UK GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG FAILS TO APPLY RIGOROUS ASSESSMENT OF GOVERNMENT'S NET ZERO POLICY

 

Office for Budget Responsibility has failed in its statutory duties to assess the fiscal risks of Net Zero

London, 9 July: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for failing to assess the full fiscal risks of the government’s Net Zero policy.  In a statement published today, the GWPF shows that the OBR’s Fiscal Risk Report 2021 relies unquestioningly on unduly optimistic assumptions and cost estimates by the Climate Change Committee (CCC).   Despite identifying the fact that the ‘indirect effects’ of Net Zero policies could have negative fiscal consequences, the OBR fails to assess these effects and does not address the likelihood that Net Zero costs could be significantly higher than the CCC’s £1.4 trillion cost estimate on which it bases the risk analysis.   The OBR failed to consider the possibility that far from seeing a steady reduction in the cost of decarbonisation,  renewable electricity and low carbon technologies (heat pumps, electric cars/hydrogen vehicles) remain expensive, thus increasing the cost of doing business in the UK, eroding economic competitiveness and reducing fiscal receipts from income and corporation tax.   By ignoring these possible and — in our view — likely scenarios, the OBR has failed to identify the grave fiscal Net Zero risks facing the UK state. The OBR’s adoption of the Climate Change Committee’s blinkered optimism undermines confidence in its projections of direct fiscal costs to government, but the danger of mistakes concerning indirect effects is of even greater magnitude, and suggests that the OBR is failing in its statutory duties.   Contact Global Warming Policy Forum e: info@thegwpf.com m: 07553 361717 -----------------   OBR turns a blind eye to Net Zero policy risks Global Warming Policy Forum, 9 July 2021   The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has failed to assess the true risks of the government’s Net Zero policy and is not a reliable guide to the long-term sustainability of Britain’s public finances. The latest Fiscal Risks Report from the UK government’s independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) devotes much of its discussion to the costs of implementing the 2050 Net Zero emissions target. Unfortunately, it has failed adequately to discharge its statutory duty to analyse the true risks this policy poses to the sustainability of the public finances. While it correctly notes a significant potential impact from the ‘indirect effects’ of climate policies it has failed to assess the possibility that these indirect effects could be significantly negative, causing economic contraction that reduces both income and corporation tax receipts. In short, the OBR’s Fiscal Risks Report 2021 has failed to produce a credible risk assessment and is not a reliable guide to the long-term sustainability of the public finances. This defect flows from the fact that the OBR relies all but exclusively on the opaque and tendentious cost estimates of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which are extremely optimistic about the net cost of low carbon policies and thus project correspondingly unrealistic technology deployment scenarios. In sharp contrast to its excessive optimism about Net Zero, the OBR presents an unbalanced emphasis on pessimistic assessments of the costs of climate change. Unjustified optimism on the one hand, and blinkered pessimism on the other results in an overall lack of balance that means the resulting fiscal risk assessment is both incomplete, distorted and unfit for purpose. A wider range of scenarios, from a wider range of sources, with a stronger emphasis on current trends, however discouraging, not wishful thinking about the future, is badly needed. This inadequate report is yet more evidence that the lack of objectivity in the institutions of British government has itself become a fiscal risk factor, jeopardising the state’s reputation and potentially increasing the cost of public borrowing, as well as making the UK a less attractive jurisdiction in which to invest capital. Analysis The UK government’s independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has in the last week published its latest Fiscal Risks Report. It devotes a large part of the document (pages 83–152) to the consideration of climate change policies, concluding that the “Between now and 2050, the fiscal costs of reducing net emissions to zero in the UK could be significant but not exceptional” (p. 150). It is important to recall that this conclusion is narrowly focused on fiscal implications. The OBR does not consider the wisdom of current policies overall for British citizens, but only the implications of those policies for the public finances. The Office for Budget Responsibility operates under a remit set out in the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act (2011) which states that the OBR has the duty of examining and reporting on “the sustainability of the public finances” (see paragraph 4(1)), with the specific obligation to reveal in its reports all the assumptions it has made as well as giving an account of “the main risks which the Office considered to be relevant” (6(b)). Though narrow, this is not an undemanding specification, and it is reasonable to ask whether the OBR has adequately discharged its statutory duties in this latest report. There are good grounds for thinking it has not done so. On page 123 the OBR authors write, correctly, that “An assessment of the fiscal risks posed by the transition to net zero must take account of four different ways in which this transition can affect the public finances”. The four items are listed as follows: * First, government is likely to be called upon to bear some of the direct cost of transition described above, at the very least for the buildings it occupies and vehicles it operates. * Second, it faces a direct loss of tax revenues linked to fossil fuels and emissions. * Third, it could derive a direct revenue benefit by taxing carbon more heavily. * Fourth, it must contend with the indirect effects (which could be negative or positive) of the transition on the public finances via wider economic outcomes. Of these four fiscal risks, the OBR, remarkably, only analyses the first three in detail, ignoring close assessment of the fourth risk. The credibility of the assessment of these matters is further undermined by the fact that it is all but exclusively reliant on the Climate Change Committee (CCC) for its estimates on policy costs and technology deployment rates, though reference is also made to equally optimistic economic growth scenarios from the Bank of England (summarised in 3.26, which shows a complete return to trend after the pandemic by 2023-2024, and an economy in 2050 almost 1.6 times larger than it is at present). It is bad enough that this blinkered optimism undermines confidence in the OBR’s projections of direct fiscal costs to government, but the danger of mistakes concerning indirect effects is of even greater magnitude and suggests that the OBR has neglected the main risks it has identified as relevant, failing to discharge its statutory duties. The fragility and opacity of the Climate Change Committee’s assumptions, for example concerning the costs of offshore wind, are well known. The OBR did not take into account the likelihood that the “indirect effect” it has identified as a fiscal risk is significantly negative and that the Net Zero costs could be much higher than its already startling £1.4 trillion cost estimate. It did not consider the risk that far from seeing steady upwards growth, the UK economy might stagnate or even contract as scarce resources were transferred on a large scale into low productivity energy sources (wind, solar) and high cost conversion devices (heat pumps, electric/hydrogen Vehicles), thus increasing production costs, eroding UK competitiveness and reducing fiscal receipts from income and corporation tax. That the OBR did not exercise this elementary caution is inexplicable. All the data required to start the alarm bells ringing can be found in its own pages. Table 3.1 in the study, for example, describes the three CCC Net Zero scenarios, which are implicitly presented as the Pessimistic (“Headwinds”) Optimistic (“Tailwinds”) and Middle ground (“Balanced”) pathways. But a glance at the table shows that even “Headwinds” is highly optimistic, projecting 75% of electricity from renewables, Electric Vehicles as forming 100% of sales in 2035, and over 70% of households using hydrogen for heating. The “Balanced” and “Tailwinds” scenarios are still more extreme, the latter projecting 90% renewable electricity, a 50% reduction in meat and dairy consumption, the planting of 70,000 hectares a year by 2035, and a 15% per cent reduction in flying. Transformational change on this scale is obviously an extremely high-risk undertaking, with physical, economic, and political dangers. But the OBR does not consider any alternative to the CCC’s assumption that this will undoubtedly be economically beneficial and politically acceptable to the United Kingdom. The scale of this gamble can be clearly seen in the OBR’s use of the CCC’s predictions for the net cost by sector of reaching Net Zero via the “Balanced” pathway:     Net cost by sector of reaching net zero in the CCC’s balanced pathway. Figure 3.12 in the OBR, Fiscal Risk Report 2021, p. 107.   The black line on the chart represents the total net cost to the economy expected by the CCC, and starts to fall by 2027, delivering a major saving from 2040 onwards. But that net saving is critically dependent on reductions in the cost of transport in spite of a shift to electricity and hydrogen. The OBR reports that these technologies will deliver “operating savings” of £30 billion a year in 2050 (p. 108), justifying this claim by reporting that “over the next decade, battery prices are projected to fall rapidly”, with “running costs” becoming cheaper than petrol and diesel as early as 2025. The cause of this incredible fall in running costs must be attributed primarily to the assumption of low cost renewable electricity (see p. 119), but also to the imposition of a carbon tax on fossil transport fuels. The OBR assumes that consumers will quietly accept a carbon tax of £101 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2026, roughly double the Social Cost of Carbon, and five times the UK Emission Trading Scheme (UKETS) price, rising to over £180 a tonne in 2050. In fact, most of the projected saving is due not to a decline in battery costs but to these dramatic assumptions about cheap electricity and the imposition of carbon taxation, a point that can be clearly seen in the OBR’s own chart of the detailed effect, drawn once again from the Climate Change Committee: Surface Transport: Whole Economy Net Costs. Figure 3.14 in OBR, Fiscal Risk Report (July 2021), 110. Source: CCC balanced net zero pathway.   Note that the annual investment costs (capex) on cars and vans hardly falls at all over the period 2025 to 2050 and is predicted to be rising at the end of that period. The net cost reduction predicted in the black line is being delivered by “operating savings”, in other words low-cost renewable electricity and hydrogen. It is no exaggeration to say that everything in both the CCC’s and the OBR’s cost assessment depends on their optimistic assumption that the cost of renewable electricity will drop significantly. Given that sensitivity, the OBR should at the very least have considered the possibility that the reductions in renewable electricity costs, claimed to be likely in the mid 2020s, would not materialise. A number of analysts have been warning that in the light of empirical data in company reports this downbeat scenario is more likely than not.[1] Caution on the underlying trends in capital cost and operating cost for offshore wind are by no means unknown to the financial markets. No one will be surprised that the Climate Change Committee has simply ignored these concerns in its zeal to make the case for Net Zero, but the OBR, with its statutory duties towards the public finances, has no excuse for failing to assess these significant policy risks which have been known for some time now. Indeed, this latest Fiscal Risks Report confirms general concerns that the topic of climate change has induced a general institutional failure of responsibility in the British government. There is a growing tendency to unquestioningly copy and paste optimistic assessments about policy costs and risks from one report to another. The taxpayers who pay the salaries of these civil servants will look in vain for independent critical thinking, for the operation of the checks and balances which should prevent group-think and systemic policy error. There is a real possibility, and we would say a high likelihood, that the Climate Change Committee is mistaken about the costs of the Net Zero transition, and that indirect economic effects, correctly identified but not adequately examined by the OBR, will be severely negative for the economy as a whole and the public finances, with stuttering economic activity and stagnant or even falling tax receipts. One might even say that the absence of cool-headed and credible analysis within government is now itself becoming a fiscal risk factor of significance. International financial analysts and investors will undoubtedly see the OBR’s excessive optimism for what it is, a political exercise, a policy delivery boost, not the unbiased and comprehensive risk analysis and sanity-check that one expects from a competent administration. Over-optimism and the absence of rigorous internal scrutiny can only undermine the credibility of the British state, with poisonous implications for the cost of government borrowing and for the prospects for inward investment. Britain is beginning to look like a text-book example of a failing planned economy.   [1] For empirical data and analysis of offshore wind energy costs see * Offshore wind strike prices: Behind the headlines   * Wind Power Economics – Rhetoric and Reality   * Costs, Performance and Investment Returns for Wind Power Presentation   * Offshore wind cost predictions and the cost of outcomes

COAL PLANTS TO INCREASE - CHINA, INDIA, INDONESIA, JAPAN AND VIETNAM TO BUILD 600 MORE

Any reasonable person might ask - what is the point of the UK impoverishing its inhabitants in the face of the massive rejection of its CO2 reduction policy by all the nations mentioned? 

 Asia's Great Reset: Asian nations to build more than 600 new coal power plants

AFP, 30 June 2021

China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam are planning to build more than 600 coal plants, think-tank Carbon Tracker said.
 
Five Asian countries are responsible for 80 percent of new coal power stations planned worldwide, with the projects threatening goals to fight the climate crisis, a report warned Wednesday.

The stations will be able to generate a total of 300 gigawatts of energy — equivalent to around the entire electricity generating capacity of Japan.
 
The projects are being pursued despite the availability of cheaper renewables, and they threaten efforts to meet the Paris climate deal goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the study said.
 
“These last bastions of coal power are swimming against the tide, when renewables offer a cheaper solution that supports global climate targets,” said Catharina Hillenbrand Von Der Neyen, Carbon Tracker’s head of research.
 
“Investors should steer clear of new coal projects.”
 
Experts see phasing out coal, which produces greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, as key in battling a climate crisis whose impacts — ranging from species extinction to unliveable heat — are expected to accelerate markedly.
 
But many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, long reliant on the fossil fuel to power their booming economies, have been slow to act, even as Europe and the United States accelerate their transitions to cleaner energy.
 
Asia-Pacific consumed over three-quarters of all coal used globally in 2019, according to BP’s statistical review of world energy.

Full story
 
see also - The truth about Asian energy demand in the next 30 years

BBC REMOVES ALL SENSE OF IMPARTIALITY ON CLIMATE CHANGE

 Take a look at this article on the BBC website - BBC Bitesize edits page to remove list of climate change 'benefits' - BBC News

It explains that the BBC has decided to amend its education website because of pressure from climate change activists by removing a list of potential benefits from a small rise in temperatures. How pathetic is that? Obviously the original facts were checked and agreed, so why do they now remove them? Clearly it is due to pressure. What should the public make of this? They will realise that this is a political decision which has nothing to do with actual science. It may lead some people to question the impartiality of the BBC in its whole approach to this subject.

The public aren't fools. They know perfectly well that there are some benefits in some parts of the world to a slight warming of the planet, and clearly the BBC agreed with that too. But if children were allowed to be told this, then they might not be frightened enough to want to give up fossil fuels with all the massive costs and cuts to their life-styles.

UPDATE

This story has now been published in the Daily Mail which lists the many benefits that have now been removed by the BBC.

1. Warmer temperatures and increased CO2 levels leading to more vigorous plant growth.

2. some animals and plants would benefit and flourish.

3. New shipping routes, such as the Nortwest passage would become available.

4. More resources, for example oil, would become available in places such as Siberia as ice melts.

5. Energy consumption decreasing due to a warmer climate.

6. Longer growing season leading to higher yields in farming areas.

7. Frozen regions, such as Canada and Siberia, could be farmed to grow crops.

8. New tourist destinations becoming available.

9. Warmer temperatures could lead to healthier outdoor lifestyles.

 

MORE BRAINWASHING TACTICS FROM THE CLIMATE CHANGE LOBBY

 There is only one reason why some scientists choose to misrepresent weather as climate and that is to try to brainwash the public. This has just happened again in respect of the extreme heatwave in NW USA and Canada. This article sets the record straight: Major Media FAIL on Reporting the Pacific Northwest Heatwave – Watts Up With That? 

Whenever this mis-reporting occurs it simply sets alarm bells ringing among those who check the actual facts for themselves instead of just soaking up the headlines. 

UK TEACHERS BRAINWASHED BY CLIMATE PROPAGANDA

 This article, Primary school children should be taught how to stage climate change protests, teachers say | Daily Mail Online raises some very worrying concerns. Our children are being fed with the diet of climate propaganda which the young teachers themselves were subjected to. 

I am a school governor myself and I once attended an assembly where the teacher was talking about communication and he displayed images of great communicators of the past, asking the children if they recognised them. One was Jesus and another was Florence Nightingale. Next he showed more modern figures such as Winston Churchill and David Attenborough, followed by Greta Thunberg. 

My example, above, is not to say that he was wrong to include Miss Thunberg. Clearly she has become a highly recognised modern communicator. This has happened because she has been given so much publicity by the media. The media make some people famous and they also promote certain ideology and not others.

Brainwashing is a slow drip of information over many months or years. It will take a lot of information to persuade these children and young adults that climate change is not a massive threat. It is much easier to get a message of fear out than one of calm.

SOLAR PANEL LOOMING WASTE CRISIS

 The dark side of solar power & the looming waste crisis

Harvard Business Review, 18 June 2021
 
By Atalay Atasu, Serasu Duran, and Luk N. Van Wassenhove,
 
The solar industry’s current circular capacity is woefully unprepared for the deluge of waste that is likely to come. The economics of solar would darken quickly if the industry sinks under the weight of its own trash.
 
It’s sunny times for solar power. In the U.S., home installations of solar panels have fully rebounded from the Covid slump, with analysts predicting more than 19 gigawatts of total capacity installed, compared to 13 gigawatts at the close of 2019. Over the next 10 years, that number may quadruple, according to industry research data. And that’s not even taking into consideration the further impact of possible new regulations and incentives launched by the green-friendly Biden administration.
 
Solar’s pandemic-proof performance is due in large part to the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which defrays 26% of solar-related expenses for all residential and commercial customers (just down from 30% during 2006-2019). After 2023, the tax credit will step down to a permanent 10% for commercial installers and will disappear entirely for home buyers. Therefore, sales of solar will probably burn even hotter in the coming months, as buyers race to cash in while they still can.

Tax subsidies are not the only reason for the solar explosion. The conversion efficiency of panels has improved by as much as 0.5% each year for the last 10 years, even as production costs (and thus prices) have sharply declined, thanks to several waves of manufacturing innovation mostly driven by industry-dominant Chinese panel producers. For the end consumer, this amounts to far lower up-front costs per kilowatt of energy generated.

This is all great news, not just for the industry but also for anyone who acknowledges the need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for the sake of our planet’s future. But there’s a massive caveat that very few are talking about. […]
 
The High Cost of Solar Trash
 
The industry’s current circular capacity is woefully unprepared for the deluge of waste that is likely to come. The financial incentive to invest in recycling has never been very strong in solar. While panels contain small amounts of valuable materials such as silver, they are mostly made of glass, an extremely low-value material. The long lifespan of solar panels also serves to disincentivize innovation in this area.

As a result, solar’s production boom has left its recycling infrastructure in the dust. To give you some indication, First Solar is the sole U.S. panel manufacturer we know of with an up-and-running recycling initiative, which only applies to the company’s own products at a global capacity of two million panels per year. With the current capacity, it costs an estimated $20-30 to recycle one panel. Sending that same panel to a landfill would cost a mere $1-2.

The direct cost of recycling is only part of the end-of-life burden, however. Panels are delicate, bulky pieces of equipment usually installed on rooftops in the residential context. Specialized labor is required to detach and remove them, lest they shatter to smithereens before they make it onto the truck. In addition, some governments may classify solar panels as hazardous waste, due to the small amounts of heavy metals (cadmium, lead, etc.) they contain. This classification carries with it a string of expensive restrictions — hazardous waste can only be transported at designated times and via select routes, etc.

The totality of these unforeseen costs could crush industry competitiveness. If we plot future installations according to a logistic growth curve capped at 700 GW by 2050 (NREL’s estimated ceiling for the U.S. residential market) alongside the early replacement curve, we see the volume of waste surpassing that of new installations by the year 2031. By 2035, discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times. In turn, this would catapult the LCOE (levelized cost of energy, a measure of the overall cost of an energy-producing asset over its lifetime) to four times the current projection. The economics of solar — so bright-seeming from the vantage point of 2021 — would darken quickly as the industry sinks under the weight of its own trash.

Full post
 
 
 
6) Solar power investors burnt by rise in raw materials costs
Financial Times, 21 June 2021

The rapid rise in prices for raw materials has reversed a decades-long decline in the cost of solar energy, denting investor interest in the sector following a record rally in 2020.

Shares in solar companies have fallen by 18 per cent this year, after more than tripling in 2020, according to the MAC Global Solar Energy Index, as companies face higher steel, polysilicon and freight costs.

The supply chain pressures are limiting the potential for further reductions in the costs of solar installations, just as governments pledge to focus on a “green recovery” from the pandemic.

The cost of solar energy fell by 80 per cent between 2010 and 2020, but those dramatic decreases have come to an end, according to S&P Platts.

“The narrative in the solar industry has shifted,” Bruno Brunetti, an analyst at S&P Platts, said. “We have seen steep declines in costs over the past decade, but we are seeing that stabilise now and even increase in some cases.”

The US price of hot-dipped galvanised steel coils, which are used in solar panel frames and structures, has more than doubled from early 2020 to record levels, according to S&P Platts. At the same time, prices for monocrystalline silicon cells, modules that allow for the conversion of light into power, have risen by a quarter from this time last year, BloombergNEF data show.

In addition, freight rates in China have also jumped by 41 per cent this year, according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, which reflects rates for the export of containers from Shanghai.

John Martin, chief executive of the US Solar Fund, said higher raw material prices will probably increase the costs of installing new solar power by 20 per cent — putting solar costs back to the levels they were two years ago. “Decarbonisation costs will come down, but it’s not going to be free — capital will be required,” he said.

The US Solar Energy Industries Association said this week that “compounding cost increases across all materials are just beginning to affect installers”.

USA IMPORTS RECORD AMOUNT OF RUSSIAN OIL AS BIDEN'S CLIMATE POLICY HAMPERS HOME PRODUCTION

 As Biden goes green, US reliance on Russian oil surges to record high 

The Epoch Times, 17 June 2021
 
WASHINGTON—Russian oil imports have set a new record in the United States despite the strained relationship between Washington and Moscow. Industry experts believe the Biden administration’s climate policies will make the country more dependent on foreign oil producers.
 
The United States imported record levels of crude oil from Russia in March and is expected to continue importing at high levels in coming months, according to the Western Energy Alliance, a trade association that represents 200 independent natural gas and oil producers in the United States.

Imports of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia reached 22.9 million barrels in March, the highest level since August of 2010, according to International Energy Agency (IEA). Of the total amount, crude oil imports from Russia stood at 6.1 million barrels. Russia has become the third-largest oil exporter to the United States.
 
High levels of oil shipment from Russia have continued since March, according to ClipperData, a commodity intelligence company that monitors cargo shipments worldwide.
 
“Last month we saw a record 5.75 million barrels of Russian crude discharged in the US, and we’re projecting a further record this month of 7.5mn bbls,” ClipperData analysts wrote on Twitter on June 7.

Critics argue that Biden’s climate agenda is hard on the U.S. oil industry but soft on foreign producers.
 
“It’s disturbing to our industry that the Biden administration goes out of its way to disadvantage the American producer while buttressing the Iranian and Russian industries,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told The Epoch Times.
 
The recent spike in Russian oil imports has followed the “misguided climate policies” of the administration, including ending the Keystone XL pipeline and pausing new oil and natural gas permitting on public lands and waters, according to Sgamma.
 
President Joe Biden has “tipped us into oil dependence on Russia just a year after complete independence,” Sgamma said, calling it “a geopolitical gift” to the Kremlin.
 
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude surpassed the $70 mark last week, reaching the highest level in over two years. Top commodity traders now believe oil prices could see $100 per barrel due to supply constraints. Oil hasn’t traded above $100 per barrel since 2014.
 
“There’s been kind of a dearth of investment in fossil fuels, which is going to leave us undersupplied as we go forward,” Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at the Price Future Group, told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.
 
He noted that the Biden administration’s climate policies, which will reduce the supply of oil and gas, have been a major factor in driving the prices.
 
“U.S. oil production has fallen by 1.715 million barrels [per day] from a year ago, so a large part of that void is being filled by Russia,” Flynn wrote in a recent op-ed on Fox Business.
 
“During Trump’s term, America was competing with Russia and Saudi Arabia to be the world’s dominant oil and gas producer, yet under Biden, we are retreating from that race in the name of climate change,” he wrote.

AIR POLLUTION - THE TRUTH BENEATH THE HYPE

This article - Are Britain’s pollution levels really a public health emergency? | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (wordpress.com) blows apart the nonsense that pollution levels are rising. We all know that modern vehicles fitted with cleaner engines and catalytic converters produce far cleaner exhaust gases than the older vehicles of the sixties and seventies. 

It's quite extraordinary what short memories some people have and how easily they become convinced of something which flies in the face of their own experience.

This issue of pollution has no connection to global warming or climate change, as the emissions which cause the health problems are not CO2, the two are deliberately put together as though they are the same in order to convince the public that the huge amount being spent on reducing CO2 is essential. The public are not convinced by the climate change arguments, as they cannot actually see the drastic change being predicted.

SWISS VOTERS VOTE DOWN CLIMATE TAXES

Swiss voters reject key climate change measures - BBC News 

The above link shows that even an environmentally aware nation like the Swiss will not support these kind of tax rises, and neither would the British if they had an opportunity to give our opinion. Time for a common sense party to step forward. 

BBC REPORTS ON NEGATIVE ISSUES WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EV's)

 Here is a link to the report in this evening's news in the south: BBC iPlayer - South Today - Late News: 07/06/2021  I don't think they leave it up for long.

The report was the third item in a short 11 minute bulletin, beginning at 7 minutes in. It was said to be part of a series by Paul Clifton called 'The Road to Reducing Carbon'. It began by saying that motorists were put off switching to EV's by the fact that very few independent garages can repair or maintain them. An expert was interviewed who agreed that few mechanics were trained at the present and so they would need to be retrained and have new equipment.

Next he said that another issue was that damage from quite minor accidents could lead to the car being written off if the battery was damaged. He explained that although the battery meant that no CO2 was emitted as the car went along, there was a lot of energy and cost involved in the manufacture of the battery in the first place. Paul Clifton finished the piece by commenting that there was a sizable question mark over how much environmental improvement EV's really bring.

I was surprised by the tone of this report. It is unusual for the BBC to allow any negative reporting of anything to do with global warming. It shows that there is still some honesty in the media 

LETTER PUBLISHED IN MY LOCAL PAPER

 I am pleased to report that my latest letter has been published in the local paper, the Daily Echo, Southampton edition. Here it is: 

Has anyone wondered why Extinction Rebellion (ER) decided to make their protest outside the BP oil terminal at Hamble (Echo report June 2)  instead of outside the Chinese embassy? As we all know, the Chinese emit at least 25 times as much CO2 as the whole of the UK, and they continue to build large numbers of coal-fired power stations. If ER succeed in closing down British businesses then they will cause damage to our economy and simply export our jobs overseas to places like China and India who are still increasing their CO2 emissions, while ours are declining. 

ER want to destroy our economy and that is their number one objective as their leaders have stated. They must not be allowed to succeed as, if they do, we will all be very much poorer. 

---------------------------------------

If you agree with me then feel free to send a similar (or the same one if you like) one to your local paper. It is one important way to get this vital message out to the public.

GAS BOILER BAN - A FIASCO IN THE MAKING

This article Ross Clark: A ban on gas boilers would be yet another pointless eco catastrophe - The Global Warming Policy Forum (thegwpf.com) gives the details of what is about to occur, unless the government can change course. It is a looming disaster of their own making. By fawning over the eco-fanatics they have made it very difficult to row back on the disastrous net zero policy upon which the boiler ban is deemed essential. They could claim the pandemic has cost so much that they can no longer afford net zero, or the only other option is to review the evidence and decide that global warming is no longer such an immediate threat, but that would put them at odds with most other nations who, for various reasons, want to keep to the present course.

EXTREME CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS TRYING TO DESTROY UK JOBS GETTING LOTS OF PUBLICITY BY ITV

 

This piece was given prominence in our local ITV news last night with lots of very soft interviews with the small band of participants. I wonder why the broadcasters never ask them any hard questions, such as "do you own a petrol or diesel car" or do you heat your home with a gas boiler". Or how about "have you ever thought about protesting outside the Chinese or Indian embassies, as those countries produce far more CO2 emissions than the UK". of course they would never dream of giving these people a difficult time. 

Interestingly the BP spokesman was quoted as saying, 

"BP supports the goals of Paris Agreement and our ambition is to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner.

"To achieve this, our strategy will see us increase our spending on renewable energy ten-fold over this decade, to around $5 billion a year, and also reduce our oil and gas production by 40%.

"As examples of progress in this strategy, in the past six months we have entered offshore wind in both the US and the UK.

"We already operate the UK’s most-used electric vehicle charging network, bp pulse, and plan to more than double our chargers in the country over the next decade, including at our retail sites." 

You may have noticed that there is no attempt at defending the use of their product. Only agreement with the premise that they should comply with the protestors as quickly as possible. Why not say that their product is essential for the country to survive and that if they were to stop producing it then it would have to be imported from overseas. 

When will people wake up to the fact that achieving net zero is exactly what our competitors in China and India want? These protestors are being brainwashed into believing they are 'saving the planet', when in fact they are undermining their own country by destroying UK jobs and the wider economy to the benefit of our competitors. When will the media start to wake up and defend our prosperity? 

SO-CALLED GREEN EXTREMISTS ARE CAUSING HAVOC IN OTHER WAYS, APART FROM GLOBAL WARMING POLICIES

  The Radical Greens’ Role In Africa’s Locusts Crisis

Richard Tren and Jasson Urbach, CapX
 
The tragic consequences of UN, European and environmentalist campaigns to deny insect-resistant GMOs and modern pesticides to developing nations.


 
Two weeks ago a Boeing 737 on final approach to Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, flew into a massive cloud of locusts swarming above the airport. The insects were sucked into the plane’s engines and splattered across the windshield, blinding the pilots to the runway ahead.
 
Throttling up to climb above the swarm, the pilot had to depressurize the cabin so he could reach around from the side window and clear the windshield by hand. Diverting to Addis Ababa, the plane was able to land safely.
 
The locusts that almost brought down the 737 are part of the worst infestation to hit Africa in 75 years.
 
Swarms of locusts can blanket 460 miles at a time and consume more than 400 million pounds of vegetation a day; and the grasshopper-like insects increase logarithmically, meaning locust swarms could be 500 times bigger in six months.
 
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calls the threat “unprecedented,” but attempts at aerial spraying have been too little, too late — largely because of FAO’s own politically-driven agenda to limit pesticides — and experts fear Africa may once again be tilting toward widespread famine.
 
As poor farmers futilely shoo the voracious insects away with sticks, this modern plague highlights the urgent need for pesticides to protect crops and save lives. It also casts into stark relief the tragic consequences of UN, European and environmentalist campaigns to deny these life-saving chemicals to developing nations.
 
Over the last decade, development organizations and activist NGOs have increasingly pushed organic-style agriculture on the poorest nations, making assistance dependent on a highly politicized version of “agro-ecology” that arbitrarily limits pesticides, bans advanced hybrid crops and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and extols the virtues of “peasant” farming. The result is that Africa has been left virtually defenseless against successive natural assaults to the continent’s ability to feed itself.
 
The locusts arrive on top of Africa’s on-going struggle with the Fall Army Worm (FAW), which has already spread to some 44 countries. It feeds on a range of plants, but prefers corn, the staple food for most Africans, and has reduced yields by 50% in many regions.
 
In the Americas, FAW is kept in check by a combination of insect-resistant GMOs and modern pesticides. Yet most African countries have not authorized GMOs because of well-funded environmental propaganda campaigns demonizing the technology — claiming GMOs cause everything from impotence to cancer and autism — and fear of losing their primary export market in Europe, which has arbitrarily restricted critical pesticides used in every other advanced, developed region of the world. The FAO, while discouraging pesticides and GMOs, advises farmers to pick off the insects one by one and crush them with their hands.
 
Add to this epidemics of Wheat Rust (potential crop loss 100%); Banana Wilt (50% crop loss); and Cassava Mosaic Virus (up to 90% loss). There are thousands of pests around the world that attack agricultural plants, and they don’t just kill crops. Molds that can only be controlled with pesticides produce highly poisonous metabolites called mycotoxins that, if they don’t kill you immediately, can give you cancer and destroy your immune system. They probably constitute the number one food health threat even in wealthy nations, but we keep levels safe with pesticides, GMOs, and expensive food inspection regimes — all things Africa is being denied or can’t afford.
 
Then there are the insect-borne diseases like Malaria, Zika, Dengue, and countless other parasitic and viral infections. When Zika or West Nile threaten our cities, we haul out the spray cans and ignore the griping of environmentalists. In Africa, however, the anti-pesticide groups hold sway. At their urging, Kenya may soon ban over 200 pesticides that evidence-based regulatory agencies around the world have deemed safe and that Kenya’s farmers desperately need.
 
Those who think small-scale organic farming is friendlier to mother nature are wrong. Organic farmers use lots of pesticides. They’re simply “natural” ones, like copper sulfate or neem oil, which are highly toxic to people and wildlife. They’re also less effective against pests, so they have to use more of them. Modern pesticides are among the most carefully tested and regulated chemicals in use, and they are used increasingly in targeted, precise ways to limit wider environmental impacts.
 
Most importantly, modern farming allows us to produce more food on less land. According to Rockefeller University’s Jesse Ausubel, US corn production has quintupled on the same amount of land.  He estimates that if American farming techniques were to be adopted globally, an area the size of India could be returned to nature over the next 50 years.
 
“Better Living Through Chemistry” was the catchy DuPont slogan of the 1960s. The slogan rings true for those of us living longer, healthier lives of plenty, with more food than at any time in human history. But if the campaigns against chemicals and the demonization of modern agriculture are successful, these gains may well be reversed.
 
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CLIMATE IN USUAL STATE - NO SIGN OF AN EMERGENCY

 

The State of the Climate 2020   No sign of a 'climate emergency'

London, 29 May - A new review of weather and climate data based on observational data from 2020 finds little evidence to support the idea of a “climate emergency”. The annual report, by Professor Ole Humlum, reviews a wide range of temperature and weather data, as well as records on sea-level, storms and ice and snow cover.   Temperature records for the Earth’s surface show that 2020 was a comparatively warm year, but that by the end of the year there was a marked cooling driven by natural ocean cycles in the Pacific. This cooling was also observed higher in the atmosphere.   Sea ice levels globally remained low, but are now increasing in the Southern Hemisphere. Global snow cover remained stable and there is still no significant trend in tropical storms.   Professor Humlum said:   “The weather and weather extremes we are experiencing are still dominated by natural fluctuations. Rapid and frightening changes are nowhere to be seen in the observational data as this annual review shows.” The State of the Climate 2020 (pdf)

NET ZERO BACKLASH BEGINS AS PUBLIC WAKE UP TO TOXIC GAS BAN POLICY

 

Government U-turn on fining gas boiler use is welcome

Now we need a U-turn on the gas boiler ban

"A tremendous political revolt lies ahead unless ministers carry the public on this radical new journey" -- Steve Baker MP

London, 25 May - The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has welcomed the government's promise to backtrack on fines for homeowners who refuse to replace their gas boilers. It warned, however, that government plans to penalise millions of homeowners through the backdoor will turn the Net Zero agenda toxic.   The adoption, from the 1960s onwards, of natural gas for domestic heating and then for electricity generation brought huge advances in prosperity and human well-being in the UK. The Conservative Party’s attempt to wind the clock back and force householders to discard natural gas prematurely, compelling them to use a more expensive and in many cases inferior heating source is to be deplored.   Even government itself seems to be getting cold feet. It is backtracking on earlier reports that it would fine householders that refuse to move over to heat pumps, which can cost more than ten thousand pounds to install, only work well in heavily insulated modern buildings, and will be very expensive to run as electricity costs rise due to the adoption of expensive low carbon sources. But the promise not to “fine” comes with the barely concealed threat to coerce or penalise householders in other ways, for example through high taxes on natural gas and a surcharge on natural gas boilers.   It seems that ministers are aware that the heat pumps are just not good enough to make their own way in the market, and feel they need to use a big stick to force reluctant consumers to sacrifice their comfort and well-being. Steve Baker MP said:   “While the policy making elite have persuaded themselves there is a consensus for their views, the public are increasingly at odds as the costs of Net Zero become apparent. A tremendous political revolt lies ahead unless ministers carry the public on this radical new journey."   Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF director, said:   “Voluntary adoption of heat pumps where they are economic is fine and needs no government pressure. But bullying consumers, first with rumours of fines, and now with threats of taxes and surcharges on a fuel – natural gas – that is cheap, clean and extremely effective in keeping homes warm shows that the government doesn’t really believe its own heat-pump propaganda.   "If it doesn't reconsider its planned ban on gas boilers it risks public outrage, turning the Net Zero agenda toxic."   Further reading * Net Zero cost sheet: Cost of decarbonising housing * Decarbonising homes to meet Net Zero targets will cost £20,000, MPs warn

STEVE BAKER MP JOINS THE GWPF

 I was very glad to hear that Steve Baker MP has publicly announced that he is joining the Global Warming Policy Foundation. This is excellent news, as Steve has been a very influential MP who was a key member of the ERG group that enabled a proper Brexit to happen. You can read his recent article on the effect of climate change policy here. 

I hope he will form a group of MPs to warn the public of the cost of net zero policy and perhaps lead the government away from the disastrous course they are set on.

TEST CRICKETER'S CLIMATE CHANGE PROPAGANDA

 This article highlights yet another feeble attempt to make people believe that there have already been significant increases in temperatures, when in fact the data shows that this is not the case. The IPCC reports show that we have only had an increase of 1.1 degrees C since the mid nineteenth century and the modern satellite records show we are currently warming at an average of 0.13 degrees C per decade. Obviously if that were to continue for a few hundred years eventually it would become uncomfortably hot. However, the climate is always changing due to a whole range of phenomena. The past records show that the Earth has had more cold spells than hot. 

TIME TO WAKE UP TO CHINA'S CREEPING DOMINANCE

 

This article should give us all cause to think. While we obsess over fears of global warming, the Chinese, while paying lip-service to GW, are continuing to rapidly develop on all fronts, including nuclear fusion where they seem to have developed a big lead over the West. 

WHY THE GLOBAL WARMING HYPOTHESIS IS INCOMPLETE DUE TO MISSING HOTSPOT

Incomplete in that it does not include all the factors needed to explain what is happening and why the warming is much less than has actually happened. 

In its Second Assessment Report (AR2, 1995), the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed that a modest warming of the surface, particularly over the Tropics, would result in a significant increase in water vapor amplifying a modest warming from CO2 and resulting in more turbulent weather systems. It claimed this to be a “distinct human fingerprint” on climate. This was a late addition and was not agreed upon during peer review.

Clmate scientist Fredrick Seitz stated the claim was the worst abuse of the peer review process he had witnessed in 60 years of science. The distinct tropospheric warming fingerprint (the "hotspot") has never been found. 

CLIMATE EMERGENCY IS EQUIVALENT TO 'PREPARE TO MEET THY DOOM'

 

This article makes some excellent points. I particularly liked this excerpt:

 hyping the event as the “last chance to save the world”, with the result that the public ends up taking it about as seriously as shoppers took the man who spent decades walking up and down Oxford Street with a sandwich board carrying the words “prepare to meet thy doom”. People remember that we only apparently had five years to save the Earth 15 years ago. The fact that we are still here – in spite of carbon emissions that have continued to rise – somewhat undermines the message.  

MET OFFICE BECOMING A PROPAGANDA OUTLET FOR CLIMATE ALARM

 

This piece shows how the Met Office are putting out fake news to push the climate alarm message which is not supported by the facts.