European court forces 33 governments to prove emissions cuts in line with Paris climate accord

Climate ‘lawfare’ marches on. Is the Paris accord legally enforceable, and if so how might offenders be penalised?
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Countries named in a legal complaint include the 27 members of the EU, the UK, Switzerland and Russia, reports the National News.

The European Court of Human Rights is forcing 33 governments to prove they are cutting emissions in line with the requirements of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The court also rejected an attempt by those governments to overturn its decision to fast-track a lawsuit filed by six young Portuguese climate activists.

The activists claim the countries’ efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are inadequate.

Atlantic’s ‘conveyor belt’ shows no sign of declining, new study shows

A portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation [image credit: R. Curry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution @ Wikipedia]

This follows on quite well from our post yesterday about the Beaufort Gyre. Another attempted climate alarm fades away.
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A 30-year reconstruction of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation shows no decline, reports The Global Warming Policy Forum.

Abstract A decline in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) strength has been observed between 2004 and 2012 by the RAPID-MOCHA-WBTS (RAPID – Meridional Overturning Circulation and Heatflux Array – Western Boundary Time Series, hereafter RAPID array) with this weakened state of the AMOC persisting until 2017.

Climate model and paleo-oceanographic research suggests that the AMOC may have been declining for decades or even centuries before this; however direct observations are sparse prior to 2004, giving only “snapshots” of the overturning circulation. [Talkshop note: continues here].

How did UK popular press go from ‘climate fear is bonkers’ to greenwashing?

Since when did the British Press in general ‘respond to government policy’ by reversing its opinions on anything? Very strange. No evidence is offered in this article of what public opinion of government climate policy, or even of climate propaganda in general, actually is, so they resort to assertions.

H/T The GWPF
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The new green face paint of the British press is not simply a consequence of public opinion.

It’s also a response to new Government policy, says I-news.

Like a shrinking Antarctic ice shelf, collapsing into the sea in the face of global warming, the climate scepticism of large parts of the UK press is finally starting to melt away.

Earlier this month, The Times, which had caused scientists to despair at its apparent support for climate change denial, ran an editorial in support of Government proposals for new taxes to combat carbon emissions. “It is the right approach,” the paper concluded.

On 30 January, Natasha Clark, political correspondent at The Sun, tweeted that she was “delighted to be taking on environment, green and climate news ahead of COP26”, the UN change conference in Glasgow in November.

In October The Sun launched a Green Team campaign so that “every reader can help save the planet” (and maybe win some vegan sausages).

Most surprisingly, the Daily Express, for so long the loudest-ranting climate denier on the UK newsstand, turned its Crusader icon the colour of an avocado on 8 February and implored its readers to “Join our green Britain revolution!”

Alongside that front-page headline were logos of such unlikely Express bedfellows as Greenpeace and Solar Energy UK, and a photo of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak larking around with an electric vehicle charging gun.

Here is a clue to what’s going on. The new green face paint of the British press is not simply a consequence of public opinion. It’s also a response to new Government policy.

Downing Street is working hard to bring the Tory press in line with Boris Johnson’s strategy for a “green industrial revolution” to underpin economic recovery and establish the UK’s reputation as a champion of clean energy ahead of the UN summit.

This is welcome, if worryingly late in the day. It is also deeply ironic. Five years ago at COP21, that moment in Paris where global leaders united to fight global warming, much of the UK press viewed the euphoria with cynicism.

Full article here.

Hydrogen: the future fuel to achieve net zero? – asks the National Grid

If they need to ask the question, the answer is probably ‘no’.
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Hydrogen has the potential to be a low-carbon alternative to gas in our homes and businesses, but first we need to test this fuel for the future.

That’s where FutureGrid comes in, says the National Grid.

Today most of us are reliant on gas to heat our homes and businesses, with 85% of households using gas central heating.

More trees do not always create a cooler planet, geographer finds

Credit: klimatetochskogen.nu

Contrary to most current thinking, the net effect of planting – or cutting down – trees could in theory be zero, or somewhere near that, depending on local factors.
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New research by Christopher A. Williams, an environmental scientist and professor in Clark University’s Graduate School of Geography, reveals that deforestation in the U.S. does not always cause planetary warming, as is commonly assumed; instead, in some places, it actually cools the planet, says Phys.org.

A peer-reviewed study by Williams and his team, “Climate Impacts of U.S. Forest Loss Span Net Warming to Net Cooling,” is published today (Feb. 12) in Science Advances.

The team’s discovery has important implications for policy and management efforts that are turning to forests to mitigate climate change.

La Nina climate cycle has peaked: UN

Of course the WMO doesn’t miss the chance to promote its ‘human-caused warming’ dogma, painting La Nina is a minor break in their imagined process.
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The 2020-2021 La Nina phenomenon has passed its peak, the UN weather agency said Tuesday, but its impact on temperatures, rain and storm patterns is set to continue, reports Phys.org.

The 2020-2021 La Nina phenomenon has passed its peak, the UN weather agency said Tuesday, but its impact on temperatures, rain and storm patterns is set to continue.

La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, occurring every two to seven years.

The effect has widespread impacts on weather around the world—typically the opposite impacts to the El Nino warming phase in the Southern Oscillation cycle.

Besides the cooling effect, La Nina is usually associated with wetter conditions in some parts of the world, and drier conditions in others.

La Nina conditions have been in place since August-September 2020, according to atmospheric and oceanic indicators.

“La Nina appears to have peaked in October-November as a moderate strength event,” said the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The WMO said there was a 65 percent likelihood that La Nina will persist during February-April. The odds shift rapidly thereafter, with a 70 percent chance that the tropical Pacific will return to neutral conditions in the cycle by April-June.

“El Nino and La Nina are major drivers of the Earth’s climate system,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

“But all naturally-occurring climate events now take place in the context of human-induced climate change, which is increasing global temperatures, exacerbating extreme weather, impacting seasonal rainfall patterns and complicating disaster prevention and management.”

The temporary global cooling effects of La Nina were not enough to prevent 2020 from being one of the three warmest years on record.

reports Phys.org.

Unmatched dust storms raged over Western Europe during Ice age maximum

Image credit: ScienceDaily

This has echoes of the ice age dust/albedo theory – with no CO2 feedbacks – proposed by Ralph Ellis a few years ago. The article concludes: ‘The result thus has the potential to aid the understanding of the abrupt warming and cooling periods during the ice ages called Dansgaard/Oeschger events which bear the marks of climate tipping points.’
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Every late winter and early spring, huge dust storms swirled across the bare and frozen landscapes of Europe during the coldest periods of the latest ice age, says Phys.org.

These paleo-tempests, which are seldom matched in our modern climate frequently covered Western Europe in some of the thickest layers of ice-age dust found anywhere previously on Earth.

This is demonstrated by a series of new estimates of the sedimentation and accumulation rates of European loess layers obtained by Senior Research Scientist Denis-Didier Rousseau from Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, and colleagues.

The work, which is published in Quaternary Science Reviews is part of the TiPES project on tipping points in the Earth system, coordinated by The University of Copenhagen.

In the study Denis-Didier Rousseau and colleagues reinterpreted layers in loess from Nussloch, Germany.

Loess is a fine-silt-sized earth type found all over the world. It mainly consists of aeolian sediments, which are materials transported by the wind from dry areas without vegetation such as deserts of any type, moraines, or dried-out river beds.

Within the aeolian sediments, darker layers of paleosol alternate within the loess layers. Every layer in the loess represents a shift in climatic conditions.

Japan is driving around in circles on reducing emissions from motor vehicles

Toyota’s Prius model

The Toyota boss reckons hybrids are a better idea than all-electric since no expensive new power supplies or charging points are needed, with recharging built-in to the vehicle. Also, lifetime CO2 emissions are comparable to EVs when all factors are taken into account. (No range anxiety
either). As someone demanding realism, one suspects he’s not too impressed by on-off renewables either.
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In his first policy speech as prime minister last October, Yoshihide Suga pledged to reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, thus giving substance to the government’s goal of eliminating the need for fossil fuels in the latter half of the 21st century, says the Japan Times.

Part of that goal is to ban new internal combustion engine cars by the mid-2030s, a pledge addressed by Akio Toyoda, the president of the world’s No. 2 automaker, Toyota Motor Corp., and chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, during a Dec. 17 online news conference he held under the latter capacity.

Toyoda derided the government policy as being ill-informed and unrealistic.

Aerosol particles cool the climate less than we thought

Another pillar of ‘settled’ climate science trembles. It’s described as ‘one of the largest uncertainties faced by climate scientists.’ Is there a list of these uncertainties somewhere?
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The impact of atmospheric aerosols on clouds and climate may be different than previously thought, reports Phys.org.

That is the conclusion of cloud researcher Franziska Glassmeier from TU Delft. The results of her study will be published in Science on Friday, January 29th.

Cloud decks cover vast stretches of the subtropical oceans. They cool the planet because they reflect incoming sunlight back to space.

Air pollution in the form of aerosols—particles suspended in the atmosphere—can increase this cooling effect because it makes clouds brighter.

The cooling effect of pollution offsets part of the warming effect of greenhouse gases. How much exactly, is one of the largest uncertainties faced by climate scientists.

Ship tracks

A striking illustration of clouds becoming brighter as a result of aerosols, is provided by shipping emissions in the form of “ship tracks.” These are visible as bright lines within a cloud deck that reveal the paths of polluting ships that travel beneath the clouds.

“Such ship tracks are a good example of how aerosol effects on clouds are traditionally thought of, and of how they are still represented in most climate models,” says Glassmeier.

But according to the cloud researcher, ship tracks do not tell the whole story.

Continued here.

Radical Left Executive Orders Discredit Biden’s Unity Talk

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Here come the decrees based on dodgy climate ideology. What could possibly go wrong?

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

The torrent of ruinous policy emanating from the White House continues unabated.

As one internet memester put it, “pace yourself Joe, you have four years.  You don’t have to destroy the country your first week.”

Generations of Americans worked tirelessly to achieve energy independence.  They realized the dream at last, until President Biden rushed not only to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, but now to block future oil and gas leases on all federal lands.

Energy analyst Ron Stein writes at CFACT.org that “Biden, like his favorite state of California, is doing everything possible to INCREASE the cost of electricity and fuels, that drives up the cost of everything.”

President Biden also ordered the entire federal fleet of over 600,000 cars and trucks be converted to electric vehicles, no matter where they are!  Good luck finding a place to charge those short-range monuments to…

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Solar activity and climate – part 2

Sunspots

In a recent post we looked at the average daily sunspot numbers, finding that far from the claimed decades-long decline of solar strength, averages were high from 1933-2008 followed by a sharp decline in the recently-ended solar cycle 24.

This time the focus moves to another metric from the same source, Wikipedia’s List of solar cycles.

After the main table of data they introduce another one, stating:
The following table is instead divided into (unofficial) cycles starting and ending with a maximum, to give a better feel for the number of spotless days associated with each minimum.

For this short exercise the ‘Spotless days’ column of data will be split into two groups of six, comparing the overall average of each from the list.

Scottish Government has ‘no plan B’ and reliant on ‘unproven technology’ to hit climate targets

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

All these political climate fantasies will get rumbled in the end. The cracks between the ‘ambitions’ and reality just keep getting wider, and that’s not just the SNP in Scotland, it’s everywhere you look.
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EXPERTS have warned the Scottish Government’s strategy for hitting ambitious climate targets by 2030 is based on “wishful thinking” amid fears there is no plan B in the event untested technology cannot be scaled up, says The Herald (via Latest News Post).

Scottish Government ministers have published their climate change update after MSPs pledged to reduce 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 on the way to becoming carbon neutral by 2045.

But experts have raised concerns that using carbon capture and storage (CCS) and negative emissions technology (NET) to decarbonise heavy industry such as the oil and gas sector are not based on evidence it can be done in time.

SUVs are conquering the world as car buyers ignore climate message

Image credit: Carbuyer

All these SUV owners are citizens with votes, in case climate-obsessed politicians – who plan to take their existing vehicle choices away – have forgotten. Pretending to be able to change the weather is a policy stance liable to fail in the long run, and many have already rejected it.
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SUVs are conquering the world, says Forbes (via The GWPF).

That’s a problem for efforts to rein in emissions from the global transportation sector, which accounts for roughly 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

For the first time ever in the U.S. last year, sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) likely accounted for half or just over half of all vehicles sold, according to recent data from IHS Markit, a data and analytics firm.

Others are rapidly catching up.

UK court rejects appeal to stop Drax building biggest gas plant in Europe

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

Another attempt by climate obsessives to dictate UK energy policy to the government via the courts, bites the dust. Reliability of national electricity supply is not completely dead yet.
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The UK Court of Appeals has rejected a bid from environmental campaigners to prevent Drax from building the biggest gas-fired power plant in Europe, reports NS Energy.

The proposed plant, based next to an existing facility in Selby, North Yorkshire, was given the go-ahead in October 2019.

It was a controversial decision as the UK government, in approving the project, overruled its own planning authority’s recommendation to reject it on climate grounds.

Solar activity reconstructed over a millennium

This quote from the report stood out: ‘there are long-lasting periods of strong and weak solar activity, which is also reflected in the climate on Earth.’ Worth noting as we proceed through a period of weak activity right now.
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An international team of researchers led by ETH Zurich has reconstructed solar activity back to the year 969 using measurements of radioactive carbon in tree rings, reports Phys.org.

Those results help scientists to better understand the dynamics of the sun and allow more precise dating of organic materials using the C14 method.

What goes on in the sun can only be observed indirectly. Sunspots, for instance, reveal the degree of solar activity—the more sunspots are visible on the surface of the sun, the more active is our central star deep inside.

Siemens Energy in $146m bid to harvest hydrogen from offshore wind

Let’s keep pretending the climate will notice if a few hundred wind turbines are dotted around the seas. Better still, let’s make them even more expensive and unwieldy by adding some new technology that we can’t easily service as it’s miles offshore. It’s claimed that ‘brilliant minds’ will be working on this, but it doesn’t take a genius to see the flaws in the plan.
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Siemens Gamesa and Siemens Energy have today announced plans to invest €120m ($146m) in a five-year strategy to unlock the potential of harvesting green hydrogen from offshore windpower, reports Power Engineering International.

The companies are collaborating on a solution to integrate an electrolyzer into an offshore wind turbine as a single synchronized system to directly produce green hydrogen.

Over the next five years, Siemens Gamesa will invest €80m and Siemens Energy €40m in the initiative, with a view to unveiling a full-scale offshore demonstration by 2025/26.

Why are hundreds of Pacific Islands growing despite rising sea levels?

In the Maldives

Just as the late Nils-Axel Mörner, a lifelong sea levels researcher, explained in an interview about two years ago. Let’s hope the climate miserablists now give up on their ‘drowning islands’ nonsense.
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New research says hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size, even as climate change-related sea level rises threaten the region, says ABC News Australia.

Scientists at the University of Auckland found atolls in the Pacific nations of Marshall Islands and Kiribati, as well as the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean, have grown up to 8 per cent in size over the past six decades despite sea level rise.

They say their research could help climate-vulnerable nations adapt to global warming in the future.

Planet Earth has remained habitable for billions of years ‘because of good luck’, say researchers

Credit: earth.com

Greetings Earthlings, or should we say ‘habitable-zone-dwelling asteroid dodgers’? We even have the right amount of atmosphere — not too little (like Mars) or too much (like Venus), and the essential oxygen.
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Pure chance is the reason that Planet Earth has stayed habitable for billions of years.

A new study has found that it’s nothing more than good luck that has kept our world full of life, reports I-news.

Scientists at the University of Southampton have carried out a mass simulation of climate evolution of 100,000 randomly generated planets.

Each planet was simulated 100 times with random climate-altering events occurring each time in order to see if habitable life could be sustained for three billion years like on Earth.

CLINTEL Study Finds Most Of The CO2 Increase Is Natural

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Interesting, but the climate hysteria machine will keep inventing its hobgoblins regardless until someone turns off the funding.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

Using a new observational approach to an old but most important question, CLINTEL President Guus Berkhout finds that about 62% of the atmospheric CO2 increase is due to natural sources, not human emissions. The study then looks at the implications for drastic CO2 reduction measures, finding that these measures will not stop the atmospheric increase. Actually, they will have very limited effect. Hence the title of the report is “Managing the Carbon Dioxide Content in the Earth’s Atmosphere“.

Professor Berkhout’s approach is based on proven technology in geophysical imaging. He calls his method spectral ‘fingerprint detection (FPD)’, because it looks at the relationship between fine-grained details of the atmospheric CO2 increase and anthropogenic emissions over time by computing auto and cross correlation functions.

Note that in the spectral FPD approach knowledge about the existence of different CO2 isotopes (C12 and C13) is…

View original post 493 more words

Government launches long-awaited Energy White Paper

One of its claims is: ‘we will make the UK the home of green ships and planes’. Easy – just ban their engines from being started. Publishing wish lists doesn’t guarantee engineering feasibility. These policies will cost a fortune but energy bills will be ‘affordable’, they claim. Who’s paying for all the subsidies – Father Christmas?
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The government has launched its long-awaited Energy White Paper to clean up the nation’s energy systems and ensure the journey to net zero by 2050 is achievable and affordable, says Energy Live News.

The white paper expands on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recently announced Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and sets out the steps needed to cut emissions from industry, transport and buildings by 230 million metric tonnes.