CHINA USE CLIMATE ISSUE TO PUT PRESSURE ON WEST

  China warns Boris & Biden: Cave to our demands or forget about your climate agenda

GWPF & BBC News, 31 March 2021

In a shot across the bow China has sent out a clear message to Boris Johnson and Joe Biden: cave in to our demands or forget about your climate agenda.

A critical meeting on climate change, organised by the UK, appears to be the latest victim of an ongoing row with China.
 
Ministers from around 35 countries are due to participate in today’s summit on climate and development.
 
But while the US, EU, India and others are taking part, China is notable by its absence.
 
The UK says that China was invited to the event but is not participating.
 
Relations between the UK and China have deteriorated in recent weeks after angry exchanges about human rights.
 
Just a few days ago China imposed sanctions on nine UK citizens – including five MPs- for spreading what it called “lies and disinformation” about the country.
 
The move came in retaliation for measures taken by the UK government and others over human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority group.
 
China has created a sprawling network of detention camps for minorities in the Xinjiang region
 
Today’s climate and development summit is being described by the UK as a “key moment” in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow later this year.
 
A list of invitees was published two weeks ago including China. But when the final list of participants was circulated, they were absent.
 
A UK COP26 spokesman said China had been invited, adding: “We look forward to working with them on climate change issues in this critical year ahead of COP26.”
When pressed on the reasons for the non-participation, no further comment was forthcoming.

 
Full story

ONLY AUTHORITARIAN RULE CAN DELIVER NET ZERO, ADMITS LORD DEBEN

 

• Date: 30/03/21
• Global Warming Policy Forum

London, 30 March: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has condemned the chairman of the UK’s Climate Change Committee for demanding that a powerful group of unelected officials should enforce Net Zero policies, giving them the power to overrule Parliament.

At a green investment event last week, Lord Deben praised the government’s climate policy objectives but referred to the delivery process as “crap” and demanded the creation of a new “powerful body” to force the private sector to act on policy. (Utility Week, 29 March 2021.)

Lord Deben said:

I want to see a delivery system either within or outside the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). We need somebody doing the delivery direction […] You need to have a very clear and powerful body saying what has to happen, these are the priorities and get on with it. Unless we have that this whole thing will be policy strong, policy powerful and policy rich but delivery poor.”

Lord Deben’s remarks are a clear admission that in spite of a vast web of subsidies and regulations forcing businesses and even the military towards low carbon technologies, these technologies and policies are so lacking in real attraction that progress towards Net Zero is faltering.

A BBC survey published on Monday revealed that the vast majority of people in Scotland are not adopting low-carbon technologies and options because they “are financially out of reach for most Scots.”

Lord Deben’s answer to the public reluctance to embrace costly behaviour changes and green technologies is authoritarian and undemocratic: “You need to have a very clear and powerful body saying what has to happen”. Critics might reply that the United Kingdom already has such a body in the democratically accountable Parliament, and that Lord Deben’s demands are an attempt to circumvent that accountability.

GWPF director Benny Peiser, said:

Lord Deben’s suggestion that Parliament should be bypassed by an all-powerful Committee of Climate Safety is repulsively anti-democratic and also an admission of policy failure.”

Deben’s authoritarian proposal confirms the recent warning by Deutsche Bank that Net Zero policies threaten to result in a “noticeable loss of welfare and jobs” and are unlikely to succeed without “a certain degree of eco-dictatorship.”

When you read the piece above it looks increasingly possible that the government will look at the kind of rules that they have issued to deal with covid and decide to do the same kind of thing to enforce their highly unpopular climate policies. This would be bound to lead to civil unrest. The question is -  how unpopular would they be prepared to be and where could we find a decent opposition to form a government.

 

WHY CO2 EMISSIONS ARE NOT CAUSING A CLIMATE EMERGENCY

 The Greenhouse Effect – Happer: In a 25-minute presentation for the Shiller Institute, William Happer gives an outstanding presentation on the greenhouse effect, which is poorly understood by those claiming that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing dangerous global warming. Happer is a distinguished professor in Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics – the field of physics that encompasses the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation, radiative transfer.

Happer considers the proclamations of a climate crisis a form of hysteria and they have no scientific backing. Unfortunately, governments and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are promoting climate hysteria. Among the tricks they use is “bait and switch.” Photos of air in China polluted by soot, dust, etc. are passed off as pollution from CO2, N2O (Nitrous oxide), and CH4 (methane). These gases are invisible, transparent, but propagandists, including those in government, do not care.

The emissions of a clean power plant, which uses scrubbers for removing impurities from the exhausts, is about as clean as human breath, which is 4% CO2 and 6% water vapor (power plant emit much more CO2, but contrary to propaganda photos the CO2 is transparent.)

Happer points out that the 800-pound gorilla is the sun. About 30% of sunlight is reflected to space and about 70% heats the earth. Through convection in the oceans and the atmosphere this heat is transported from the tropics to the poles and to the top of the troposphere. The radiative effect primarily takes place above the troposphere where the atmosphere is very thin and there is little water vapor remaining. (Water vapor freezes out at the tropopause, about 20,000 feet (6000 meters) above the poles and 60,000 feet (18,000 meters) above the equator.)

[To TWTW, many of the problems of “solving climate change” encountered by climate modelers and others occurs because they fail to separate the issues of heat transport, by convection, from the issue of greenhouse effect, radiative transfer.]

Happer then discusses the work of John Tyndall (see quote of the week, above) and points out that we have forgotten this important work.

Happer brings up the work of Max Planck trying to solve the problem of how and why does radiation transfer work. In solving the thermal radiation transfer problem, Planck invented quantum mechanics. Why does the radiation distribution look the way it does? [Anyone claiming that understanding the greenhouse effect is simple physics does not know what he is talking about.]

Using the calculations of Planck for outgoing radiation without greenhouse gases the earth’s average surface temperature would be about 16 °F (minus 9 °C). [As Tyndall wrote, on the land masses each night, all plant life would freeze, making life on land unlikely.] With greenhouse gases, the earth’s average surface temperatures are about 60 °F (16 °C), making the earth habitable.

Happer super imposed on Planck’s graph is a graph using calculations and observations from the high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database (HITRAN). The second graph is named after German physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild who died in 1916 on the Russian front from disease. The difference between the two graphs illustrates the greenhouse effect over the entire spectrum of infrared frequencies (wavelengths). The influences of various gases are identified.

What is clearly shown is that the influence of CO2 on warming the planet is pronounced when the CO2 goes from zero to 400 ppm (parts per million (actually in volume)). But there is little influence going from 400 ppm to 800 ppm. Based on HITRAN, Happer estimates that going from 400 to 800 ppm will decrease radiation to space by about 3 W/m2, which is insignificant.

Happer’s review is based on rock-solid physics. He states there is no climate emergency.

Happer presents two graphs comparing projections of temperatures with actual data. The first graph is from a paper in Nature Climate Change (September 2013) which shows estimated changes in temperatures as °C per decade on which the actual surface data from the HadCRUT 4 (Hadley Center and Climatic Research Unit Temperatures version 4) data set is superimposed. All the estimates exaggerate actual changes, including Happer’s own estimates in 1982.

The second graph is from John Christy showing predictions from climate models compared with observations in the Global Bulk Atmospheric Temperature (Surface-50K ft). The models greatly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere where the greenhouse effect occurs.

Happer then discusses the benefits of adding CO2 to the atmosphere, stating the Earth has been in CO2 famine for several tens of millions of years and our primate ancestors lived in an atmosphere far richer in CO2 than today. In recognizing that his view is opposed to a supposed “consensus of scientists,” Happer points out that so was the theory of continental drift. What is important is that it agrees with observation and experiment.

Happer concludes by stating:

“Policies to slow CO2 emissions are based on flawed computer models which exaggerate warming by factors of 2 or 3.

“More CO2 is an overall benefit, so costly ‘mitigation’ schemes are harmful. We should have the courage to do nothing about CO2 emissions.” See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

GOVERNMENT TRIES NEW WAY TO 'PERSUADE' YOU TO GET A SMART METER

 

This Mail on Sunday article explains the latest cunning plan to get us to love smart meters. As we already knew, the main purpose of smart meters is not just to remotely read them and do away with meter readers; it is so that our electricity usage can be controlled remotely by switching appliances on and off. This will become even more important when electric vehicles and electric heating is in most homes.  

I am sure that smart meters will eventually be installed in most homes by a combination of  financial inducement with offers of lower tariffs and cunning propaganda advertising. By the time most people realise they have lost control of their energy use it will be too late. 

ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC CIRCULATION HAS 'NO EFFECT' ON CLIMATE, SAYS NEW PAPER

 

This article explains the extraordinary claim made by Dr. Mann (of the Hockey Stick fame) et al that the effect of the main water circulation currents, studied in thousands of scientific papers, is simply non-existent. This is 'proved' by climate computer models. Interestingly this paper by Mann has received no attention by the mainstream media. It seems that some pseudo-science is so unbelievable that it is beyond reason. 

WESTERN CLIMATE POLICY IN DISCORD

The article below highlights the inconsistency at the heart of Western climate policy. On the one hand they want to eliminate CO2 emissions, but they know perfectly well that to do so while allowing large growing nations like India and China to be exempt will simply destroy jobs in the West thus impoverishing themselves. On the other hand China and India will refuse to join in a policy to prevent them from becoming as rich as Western countries.  

Europe’s Green Deal in trouble as Biden administration warns EU against carbon border tax

Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 March 2021

Europe’s Green Deal and its planned carbon border tax are in serious trouble as the Biden administration raises concerns about its potentially disastrous fallout on international trade and relations.



According to the European Commission the EU’s Green Deal and its 2050 Net Zero target are threatening the very survival of Europe’s industries unless a carbon border tax is enforced upon countries that are not adopting the same expensive Net Zero policies.
 
It’s a matter of survival of our industry. So if others will not move in the same direction, we will have to protect the European Union against distortion of competition and against the risk of carbon leakage,” European Commission executive vice-president Frans Timmermans warned in January.
 
On Wednesday, the European Parliament endorsed the creation of a carbon border tax that is planned to protect EU companies against cheaper imports from countries with weaker climate policies.
 
However, it would appear that the Biden administration is getting cold feet about the protectionist agenda and its potentially devastating impact of world trade, throwing a spanner in the EU’s plans.
 
John Kerry, Joe Biden’s climate envoy, has warned the EU that a carbon border tax should be a “last resort,” telling the Financial Times that he was “concerned” about Brussels’ forthcoming plans.
 
He urged the EU to delay any decision until after the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
 
"It [a carbon border tax] does have serious implications for economies, and for relationships, and trade,” he said. “I think it is something that’s more of a last resort, when you’ve exhausted the possibilities of getting emission reductions and joining in some kind of compact by which everybody is bearing the burden.”
 
According to Kerry, the UN climate summit in November would be a success if all countries adopted Net Zero emissions targets similar to those adopted by Western nations.

The fundamental problem with Kerry’s demand, however, is that it contravenes the Paris Climate Agreement which cements the UN’s key principle of ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities.‘ This principle acknowledges that developing nations have different capabilities and differing responsibilities in reducing CO2 emissions.
 
While China has already offered a Net Zero emissions intention by 2060, the Biden administration’s demand that other developing nations adopt similar Net Zero targets as Western nations is quixotic.
 
In light of more than a decade of futile attempts by Western leaders to believe that the developing world — at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow — would relinquish this key principle and curtail its economic development and prospects in order to save the West’s competitiveness borders on political insanity, i.e.trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

ARE YOUNG PEOPLE TIRING OF MAKING SACRIFICES FOR THE CLIMATE?

 

Major Survey Shocks: German Youth Rejecting Need For Radical Behavior Change To Fight ‘Climate Crisis’

By P Gosselin on 12. March 2021

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Frustrated by lockdowns and restrictions, Germany’s youth may be showing signs of rebellion as a comprehensive European Investment Bank generational survey shows “climate protection aspect does not seem to have the high priority among young people.”

Journalists Daniel Wetzel and Karsten Seibel at German online flagship daily Die Welt here report on today’s German youth and how they in fact do not view the climate issue at all like Fridays for Future activists Greta Thunberg (Sweden) and Luisa Neubauer.

The media and activists like giving the impression that the younger generation of Germans today are acutely concerned about climate and that the older generation is indifferent about it.

In fact the older generation  is considered by some as being so irresponsible that “there are now calls in the commentary columns of daily newspapers such as the ‘TAZ’ to take away the right to vote from ‘old people’ and let children vote instead,” Wetzel and Seibel write.

But the results of the major climate survey of the European Investment Bank (EIB) don’t suggest this sort of generational difference. For example when it comes to products with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, such as short-haul domestic flights, 47 percent of respondents over 65 could imagine an emissions ban from such products, but only 27 percent of 15- to 29-year-olds could.

Obviously today's German youth are not being swayed by the doomsday prophesies of the climate activists. Saving the planet is a low priority. This does not accord with the portrayal of young people in the media.

Only 26% say we should use less fossil fuels!

Shockingly, “Only 26 percent of young people believe that we should use less fossil energy, primarily for climate protection reasons,” the two Die Welt journalists reveal. “Young people up to the age of 29 are not so keen on being banned from speeding on the motorway either: Only 12 percent would agree to a speed limit – in the over-65 age group, the figure is 26 percent.”

Another striking result: “Only 20 percent of Germans under age 30 are in favor of subsidizing electric cars” and a puny “22 percent in this age group would give priority to technology in climate protection.”

This compares to about 35% in China and the USA.

Only 15% prepared to “radically change behavior”

Moreover only 15 percent of Germany’s youth were prepared to radically change their personal behavior to fit in with the Paris climate goals,” write Wetzel and Seibert. 42%, however, do agree that behavioral change is necessary.

The European Investment Bank survey sampled 30,000 people in 30 countries in the fall of 2020.

GOVERNMENT U-TURN OVER NEW CUMBRIAN COAL MINE

 

Cumbria mining debacle just a foretaste of Net Zero crisis, GWPF warns 'The clash between economic recovery, levelling up and the Net Zero agenda is inevitable and unavoidable."

London, 12 March: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has warned Boris Johnson that the debacle surrounding the government's mishandling of the Cumbrian mining project is just a foretaste of the crisis and public backlash his government will face as a result of its Net Zero agenda. After the government bowed to pressure by climate activists and the BBC the future of UK steel is now even more in doubt, with the UK increasingly dependent on coal and steel imports from Russia and China. The Cumbria mining project, the government claims, 'sends the wrong message' ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow later this year. While cancelling might make for good virtue signalling to the international green elite, it threatens to destroy jobs for struggling British workers and will almost certainly increase CO2 emissions. "The irony of caving in to the green mob is that CO2 emissions are likely to rise as the production of coal and steel are increasingly off-shored to countries with less environmental standards," GWPF director Benny Peiser said. While some Conservative MPs fear they will be punished by 'Red Wall' voters, the policy fiasco is just a taster of the public backlash the government and MPs can expect once voters feel the pain of the planned bans on petrol cars and gas boilers while millions of homes become unsellable due to Net Zero regulations. "MPs would be well advised to realise that the clash between economic recovery, levelling up and the Net Zero agenda is inevitable and unavoidable. Unless policy makers begin to acknowledge the self-destructive and largely futile effects of Britain's unilateral climate policies they are asking for serious economic and social trouble," Peiser warned.     Contact   Dr Benny Peiser Director, Global Warming Policy Forum e: peiser@thegwpf.com m: 07553 361717

WIND AND SOLAR CAN NEVER REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS - HERE'S WHY

 This 5 minute video sums up brilliantly why wind and solar will never replace fossil fuels. It should be compulsory viewing for every minister responsible for the net zero CO2 emissions policy

CHINA'S EMISSIONS SET TO RISE FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS OR MORE

 

This piece explains China's recently announced five year plan. It plainly shows that China has no intention of reducing its CO2 emissions. How on Earth can the West not see this and understand that for all the pain they intend to inflict on their economies it will have no significant effect on the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, hence no possible effect on the climate.

THE TRUE COST OF UK NET ZERO (APART FROM THE £1.3 TRILLION)

 Ross Clark: We are still not being told the true cost of Net Zero

The Daily Telegraph, 5 March 2021

The failure to have an honest debate about climate change has squeezed out one vital fact – the Government's targets will leave us poorer.



If it involved any other subject, the news that the Government hid estimates of the true cost of one of its policies would be a scandal. Imagine, for example, how bonkers the Guardian would go if it emerged that ministers and civil servants had colluded to conceal their real estimate of the costs of Brexit. But when it emerges that the Treasury withheld what it regarded as the "more realistic" £70 billion a year estimate of the cost of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 there was barely a murmur.
 
There is a long tradition of dishonesty over the cost of climate change policies. It wasn’t so long ago that the Coalition was implausibly trying to tell us that the Climate Change Act was going to save us money, by creating "green jobs" and saving us from ever-increasing fossil fuel prices. The collapse in oil and gas prices in 2014 put paid to that pretence, and when Theresa May’s government upped the legally-binding target contained in the act from an 80 per cent cut by 2050 to net zero emissions by that date the then chancellor, Philip Hammond, did quietly admit it would cost us £50 billion a year. But it now transpires that officials, even at the time, thought that an under-estimate.
 
The Government has got away with committing Britain to such a ruinously expensive policy because we have no proper debate over climate change and what we should do about it. The Climate Change Act was passed in 2008 with only five MPs voting against. Opposition to the net zero target is squashed through emotive charges of climate change "denial" and falsely claiming that all those who criticise climate change policy are stooges for the oil industry. The absence of debate has blinded us to the reality that while many countries have made vague pledges to cut emissions, only a tiny handful have tied themselves down with legally-binding targets which provide no wriggle room.
 
Very few people are aware of a fatal flaw in the Climate Change Act that could condemn most of our remaining manufacturing industry to oblivion. The net zero target only refers to "territorial emissions" – ie those physically spewed out within Britain. It excludes aviation, shipping and emissions elsewhere in the world made in the name of providing goods and services for UK consumers.
 
It is not hard to work out what will happen: UK manufacturing will be forced to relocate to China and other countries which have not been so foolish as to paint themselves into a corner by setting a net zero target before they have any idea how it can be achieved. We have as yet no commercially viable means of decarbonising high-emitting industries such as steel and cement, for example.
 
That is why even the Government’s higher estimate of £70 billion a year cost to achieve net zero by 2050 is likely itself to be an under-estimate. If we lose these industries and are forced to import these goods (to no net benefit for the planet) the cost to the economy will be far greater.

The public is right to be concerned about the environment and there are all sorts of reasons why we should invest in clean energy, hopefully eventually phasing out fossil fuels. But the real deniers are those who claim that we can achieve a unilateral policy of net zero by 2050 without serious costs to the UK economy, if not an outright diminution in living standards.

 

NOTTINGHAM TO GO CARBON NEUTRAL BY 2028 (SO THEY SAY!)

 Here is an invitation to a seminar that was sent to me by email by an organisation called the Public Sector Executive (PSE):

Net-Zero Government - Building a Carbon Neutral City. How has the City of Nottingham responded to the climate and ecological emergency? How has the city prioritised carbon reduction measures while staying within budget and meeting the 2028 target?

First to appear in our calendar of events, on 10 March 2021 we'll be joined by leaders in climate change, decarbonisation and sustainability looking to engage, educate and collaborate with the public sector and enable them to achieve net-zero.

Join us and Cllr. Sally Longford, Deputy Leader of Nottingham City Council & Portfolio Holder for Energy, Environment and Democratic Services for Nottingham City at Becoming A Carbon Neutral City by 2028 on 10 March 2021: Net-Zero Government.  Register now to gain free access to exciting engaging content over the next 365 days. All of our content can be watched live or streamed on demand.

What I find with all this stuff is that it is all taken for granted. Do they really believe that Nottingham is going to become a 'carbon neutral city' by 2028? I do not intend to waste my time listening to all this to find out. but I don't believe it for one moment. Nottingham residents will still be heating their homes with gas and most will still be driving petrol or diesel cars. They will still be flying off on holidays and eating meat and fish. This whole thing is a gigantic con trick where no one will challenge their assertions just like the king's new clothes story.