German car industry calls on EU to drop tighter CO2 emission targets

Image credit: autocarbrands.com

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

The public turns out not be persuaded by EU bureaucrats that expensive short-range BEVs with high depreciation, limited recharge options and uncertain battery life are the way to go. And the current virus situation only reduces spending power, leaving car makers with nowhere to go but down as massive fines for missing absurd CO2 targets begin to bite.
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The German car industry is calling for stricter EU climate requirements to be overturned or to be delayed as car sales plummet to lowest level in nearly three decades.

It has urged the government to back them in efforts to make the European Union drop a planned tightening of emission limits on cars, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung.

China extracts record amount of natural gas from ‘fire ice’ in South China Sea

Burning hydrate [image credit: US Office of Naval Research]

H/T The GWPF

The main obstacle to the massive but untapped energy resource of gas hydrate is cost of extraction, once technical problems are mastered.

We might be sitting on enough gas to power the world for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, says OilPrice.com.

In a world awash in oil and gas, you’d think it couldn’t get any worse. Well, it can: China just announced that it had extracted a record amount of what has been poetically called fire ice. It is, however, a form of natural gas trapped in frozen water.

At 861,400 cubic meters, this record might not be a whole lot of gas, but it may well be the start of something new, and gas producers may not like this ‘something’.

Coronavirus throws EU’s Green Deal into disarray

H/T The GWPF

Less money available to waste on absurd and costly schemes for climate obsessives? What a shame – not. A harsh new reality has arrived.
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Much remains uncertain as the effects of the Coronavirus ravage economies, says Dave Keating @ Forbes.

But what seems clear is that any assumptions made about transitioning to the green economy have now been rendered obsolete.

[…] The EU’s Green Deal, with its target to completely decarbonize by 2050 proposed earlier this month, has not taken the massive economic and social disruption of Coronavirus into account.

Assumptions made just a few weeks ago will now have to be completely revised. There is particular urgency to revise the EU’s medium-term goal of reducing emissions by 40% by 2030, adopted in 2014.

EU Green Deal Should Be Canceled Because of Coronavirus, Czech PM Says

Not much chance of that in the absurdly climate-obsessed EU, but maybe a popular view in his home country given the massive costs and lack of worthwhile benefits of said ‘deal’.

Will COVID-19 be a reason to accelerate or slow Europe’s energy transition? The battle lines are already being drawn, says green Tech Media.

The Czech Republic’s prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has said the European Union should abandon its Green Deal and focus on fighting the spread of the coronavirus in an early sign of policy battles ahead.

Announced in December, Europe’s Green New Deal seeks to invest €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) on the road to making the EU economy net-zero carbon by 2050.

EU wants battery autonomy, but first it needs energy-intensive graphite

Typical electric car set-up

Expensive energy-intensive processes are needed to make a key battery ingredient for electric vehicles. How does this make any sense at all? They talk about the factories needed ‘to meet homegrown demand’ – but where is it?

As Europe looks to declare its tech independence by becoming a leader in next-generation batteries, it will have to start by making its own graphite, says TechXplore.

The problem is, nearly all of it now comes from Asia, mainly China.

So France’s Carbone Savoie and Germany’s SGL Carbon, the only European firms deemed capable of taking up the challenge, have been corralled into an ambitious battery alliance launched by Brussels last year.

“Thank you for bringing us on board this ‘Airbus for batteries,’ though to be honest, we weren’t even on the passenger list,” Carbone Savoie’s chairman Bruno Gastinne told France’s deputy finance minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher on Thursday.

Automakers face tough new standards in EU, starting now

Typical electric car set-up

Welcome to the EU’s plan to strong-arm its way to victory in the electric car game, in the name of imaginary climate benefits. What happens if the manufacturers all start posting heavy losses due to poor EV sales, as a result of this coercion, is not yet clear. As the article says, tens of billions of euros are at stake.

Long-awaited light-duty vehicle emission rules will hit light-duty vehicle makers working in EU member countries on January 1, and automakers will soon have to deal with the consequences, says OilPrice.com.

Vehicle manufacturers will have to sell many more hybrid and electric vehicles or pay costly fines, a situation similar to China’s rules.

For automakers with product lineups with few EV offerings, they’ll need to sell lots of conventional cars and trucks, and use the profits to pay the fines.

Industry analysts expect plug-in hybrid, battery electric vehicle, and hybrid vehicle sales to soar in the near future.

EU mega-subsidies for electric battery push

What could possibly go wrong? The German Economy Minister described the 3.2 billion euro handout as “a great success for Germany and Europe”. But what else could he say, as such a vast sum of taxpayer cash disappears in the name of climate ideology?

The EU’s powerful anti-trust authority on Monday approved billions of euros in subsidies from seven member states as Europe seeks to make up lost ground in batteries, reports TechXplore.

The EU’s powerful anti-trust authority on Monday approved billions of euros in subsidies from seven member states as Europe seeks to make up lost ground in batteries.

The move is part of a big push led by Germany and France to prepare Europe for the emergence of electric cars, as gas combustible engines are phased out over climate change concerns.

Absurd EU to declare climate emergency while forcing MEPs to travel to France every month

Gone to Strasbourg for a few days

H/T The GWPF

It’s ‘do as we say, not as we do’ time again for the climate-obsessing fake virtue signallers in Brussels – or is it Strasbourg just now?

Members of the European Parliament will this week vote on whether to declare a “climate emergency” – after moving thousands of staff and their whole operation from Brussels to Strasbourg, reports the Daily Express. 

In a monthly act of environmental damage, the EU Parliament ups sticks and moves from its regular home in Belgium to the French town for a week of debate.

Sorry Ryanair, there’s no such thing as a green airline

More promotion of the mythical virtues of a ‘low-carbon’ lifestyle, which is somehow supposed to be ‘environmentally friendly’. Of course in the real world the natural environment depends on carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, but who wants to hear that in these days of climate fearmongering?

The Irish airline has released a series of adverts flaunting its green credentials, but it’s still the EU’s tenth-biggest polluter.

The solution? Reducing demand, suggests Wired.

Of the European Union’s ten biggest carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters, nine of them are coal-fired power plants. The tenth is Ryanair, the low-cost Irish airline which released 9.9 megatonnes of greenhouse gases in 2018 – a 6.9 per cent increase from 2017.

Trade rules emerge as weapon to fight climate change in Europe

The EU hopes to bully any country or enterprise that doesn’t want to conform to its dubious ‘man-made climate’ obsessions and policies. What could possibly go wrong?

The European Union is poised to bring trade policy into the fight against climate change, a move that risks stoking global commercial tensions, says Phys.org.

European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen wants to craft a carbon border tariff for the EU, the world’s biggest single market, as part of a Green Deal to battle the more frequent heat waves, storms and floods tied to global warming.

The idea would unleash a major policy weapon that may well be too politically controversial to work. Even so, elevating the issue is likely to trigger a broader debate within the EU about how to protect domestic businesses from lower-cost competitors abroad.

EU plans to spend more on private jets for top officials

It’s the old ‘do as we say, not as we do’ routine again. What about those supposedly naughty emissions? Hollow laughs all round.

Move comes despite pledges to do more to cut emissions, says Politico.
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The European Union is planning to spend millions of euros more on private jet flights for its top officials — just as it is proclaiming its green credentials and pledging to step up the fight against climate change.

The bloc has raised the amount that can be spent under a five-year contract for “air taxi” flights by more than €3.5 million, according to a document published this month in the EU’s tenders database.

The Green Paradox: Why Europe’s climate policies increase global CO2 emissions

German coal operation

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Government attempts to interfere in power generation markets can and do have unintended consequences, including undermining their own intentions. The expert interviewed here says ‘eight times as many wind and solar power plants as today’ would be needed in Germany by 2050, to meet policy targets. Many of the obstacles that lie in the way also apply to other countries that want to pursue the ‘CO2 controls climate’ delusion.

German economist Johannes Bachmann explains the so-called ‘Green Paradox’ — when unilateral climate policies accelerate the worldwide extraction of fossil fuels and global CO2 emissions.
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Yesterday, 20 September, the so-called “Climate Cabinet” of Germany’s federal government met to set the course of German climate policy for the coming years. Christoph Kramer spoke with Johannes Bachmann about the so-called Green Paradox and the economic concepts that fuel it.

Dr Bachmann is an economist and a member of the Hayek Society. Two years ago he received his doctorate from Michael Bräuninger, a Hamburg economist and former research director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI). In his dissertation Bachmann dealt with the effect of climate policy measures on CO2 emissions.

Christoph Kramer: Mr. Bachmann, if one looks into your dissertation as a layman it’s all Greek to me. Could you please briefly explain exactly what the thesis is about and what methodology you used?

Johannes Bachmann: I can well understand that. On the one hand, there are quite a few technical terms in the work, and on the other, there are many formulas. It is a typical dissertation: a work by an academic for academics.

The aim of the thesis was to examine the effects of climate policy measures on the supply side of fossil fuels. To this end, I calculated how owners of raw materials adjust their production quotas as a result of CO2 taxes or subsidies for renewable energies in order to continue generating as much revenue as possible. Why did I focus on the supply side of all things? The answer is: the quantity of fossil fuels that is extracted from the earth is also consumed.

European Green Deal portfolio handed to EU vice president, in major elevation

Money to burn?

A major elevation of the delusion of having some control over the weather, that is. Looks like evr more vast sums of money will have to poured down the drain before anyone notices it’s not having any effect on the climate, if they ever do notice.

Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans has been named executive vice president responsible for strategy to make the EU climate neutral by 2050, reports Climate Home News.
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Climate action is getting a promotion in the next European Commission, with the portfolio assigned to one of three executive vice presidents.

Dutch social democrat Frans Timmermans was nominated on Tuesday to develop the “European green deal” over the next five years. He is to directly manage the climate change directorate (DG Clima) and coordinate efforts across agriculture, health, transport, energy, cohesion and environment.

Announcing the line-up in a webcast press conference, commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to create a “flexible, agile” team to deliver on the bloc’s priorities.

UK To Impose A Competitive Carbon Tax After No-Deal Brexit

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

A hint of commonsense in post-Brexit climate policy, if or when we get there? So-called ‘carbon’ taxes may well be a pointless nonsense, but if one has to be endured then the lower the better.

The United Kingdom is set to impose a £16 per ton tax on carbon if it leaves the European Union without a deal on October 31, according to government plans, reports The GWPF (from Forbes).

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it will also leave the EU’s Emissions Trade System (ETS), the centrepiece of the bloc’s efforts to meet European countries’ emissions reduction obligations.

EU destroys 700,000 hectares of rainforest for biofuels

H/T The GWPF

All those trees would have absorbed large amounts of the carbon dioxide they claim to be so scared of. Somehow all this is deemed to be ‘sustainable’, using the climate excuse.

The EU wants to save our climate with supposedly green biofuels and has deemed palm oil “sustainable”. Yet on the other side of the globe, rainforests are being clear-cut to produce the 1.9 million tons of palm oil that end up in European fuel tanks every year, says Rainforest Rescue.

The European Union wants to protect the climate and reduce carbon emissions from motor vehicles by blending fuels with increasing shares of supposedly eco-friendly “biofuels”.

Last year, 1.9 million tons of palm oil were added to diesel fuel in the EU – in addition to millions of tons of equally harmful rapeseed and soybean oils.

The plantations needed to satisfy Europes’s demand for palm oil cover an area of 700,000 hectares – land that until recently was still rainforest and the habitat of 5,000 endangered orangutans. Despite the clear-cutting, the EU has classified palm oil as sustainably produced.

This policy has now blown up in the legislators’ faces, with scientists confirming what environmentalists and development experts have long asserted: biofuels help neither people nor the environment – and they are most certainly not climate-neutral, as even studies commissioned by the EU show.

Claim: No-deal Brexit would be a disaster for the climate

Misfits

It had to happen, didn’t it? ‘Project Fear’ merchants love to cite climate change and Brexit, so for them combining the two into yet another disaster rant is better still. Cue non-bendy bananas and missed emissions targets.
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Boris Johnson’s leadership increases the likelihood of a hard exit from the EU, shattering the bloc’s solidarity and empowering a radical deregulation agenda, says Climate Home News.

The new UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, seems intent on leaving the EU with or without a deal on 31 October. The repercussions of a no-deal Brexit for the UK’s domestic climate policy – and its global climate leadership – could be disastrous.

For three decades, the UK has played a central role within the EU, consistently aligning itself with the green grouping of member states.

It contributed more than its fair share of the EU’s climate efforts, is penciled in for a significantly above-average contribution to the EU’s Paris Agreement pledge, and it has decarbonized faster than any other member state.

In a no-deal Brexit, the obvious first order impact is that the UK’s influence over the EU’s climate policy would end, and its successes at cutting emissions would no longer count to the bloc’s targets.

The loss of the UK’s influence at the table will be a major blow to European climate solidarity. It will undercut the EU’s future climate ambition by tilting the balance of power towards less ambitious member states – the likes of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This will damage the ability of the EU to project global leadership.

Even if the EU may be weakened, the UK government has been adamant that its climate diplomacy will fill the gap. It recently committed to reach “net zero” emissions by 2050, and to hosting Cop26 UN climate talks at the end of 2020.

However, in an ultra-hard Brexit, the one now on the table, the lofty ambition of UK leadership – like so much else associated with post-Brexit Britain – may be revealed as wishful thinking.

We must not forget the fantasy at the heart of Brexit – that the EU is rife with “Brussels bureaucrats” hell bent on regulating everything from the transport of smoked kippers to the bendiness of bananas.

Post-Brexit Britain, we have been reassured, is poised to “take back control” by casting off these pesky regulations.

Full article here.

How much public consultation on carbon targets, Boris? Net Zero

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson hasn’t had to wait long for critics of his approach to energy and climate to open fire.

In his first session as PM in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson made two notable statements yesterday, writes Ben Pile @ The Conservative Woman.

First, he declared that the Conservative Party is the party of democracy, and that as such it will defend the result of the referendum.

Second, he reaffirmed his commitment to the Net Zero 2050 target – the policy that Theresa May had stolen from his leadership campaign to secure her own ‘legacy’. Only one of those statements can be correct.

Many believe that the Net Zero 2050 (NZ2050) target lacks a democratic mandate.

U.K.’s Nigel Farage demands a seat at Brexit talks

Credit: mining.com

Very unlikely to be offered one, but with a big win in the European elections the Brexit Party leader has a point – and probably a pint too. One report says he will be ‘the head of the largest single party in the chamber with 29 seats’, although some results are not in yet. How much longer can Brexit dithering go on?

Nigel Farage demanded a seat at Brexit negotiations on Monday after his new party swept to victory in the United Kingdom’s European Parliament election, warning that he would turn British politics upside down if denied, reports CBC News.

Farage, a bombastic 55-year-old commodities broker-turned anti-establishment supremo, won by riding a wave of anger at the failure of Prime Minister Theresa May to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union.

EU court rejects historic citizen’s climate case

Global warming – more tortoise than hare? [image credit: hevria.com]

So ‘historic’ that few have heard of it? ‘There are currently around 1,000 cases brought against governments across the world related to climate change and habitat loss’, reports Phys.org. Good news for lawyers.

The European Court of Justice threw out a landmark case brought by 10 families who sued the European Union over the threats climate change poses to their homes and livelihoods, lawyers said Wednesday.

Lawyers said the ECJ earlier this month dismissed the case on procedural grounds, arguing that individuals do not have the right to challenge the bloc’s environmental plans.

The ruling could have a major impact on future climate litigation, experts said.

Lawyers for the “People’s Climate Case” said they would appeal.

Proposal to spend 25% of EU budget on climate change

Does the EU really have that much money to burn, on the basis of pressure from some school children? However much is spent will make no difference worth mentioning to the Earth’s climate any time soon, if at all.

Eight European countries have called for an ambitious strategy to tackle climate change – and to spend a quarter of the entire EU budget on fighting it, reports BBC News.

The joint statement says the EU should have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 “at the latest”.

It was signed by France, Belgium, Denmark, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.