JUDGE ORDERS THE GOVERNMENT TO SHOW THE CALCULATIONS FOR THE COST OF NET ZERO

 Judge orders Committee on Climate Change to back up claim of 'only' 1% of GDP to hit Net Zero

Daily Mail, 7 August 2021

David Rose

A court has told climate policy chiefs to show why they think reaching net zero carbon emissions will cost only 1 per cent of GDP.

To be hit by 2050, the target is the centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s presidency of the UN climate change conference in Glasgow in November.

But critics point out that other countries have put a much higher cost on the same ambitious goal.

The 1.3 per cent figure was published by the Committee on Climate Change in 2019, thereafter being enshrined in law.

Since then the panel has refused repeated requests for access to the spreadsheets behind the calculation. However the Information Tribunal has now ruled that the data must be released.

Judge Sophie Buckley said: ‘There is an extremely strong public interest in enabling scrutiny of the data, models and calculations which underpin the CCC’s conclusion that the net zero target could be met at an annual resource cost of up to 1-2 per cent of GDP.

‘Any errors in the calculations that led to the CCC’s conclusions, which, in turn, led to the legislative change, have the potential to have a very significant impact on the lives and finances of large numbers of people, on the spending of large sums of public money, and on the policies of the UK Government over the next 30 years.’

According to the CCC, the UK’s economic output will be around £4.6trillion in 2050, putting the 1.3 per cent cost at £50billion.

The tribunal case was brought by Andrew Montford, deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, founded by former chancellor Lord Lawson.

Mr Montford filed a freedom of information request for the spreadsheets and when this was refused appealed to Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham.

The CCC has said releasing the spreadsheets would be too time consuming and ‘cause confusion, and distract public debate’. It also said that some parts of the analysis had been written over, instead of being preserved on its computer systems.

Ministers have repeatedly claimed the cost will be modest, citing the CCC’s report.

Lord Deben, chairman of the committee, said it was ‘recognised universally as the most seriously presented, costed effort’.

Lord Lawson said: ‘We must put this potentially ruinous commitment on hold until there has been full disclosure and thorough scrutiny. If it turns out that the estimated cost is far too low, then the Government must think again.’

THE TRUTH ABOUT COST OF NET ZERO BECOMING CLEARER

 Boris Johnson’s push for Net Zero plunged into chaos

The Sunday Telegraph, 8 August 2021
 
By Edward Malnick, Sunday Political Editor and Emma Gatten, Environment Editor
 
Boris Johnson’s green agenda has been plunged into chaos amid fears that the costs of reaching “net zero” could cripple working class families in newly-won Tory seats.
 
A Treasury review of the costs of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 has been delayed since the spring. There are concerns the analysis highlights that the poorest households will be hit the hardest by the ambition, which will involve policies such as stripping out gas boilers and switching to electric or hydrogen cars.

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is said to be increasingly concerned about a looming crisis over the cost of living for British households, as the country faces the triple threat of rocketing energy bills, the potential for rising prices as a result of inflation, and an as-yet unspecified suite of policies to enable the country to meet the net zero target.



The Treasury review has been held back amid fears that the analysis will lead MPs and the public to the conclusion that Mr Johnson’s net zero strategy would be politically toxic in the Red Wall seats won by the Conservatives in December 2019.

The disclosure comes amid claims of rising tensions between Mr Johnson and the Chancellor, with longstanding friction between Number 10 and Number 11 over the Prime Minister’s spending demands.

On Saturday night it was reported that Mr Johnson had expressed fury over the leak of a letter in which Mr Sunak lobbied for a relaxation of travel restrictions. In a barbed joke, Mr Johnson threatened to demote Mr Sunak to Health Secretary.

The Government had said in December that the review would be published in “spring 2021”. However, it is among several key documents to have been significantly delayed amid wrangling in Whitehall over how to achieve the target without disproportionately “clobbering” the finances of working class families, and plunging the country into hundreds of billions of pounds of further debt.

The issue is likely to be at the centre of Mr Sunak’s autumn spending review, which is expected to decide the overall pots of money available for subsidising green technologies such as hydrogen.

Meanwhile, one adviser of COP26, the climate conference due to be hosted by Mr Johnson in November, said: “I don’t think ministers knew what they were getting in to” when they set targets for the conference, such as securing commitments from attendees that will limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 1.5C. 

One official said: “There was a massive expectation on us as members of the G7 and home of the industrial revolution. Boris was trying to grab as much as he can and to be a mighty great host... But Covid has added massive complications.”

Amid growing disquiet among Tory MPs, a new net zero scrutiny group of backbenchers is being formed to hold ministers to account over the plans. Craig Mackinlay, its chairman, warned that spending vast sums on subsidising green schemes would be seen by the public as “aping” some of Jeremy Corbyn’s pledges at the 2019 election.

He said: “The Conservatives’ strongest hand has always been credibility: credibility to deliver good economics and good governance. To ape the failed policies of an extreme Labour politician does not seem to be the way of electoral success.”

He added: “I’m very pleased the Treasury are actually thinking of this with a financial head on rather than just a warm feeling.”

Downing Street sources insisted that Mr Johnson was “acutely aware” of the need to monitor household finances to ensure that policies aimed at tackling climate change are “affordable for everyone”.

A Whitehall source said: “Obviously, with anything like this, those with less money are going to be disproportionately hit more. That’s common sense. That’s why work is ongoing to ensure the best solutions to ensure we hit 2050 without extraordinary costs to ordinary working class families.”

Insiders said that the “tension” behind the scenes was over the extent to which the Treasury should spend eye-watering sums subsidising green technologies, such as hydrogen and heat pumps – including the question of how many years it would take until taxpayer or consumer subsidies were no longer required.

Last month, Mr Johnson admitted that heat pumps, seen as an alternative to gas boilers, “cost about 10 grand a pop”. He added: “This is a lot of money for ordinary people. We’ve got to make sure that when we embark on this programme, that we have a solution that is affordable and that works for people. We won’t be imposing it until we have been able to create that market.”

There is alarm among some insiders about the amount of progress needed to achieve the net zero target by 2050. On the other hand, Mr Mackinlay’s group believe that, “while something sensible can emerge”, the current approach is “too rapid, too uncosted and too unscientific”.

Number 10 believes that the Government can encourage “early adopters” of such technologies with financial and regulatory incentives, with the hope that prices then fall as the market “takes off”. A similar approach was taken to the wind industry, which has benefited from generous consumer subsidies. “We need to drive down the cost of renewable energy,” a government source said.

But, last week, an industry analysis suggested that most wind farms in Britain will not be economically viable when existing subsidies end, primarily from the 2030s, and many could shut down prematurely without further support.

The Prime Minister believes that, while wind turbines are largely not produced in the UK, if Britain becomes a world leading manufacturer of electric heat pumps and producer of low carbon hydrogen, it can cash in on a “green jobs benefit to the UK as well as reducing emissions”.

Mr Sunak is said to agree on the need to bring down the cost of green technology but wants the private sector to “do most of the heavy lifting”. The free marketeer MP is thought to see interventions designed to encourage the market to bring down costs over time as “the best use of taxpayers’ money”. A source insisted that Mr Johnson was “in the same camp”.

Publication of the Government’s hydrogen strategy has also been delayed, amid wrangling over the costs of the technology. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, wants to subsidise the industry in a similar way to wind farms, offering Contracts for Difference, which provide renewable energy firms with a guaranteed price for 15 years.

Full front page story (£) 
 

*** see also No 10's 'net zero' carbon target is in disarray as Rishi Sunak baulks at the £1.4trillion cost of making UK a 'world leader' in green policies

LETTER IN THE PRESS

This letter got published and I think it helps to write about other subjects of topical interest which can be linked to some aspect of climate, as editors seem unwilling to use climate sceptic letters.

 "I would like to commend all MPs who voted to reduce our overseas aid budget in the light of the dire financial situation the country now faces.  Our debt is now so high that we would actually have to borrow the money to give it away. Would any of us behave in this way as individuals, of course not. Those who would like to make an extra personal donation have the opportunity to do so via charities.

When the Conservative manifesto was written no one could have foreseen the pandemic and the vast expenditure needed. It would be equally foolish to continue with the policy of reducing our CO2 emissions to net zero by 2050, while other nations, such as China and India are not doing the same. The government has told us that the estimated cost of this is £1.4 trillion pounds, while our emissions represent just 0.9% of world emissions. A huge expenditure for no significant gain."

OPPOSITION TO CLIMATE POLICY BEGINS IN UK PARLIAMENT

 Some Conservative MPs are planning to form a group to argue for a slower transition to net zero. See here: Tory backbenchers prepare to fight cost of net zero greenhouse gas emissions | ITV News

Unfortunately they appear to accept the premise of the necessity of getting there, but argue that it needs to proceed more slowly, which at least buys time for the real climate to show that it is not following the scary predictions of the extremists. It will also be less damaging to the economy.

If you read the linked article you can see that it is clearly written from a climate extremist point of view, such as in this paragraph:

People are now faced with the daily reality of the climate emergency – whether it’s the shocking images of floods in China and Germany, the environmental tragedy of bushfires in Australia, searing heat on the west coast of the Americas, or the repeated warnings - with another this week - of more extreme weather events in the UK. 

The author is linking all the extreme weather events in order to make a case for a "climate emergency", in spite of the fact that even the IPCC have stated that there is no evidence that such events are becoming more common now. These are the kind of scare tactics that are becoming more and more common.

MET OFFICE CLIMATE REPORT JUST A PROPAGANDA EXERCISE

 Met Office’s State of the UK climate report misleads

GWPF Science, 29 July 2021

Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor
 
According to the UK Met Office and repeated by the BBC, The Financial Times and The Independent and others the UK is already undergoing disruptive climate change with increased rainfall, sunshine and temperatures.
 
The year 2020 was the third warmest, fifth wettest and eight sunniest on record according to the latest UK State of the Climate report. It adds that no other year is in the top 10 on all three criteria.Let’s look a little more closely at that claim.

The data can be found here.
 
The top ten years for sunshine in the UK are, in order, 2003, 1995, 2018, 1989, 1955, 1959, 1949, 2020, 1929 and 1921. Note that five of these years are before 1950 and only three this century with the sunniest year being 17 years ago and the years 1949,1955, and 1959 being sunnier than 2020.
 
Conclusion, on this metric alone 2020 is nothing unusual.
 
The top ten years for average temperature in the UK are, in order, 2014, 2003, 2006, 2020, 2011, 2007, 2018, 1921, 1949 and 1959. Note three years are before 1960 and only three are in the past decade. Note also that six years, 2003, 2018, 2020, 1959, 1949 and 1921 appear on both lists, half of them before 1960.
 
Conclusion, on this metric we live in the warmest two decades of the Met Office instrumental record which seems to have plateaued.
 
The top ten UK rainfall years are, in order, 1872, 1903, 2000, 1877, 2020, 2012, 1954, 1998, 2008, 2014. Note two are in the 19th century, three are before 1905, four are before 1955, five are in this century and three are in the past decade at 5th, 6th and 10th place. Only 2020 and 2014 are in the temperature and rainfall top ten, but 2003, 2018, 1959, 1949, 2020 and 1921 are in the temperature and sunniest top ten list.
 
The only year on all three lists is 2020 which is probably statistically unimportant.
 
That the past five years on the rainfall list can occupy between the 5th and the 108th place on the list shows what year on year fluctuations can take place. Other years this century not previously mentioned can be found 2002 (11th), 2015 (14th), 2004 (25th), 2009 (26th), 2007 (35th), 2006 (43rd) and 2011 (45th).
 
Conclusion regarding rainfall, very variable, 2020 nothing unusual.
 
Also the table in the Met Office’s Press Release detailing 2020 “climate extremes” is as big a non sequitur as one could find in climate science. What happens in one year is not climate.
 
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.com 
 

See also GWPF report Britain's weather in 2019: More of the same again

UK HOUSEHOLDS FIND OUT THE COST TO THEM OF NET ZERO

 In recent weeks, ministers and officials have announced that UK households and businesses will have to fund many of the government’s Net Zero plans via their energy bills and cost of living.

Currently, UK consumers are funding renewable energy investors to the tune of £12 billion per year, taken from consumer bills as stealth taxes. These subsidies are projected to grow over the coming years, reaching a total of about £13 billion a year in the mid-2020s.
 
But on top of this huge and rising cost, the government now plans to add a whole catalogue of additional Net Zero subsidies, as the recent news reports below reveal.
 
* The government plans to force consumers to subsidise the installation of charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) by raising electricity bills. 
 
* Ministers are in the process of drawing up legislation that will force households to fund the construction of new nuclear power plants through the use of a surcharge on energy bills.

* Households face paying an extra £200 per year to fund greenhouse gas removal technology.
 
* The wind energy lobby has warned that consumers will have to subsidise offshore wind farms indefinitely, refuting the often repeated claim that renewables are close to becoming “subsidy-free”, and confirming analysis showing that wind power costs have not fallen.

* Energy bills face an additional rise in cost as the power grid operator is increasingly forced to pay wind farms to switch off turbines. ‘System balancing’ costs alone were £2 billion last year and could hit £2.5 billion per year over the next decade as renewable capacity continues to grow.
 
Industrial and commercial consumers with the option of relocating to countries with cheaper energy will obviously do so.
 
Households, the other hand, will simply have to cut down on food and other expenditures in order to pay their energy bills and cut their standard of living. 
 
The GWPF’s director Benny Peiser said:
 
"It is fairly certain that most households would be unable to keep their heads above water as this torrent of additional Net Zero costs overwhelms their domestic budgets."
 
"Neither Boris Johnson nor his government would survive this unwise and unjust imposition on the British people."

SCARE TACTICS LOSING THEIR POWER TO FRIGHTEN AFTER COVID COMPARISON

 Climate hyperbolists are finding the pandemic stole their thunder

Editorial, The Washington Times, 26 July 2021

Americans are not naturally inclined to peer out the window in the morning to see if the sky is falling. They should, according to opinion-shapers determined to create fear of imminent global catastrophe resulting from humanity’s lively activities. Relentless climate hyperbole, though, may be losing its capacity to trigger public apprehension in an age jaded by coronavirus pestilence.
 
Few understand the power of fear better than perennial politicians. John Kerry is one, and as President Biden’s climate czar, he is leveraging the hypothetical threat from carbon dioxide by equating it with the clear and present danger of COVID-19. Speaking in London last week prior to a G-20 ministerial session on climate, energy, and the environment, Mr. Kerry warned, according to CNBC, that human suffering caused by the COVID-19 pandemic would be “magnified many times over in a world that does not grapple with, and ultimately halt, the climate crisis.”
 
Such dreadful imagery can have no other purpose than to frighten the world into reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The United States shamefacedly cut its carbon dioxide output by nearly 15 percent before the pandemic-triggered economic collapse resulted in an additional 11 percent decline. In contrast, China discharges 28 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and it doesn’t plan to reach peak output until 2030. Communists don’t scare as easily as democrats.

Mr. Kerry is just loathe to mention facts relevant to the climate-change discussion that evoke relief rather than despair. A few are presented in “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,” a recent book by Obama Undersecretary of Energy for Science Steven Koonin. Among them: By failing to reproduce actual temperatures readings from the past, computer models that climatologists rely upon to predict future temperature trends have proved inaccurate. That’s not “settled science.”

Moreover, the author points out that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded thus far that the economic impact of climate change has been mild rather than catastrophic. The body has yet to validate a clear link between warming and natural disasters.

There is a price to be paid for Washington’s incessant hazard klaxons sounding across the national landscape. A new ABC/Ipsos poll finds that only 45 percent of respondents hold an optimistic view of America’s future during the next 12 months. That figure has plummeted 19 points during the past three months – a gloomy assessment of President Biden’s helmsmanship.
 
It’s unsurprising, then, that Mr. Kerry and fellow sky-watchers have reportedly come to loggerheads with nations unamused by proposals to hamstring their economic future. They include China and India, which refused at the G-20 gathering to agree to phase out coal power or endorse the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
 
Full post

RESISTANCE TO NET ZERO POLICIES GETS MORE COVERAGE IN THE PRESS

 The SUN says: Eco revolution for new boilers and battery-powered cars should not make people poorer

Editorial, The Sun, 27 July 2021

SLOWLY but surely the Government begins to see sense on the environment.Its frenzy of rash pledges is rightly being softened into something Britain CAN achieve and support.

The Sun’s own green campaigning has always come with the qualification that the eco revolution must not make our readers poorer.
 
So it was good, firstly, to hear Boris Johnson's Cop26 conference frontwoman Allegra Stratton admit she drives a diesel — and won’t buy a battery car or replace her boiler for years.

And now ministers are to delay the 2035 ban on new gas boilers.
 
Will the Government put the brake on battery-only new cars next? With less than nine years to the arbitrary 2030 deadline they remain absurdly pricey and with derisory mileage ranges.

The cost of Net Zero is mind-boggling enough without pretending so much can be rammed through in just a few years.

If only councils would get real too.
 
Their lust to hammer or ban drivers of petrol or diesel vehicles before alternatives are genuinely viable is shameful. And disastrous for local businesses.

INDIANS PUT A MAJOR SPANNER IN THE COP26 AGENDA

 COP26 in trouble as India asks rich nations to reduce per capita emission by 2030

Times of India, 26 July 2021
 
NEW DELHI: At a time when rich nations, backed by the UN climate body, have pitched for brining all emitters on board to commit for ‘net-zero’ emission goal or carbon neutrality by around mid-century, India has come out with a counter proposal asking them to bring down their own per capita emission to global average by 2030.
 

Per capita CO₂ emissions. Source: Our World in Data
 
The country brought this narrative on table while making its points on the concluding day of the G20 ministerial meeting on climate change and energy and even forced the participants to add this point in the Presidency statement in Naples, Italy on late Friday evening.

India’s per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emission was around 1.96 tCO2e (tonne carbon dioxide equivalent) in 2016 which is less than one-third of the world’s per capita annual GHG emissions (6.55 tCO2e). On the other hand, the US has 17.6 tCO2e, Canada has 15.7 tCO2e, Australia has 14.9 tCO2e, Germany has 10.4 tCO2e, UK has 8.1 tCO2e, France has 6.6 tCO2e and China has 6.4 tCO2e of per capita annual emission.

Citing how rich nations have already consumed most of the ‘carbon space’ available for developmental needs due to their huge emission in the past, Indian delegation intervened with a formal country statement on the issue.Noting “the pledges made by some countries to achieve net-zero GHG emissions or carbon neutrality by or around mid-century”, India said this may not be adequate in view of fast depleting available ‘carbon space’.

“Therefore, and keeping in view the legitimate need of developing countries to grow, we urge G20 countries to commit to bringing down per capita emissions to global average by 2030,” said the statement of Indian delegation, led by environment minister Bhupender Yadav, while finalising the G20 ministerial communique.

The ministers of G20 countries then jointly agreed to include India’s remarks in the Presidency statement while noting that all the nations would together look forward to cooperating in identifying and addressing “related challenges and opportunities for all G20 members to pursue this effort (net-zero emission or carbon neutrality goal) effort”.

India’s power and renewable energy minister, R K Singh, too earlier brought the per-capita point on table while virtually addressing the G20 meet. He, while noting that the per capita emission of many developed countries was 2-3 times above the world average, underlined the need to bring it down to the global average as soon as possible.

There have been a lot of diplomatic efforts to bring India on board to commit to a net-zero (reducing emission of greenhouse gases to zero) goal even as India has been among very few countries who have been well on track to meet their climate action targets under the Paris Agreement.

India’s remarks assume significance at this juncture when the UN climate body has been pushing nations to commit higher emission targets to reach the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the global average temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century and make efforts to keep it at around 1.5 degree Celsius over the pre-industrial level (1850-1900).

Full story

NET ZERO POLICY FOR THE UK RUNS UP AGAINST REALITY

Fraser Myers: Net Zero by 2050 is dead in the water. So what's plan B?
The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2021

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

 Boris Johnson has always tried to take a ‘cakeist’ position on Net Zero. We can drastically cut carbon emissions while boosting living standards, he claims. But the truth is, the sacrifices being demanded of us in the name of Net Zero are incompatible with democracy, and the PM knows it.

Just look at the anguish the gas boiler ban is causing to the government. Johnson has now conceded that the ban will have to be pushed back from 2035 to 2040. It will have to be some other prime minister’s problem.

The boiler ban was a key plank of the government’s Net Zero strategy. Gas boilers were to be replaced with heat pumps. These heat pumps are not what anyone could call a reasonable alternative to boilers. While a boiler can heat your house fairly quickly at the flick of a switch, a heat pump can take around 24 hours to heat your home to between 17 to 19 degrees celsius - i.e., not-quite room temperature.

For the pleasure of living in your not-quite warm house, you will have to fork out around £10,000 for the unit and installation. Then, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), you can expect to spend an additional £100 per year on your energy bills.

If you want to own a heat pump and have a house that’s more than lukewarm, you’ll need lots of extra insulation. This means yet more tens of thousands of pounds in renovation costs. The Energy Technologies Institute estimates that a ‘deep retrofit’ could cost as much as building a home from scratch. This is not money that any ordinary person has down the back of the sofa - or that the taxpayer can reasonably cover for millions of households.

Getting used to this reduced lifestyle ‘will take an attitudinal shift’, says Chris Stark, CEO of the CCC. This is quite the understatement. It means abandoning what was once a completely normal expectation in a developed country: having a warm home in winter.

In our Net Zero future, we can also forget having a stable and affordable supply of electricity. Boris says he wants to make the UK the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power’. But we should be wary of green energy experiments. Places like California that have rushed to swap nuclear and fossil fuels with renewable energy are regularly faced with rolling blackouts. Since Germany embarked on its Energiewende (energy transition), its electricity prices are now among the highest in the world, though, ironically, this hasn’t done much to lower CO2 emissions.

Net Zero is easily the largest national project the UK has embarked on since the Second World War. But even as politicians boast about it on the world stage, parading their harsh ‘targets’ at every opportunity, they have tried to downplay its significance to the public. It’s just a tax rise here, a subsidy there, maybe a bit less meat-eating or not rinsing the plate before loading it into the dishwasher. Technology will take care of the rest, anyway, they say.

But when the public really finds out what Net Zero means, will they tolerate it? The gilets jaunes protests in France were the most significant public revolt since 1968. They were sparked by an eco-tax. This tax didn’t affect the metropolitan liberals who dreamt it up. They were baffled that anyone would stand in the way of carbon neutrality. But they had to reverse course. This tax was but a drop in the ocean compared to Net Zero.

All of this is why a Deutsche Bank analyst has, provocatively, suggested that a period of ‘eco-dictatorship’ may be necessary to get to Net Zero. Governments may struggle to stay in power, or may have to deal with civil unrest if they preside over such a drastic reduction in living standards.

Perhaps the most likely outcome is that Net Zero simply doesn’t happen, as the bigger sacrifices get shunted into the long grass for the next government to impose. But if the government and its technocrats truly believe that climate change poses an existential threat, shouldn’t they at least have a Plan B?
 

For further reading see series of GWPF papers on the cost of Net Zero 

CLIMATE FORECASTS GET IT WRONG AGAIN OVER GERMAN FLOODS

 Read this article - The Weather Follies: Is Climate Change To Blame For Germany's Flooding? - Climate Change Dispatch 

Amazingly, while the media has been happy to repeat all the usual suspects saying its down to climate change, the truth is that climate models predict that summer rainfall in the Rhineland area should get LESS.

LETTER NOT PUBLISHED

The following letter failed to get published, sadly. It was sent in response to a reader's claims that we face a 'climate emergency'.

Recent correspondent, Richard Russell, seems to be convinced that CO2 controls the climate, despite admitting that Al Gore's video contained 'weak science'. So weak that a High Court Judge decided that its errors were so serious that it must not be shown in schools without teachers pointing them out to students, as pointed out by Dave Christian.

Even if we accept that Human output of CO2 does need to be reduced to zero, surely we should all want to know the cost of such a policy and whether it will achieve that objective. An official estimate of the cost to the UK has recently been published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) which is £1.4 trillion. The UK emits 0.9% of the world's  human CO2 emissions, while China is 30% and has no policy to reduce emissions, just a vague non-binding intent.

Will readers be happy to contribute their £50,000 share of the £1.4 trillion, knowing that unilateral action by the UK will have no measurable effect on world temperatures or the climate?

WE MUST PREPARE FOR FLOOD DISASTER, NOT WASTE BILLIONS IN VAIN ATTEMPT TO PREVENT IT

 

Germany’s flood disaster exposes folly of misbalanced Net Zero policies

London, 19 July: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has called on the UK government to learn the key lesson from the German flood disaster and adopt policies that prioritise effective and relative low cost flood protection over massively expensive and ineffective renewable energy targets. In recent days, meteorologists and extreme weather researchers have blamed a ‘monumental failure of Germany's flood warning system’ for the death and devastation triggered by disastrous flooding. Experts had warned the German government four days before the first floods about the high risk of flooding in the Rhine basin, but the government failed to implement flood protection measures that are, in any case historically underfunded and thus ineffective. Despite previous flood disasters in recent decades, Germany's priority in dealing with climate change has been to spend hundreds of billions of euros on wind and solar projects, failing almost completely to prepare communities for extreme weather events that are inevitable regardless of climate change. In view of the habitual failure of UK governments to prevent and alleviate significant flooding events in the past, the Global Warming Policy Forum is calling for No. 10 to learn from Germany’s sad example and implement a radical rebalancing of adaptation and mitigation in the UK’s climate policies. Since 2002 the UK has been spending increasingly large sums on climate change mitigation, mostly through subsidies to renewables. Between 2017 and today the UK has spent nearly £30 billion in in income support subsidies to renewable energy investors. The OBR estimates that in the next four years alone (2021 to 2025) the UK will spend nearly £50 billion on these subsidies to renewables investors. A fraction of these astronomical handouts could deliver greatly improved flood prevention, defences and disaster recovery systems. Comparable spending would help to make the UK extremely resilient in the face of natural disasters. The German and UK governments obviously have the balance of adaptation and mitigation very badly wrong. As a direct result of costly and ineffective climate policies both countries have underinvested in protection and adaptation measures. These measures are very effective and “no regrets” policies because they yield dividends immediately and protect citizens against flooding and other natural disasters whether they are related to climate change or not. Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said: "The German government’s astronomically costly low carbon policies have delivered no benefit to those communities affected by flooding. The UK has yet to see a disaster on the German scale but the underlying problem is identical. "Even if the UK were ever to achieve its Net Zero emissions target, towns and communities would still have to deal with flooding and other extreme weather events that won’t disappear just because the Government throws hundreds of billions at wind and solar energy. "The next time communities and towns are devastated by a flood disaster, no minister or party leader should get away with the lame excuse that climate change is to blame. The truth is that even in regions where more flooding is happening, in affluent societies flood disasters are increasingly the result of failed and underfunded protection measures. "It is time for the government to redirect resources towards adaptation measures that will help to prevent or minimise much of the misery and economic harm caused by flooding." Contact Dr Benny Peiser Director, Global Warming Policy Forum e: peiser@thegwpf.com m: 07553 361717

UK GOVERNMENT TO DELAY ANNOUNCEMENT OF GAS BOILER BAN

 

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

London, 10 July: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has welcomed the decision by Boris Johnson to delay the planned gas boiler ban which the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) planned to announce next week. According to a report in today’s Times, BEIS had been due to publish its heat and building strategy next week “but this is now understood to have been delayed, possibly until the autumn. At a meeting last week Boris Johnson was said to be concerned that it did not do enough to protect consumers and wanted further safeguards….” Boris Johnson is right to be concerned about the social and political risks and repercussions of a hugely unpopular ban on gas boilers. The GWPF has been urging the Prime Minister for some time to pause and reconsider the poorly designed and extremely costly green home heating plans. It’s time to abandon them now before they collapse into a humiliating fiasco. The last-minute intervention by 10 Downing Street is a clear indication that growing criticism of the gas boiler ban is beginning to make a real difference and that the Prime Minister is now gravely concerned about the economic and political consequences of the ban. In response to the latest developments, Steve Baker MP has warned that "if ministers don’t obtain the consent of the public for Net Zero now, with full and frank explanations of the costs and changes they are planning, eventually there will be a terrible revolt. The boiler debacle points the way to utter political fiasco.” The Prime Minister needs to put a stop to this rush into an inevitable political fiasco. He needs to send his ministers back to the drawing board and allow households to make their own decisions about what heating system is cheapest and works best for them. Contact Dr Benny Peiser Director, Global Warming Policy Forum e: peiser@thegwpf.com  m: 07553 361717