Collated by Dr Alan Moran
1/1/23
| A review and commentary on topical matters concerning the science, economics, and governance associated with climate change developments. |
| Political developments in the climate change/war induced energy crisis The EU “carbon border adjustment mechanism”, starting in 2023 will be the world’s first tax on the carbon content of imported goods. Initially imposed on iron & steel, aluminium, cement, fertilizers and electricity, its coverage will be expanded later. It means a massive increase in bureaucracy and costs in order to prevent imports that incorporate coal and gas inputs. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Germany’s government has spent around 12% of national economic output in bailouts and schemes to prop up the country’s energy system. Actual spending to date by major EU governments is as follows: |
Germany’s Uniper has been bankrupted by the crisis and will now be nationalised at a cost of $230 billion on top of funding already allocated by the government. 36 per cent of the electricity fed into the German power grids between July and September came from coal-fired power plants, compared with 32 percent in the third quarter of 2021.
German company Enertrag in Namibia plans to install hundreds of turbines and vast solar PV arrays to produce up 350,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year, which could be shipped to Germany in the form of ammonia by around 2027. The project’s cost of 12 billion euros is larger than Namibia’s annual economic output.
The UK Prime Minister has embarked on a campaign to ask consumers to use less energy to get Britain through the winter.
The UK has finally approved a new coking coal mine. Greenish minister Michael Gove gave the go-ahead for the three times deferred Cumbria mine. The usual crowd of climate bleaters ranted, including the compromised Lord Deben, chairman of the climate change committee, Alok Sharma, and Ed Miliband, the shadow climate minister.
The UK government imposed a new windfall tax on gas, as a result of which Total, the second biggest operator, is pulling planned investment worth about £100m – 25pc of previously planned spending.
A Dutch court rejected legal action by RWE and Uniper against the Netherlands Government’s 2018 decision to ban coal power generation by 2030. RWE and Uniper were seeking compensation of €1.4 billion and €1 billion, respectively. The Court found that the companies should have anticipated such a move and had already benefited from the investments.
Switzerland is considering legislation that would ban people from driving electric vehicles.
Australia has introduced price controls on domestic gas and coal. On gas, these are $12 per gigajoule (half of the present price but compared with $4-6 historically) with future price levels to be determined by the Commonwealth price controller, the ACCC. The maximum price for thermal black coal is set at $125 per tonne which, though twice the historical price, is only one-third of what can be earned from exporting.
Australian PM, Anthony Albanese, said he had a PLAN to lower energy prices by 20%. Now his government is paying coal generated power stations to compensate for the price caps designed to reduce an anticipated 63 per cent electricity prices jump to 47 per cent. Compensation for coal suppliers is likely to exceed $1.5 billion. Showing a better understanding of market mechanisms, Vladimir Putin cited Milton Friedman: “If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes,” put on price controls, and “instantly you will have a tomato shortage. It’s the same with oil or gas.”
Credit Suisse likened price freeze measures proposed by Australia to a “near nationalisation of the east coast gas market” and likely to suppress investment. But green think tank Climate Energy Finance opines, that these price caps will have little effect on coal/oil/gas producers as “they have close to zero impact on LNG and coal exports”.
Australia is also is to have a new ‘capacity mechanism’ that means renewables will be further subsidised to buy batteries/storage as back-up power when solar and wind power are inadequate. In addition, Australia’s market regulator is seeking new powers to allow it to force firms to supply when this is unprofitable.
Twelve new gas developments, valued at $32 billion, have reportedly been placed on hold as a result of the changed rules.
Australia’s Resources Minister makes it clear – “traditional owners” can deny a development that is hundreds of kms out to sea if an “owner” claims some affinity with the water.
Glencor, has deferred a $2 billion new coal mine in Queensland in view of the decreased certainty of approvals and state imposed “temporary” tax hikes on coal. BHP says it will not invest in the state’s coal while the tax hike remains.
A US Department of Defence, NASA and the General Services Administration proposed rule would require federal contractors to disclose and reduce their CO2 emissions as well as climate financial risks. The rule would cover 5,766 contractors. Large contractors would also have to publish an annual climate disclosure and develop “science-based targets” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement.
Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis said the state would remove BlackRock as manager of $600 million of short-term investments and freeze its $1.43 billion holdings of long-term securities. He accused BlackRock of focusing on anti-CO2 “Environment Social Governance” ESG rather than higher investment returns.
Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January will allow them to hold hearings on ESG and grill company executives about their policies, and also scrutinise regulators.
Robert Bryce reports opposition to solar installations in the US rose from one case in 2017 to 79 this year. He shows that the opposers are being demonised by renewable industry-front publications, which claim they are being funded by coal interests. The installations are largely in lower demographic areas.
Columbia University’s climate litigation database lists more than 2,000 proceedings that focus on climate change law, policy or science have been before judicial bodies in 40 different countries. About half of those completed were favourably decided in the complainants’ favour.
Francis Mentone demonstrates that electricity from solar panels plus green hydrogen storage would be in the range of 5 to 10 times more expensive than electricity from just burning natural gas. On top of this is a threefold increase in transmission and very difficult transport problems to solve.
A Canadian study by Hashemi et al estimates rooftop solar systems are not financially viable without a subsidy and net losses to the economy are six and twelve times the benefit to the net-metered household. The abatement costs $C413 per ton of CO2 equivalent (the Canadian government puts the social cost of emissions at $C65 per tonne in 2023 and $C170 by 2030).
Vanguard Group has quit the woke ESG anti-coal alliance of financiers. Reality may be biting as shown here by poor returns of these virtue signallers. But three of the four years since 2019 (including 2022) saw net inflows into ESG funds and outflows for non-ESG funds. One in every three equity investment dollars is now going into “sustainable” funds.
Richard Darwall reports “the first energy crisis of the enforced energy transition to net zero; and the year that brought environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing down to earth with a thump—for the year to date, BlackRock’s ESG Screened S&P 500 ETF lost 22.2% of its value; the S&P 500 Energy Sector Index rose 54.0%”. Australia’s 2022 best performing funds were heavily geared to energy. The worst performers were ESG funds.
| Developments in climate science Commenting on hysterical claims by UN Secretary-General António Guterres that the number of weather, climate and water-related disasters has increased by a factor of five over the past 50 years, Roger Pielke shows the overall 2022 death rate for weather and climate disasters was about 0.14 people per million, representing one of the 5 lowest annual death rates in more than a century of data and reproduces the following charts: |
| Here is the CO2 and temperature tracked since 2015 |
| Paul Homewood repudiates the BBC claims that this year’s drought in China is the worst on record. There were two worse ones over the past century and here is the 500 year picture: |
Whimsey
On MSNBC Jane Fonda said,
‘If there was no racism, there’d be no climate crisis. If there was no misogyny, there’d be no climate crisis. It’s part of a mindset.’
Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, wants to divide Oxford into six ‘15 minute’ districts. In these districts, it says, most household essentials will be accessible by a quarter-of-an-hour walk or bike ride, and so residents will not need a car. Residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but to gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.
‘Peak Oil’ is no longer the cool subject of the day among proponents of the global religion of climate alarm. The most trendy bit of dogma being promoted by these Malthusian ghouls is the need for the world to get to ‘Peak Cow’ if we are to avoid burning up on this “highway to hell,” as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently put it.
| Articles related to climate change – December 2022 Batteries not includedThe Spectator, 29 December 2022 Chris Bowen’s rendezvous with bad ideas The Spectator, 22 December 2022 Energy collapse: it all begins with a market cap The Spectator, 14 December 2022 ESG: climate virtue bleeding super dryThe Spectator, 7 December 2022 |