Study: Fossil fuel plans would far overshoot climate goals

Wyoming coal trains [image credit: energycatalyzer3.com/

Welcome to the real world. The UN loves to tell the world to wind down its fuel-burning ways in a hurry to satisfy the atmospheric trace gas theories of certain ‘climate experts’, but equally viable and affordable alternatives on the scale required are proving hard to find. Energy being ‘clean’ or not is a different issue, but a useful prop when your main argument is floundering.
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The world needs to cut by more than half its production of coal, oil and gas in the coming decade to maintain a chance of keeping global warming from reaching dangerous levels, according to a U.N.-backed study released Wednesday, says Phys.org.

The report published by the U.N. Environment Program found that while governments have made ambitious pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions, they are still planning to extract double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what would be consistent with the 2015 Paris climate accord’s goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

Europe asking Russia for more coal is set for disappointment

German coal: back to the future
[image credit: BBC]

What to do when you need reliable electricity generation *now*? Pay up, look big and burn fuel – if you can get it, and have something to burn it in. Renewables-obsessed governments are struggling to justify their blinkered ‘net zero’ policies now the energy chips are really down. All this with the COP26 climate talks looming.
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It’s not just extra natural gas that Europe’s struggling energy markets are finding tough to get from Russia, says Bloomberg (via MiningWeekly.com).

Power producers in the continent are being forced to ask Russia for more coal to ease an energy crunch with winter approaching and record-high gas prices denting profitability, according to officials at two Russian coal companies.

But they may be left stranded as any increase in exports from the country won’t be substantial, they said.

Gone With The Wind: America’s Energy Future On Display In Europe

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Prepare for more unrest if/when energy prices accelerate even more due to unworkable so-called climate policies, and what used to be reliable supply becomes problematic.

PA Pundits - International

By Bonner Cohen, Ph.D. ~

As if the continuing spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant and fears of being flooded by waves of Afghan refugees weren’t enough, Europe is facing another crisis: The wind isn’t blowing.

Steady, reliable northwesterly winds blowing in from the North Atlantic and the North Sea were supposed to be a key component of Europe’s low-carbon future. Private investment capital and lavish taxpayer subsidies poured into the wind energy industry. By the thousands, gigantic wind turbines – offshore and onshore – mushroomed into the skies. Western Europe’s picturesque coasts and charming countryside have been defaced by these monstrosities, but everyone was assured it’s for a good cause. Nothing less than the planet’s future is at stake. And besides, wind power, along with solar power, will produce reliable affordable electricity.

Or maybe not.

For weeks, the wind from the North Atlantic and the North Sea has been…

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Britain runs coal power stations amid energy crisis

Drax power station, generating 7% of Britain’s needs, is partly converted to burning imported woodchips.

UK energy policy, based on hypothetical climate theories, is unravelling just as PM Boris Johnson is claiming at the UN that going green is easy. Alternatives to coal are proving to be a lot more problemmatical than expected. Running short of affordable power is an avoidable outcome of supposed climate strategy, and makes governments look incompetent.
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Britain, which faces soaring natural gas prices, has been forced to run coal-fired power stations in order to secure energy supplies, electricity generation company Drax said on Thursday.

The country is particularly exposed to Europe’s ongoing energy crisis due to its reliance on natural gas to generate electricity, says TechXplore.

The price of European gas futures has more than doubled since May.

New CO2 monitoring credit card enables tracking of ‘carbon footprint on every purchase’ – ‘Monitors & cuts off spending when we hit our carbon max’ – Mastercard & UN join forces

CO2 is not pollution

Another reason to reduce or avoid credit card usage.
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Get ready for a Chinese-style social credit system scoring when it comes to your personal spending habits and how they impact “climate change”, says Marc Morano at Climate Depot.

A new credit card called Doconomy, has launched that is “working in tight collaboration with Mastercard” and an alliance with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is now available so you can monitor your personal CO2 budget on every purchase you make.

The new CO2 monitoring Mastercard called Doconomy debuted in order to enable “all users to track, measure and understand their impact by presenting their carbon footprint on every purchase.”

The credit cards feature the slogan on them reading “DO. Everyday Climate Action” and have a personal pledge on the rear of the card boasting: “I am taking responsibility for every transaction I make to help protect the planet.”

The Mastercards feature the UN “Global Climate Action” logo on them as well.

Continued here.

Net Zero by 2050 is dead in the water. So what’s plan B?

More to come? [image credit: thecount.com]

Futile climate obsessions over 0.01% of the Earth’s atmosphere have clouded the political world so badly that thinking straight seems to have gone out of the window. Bad news for voters, left with no-one sensible to turn to.
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Boris Johnson has always tried to take a ‘cakeist’ position on Net Zero, says the Telegraph (via The GWPF).

We can drastically cut carbon emissions while boosting living standards, he claims.

But the truth is, the sacrifices being demanded of us in the name of Net Zero are incompatible with democracy, and the PM knows it.

Boris Johnson’s Net Zero goal in disarray as Chancellor baulks at the £1.4 trillion cost

The cost of all this climate folly is likely to be a major under-estimate anyway. Hammering the economy for no good reason, and hitting people’s incomes with carbon taxes and other so-called climate regulations, won’t sell well at election time either. Obsessing about the weather has gone way too far.
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Proposals to reduce emissions to ‘net zero’ as part of Boris Johnson’s plan to make the UK a ‘world leader’ in green policies have been thrown into disarray after Rishi Sunak raised objections to the eye-watering cost to the Treasury, says the Mail on Sunday (via The GWPF).

As part of the net zero plan –which would decarbonise the economy by 2050 – No 10 had been expected to publish in the spring details of the strategy for moving away from gas boilers ahead of Glasgow’s COP26 climate change conference in November.

But this has been delayed until the autumn amid mounting alarm about the bill.

Germany’s flood disaster exposes folly of misbalanced Net Zero policies – The Global Warming Policy Forum

Credit: BBC

A meandering jet stream can lead to unusual weather conditions. Blaming ‘climate change’ (pick your own definition) is so vague as to be meaningless, but may serve to divert the spotlight away from political leaders.
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The Global Warming Policy Forum has called on the UK government to learn the key lesson from the German flood disaster and adopt policies that prioritise effective and relative low cost flood protection over massively expensive and ineffective renewable energy targets.

In recent days, meteorologists and extreme weather researchers have blamed a ‘monumental failure of Germany’s flood warning system’ for the death and devastation triggered by disastrous flooding.

Experts had warned the German government four days before the first floods about the high risk of flooding in the Rhine basin, but the government failed to implement flood protection measures that are, in any case historically underfunded and thus ineffective.

Greenland ditches oil exploration efforts after 50 years of failure

Kvanefjeld, Greenland [image credit: polarconnection.org]

Not too hard to give up what you haven’t got anyway? Its leaders now favour renewables, but with up to twenty hours of darkness in December they won’t get much winter help from solar power. At a guess they won’t be dispensing with their diesel generators any time soon.
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Greenland is abandoning its ambition of 50 years of becoming an oil-producing nation, suspending its oil exploration strategy because of environmental and climate concerns, reports OilPrice.com.

Greenland, an autonomous territory part of Denmark, has been trying to find oil reserves for 50 years, without success, and it now considers that the climate concerns are far greater than the potential benefits of becoming an oil producer, the government of Greenland says.

According to one estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Greenland’s offshore area, East Greenland Rift Basins Province, likely contains a mean estimate of 31.4 billion of barrels equivalent of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids.

Dutch province unveils solar bicycle path, forgetting it’s not on the equator

Cycling is popular in the Netherlands [image credit: expatica.com]

There’s a reason why fixed solar panels should be, and usually are, angled at about 35-40 degrees in northern Europe. It’s called the optimal tilt angle. This cycle path with panels flat on the ground is so simple-minded it’s embarrassing, or ought to be.
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Authorities in a central Dutch province opened what they are billing as the world’s longest solar bicycle path Wednesday, mixing sustainable energy with emission-free travel, says TechXplore.

Net zero must be fair, say MPs – some hope

Let’s see if the public can find fairness in being forced to switch to electric cars and pay a small fortune to change their home heating systems, when the time comes – which it quite soon will. All in the name of so-called ‘decarbonisation’ which won’t achieve anything positive for the climate anyway, but suits the aims of the catastrophists.

Any fairness to be found here: ‘The extra demand for electricity will overwhelm most domestic fuses, thus requiring homeowners to install new ones, as well as circuit-breakers and new distribution boards. Most will also have to rewire between their main fuse and the distribution network. In urban areas, where most electrical cabling is underground, this will involve paying for a trench to be dug between the home and the feeder circuits in the street.’? [Source: The Hidden Cost of Net Zero: Rewiring the UK].
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The government is criticised over its ‘insufficient’ public engagement practices around net zero, reports Energy Live News.

Fairness should underpin the UK’s transition to net zero.

That’s one of the recommendations of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee which urges the government to prioritise the Net Zero Review and Net Zero Strategy to increase engagement with the public, businesses and industry.

In its report named ‘Climate Assembly UK: Where are we now’, the committee suggests the government’s public engagement practices are insufficient.

GWPF welcomes Boris Johnson’s last-minute delay of gas boiler ban

Domestic gas central heating boiler

Government getting cold feet? Looks like it, after MP Steve Baker warned ‘if ministers don’t obtain the consent of the public for Net Zero’ the result could be a public revolt leading to ‘utter political fiasco’. Climate fear isn’t the weapon they seem to think it is.
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The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has welcomed the decision by Boris Johnson to delay the planned gas boiler ban which the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) planned to announce next week.

According to a report in today’s Times, BEIS had been due to publish its heat and building strategy next week “but this is now understood to have been delayed, possibly until the autumn. At a meeting last week Boris Johnson was said to be concerned that it did not do enough to protect consumers and wanted further safeguards….”

UK fiscal watchdog puts cost of reaching net zero at £1.4 trillion

Domestic Air Source Heat Pump [image credit: UK Alternative Energy]

Upending both the national economy and personal finances for no noticeable climate benefit is an ‘investment’ in alarmist-speak. How much longer will voters turn a blind eye to these reckless policies?
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The cost of the UK reaching net zero by 2050 could be as high as £1.4 trillion, according to figures released today by Britain’s fiscal watchdog, says CityAM.

The UK economy will require over £1 trillion in investment over the next three decades to hit the government’s target of making Britain carbon neutral, estimates included in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest Fiscal Risks report revealed.

Radical Resetters Publish Plan To Wreck America And The Free World

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The climate trojan horse is in plain sight.

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

Apparently the problem with the world is that you are too free.

Americans must slash our energy use 87% and abandon limited government and our free economy if we are to live “sustainably” and meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord.  That is according to a peer-reviewed study by five lead authors published June 29th in the journal Global Environmental Change.

Read the entire study at CFACT.org.

It’s not often that the Socialists planning our future dystopia make their intentions plainly known.

We can thank five academic radicals for doing just that.

Although the study’s authors concede that only countries with high energy use accomplish “decent living standards,” they nonetheless conclude that our political and economic systems are “misaligned with the aspirations of sustainable development” and are “unfit for the challenges of the 21st century.”

You can kiss individual freedom and prosperity goodbye, along…

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Carbon border tax: Europe’s climate fortress endangers Germany’s strength, say press critics

Pointless EU climate ideology is going in the opposite direction to its economic success. Protectionist barriers tend to annoy the victims, with unknown but likely repercussions. Any idea that harmless carbon dioxide is ‘dirty’ is a bad joke, but makes endless work for meddling bureaucrats.
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The EU wants to impose a carbon border tax on Europe’s borders and thus protect domestic producers from dirtier (sic) producers from abroad, says Die Welt (via The GWPF).

Experts warn of a loophole that could hit German exporters seriously.

Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier met two Vice-Presidents of the European Commission when he visited Brussels on Friday: Margrethe Vestager, who is responsible for digital, and Valdis Dombrovskis, who is responsible for economic issues.

The CDU politician wanted to talk to both of them about the steel industry – and about how European steel producers can economically survive the tightening of EU climate targets.

The plans for a CO2 border adjustment tax are also likely to have been an issue. Because the work of the Commission on legislative proposals for such a CO2 surcharge at the borders of the EU are ready to go.

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which in Brussels is affectionately known as CBAM for short, aims to make imported products that are produced less climate-friendly overseas than in Europe more expensive at the borders of the EU.

This climate protection wall around the continent is intended to ensure that European producers with their higher energy costs and stricter environmental regulations remain competitive on their home market.

Full article here.

Climate change: UK Government’s own advisers say it’s failing to deliver change fast enough – just as they always say

Unpopular policies are hard to implement, as any politician knows. Having no convincing evidence that trace gases in the atmosphere are a major, or even any, kind of climate issue doesn’t help persuade the public of a need for drastic measures and financial pain either.
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The government is failing to deliver on promises to dramatically cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to its own climate advisers, says Sky News.

They warn ministers need to rapidly step up action, with every month of delay making it harder to meet legal obligations to reach net zero by 2050.

In a series of report cards on the government’s progress over the last year, the Climate Change Committee says that despite setting the right targets there’s still no detailed plan on how to replace millions of boilers, encourage people to drive electric and plant acres of trees.

On yer bike, commuters! Electric car obsession impedes race to net zero

E-bikes

Electric bike, aka ‘active travel’, that is. That’s the proposed option for those who don’t want to walk, don’t have access to an electric car, or do but hit recharge problems, in the wondrous(?) net zero future. The real obsession is that with minor trace gases in the atmosphere, leading to all sorts of improbable and foolish policy ideas and decisions.
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Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK, says TechXplore.

Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars sold were electric, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet.

The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years [Talkshop comment – says who?].

Tackling the climate and air pollution requires curbing all motorized transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible.

International Energy Agency’s Green Energy Fantasy Is A Hoot

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A hoot, yes – but so far the laughs are on us if we’re in a country pushing the far-fetched nonsense of fearsome human-caused warming.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

Looking for laughs? The International Energy Agency has produced a laugh filled report, grandly titled: “Net Zero by 2050: A roadmap for the global energy system“. Redesigning the global energy system. My, oh my. Below are a few highlights, out of many.

To begin with it is not a roadmap, as it does not tell us how to get there. In fact you cannot get there from here, which makes their there very amusing. This is perhaps the most elaborate net zero fantasy concocted so far.

IEA Executive Director Faith Birol explains where the fantasy comes from: “…combining for the first time the complex models of our two flagship series, the World Energy Outlook and Energy Technology Perspectives.”

So two, not just one, complex computer models, that have never before been combined. I feel better already. Instead of the world energy outlook, it is IEA’s…

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Solar farms: A toxic blot on the landscape

GWPF: They’re filled with noxious chemicals, many are made by Chinese prisoners… and don’t even work efficiently in gloomy British weather. The Government admits that more than a fifth of our farmland will eventually be lost to solar farms.
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Across Britain, solar farms are on the march, says The Mail on Sunday / GWPF.

Some 1,000 acres of rural land a month are earmarked for ‘photovoltaic’ panels and the miles of cabling that go with them.

The Government admits that more than a fifth of our farmland will eventually be lost to ‘green’ initiatives such as these.

Last week, The Mail on Sunday counted 270 solar farms under construction or waiting for planning permission around the country.

G7 countries want to prevent ‘uncontrollable climate change’, but when was it ever controllable?

Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com]

Where’s the evidence that tinkering with carbon dioxide output can control anything? A think-tank chief said: “It puts the burden on any fossil fuel development now to prove that it’s 1.5C compatible”. How anyone is supposed to do that remains a mystery.
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The Group of Seven wealthy nations on Friday agreed to end state financing of coal-fired power plants by the end of this year, and to “mostly decarbonise” electricity supplies in the 2030s, reports France24.

Ahead of a leaders meeting in Britain next month, G7 countries’ climate and environment ministers also reaffirmed their commitment to keep temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, following a two-day virtual meeting.

Scientists say any increases beyond that will trigger uncontrollable climate change. [Talkshop comment: *some* scientists say…].