a very good business with 20 people working for me in a factory. They have all been put out of work. My business has closed and my family are on the street.’
“The others will say, ‘What on earth did you do, sir?’ and he will say, ‘I infringed an energy performance certificate, and I got 12 months.’”
Mr Mackinlay blasted the Government, accusing them of being un-conservative in their love of banning things.
“I could talk at length about what is wrong with the net zero proposals banning cars, banning oil boilers, banning this and banning that.
“That is not what we do as Conservatives. We actually allow freedoms. We allow the market to decide. The Bill goes in the wrong direction.” [...]
Mr Mackinlay said communist China “will be pleased that it will be able to sell us more solar panels and wind turbines based on its steel, produced on the back of very cheap coal power”.
“That is what we are doing here: driving our high-energy businesses offshore. This is not a recipe for energy security; this is a recipe for energy disaster.”
10 Tory MPs voted against the bill, plus two former Tory independents. 62 Tory MPs failed to back the Government, including a number of known Net Zero sceptics.
Full story
3) ‘Horrific - completely offensive!’ Outrage as Britons risk jail for breaking Net Zero rules
GB News, 5 September 2023
GB News, 5 September 2023
Pressure is mounting on Rishi Sunak over his Energy Bill that could lead to legal ramifications for homeowners across the country.
A group of MPs from his own party are set to rebel, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, as they cite draconian measures which could impact many, possibly even leading to jail terms.
Another disavowing Tory MP is Craig Mackinlay, who dubbed the bill “horrendous” in a scathing rant on GB News.
He added the bill could result in homeowners facing jail time for breaking new rules which all come as a part of the drive for net zero.
“I think it’s a horrendous bill”, he said.
“It’s 379 pages, there’s 144 pages of amendments, many of them in my name. It’s a bill of yesteryear, it was founded on Boris who certainly drunk the Kool-Aid on many of these environmental issues.
“This is a truly horrific bill. It allows all sorts of intrusive powers to tell you exactly what you must and mustn’t do.
“I would rather it was scrapped and we start again.”
Mackinlay told Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner that a specific clause relating to sanctions could spell grave consequences for those who break new rules.
He said: “I’m particularly concerned about clause 248. It’s helpfully called sanctions.
“Under section two there are civil penalties, up to £15,000 for not doing the right thing on net zero.
“It’s even worse in clause and subsection three - energy performance regulations may provide for criminal offences with imprisonment for up to 12 months.”
According to The Telegraph, the Energy Bill will allow councils the right to be able to build proposed wind farms if there is community support.
Full story
A group of MPs from his own party are set to rebel, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, as they cite draconian measures which could impact many, possibly even leading to jail terms.
Another disavowing Tory MP is Craig Mackinlay, who dubbed the bill “horrendous” in a scathing rant on GB News.
He added the bill could result in homeowners facing jail time for breaking new rules which all come as a part of the drive for net zero.
“I think it’s a horrendous bill”, he said.
“It’s 379 pages, there’s 144 pages of amendments, many of them in my name. It’s a bill of yesteryear, it was founded on Boris who certainly drunk the Kool-Aid on many of these environmental issues.
“This is a truly horrific bill. It allows all sorts of intrusive powers to tell you exactly what you must and mustn’t do.
“I would rather it was scrapped and we start again.”
Mackinlay told Andrew Pierce and Bev Turner that a specific clause relating to sanctions could spell grave consequences for those who break new rules.
He said: “I’m particularly concerned about clause 248. It’s helpfully called sanctions.
“Under section two there are civil penalties, up to £15,000 for not doing the right thing on net zero.
“It’s even worse in clause and subsection three - energy performance regulations may provide for criminal offences with imprisonment for up to 12 months.”
According to The Telegraph, the Energy Bill will allow councils the right to be able to build proposed wind farms if there is community support.
Full story
4) Villagers ‘reject £5,000 payouts, oppose giant wind turbines in Wales’
Energy Live News, 5 September 2023
Energy Live News, 5 September 2023
Residents in Wales are reportedly resisting £5,000 compensation offers to oppose plans for massive wind turbines and a network of pylons in the Nant Mithil Energy Park
Residents in a Welsh village are reportedly opposing plans for the Nant Mithil Energy Park, which includes the construction of 700ft-high wind turbines and a 60-mile stretch of pylons.
The project, proposed by Bute Energy, aims to generate approximately 237MW of renewable energy.
While some residents have been offered £5,000 compensation to mitigate the impact on their properties, many have allegedly decided to reject the payouts, stating concerns about the “monstrous” structures permanently altering the scenic beauty of the region.
A spokesperson for Bute Energy told Energy Live News: “The Nant Mithil Energy Park could generate around 237MW of clean, green energy in the Radnor Forest area.
“An initial round of public consultation was completed in Autumn 2022, and we currently expect the next round of public consultation, ahead of a submission of an application for a Development of National Significance to the Welsh Government, later in 2023.
Full story
Residents in a Welsh village are reportedly opposing plans for the Nant Mithil Energy Park, which includes the construction of 700ft-high wind turbines and a 60-mile stretch of pylons.
The project, proposed by Bute Energy, aims to generate approximately 237MW of renewable energy.
While some residents have been offered £5,000 compensation to mitigate the impact on their properties, many have allegedly decided to reject the payouts, stating concerns about the “monstrous” structures permanently altering the scenic beauty of the region.
A spokesperson for Bute Energy told Energy Live News: “The Nant Mithil Energy Park could generate around 237MW of clean, green energy in the Radnor Forest area.
“An initial round of public consultation was completed in Autumn 2022, and we currently expect the next round of public consultation, ahead of a submission of an application for a Development of National Significance to the Welsh Government, later in 2023.
Full story
5) Matt Goodwin: My polling suggests scepticism of expensive Net Zero commitments unites the 2019 Tory coalition
Conservative Home, 6 September 2023
Among 2019 Conservatives just seven per cent want to see their leaders prioritise Net Zero if this increases bills for ordinary people
Conservative Home, 6 September 2023
Among 2019 Conservatives just seven per cent want to see their leaders prioritise Net Zero if this increases bills for ordinary people
In recent weeks the politics of ULEZ and Net Zero have surged to the forefront of British politics, with the Conservative Party’s recent by-election victory in Uxbridge and South Ruislip seen by many as evidence of the need to campaign on this issue at the looming general election.
But what to voters, and especially Conservative Party voters, really think about this issue? To explore this question in depth, my firm People Polling recently polled a nationally representative sample of 1,175 British adults, including a sample of people who voted for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives in 2019.
Consistent with other national polling, the first thing we found was a commanding lead for the Labour Party of some 24-points. Look under the bonnet and you’ll soon see why.
Today, Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are only retaining support from half of the people who turned out for the party in 2019 while their share of support from Brexit voters has collapsed, from about 75 per cent at the time of Johnson’s election victory in 2019 to only 40 per cent today.
In other words the post-Brexit realignment of British politics, in other words, which saw the Tories hoover up much higher levels of support from working-class, non-graduate, and older voters, has well and truly imploded.
Disillusioned and disgruntled with the general direction of the party in recent months, about one in five of these voters have decamped to Reform, while close to one-quarter of them, typically middle-class professionals in the Tory shires, have switched to Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.
And what do voters think of ULEZ? Well, they’re nowhere near as supportive as you might think were you to listen only to the London-based commentariat and Sadiq Khan. [...]
What such results also underline is, arguably, a growing public unease about the personal financial implications of Net Zero and environmental policies. While large majorities of voters remain instinctively on side with tackling climate change, once you ask them to reflect on the personal financial costs, they simply become much less supportive and more open to alternative political appeals.
We can throw light on this trade-off by asking voters which of the following statements comes closest to their view:
‘The Government should prioritise helping the UK reach Net Zero carbon emissions even if this increases the cost of living for ordinary people’;
Or, conversely:
‘[T]he Government should prioritise keeping the cost of living as low as possible, even if this means it has to do less to help the UK reach Net Zero carbon emissions’.
Overall, among all voters, only one in eight (16 per cent) support Net Zero initiatives which increase the cost of living for ordinary people while a clear majority (54 per cent) would much rather the government focus its efforts on reducing the cost of living, even if this means it has to do less to reach Net Zero.
Among 2019 Conservatives, once again, the picture is even starker. Just seven per cent want to see their leaders prioritise Net Zero if this increases bills for ordinary people while almost three-quarters of them (72 per cent) want them to prioritise reducing the cost of living no matter what the implication for Net Zero.
Such views, as you might imagine, are also especially widely held among older voters and the working-class, two groups that remain absolutely central to the Conservative Party’s electoral coalition at the rapidly approaching general election.
Full post & comments
6) Rupert Darwall: Rishi Sunak has been bullied into a catastrophic onshore wind U-turn by a cabal of rebel Tories in thrall to Europe's eco-zealots
Daily Mail, 6 September 2023
The fairy tale of cheap wind energy is falling apart.
But what to voters, and especially Conservative Party voters, really think about this issue? To explore this question in depth, my firm People Polling recently polled a nationally representative sample of 1,175 British adults, including a sample of people who voted for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives in 2019.
Consistent with other national polling, the first thing we found was a commanding lead for the Labour Party of some 24-points. Look under the bonnet and you’ll soon see why.
Today, Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are only retaining support from half of the people who turned out for the party in 2019 while their share of support from Brexit voters has collapsed, from about 75 per cent at the time of Johnson’s election victory in 2019 to only 40 per cent today.
In other words the post-Brexit realignment of British politics, in other words, which saw the Tories hoover up much higher levels of support from working-class, non-graduate, and older voters, has well and truly imploded.
Disillusioned and disgruntled with the general direction of the party in recent months, about one in five of these voters have decamped to Reform, while close to one-quarter of them, typically middle-class professionals in the Tory shires, have switched to Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.
And what do voters think of ULEZ? Well, they’re nowhere near as supportive as you might think were you to listen only to the London-based commentariat and Sadiq Khan. [...]
What such results also underline is, arguably, a growing public unease about the personal financial implications of Net Zero and environmental policies. While large majorities of voters remain instinctively on side with tackling climate change, once you ask them to reflect on the personal financial costs, they simply become much less supportive and more open to alternative political appeals.
We can throw light on this trade-off by asking voters which of the following statements comes closest to their view:
‘The Government should prioritise helping the UK reach Net Zero carbon emissions even if this increases the cost of living for ordinary people’;
Or, conversely:
‘[T]he Government should prioritise keeping the cost of living as low as possible, even if this means it has to do less to help the UK reach Net Zero carbon emissions’.
Overall, among all voters, only one in eight (16 per cent) support Net Zero initiatives which increase the cost of living for ordinary people while a clear majority (54 per cent) would much rather the government focus its efforts on reducing the cost of living, even if this means it has to do less to reach Net Zero.
Among 2019 Conservatives, once again, the picture is even starker. Just seven per cent want to see their leaders prioritise Net Zero if this increases bills for ordinary people while almost three-quarters of them (72 per cent) want them to prioritise reducing the cost of living no matter what the implication for Net Zero.
Such views, as you might imagine, are also especially widely held among older voters and the working-class, two groups that remain absolutely central to the Conservative Party’s electoral coalition at the rapidly approaching general election.
Full post & comments
6) Rupert Darwall: Rishi Sunak has been bullied into a catastrophic onshore wind U-turn by a cabal of rebel Tories in thrall to Europe's eco-zealots
Daily Mail, 6 September 2023
The fairy tale of cheap wind energy is falling apart.
Whether at sea or, even worse, on land, wind-powered electricity turbines are not simply inefficient and horrendously expensive — they threaten Britain’s entire energy programme.
Yet a blinkered group of Tory rebels, backed by a dodgy European consortium funded in part by extremists from the Extinction Rebellion anti-capitalist movement, has hounded Rishi Sunak into overturning the ban on new onshore wind farms.
In doing so, the Prime Minister has broken a key pledge he made to the Tory grassroots when he was running to be party leader.
Shameful
Last July, Mr Sunak was unequivocal: ‘I want to reassure communities that as Prime Minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England.’
He reiterated that promise when he took office last October, undoing a decision taken weeks earlier by Liz Truss, the interregnum PM who was in No 10 for just 50 days.
Yet on Monday, in the face of a sizeable rebellion from Tory backbenchers, a Downing Street spokesman performed a U-turn: ‘We support the development of onshore wind where there is local support.’
By caving in to mutineers at yesterday’s Energy Bill debate, the Prime Minister has done enormous damage both to the countryside and to Britain’s hopes of securing reliable, low-cost electricity. It is a shameful exhibition of short-term political expediency.
It’s also desperately disappointing — and to make matters worse, the blame lies wholly with a disloyal band of Tory MPs who were prepared to vote with Labour to bend the PM to their bidding.
MPs from the Conservative Environment Network, which has about 160 MPs on its books, including Liz Truss and disgraced ex-health secretary Matt Hancock, backed an amendment axing the ban on new land turbines.
This was tabled by Sir Alok Sharma, who two years ago was president of UN climate summit Cop26. Despite his best intentions, Mr Sunak is being held to ransom.
Uglier still, the Conservative Environment Network draws financial backing from some highly concerning quarters.
It is indirectly funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), a shady organisation that describes itself as a ‘philanthropic initiative’.
Set up in 2008, the ECF is committed to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by promoting its own climate policies. Let me be clear: European eco-lobbyists have found a way to exert control over the UK’s plans for generating power, in defiance of what the Prime Minister and British voters want.
One of the ECF’s funders is Sir Chris Hohn, the billionaire hedge fund manager who, as The Guardian reported last year, is also the single biggest individual donor to the eco-anarchist Extinction Rebellion movement.
With backing like that, the influence of the Conservative Environment Network can be nothing less than pernicious.
This is a group in thrall to eco-zealots, holding a gun to the Prime Minister’s head and stymying conversation about the many and undeniable flaws of onshore wind power.
These eyesores blight our landscape, despoiling many of the most beautiful views in protected areas.
Any visitor to southern Snowdonia will know how hideous the hillsides have been made with industrial clusters of turbines, an aberration repeated across the UK.
Wherever they spring up near villages and towns, such as in Keadby in Lincolnshire or at Hyndburn in Lancashire, house prices take a pummelling. They are so big they even need lights to warn air traffic.
I can only think that nobody in the hopelessly misnamed Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) lives anywhere near them.
Full post
Yet a blinkered group of Tory rebels, backed by a dodgy European consortium funded in part by extremists from the Extinction Rebellion anti-capitalist movement, has hounded Rishi Sunak into overturning the ban on new onshore wind farms.
In doing so, the Prime Minister has broken a key pledge he made to the Tory grassroots when he was running to be party leader.
Shameful
Last July, Mr Sunak was unequivocal: ‘I want to reassure communities that as Prime Minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England.’
He reiterated that promise when he took office last October, undoing a decision taken weeks earlier by Liz Truss, the interregnum PM who was in No 10 for just 50 days.
Yet on Monday, in the face of a sizeable rebellion from Tory backbenchers, a Downing Street spokesman performed a U-turn: ‘We support the development of onshore wind where there is local support.’
By caving in to mutineers at yesterday’s Energy Bill debate, the Prime Minister has done enormous damage both to the countryside and to Britain’s hopes of securing reliable, low-cost electricity. It is a shameful exhibition of short-term political expediency.
It’s also desperately disappointing — and to make matters worse, the blame lies wholly with a disloyal band of Tory MPs who were prepared to vote with Labour to bend the PM to their bidding.
MPs from the Conservative Environment Network, which has about 160 MPs on its books, including Liz Truss and disgraced ex-health secretary Matt Hancock, backed an amendment axing the ban on new land turbines.
This was tabled by Sir Alok Sharma, who two years ago was president of UN climate summit Cop26. Despite his best intentions, Mr Sunak is being held to ransom.
Uglier still, the Conservative Environment Network draws financial backing from some highly concerning quarters.
It is indirectly funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), a shady organisation that describes itself as a ‘philanthropic initiative’.
Set up in 2008, the ECF is committed to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by promoting its own climate policies. Let me be clear: European eco-lobbyists have found a way to exert control over the UK’s plans for generating power, in defiance of what the Prime Minister and British voters want.
One of the ECF’s funders is Sir Chris Hohn, the billionaire hedge fund manager who, as The Guardian reported last year, is also the single biggest individual donor to the eco-anarchist Extinction Rebellion movement.
With backing like that, the influence of the Conservative Environment Network can be nothing less than pernicious.
This is a group in thrall to eco-zealots, holding a gun to the Prime Minister’s head and stymying conversation about the many and undeniable flaws of onshore wind power.
These eyesores blight our landscape, despoiling many of the most beautiful views in protected areas.
Any visitor to southern Snowdonia will know how hideous the hillsides have been made with industrial clusters of turbines, an aberration repeated across the UK.
Wherever they spring up near villages and towns, such as in Keadby in Lincolnshire or at Hyndburn in Lancashire, house prices take a pummelling. They are so big they even need lights to warn air traffic.
I can only think that nobody in the hopelessly misnamed Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) lives anywhere near them.
Full post
7) European Union, despite a growing backlash, forges ahead with costly Net-Zero climate policies
The New York Sun, 6 September 2023
The New York Sun, 6 September 2023
The new leader of the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ says they will not reduce their net-zero goals — no matter what the people say.
BRUSSELS — The European Commission, in a decision that will put into sharp relief the thinness of the EU’s democratic mandate, is sticking with its net-zero emissions goals despite a growing backlash across Europe — described by Reuters as a “greenlash” — as low-income communities and small businesses reel from the burdens of the bloc’s environmental policies.
Several European countries are introducing measures to combat climate change in line with the European Union’s net-zero agenda. Measures include cuts in fertilizer runoff from farms and phase-outs of oil and gas heating. Despite pushback from residents, Brussels’s goals are unchanged.
In a signal of the EU’s view of the rising opposition, its environmental commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevicius, dismissed the objections to its regulatory policies as being the product of “political debate.”
Even a paragon of the European establishment like President Macron of France recently conceded the need for a “regulatory break” on green issues — though he does support the measures.
“We’re ahead of the Americans, the Chinese, or any other global power in regulatory terms,” he told industrial executives. Rather than adding new rules, he added, “now we need to execute” the ones already on the books.
Mr. Macron has been joined by Prime Minister Meloni of Italy, who earlier this year asked for a delay in the implementation of new energy-efficient building construction rules, saying they are too expensive for the government and for homeowners.
Prime Minister De Croo of Belgium has also asked for a European Union pause on environmental policies, claiming legislation should not be “overloaded” with strict environmental measures.
The decision of Brussels to keep its regulatory goals in the face of this growing “greenlash” reflects the EU officers’ detachment from the citizens of its various state member countries — as well as their distance from more responsive elected officials like Ms. Meloni and Mr. De Croo. It is one of the features of the bloc that led Britain to leave the union by voting for independence in 2016.
The members of the European Commission are not directly elected by citizens of the European Union. The commissioners are named by the European Parliament and the European Council. The Parliament is elected, and the Council comprises the heads of state or top officers of the government.
“We are not going to dilute our ambition because it would be like shooting ourselves in the foot,” a European Commission executive vice president, Maros Sefcovic, told reporters last week. As recently as 2019, he ran for president of his own country but was defeated in a landslide.
Mr. Sefcovic of Slovakia was appointed by President Von der Leyen of the European Commission last month to replace a Dutch politician, Frans Timmermans, who resigned to run for prime minister of the Netherlands. Mr. Sefcovic will inherit Mr. Timmermans’s role as leader of the EU’s Green Deal, which calls for a “climate-neutral” continent by 2050, defined as “no net emissions of greenhouse gases.”
The costly climate change initiatives are likely to be a major political factor as voters head to national polls in some EU nations this coming year. In addition to the European Parliament elections next June, Poland and the Netherlands will hold general elections before the end of the year.
This is the context in which a backlash against climate change policies is growing all over Europe. Poland’s governing Law and Justice party has filed a suit demanding that the EU cancel three of its climate change schemes, including a complete ban on sales of new CO2-emitting cars by 2035. The measure “imposes excessive burdens connected with the transition towards zero-emission mobility on European citizens,” according to its petition.
Poland is also disputing a policy that sets national emission-cutting targets and a reform to the European Union carbon market, which may lead to a “decrease in mining employment,” the challenge says. The Law and Justice party is currently leading the polls ahead of the October elections.
The European Union Green Deal aims to eliminate net emissions of greenhouse gasses by 2050. The “Fit for 55 package” hopes to convince member states to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent from the area’s 1990 level by the next decade.
In the Netherlands, a farmer’s protest party, the BoerBurgerBeweging, opposes government plans to cut nitrogen emissions by half by 2030. The party shook up the country in March after winning 16 seats in the 75-person senate. Farmers in the Netherlands say that the environmental scheme would be harmful to jobs and food production.
“People who provide our daily food are dismissed as animal abusers, poisoners, soil destroyers, and environmental polluters,” the leader of the BoerBurgerBeweging, Caroline van der Plas, told the Dutch parliament in April. Currently, her party is running fourth in the scheduled November parliamentary election.
Farmers in Belgium are also fighting back against the European Union’s intentions to cut nitrogen emissions to protect water quality in the bloc. The nitrogen agreement will financially affect young farmers, according to a Belgium-based organization of young farmers, Groene Kring. The policy “will cause a generation of young farmers to be lost,” it says in a statement.
Full story
According to a new report from ABI Research, in 2030, 1.2 million Chinese-made Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) will be imported by the European Union (EU), making up 12% of the bloc’s BEV sales. Chinese brands like BYD, XPENG and NIO are launching models across Europe in 2023.
In the last five years, exports of cars from the EU to China have fallen slightly, but EU imports of Chinese cars have quadrupled, reversing the trade flow, ABI found. In 2022, China became the EU’s biggest source of imported cars, but this still accounted for only under 6% of all vehicles registered that year. However, 28% of the EU’s BEVs were imported from China.
Full story
10) Patrick T Brown: I left out the full truth to get my climate change paper published
The Free Press, 5 September 2023
BRUSSELS — The European Commission, in a decision that will put into sharp relief the thinness of the EU’s democratic mandate, is sticking with its net-zero emissions goals despite a growing backlash across Europe — described by Reuters as a “greenlash” — as low-income communities and small businesses reel from the burdens of the bloc’s environmental policies.
Several European countries are introducing measures to combat climate change in line with the European Union’s net-zero agenda. Measures include cuts in fertilizer runoff from farms and phase-outs of oil and gas heating. Despite pushback from residents, Brussels’s goals are unchanged.
In a signal of the EU’s view of the rising opposition, its environmental commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevicius, dismissed the objections to its regulatory policies as being the product of “political debate.”
Even a paragon of the European establishment like President Macron of France recently conceded the need for a “regulatory break” on green issues — though he does support the measures.
“We’re ahead of the Americans, the Chinese, or any other global power in regulatory terms,” he told industrial executives. Rather than adding new rules, he added, “now we need to execute” the ones already on the books.
Mr. Macron has been joined by Prime Minister Meloni of Italy, who earlier this year asked for a delay in the implementation of new energy-efficient building construction rules, saying they are too expensive for the government and for homeowners.
Prime Minister De Croo of Belgium has also asked for a European Union pause on environmental policies, claiming legislation should not be “overloaded” with strict environmental measures.
The decision of Brussels to keep its regulatory goals in the face of this growing “greenlash” reflects the EU officers’ detachment from the citizens of its various state member countries — as well as their distance from more responsive elected officials like Ms. Meloni and Mr. De Croo. It is one of the features of the bloc that led Britain to leave the union by voting for independence in 2016.
The members of the European Commission are not directly elected by citizens of the European Union. The commissioners are named by the European Parliament and the European Council. The Parliament is elected, and the Council comprises the heads of state or top officers of the government.
“We are not going to dilute our ambition because it would be like shooting ourselves in the foot,” a European Commission executive vice president, Maros Sefcovic, told reporters last week. As recently as 2019, he ran for president of his own country but was defeated in a landslide.
Mr. Sefcovic of Slovakia was appointed by President Von der Leyen of the European Commission last month to replace a Dutch politician, Frans Timmermans, who resigned to run for prime minister of the Netherlands. Mr. Sefcovic will inherit Mr. Timmermans’s role as leader of the EU’s Green Deal, which calls for a “climate-neutral” continent by 2050, defined as “no net emissions of greenhouse gases.”
The costly climate change initiatives are likely to be a major political factor as voters head to national polls in some EU nations this coming year. In addition to the European Parliament elections next June, Poland and the Netherlands will hold general elections before the end of the year.
This is the context in which a backlash against climate change policies is growing all over Europe. Poland’s governing Law and Justice party has filed a suit demanding that the EU cancel three of its climate change schemes, including a complete ban on sales of new CO2-emitting cars by 2035. The measure “imposes excessive burdens connected with the transition towards zero-emission mobility on European citizens,” according to its petition.
Poland is also disputing a policy that sets national emission-cutting targets and a reform to the European Union carbon market, which may lead to a “decrease in mining employment,” the challenge says. The Law and Justice party is currently leading the polls ahead of the October elections.
The European Union Green Deal aims to eliminate net emissions of greenhouse gasses by 2050. The “Fit for 55 package” hopes to convince member states to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent from the area’s 1990 level by the next decade.
In the Netherlands, a farmer’s protest party, the BoerBurgerBeweging, opposes government plans to cut nitrogen emissions by half by 2030. The party shook up the country in March after winning 16 seats in the 75-person senate. Farmers in the Netherlands say that the environmental scheme would be harmful to jobs and food production.
“People who provide our daily food are dismissed as animal abusers, poisoners, soil destroyers, and environmental polluters,” the leader of the BoerBurgerBeweging, Caroline van der Plas, told the Dutch parliament in April. Currently, her party is running fourth in the scheduled November parliamentary election.
Farmers in Belgium are also fighting back against the European Union’s intentions to cut nitrogen emissions to protect water quality in the bloc. The nitrogen agreement will financially affect young farmers, according to a Belgium-based organization of young farmers, Groene Kring. The policy “will cause a generation of young farmers to be lost,” it says in a statement.
Full story
8) EU to import 1.2 million Chinese EVs
The Buzz EV News, 3 September 2023
The Buzz EV News, 3 September 2023
In the last five years, exports of cars from the EU to China have fallen slightly, but EU imports of Chinese cars have quadrupled, reversing the trade flow, ABI found. In 2022, China became the EU’s biggest source of imported cars, but this still accounted for only under 6% of all vehicles registered that year. However, 28% of the EU’s BEVs were imported from China.
Full story
9) Orsted ready to abandon US wind projects unless Biden guarantees more $$$$
Bloomberg, 5 September 2023
Bloomberg, 5 September 2023
Orsted A/S said it’s prepared to walk away from US projects unless the White House guarantees more support, highlighting the myriad challenges facing wind-energy developers in the country.
The US, far behind Europe and China in the race to build offshore wind, is targeting a jump to 30 gigawatts by the end of the decade from next to nothing now. While the Biden administration has touted its landmark clean-energy subsidy program to kick-start projects, developers must ensure a large chunk of components are US-made to take full advantage of the incentives, and that’s proving hard to achieve.
“We are still upholding a real option to walk away,” Orsted Chief Executive Officer Mads Nipper said in an interview in London. “But right now, we are still working toward a final investment decision” on projects in America.
The Danish firm has had a turbulent few months, with supply-chain glitches and soaring interest rates weighing on US plans. Shares fell 8.3% Tuesday, bringing the year-to-date decline to 37%.
While offshore farms are seen as critical to ridding the US power grid of fossil fuels and avoiding the worst effects of climate change, they’re also extremely capital- and labor-intensive. In order for the industry to bring future projects to fruition, it’s “inevitable” that consumer prices for energy will increase, Nipper said.
“And if they don’t, neither we nor any of our colleagues are going to build more offshore,” Nipper said. “It’s very simple.”
It’s a tough time for offshore wind globally, with costs for steel and other materials spiraling higher just as countries push to add more turbines. Large projects by the likes of Vattenfall AB and Iberdrola SA have already been scrapped this year.
Full story
The US, far behind Europe and China in the race to build offshore wind, is targeting a jump to 30 gigawatts by the end of the decade from next to nothing now. While the Biden administration has touted its landmark clean-energy subsidy program to kick-start projects, developers must ensure a large chunk of components are US-made to take full advantage of the incentives, and that’s proving hard to achieve.
“We are still upholding a real option to walk away,” Orsted Chief Executive Officer Mads Nipper said in an interview in London. “But right now, we are still working toward a final investment decision” on projects in America.
The Danish firm has had a turbulent few months, with supply-chain glitches and soaring interest rates weighing on US plans. Shares fell 8.3% Tuesday, bringing the year-to-date decline to 37%.
While offshore farms are seen as critical to ridding the US power grid of fossil fuels and avoiding the worst effects of climate change, they’re also extremely capital- and labor-intensive. In order for the industry to bring future projects to fruition, it’s “inevitable” that consumer prices for energy will increase, Nipper said.
“And if they don’t, neither we nor any of our colleagues are going to build more offshore,” Nipper said. “It’s very simple.”
It’s a tough time for offshore wind globally, with costs for steel and other materials spiraling higher just as countries push to add more turbines. Large projects by the likes of Vattenfall AB and Iberdrola SA have already been scrapped this year.
Full story
The Free Press, 5 September 2023
I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work.
If you’ve been reading any news about wildfires this summer—from Canada to Europe to Maui—you will surely get the impression that they are mostly the result of climate change.
Here’s the AP: Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the “new abnormal.”
And PBS NewsHour: Wildfires driven by climate change are on the rise—Spain must do more to prepare, experts say.
And The New York Times: How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox.
And Bloomberg: Maui Fires Show Climate Change’s Ugly Reach.
I am a climate scientist. And while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires over many parts of the world, it isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus.
So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.
The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.
This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.
Full story
By nature they’re sceptics, and at key junctures become contrarians. I show why they should disbelieve the orthodoxy – and why it matters.
The drumbeat has long been incessant, and lately it’s become deafening. For years, “the consensus” has decreed that “the science is settled.” And on 27 July, the UN’s Secretary General, António Guterres, proclaimed: “the era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived” – and for good measure alleged that July was the hottest month of the past 120,000 years. The hyperbole extends to Australia. “Lethal humidity is already here,” said the mining magnate, Andrew Forrest, last week. “Millions of people will die. If you can’t get rid of that heat because of humidity,” The Australian (4 September) quoted him, “you cook yourself.”
Global investment institutions champion this dystopian consensus: the impact of climate change, they reckon, is massive, pervasive and permanent. GIC, the manager of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, reckons that it “is a systemic risk affecting all sectors and markets.” “Considering the direct threat it poses to global GDP and prosperity,” adds Bank of America Merrill Lynch, “climate change will likely become a more central feature of corporate decision-making in the years ahead ...”
“For investors,” BAML concludes, “these trends suggest making environmental considerations a part of their long- and short-term portfolio strategies. Companies that embrace climate-friendly business models, operations, products and services are likely to experience the potential for sustained growth opportunities over the long term ... Companies that fall behind, meanwhile, could risk greater costs due to regulation.”
The RBA, too, harbours no doubts. According to Michele Bullock, its incoming Governor, climate change will have “broad implications” for Australia’s economy and monetary policy (see “Climate Change and Central Banks,” Sir Leslie Melville Lecture, 29 August 2023). Finally, Jim Chalmers, the federal Treasurer, has boarded the bandwagon: “the Intergenerational Report made clear,” The Australian quoted him on 30 August, that “climate change and the energy transformation will be the biggest challenge and also the biggest opportunity for our country in the decades ahead.”
How seriously should investors – especially conservative value investors – regard such assertions? In particular, how should they consider claims such as “rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere cause the climate to warm; therefore governments must combat climate change by slashing the level of CO2?”
Four Starting Points – and a Preview of My Conclusion
In this article, I answer these crucial questions. I proceed from four premises:
1. Value investors are naturally sceptical, and always think for themselves.
2. They don’t let conventional wisdom sway them – whether in the form of crowds, a “consensus” of academic and other “experts” or stampeding mobs led by jet-setting UN Secretaries General, Australian billionaires, etc.
3. In key respects and at crucial junctures value investors are bold contrarians.
4. They think independently, but they’re also humble. In particular, when necessary they heed competent external views and research.
Applying these principles to an assessment of “climate science,” it’s clear that climate change isn’t a systemic risk: it’s a mass hysteria. Like all manias, it will collapse when people – above all, energy consumers and taxpayers – recover their senses.
Value Investors’ Contrarian Mindset
Benjamin Graham is widely known – and has been fittingly recognised, not least by his most famous and successful student, Warren Buffett – as the “father of value investing.” At its core, this approach to and philosophy of investing entails the purchase of securities whose value (derived from analysis of their financial statements) exceeds their price. Among other things, Graham emphasised analysis, caution (buying with a margin of safety), stability (buy-and-hold) and a contrarian mindset.
What does this mindset entail? Investment is ultimately a matter of character, and Graham expressed value investors’ ethos – and the crux of science – in these words:
“Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ. You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right).”
Full post
12) Samuel Furfari: The BRICS and CO2 are reshuffling the geopolitical deck
Factuel, 1 September 2023
If you’ve been reading any news about wildfires this summer—from Canada to Europe to Maui—you will surely get the impression that they are mostly the result of climate change.
Here’s the AP: Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the “new abnormal.”
And PBS NewsHour: Wildfires driven by climate change are on the rise—Spain must do more to prepare, experts say.
And The New York Times: How Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into a Tinderbox.
And Bloomberg: Maui Fires Show Climate Change’s Ugly Reach.
I am a climate scientist. And while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires over many parts of the world, it isn’t close to the only factor that deserves our sole focus.
So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world’s most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it.
The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.
This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.
Full story
11) Chris Leithner: Why value investors should doubt “climate science”
Live Wire, 4 September 2023
Live Wire, 4 September 2023
By nature they’re sceptics, and at key junctures become contrarians. I show why they should disbelieve the orthodoxy – and why it matters.
The drumbeat has long been incessant, and lately it’s become deafening. For years, “the consensus” has decreed that “the science is settled.” And on 27 July, the UN’s Secretary General, António Guterres, proclaimed: “the era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived” – and for good measure alleged that July was the hottest month of the past 120,000 years. The hyperbole extends to Australia. “Lethal humidity is already here,” said the mining magnate, Andrew Forrest, last week. “Millions of people will die. If you can’t get rid of that heat because of humidity,” The Australian (4 September) quoted him, “you cook yourself.”
Global investment institutions champion this dystopian consensus: the impact of climate change, they reckon, is massive, pervasive and permanent. GIC, the manager of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, reckons that it “is a systemic risk affecting all sectors and markets.” “Considering the direct threat it poses to global GDP and prosperity,” adds Bank of America Merrill Lynch, “climate change will likely become a more central feature of corporate decision-making in the years ahead ...”
“For investors,” BAML concludes, “these trends suggest making environmental considerations a part of their long- and short-term portfolio strategies. Companies that embrace climate-friendly business models, operations, products and services are likely to experience the potential for sustained growth opportunities over the long term ... Companies that fall behind, meanwhile, could risk greater costs due to regulation.”
The RBA, too, harbours no doubts. According to Michele Bullock, its incoming Governor, climate change will have “broad implications” for Australia’s economy and monetary policy (see “Climate Change and Central Banks,” Sir Leslie Melville Lecture, 29 August 2023). Finally, Jim Chalmers, the federal Treasurer, has boarded the bandwagon: “the Intergenerational Report made clear,” The Australian quoted him on 30 August, that “climate change and the energy transformation will be the biggest challenge and also the biggest opportunity for our country in the decades ahead.”
How seriously should investors – especially conservative value investors – regard such assertions? In particular, how should they consider claims such as “rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere cause the climate to warm; therefore governments must combat climate change by slashing the level of CO2?”
Four Starting Points – and a Preview of My Conclusion
In this article, I answer these crucial questions. I proceed from four premises:
1. Value investors are naturally sceptical, and always think for themselves.
2. They don’t let conventional wisdom sway them – whether in the form of crowds, a “consensus” of academic and other “experts” or stampeding mobs led by jet-setting UN Secretaries General, Australian billionaires, etc.
3. In key respects and at crucial junctures value investors are bold contrarians.
4. They think independently, but they’re also humble. In particular, when necessary they heed competent external views and research.
Applying these principles to an assessment of “climate science,” it’s clear that climate change isn’t a systemic risk: it’s a mass hysteria. Like all manias, it will collapse when people – above all, energy consumers and taxpayers – recover their senses.
Value Investors’ Contrarian Mindset
Benjamin Graham is widely known – and has been fittingly recognised, not least by his most famous and successful student, Warren Buffett – as the “father of value investing.” At its core, this approach to and philosophy of investing entails the purchase of securities whose value (derived from analysis of their financial statements) exceeds their price. Among other things, Graham emphasised analysis, caution (buying with a margin of safety), stability (buy-and-hold) and a contrarian mindset.
What does this mindset entail? Investment is ultimately a matter of character, and Graham expressed value investors’ ethos – and the crux of science – in these words:
“Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ. You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right).”
Full post
12) Samuel Furfari: The BRICS and CO2 are reshuffling the geopolitical deck
Factuel, 1 September 2023
As the BRICS countries have expanded to include six new members, economic commentators have focused on the role of currencies. This is understandable. But we should not lose sight of the power of the BRICS+, which stems from their control over oil and gas reserves. These countries are also concerned about their own economic growth and that of their customers in the Global South, so next November’s COP28 is already shaping up to be a failure for the EU’s anti-growth agenda.
More BRICS… Powerful
The BRICS group of countries has decided to expand: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will join founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on 1 January 2024. The other candidate countries will have to wait to join, because this club of countries attracts a lot of people. Some ‘political’ researchers scoffed, arguing in particular that there are huge disparities between the countries of what I will call the BRICS+. Aren’t there huge disparities in the EU, for example between the economies of Germany and Cyprus? After all, there is no question of a union or institutions between the BRICS countries, as there is in the EU.
The BRICS+ are an informal grouping, just like the G7 or the G20. These groups have emerged because formal multilateral cooperation, sublimated in the United Nations, has become ineffective, unnecessary and costly. The strategic competition between the great powers is growing and can no longer be reduced to the great UN convolutions and lost in agencies or bodies such as the COPs, which have sufficiently demonstrated their emptiness.
These 11 countries carry considerable weight on a global scale. They account for 36% of the world’s landmass, compared with 16% of the G7. With 45% of the world’s population, they are almost five times as populous as the G7. In economic terms, the BRICS+ are also larger than the G7 (37% of world GDP compared to 30% of the G7). In terms of food, they are also better off than the G7: they produce almost half of the wheat and 55% of the rice. Brazil, India and Argentina are among the top five beef-exporting countries. They are also dominant in steel and aluminium production. Steel, so vital to the construction and automotive industries, is 70% produced in the BRIC+ countries, including five of the world’s top eleven producers. Aluminium, an essential metal for modern life, especially in the mobility sector, is almost 80% in the hands of this group of countries. We will see later on their strategic importance in terms of energy, but it is worth remembering that without coal there is no steel production and without electricity there is no aluminium production. Not surprisingly, energy is of strategic importance to these consumer giants.
Clearly, China is the heavyweight in almost all of these comparisons. Most economists, both inside and outside China, expect its economy to grow by 5% a year. This growth cycle has been impressive over the years, but we are seeing a shift in pace that could be worrying if confirmed. The problems facing the Chinese economy are political and systemic. China’s economy is struggling because its authoritarian demons are catching up with it and crippling the private sector. This possible decline in China’s influence will affect the internal balance of the BRICS+, which will not displease the other members of the group, but will not call into question the predominant and growing weight of this grouping, because one way or another, China will not collapse.
Full post
More BRICS… Powerful
The BRICS group of countries has decided to expand: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will join founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on 1 January 2024. The other candidate countries will have to wait to join, because this club of countries attracts a lot of people. Some ‘political’ researchers scoffed, arguing in particular that there are huge disparities between the countries of what I will call the BRICS+. Aren’t there huge disparities in the EU, for example between the economies of Germany and Cyprus? After all, there is no question of a union or institutions between the BRICS countries, as there is in the EU.
The BRICS+ are an informal grouping, just like the G7 or the G20. These groups have emerged because formal multilateral cooperation, sublimated in the United Nations, has become ineffective, unnecessary and costly. The strategic competition between the great powers is growing and can no longer be reduced to the great UN convolutions and lost in agencies or bodies such as the COPs, which have sufficiently demonstrated their emptiness.
These 11 countries carry considerable weight on a global scale. They account for 36% of the world’s landmass, compared with 16% of the G7. With 45% of the world’s population, they are almost five times as populous as the G7. In economic terms, the BRICS+ are also larger than the G7 (37% of world GDP compared to 30% of the G7). In terms of food, they are also better off than the G7: they produce almost half of the wheat and 55% of the rice. Brazil, India and Argentina are among the top five beef-exporting countries. They are also dominant in steel and aluminium production. Steel, so vital to the construction and automotive industries, is 70% produced in the BRIC+ countries, including five of the world’s top eleven producers. Aluminium, an essential metal for modern life, especially in the mobility sector, is almost 80% in the hands of this group of countries. We will see later on their strategic importance in terms of energy, but it is worth remembering that without coal there is no steel production and without electricity there is no aluminium production. Not surprisingly, energy is of strategic importance to these consumer giants.
Clearly, China is the heavyweight in almost all of these comparisons. Most economists, both inside and outside China, expect its economy to grow by 5% a year. This growth cycle has been impressive over the years, but we are seeing a shift in pace that could be worrying if confirmed. The problems facing the Chinese economy are political and systemic. China’s economy is struggling because its authoritarian demons are catching up with it and crippling the private sector. This possible decline in China’s influence will affect the internal balance of the BRICS+, which will not displease the other members of the group, but will not call into question the predominant and growing weight of this grouping, because one way or another, China will not collapse.
Full post
13) And finally: Australia's National Party may dump its Net Zero commitment in attempt to become an opposition party
The Guardian, 6 September 2023
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, will face a concerted push at the federal conference of the party this weekend to dump its commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Guardian Australia has obtained a copy of a motion submitted by Barnaby Joyce’s federal electorate council in New England that calls on the Nationals parliamentary party room to “abolish its policy of net zero by 2050, and adopt a policy that will reduce Australia’s CO2 emissions in collaboration with the rest of the world”.
The new motion – which some party sources interpret as a strategic strike intended to destabilise Littleproud’s leadership – has alarmed moderate Liberals because the Nationals abandoning net zero would reopen an acrimonious internal Coalition discussion about climate policy.
As well as dumping net zero, the new motion championed by the New England FEC also calls on the Nationals party room to “ensure that any policies relating to CO2 emissions do not negatively affect on-farm production of food and fibre”.
The conference push from Joyce’s party organisation in New England is ironic given the Nationals’ official commitment to the net zero target was actually settled while Joyce was party leader.
The Nationals agreed to net zero in October 2021 after the prime minister at the time, Scott Morrison, made it clear ahead of UN-led climate talks in Glasgow that he wanted that target to be government policy.
Joyce made it clear during a Nationals party room discussion to settle the policy commitment that he did not support net zero. But a majority of his colleagues – including Littleproud – did. In National party terms, Littleproud, historically, has been significantly more progressive on the climate transition than Joyce.
Some Nationals believe the insurrection is likely to succeed at the weekend, although the motion is unlikely to be backed by conference delegates from Western Australia and Victoria.
Joyce told Guardian Australia the motion “did not come from me”. But he also acknowledged he was “pleased they’re having the discussion.”
Full story
The Guardian, 6 September 2023
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, will face a concerted push at the federal conference of the party this weekend to dump its commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
Guardian Australia has obtained a copy of a motion submitted by Barnaby Joyce’s federal electorate council in New England that calls on the Nationals parliamentary party room to “abolish its policy of net zero by 2050, and adopt a policy that will reduce Australia’s CO2 emissions in collaboration with the rest of the world”.
The new motion – which some party sources interpret as a strategic strike intended to destabilise Littleproud’s leadership – has alarmed moderate Liberals because the Nationals abandoning net zero would reopen an acrimonious internal Coalition discussion about climate policy.
As well as dumping net zero, the new motion championed by the New England FEC also calls on the Nationals party room to “ensure that any policies relating to CO2 emissions do not negatively affect on-farm production of food and fibre”.
The conference push from Joyce’s party organisation in New England is ironic given the Nationals’ official commitment to the net zero target was actually settled while Joyce was party leader.
The Nationals agreed to net zero in October 2021 after the prime minister at the time, Scott Morrison, made it clear ahead of UN-led climate talks in Glasgow that he wanted that target to be government policy.
Joyce made it clear during a Nationals party room discussion to settle the policy commitment that he did not support net zero. But a majority of his colleagues – including Littleproud – did. In National party terms, Littleproud, historically, has been significantly more progressive on the climate transition than Joyce.
Some Nationals believe the insurrection is likely to succeed at the weekend, although the motion is unlikely to be backed by conference delegates from Western Australia and Victoria.
Joyce told Guardian Australia the motion “did not come from me”. But he also acknowledged he was “pleased they’re having the discussion.”
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment