Climate Initiatives

Americans Polled on Energy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The poll was conducted by Senate Opportunity Fund, a not-for-profit 501(c)(4) organization, to test public opinion regarding congressional bill H.R.1, called The Lower Energy Costs Act.  A national sample of 800 likely voters were contacted by phone during March 21 to 23, 2023, with questions regarding a number of public policy issues.  Responses are shown by self-identified political leanings, and by participants located in battleground states. Note that the final question showed about 80% approval by all cohorts.

 

Dark Money Grabbing Your Nat Gas

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Robert Bryce reports on the wealthy and shadowy push against domestic use of natural gas in his substack article The Dark Money Behind The Gas Bans.  Excerpts in italics wtih my bolds and added images

The big-money donors behind the gas bans are hiding their identities, and their funding,
behind an extensive dark money network.

 

Last Tuesday, Rewiring America announced that it has hired Georgia politician Stacey Abrams to help the group “launch and scale a national awareness campaign and a network of large and small communities working to help Americans go electric.”

In a press release, Abrams, who will hold the title of “senior counsel” said she is “excited to join Rewiring America to share the benefits of electrification and ensure families get their fair share. I look forward to working together as we build the tools that will transform everyday Americans from energy consumers to energy moguls.”

Stacey Abrams and Saul Griffith. Photo credits: Gage Skidmore (L) and Jeff Kubica.

Abrams, a Democrat who served in the Georgia House of Representatives for 11 years, ran for governor of Georgia two times but failed in both attempts against Republican Brian Kemp. Abrams famously refused to concede in the 2018 race and claimed the election was “stolen.”

Rewiring America is part of the NGO-industrial-corporate-climate complex that, as I reported here last month, is now spending some $4.5 billion per year to promote anti-industry policies. While their agendas vary, the anti-industry NGOs are generally trying to:

♦  mandate increased use of weather-dependent renewables,
♦  hinder (or stop) hydrocarbon production,
♦  prevent the construction of new hydrocarbon infrastructure,
♦  mandate building electrification, and of course,
♦  ban the use of natural gas in homes and businesses.

As I explained in January, Rewiring America’s mission to electrify everything, ban the use of natural gas in homes and businesses, (and gas stoves), is part of a years-long, lavishly funded campaign that is being bankrolled by some of the world’s richest people. But here’s the pernicious part: the big-money donors backing Rewiring America, and other groups pushing the gas bans, are hiding their identities behind a dark money network of NGOs that are purposely obscuring their funding and the groups they are bankrolling.

Although it is impossible to know exactly how much dark money is being shuffled among groups like the Windward Fund, Rewiring America, and others, my tally shows that just four of the dark money NGOs behind the gas bans have combined budgets of about $820 million. Thus, as you can see in the graphic below, by themselves, those four anti-industry groups are spending about 83% of the amount that is being spent by the top 25 NGOs that support traditional energy sources.

Indeed, despite claims from legacy media outlets about the influence of the hydrocarbon sector, the truth is undeniable: the overwhelming majority of the money, media coverage, and momentum in the debate over energy policy and climate change is on the side of the anti-hydrocarbon and anti-nuclear energy NGOs.

And one of their top priorities is banning the use of
natural gas in homes and businesses.

On its website, Rewiring America cites Griffith’s 2020 book, which is also called Rewiring America, in which he claims “we can still address the threat of climate change, but only if we respond with a massive war-time mobilization effort to transform the fossil fuel economy into a fully electrified one, run on wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources.”

Note the lack of any mention of nuclear energy. Also unmentioned: attempting to run the economy on weather-dependent renewables would require paving vast tracts of rural America with obscene numbers of noisy, 600-foot-high, bird- and bat-killing wind turbines and endless oceans of landscape-ravaging solar panels. Also unmentioned: attempting to electrify everything would require doubling or tripling the amount of electricity produced in the country, an effort that would require mining, smelting, and fabrication of staggering amounts of copper, steel, aluminum, and other metals. Also unmentioned: nearly all of the alt-energy supply chains depend on China.

Has Griffith or Rewiring America been lobbying federal officials? If it has, the group has not registered to do so. A search of federal lobby records for the U.S. House of Representatives shows no record for Griffith or Rewiring America. A similar search of lobby registration for the U.S. Senate turned up no records.

Windward’s flood of cash is not coming from foundations. Instead, most of it is coming from super-rich individuals. The first listing on Schedule B of its 990 shows a donation of $59 million from an unnamed person. Other individuals kicked in sums of $24 million, $20 million, $16 million, $14 million, $13 million, $10.5 million, $10 million, $10 million, $9 million, $6 million, and $6 million respectively.  Thus, more than two-thirds of the Windward’s 2021 revenue came from about a dozen unnamed plutocrats. Windward’s 990 also shows that it is giving grants to dozens of small climate-focused NGOs around the country.

Energy Foundation lists more than 100 staff on its website. Its board members include Gina McCarthy, who was a climate advisor to President Biden. Before that job, McCarthy headed the Natural Resources Defense Council, the giant anti-nuclear NGO that shamelessly cheered about its role in the premature closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York.

In an ironic statement, given the amount of dark money that is being deployed by the anti-industry industry, McCarthy claimed, “Now it has moved from denial, but the dark money is still there. The fossil fuel companies are still basically trying their best to make sure that people don’t understand the challenge of climate.”

There is much more to be written about the dark money that is driving the anti-industry industry, the unaccountable parasitic force that employs thousands of lawyers, strategists, pollsters, and fundraisers, who are pushing policies like natural gas bans. I will close this piece by recounting a claim Abrams made in the press release put out by Rewiring America last Tuesday. She said that families across the country are living “too close to the economic edge,” and that “few understand how much money they can save with a little help to upgrade their homes and vehicles.”

Hogwash.

Banning natural gas and forcing consumers to buy EVs will impose regressive energy taxes on consumers. In addition to the high cost of replacing existing appliances with electric ones, the cost of operating an all-electric home is higher than that for a home that uses natural gas. As for EVs, good luck finding a Tesla in the barrio. An average EV now sells for about $66,000. That’s Benz and Beemer territory.

Last March, in the Federal Register, the Department of Energy published its annual estimate for residential energy costs. As you can see in the graphic above, on a per-Btu basis, electricity costs about 3.5 times more than natural gas. The fuel is, by far, the cheapest form of in-home energy, costing less than half as much as fuels like kerosene, propane, and heating oil. That point was bolstered again last October when the Department of Energy published its Winter Fuels Outlook, which predicted that heating with electricity this winter would cost about 46% more than heating with natural gas.

The DOE’s numbers make it clear that Rewiring America’s agenda of forced electrification will result in higher energy bills for consumers. And low- and middle-income Americans will pay the biggest price because they will be forced to spend a larger percentage of their disposable income on energy than wealthy consumers.

Abrams may have found a new job at Rewiring America. Good for her. But does she really understand the economics of what she will be promoting? The facts are clear: attempting to electrify everything will impose new regressive taxes on the poor. And no amount of spin, or dark money, can change that fact.

Securing Energy vs. Decarbonizing Energy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Irina Slav explains the deadlock over energy policy goals in her OilPrice article Energy Transition Advocates Get A Reality Check.  H/T Tyler Durden.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

  • The choice between energy security and decarbonization is not one that tends to attract a lot of attention. 
  • Following the energy crisis in Europe last year, world leaders are more aware of energy security. 
  • The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is calling for an acceleration of the decarbonization push.

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report. Unsurprisingly alarming, the IPCC report aimed to turn up the heat on governments, the business world, and every one of us to do more about the energy transition. Decarbonization, the report said, had to move faster and more dramatically. Yet that wasn’t the only document that made the headlines this week. Shell also released a report in which it detailed two different scenarios for the future to 2050. In those scenarios, the supermajor’s analysts pitted energy security against the energy transition – something the IPCC reports have never done.

The choice between energy security and decarbonization does not get much attention,
because it exposes the shortcomings of low-carbon energy.

Yet, as Europe found out last year, it may be wise to discuss this topic before we splash $110 trillion on the energy transition.  In one of its scenarios, dubbed Archipelagos, Shell paints a familiar picture of the world of the future, at least politically. With a focus on energy security rather than decarbonization, the Archipelagos scenario describes a world similar to 19th-century Europe, where spheres of interest shift and nations ally with a view to energy security and resilience.  In that scenario, emission reductions and the Paris Agreement take a back seat, but work continues on deploying low-carbon energy technology. It simply progresses at a much slower pace.

The IPCC would probably be quick to point out that this scenario is effectively a doomsday scenario because nothing should take priority over emission reduction and the race to net zero. However, it is much easier to make computer models of future global temperatures and sound the alarm about them than find the money and the raw materials necessary to effect the transition at the pace that the IPCC wants it.

The raw materials problem of the transition has been garnering more and more attention from the media and, with it, from various stakeholders. The United States came up with the idea of friend-shoring to source these raw materials because it has no mine capacity to meet all of its projected demand from local supply. The EU plans to set up a Critical Raw Material Club, which effectively amounts to a buyers’ cartel, but this time for metals and minerals.

The chances of success of either of these approaches are yet to become clear, but in the meantime, another thing is becoming clear: the transition bill will be even bigger than previously expected.

The sum total of transition investments has always been in the trillion-dollar territory, but the latest estimate from a climate think tank pegs the annual spend necessary to hit net zero by 2050 at $3.5 trillion. That’s a more than threefold increase on last year’s record investment in wind, solar, and other decarbonization efforts, which for the first time topped $1 trillion. Unfortunately, that record investment—some of its actual spent, the rest in commitments—brought us nowhere near either net zero or energy security.

In Shell’s second scenario (Sky 2050), however, these investments will work their miracle, with the indispensable help of everyone deciding to work for the common goal of cutting emissions and achieving what the company referred to long-term energy security.  In this scenario, governments, citizens, and businesses team up to bring those emissions down and deploy as much low-carbon energy capacity as possible, notably driven by energy security concerns. Energy security has indeed been one of the strongest arguments in favor of wind and solar—the energy produced locally is better than imported energy.

That leaves the reliability and affordability issue, which decision-makers appear determined to tackle with excess capacity—for reliability—and with massive investments and subsidies—to solve the affordability problem. Because much as climate think tanks and activists like to repeat that wind and solar are the cheapest form of energy available, the wind and solar industries themselves appear to disagree.

“We are walking when we should be sprinting,” the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Hoesung Lee, said at the release of the body’s latest report.  There are “no big fundamental barriers to the energy transition,” said the deputy director of that climate think tank that produced the report estimating the cost of said transition.

Based on these statements and the documents behind them, the transition seems like a no-brainer, however you look at it. Except if you look at it from an energy security perspective. Or a financial one. Because if there were no big fundamental barriers to decarbonization, such as reliability issues or affordability challenges, the transition would be happening everywhere, organically, without the need for such strong government support. This is what happens with successful, beneficial technology.

Which of the two scenarios that Shell has developed for the future remains to be seen. For now, the Archipelago scenario seems more realistic, not least because it does not rely on as many assumptions as the Sky 2050 scenario, such as a global ban on ICE cars by 2040.

Planning on an Array of Assumptions

So do all the scenarios of transition advocates. They are all based on a series of assumptions, some of them dangerously far-fetched, such as the assumption that there will be enough metals for EVs to take over roads. And assumptions are risky allies. Although sometimes grounded in reality, most of the transition assumptions appear to be grounded in wishes rather than facts.

And wishes do not make reality or
bring energy security into spontaneous existence.

Footnote:  Dieter Helm’s In Depth Analysis of Climate and Energy Security Policy

See Seeking Climate and Energy Security

Europe at night from space NASA 2016

 

 

Great News! IPCC Final Warning Now!

Posted on by Ron Clutz

OK, they’ve exaggerated before, so could be that “final” may not stick.  For anyone following climate science and politics, this is not their first rodeo (or circus, if you prefer.)  But we can hope for peace at last from the doomsters.  Chris Morrison goes into what’s unconvincing about this final warning in his Daily Sceptic article Latest UN Climate Doom Report Falsely Claims Global Temperatures Are “Highest for 125,000 Years”.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Doomsday had to be postponed for five months, but ‘pausing’ IPCC writers have finally delivered another ‘Net Zero or Else’ report highlighting increasingly improbable climate change scenarios. Every IPCC report ramps up the desperation, and this latest ‘Synthesis Report‘ known as SYR is long on opinions, attributions and modelled results, but somewhat shorter on actual scientific facts.

The latest document collates the IPCC’s sixth assessments reports (AR6) into a short format that was originally scheduled to ramp up fears ahead of last year’s COP27 meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh. But in May and June last year, the planet-saving authors seem to have gone on strike. A few details about the incident are referred to in recently published IPCC minutes, which record how attempts were made with the writers to “rebuild the trust required to have them end their pause in writing, and to engage in the SYR production process”. Not before time, since IPCC reports need to be agreed with large numbers of interested parties, including almost 200 member governments. ‘Settled’ science, it need hardly be added, demands a lot of happy and settled funders.

Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice

Current global temperatures are said by the IPCC to be the highest for 125,000 years, an astonishing claim given the many scientific surveys that show much higher temperatures in the recent past. It is also claimed that temperatures will rise by 0.4°C in around a decade, an interesting opinion, based presumably on surface records that can be retrospectively adjusted, but an unlikely scenario given global warming ran out of steam over two decades ago. By 2100, the IPCC says global warming could rise to 4.4°C, although things need to be moving on a bit smartish given barely 0.1°C warming in the first two decades of the century.

Satellite Global Warming Up and Down

There have been one or two concerns of late that the IPCC’s scare tactics have sent half the world doolally with climate fear, especially the impressionable young. These criticisms seem to have been taken on board. UN Secretary General Antonio ‘Code Red’ Guterres hailed SYR as a “survival guide to humanity”. All we need to do, continued the Left-wing Portuguese radical, is for all countries to bring forward their Net Zero plans by a decade. Dr. Friederike Otto from Imperial College specialises in so-called ‘attribution’ studies and the pseudoscience of claiming specific weather events are caused by the activities of humans. She helped write the latest report and was also in optimistic mood telling the BBC: “If we aim for 1.5°C and achieve 1.6°C, that is still much better than saying, it’s too late and we are doomed and I’m not even trying. And I think what this report shows very, very clearly is there is so much to win by trying.”

Extinctions Overblown

Back on Planet Reality, it might be noted that there are a number of possible disadvantages connected to removing fossil fuels, a reliable, inexpensive energy supply that powers 80% of global needs, within less than 17 years.

Starvation, death, widespread warfare, societal and economic breakdown and rampant disease being just a few that come immediately to mind.

Coastal Flooding, Not

Traditional Landing Site of Mayflower Pilgrims.

It is not difficult to see why the IPCC continues to claim current global temperatures are the highest for 125,000 years, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that shows this is untrue. The rebound rise of about 1°C seen over the last 200 years is very small, and similar changes have obviously occurred countless times in the historical and paleo past, sometimes over even shorter time periods. It is difficult to worry too much about something that seems natural and in fact is beyond the control of humans. Placing the rise in the longer context of 125,000 years and adding all manner of invented weather event attribution and ‘tipping’ point stories adds some firepower to a political narrative ultimately designed to move society towards the collectivist Net Zero agenda.

Net Zero:  Who Gains, Who Loses

The Daily Sceptic has reported on a number of science papers that track the higher temperatures in the past, in particular the period since the last ice age started to lift about 12,000 years ago. A sample can be read here, here and here.

Earlier this year, a group of European scientists published a paper analysing tree remains that suggested there was a much warmer climate in the Alps during most of the last 10,000 years.

Adjusting Temperature Records.

‘Settled’ science, it might be observed, needs consensus from the world and his wife. The recent IPCC minutes, for instance, noted that the SYR team, “should ensure policy relevance and usefulness for policymakers”. Needless to say this is not to the taste of some independent-minded scientists, especially those retired with no need to hustle for state research or Left-wing foundation funds. In fact they can be quite disobliging about the entire IPCC process. In a recent paper titled ‘Challenging “Net Zero” with Science‘, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively called Net Zero “scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people”. In fact they have previously dismissed the peer review system around climate change as a “joke” – pal review, not peer review, they quipped. The IPCC is “government controlled and only issues government-dictated findings”.

Sketchy Warming Evidence

Source: Real Climate Science

“Climate science is awash with manipulated data, which provides no reliable scientific evidence,” they added.

Footnote: So What Happens Next

As I said above, we’ve seen this show before.  Caleb Rossiter explains how it goes down:

For years I assigned statistics students to pick any apocalyptic climate claim in the media and trace it back through the UN reports to its genesis in a scientific study. I knew they would discover that these reports are not scientific documents based on the peer review process, but political documents “approved by governments” and intended to scare the public into supporting constraints on the production and use of energy.

A powerful publicity machine magnifies the alarm, bombarding citizens with exaggerations and claims of certainty that are proven wrong as you dig down to their underlying scientific studies:

  • Public figures, news editors, and commentators make claims that are more alarmist than what individual IPCC authors say at the release of the report.
  • Individual IPCC authors make claims at the release of the report that are more alarmist than what the official press release says.
  • The official press release makes claims that are more alarmist than what the report’s summary for policy-makers says.
  • The summary for policy-makers makes claims that are more alarmist than the various chapters of the reports.
  • The chapters of the report make claims that are more alarmist than the studies they reference in the footnotes.

More at

UN Horror Show

Multiple Choice Question re Green Energy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Jack Hellner poses the issue in his American Thinker article. A single multiple choice question for the ‘green’ energy pushers.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Here is one burning question for scientists, entertainers, journalists, politicians,
bureaucrats, and others who claim they can control the climate:

Which of the following has caused the reservoirs to fill up rapidly in California and elsewhere in the West?

A. The Paris Climate accord.

B. The misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” in which the Democrats claimed they can control the climate by handing out huge amounts of money to “green” pushers.

C. All the United Nations gabfests where people fly in private jets to stump about the need to cut emissions.

D. Shuttering coal and natural gas utility plants.

E. Transitioning the peasants to cricket and mealworms as “food” to control cow flatulence.

F. Making people buy inefficient, expensive, impractical electric cars powered by the dangerous, highly-flammable pollutant lithium.

G. Sequestering CO2, a clear, innocuous, non-pollutant gas that makes plants thrive and allows the world to be fed.

H. Record rain and snow that came cyclically and naturally.

(I’m sure you guessed, but the correct answer is: H.)

According to scientists, this winter’s downpour in California and other western states turned out to be a positive, as it brought relief to the drought-ridden environments:

All the moisture has helped alleviate dry conditions in many parts of the western U.S. Even major reservoirs on the Colorado River are trending in the right direction.

Of course, the scientific “experts” who somehow failed to predict this record rain and snow, warned of the “stubborn” aridity:

But climate experts caution that the favorable drought maps represent only a blip on the radar as the long-term effects of a stubborn drought persist.

Here is a hint: The Sahara Desert used to be fertile until around 9,000 years ago. A stubborn drought has persisted since then and it was not caused by oil, coal, CO2, cars, methane, or any of the other things “climate experts” blame for causing droughts, flooding, too much snow, too little snow and whatever else with which they want to scare the public.

Why should we trust scientists or anyone else whose dire predictions of doom and gloom on the climate or global warming have been 100% wrong the last hundred years?

Everyone should understand that scientists and others who push the “green” agenda make a lot of money pretending they can control the climate. They would have their spigot of money cranked off if they told the truth that the climate is and has always changed cyclically and naturally. As always, follow the money.

The same people who claim they can control the climate:
    1. Apparently lack the ability to properly regulate banks…and then blame Trump for the problem.
    2. Can’t control or tell the truth about the crisis at the borders…and then blame Trump for the problem.
    3. Can’t tell the truth or control the “spread” of COVID. Why would anyone trust the so-called “experts” at the CDC and the WHO who spread so much misinformation about COVID and destroyed so many businesses and people with their government edicts?
    4. Told so many lies about Obamacare, including the “you can keep your doctor” and “keep your plan” shticks, premiums would go down substantially fib, and that it would lower the deficit. And most of the media still says how great it is.
    5. Can’t educate children — no matter how much money they throw at it — to read or do math at grade level. 

Yet we are told that these people can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever if we just give them trillions of dollars and allow them to destroy industries that produce reasonably priced energy and thousands of other products that have greatly improved our quality and length of life.

They have trouble predicting the climate a few days out and did not predict the record amount of rain and snow in California this year but supposedly they can predict temperatures within one degree one hundred years out, with all the natural variables?

Does it sound remotely intelligent to believe these people?

 

Climate Realist for Canada PM, Please!

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Published at CO2 Coalition A Plea To Pierre Poilievre, A Climate Realist for Prime Minister of Canada by Ron Barmby.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Dear Pierre,

There will probably be a federal election in Canada in the coming months as Justin Trudeau’s government is in a minority position with waning support.

His past three successful elections have all included fighting climate change as a key and winning platform. His current legislative agenda indicates his next campaign will have the same focus.

As Leader of the Official Opposition [pictured above], and in the best position to form a new government, you are currently advocating eliminating Trudeau’s national carbon tax and “letting technology handle CO2 emissions.”

That is probably a strategy to avoid playing to Trudeau’s strength, which is instilling fear of climate change in the voting public. But you could take it further by highlighting Trudeau’s main climate weakness: he misrepresents or is willingly ignorant of, the science of climate change.

Election campaigns require talking points, but I can offer you the following thinking points on the science of climate change that I hope you will find useful.

1500+ Scientists agree and disclared No Climate Emergency

1500+ Scientists Agreed and Declared No Climate Emergency

The Climate Changes but There Is No Climate Emergency.

Trudeau’s declaration of a national climate emergency is based on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts of between 2.5°C and 3.5°C warming between now and the year 2100 (intermediate and high emissions scenarios).

If those forecasts—which are not compliant with the scientific method—were reasonable, surely the planet would be on that warming trend now. It’s not.

The most accurate and complete temperature survey of the planet comes from satellites, beginning in 1979. Over the past 44 years, satellite data reveals that the trend of global warming has been 0.13°C per decade, which if continued would add only 1°C by 2100.

Interestingly, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere increased by 25% over those four decades. CO2 doesn’t seem to have caused much warming during that time.

The warmest year on the satellite record is 1998 (caused by an El Nino event) indicating no current warming trend for the last 24 years. And CO2 concentrations have since increased by 14%.

This satellite data is backed up by the world’s most sophisticated land-based temperature survey designed for scientific research. The United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN) was set up to provide continental U.S. temperature data using state-of-the-art triple redundant instruments in pristine locations unaffected by human activity.

There has been no warming trend in the continental United States since USCRN data collection began 18 years ago. Interestingly again, CO2 concentrations were up 10% during that period.

Mr. Poilievre, this lack of warming is well-known and documented in the public domain. The limitations of CO2 causing global warming are also well-known and documented in the scientific domain and even accepted by the IPCC.

That is why Trudeau, with only tepid backing from the IPCC, is now claiming increased extreme weather events as the new basis for fear of climate change.

Except it’s not true that we’re experiencing increased extreme weather events. A recent study using established and accepted international databases saw no statistically significant increasing trends in the intensity of heatwaves, hurricanes and/or tropical storms, tornadoes, global and extreme precipitation, droughts, or floods.

On a Canadian note, the 2021/22 extreme weather events in central British Columbia consisting of a succession of a polar vortex, heat dome, wildfires, and flooding were not a result of CO2-induced climate change. They are all linked to instability in the jet stream, solidly backed up by meteorological science.

The Natural Causes of Climate Change Are Very Large.

The sun provides the Earth with almost all of its surface heat. On the time scale of recent human history, changes in the output of the sun are the smoking gun for climate change.

A less active sun has a weakened magnetic field, which allows more galactic cosmic rays to hit our atmosphere and ionize molecules. These ionized molecules become cloud-building sites. Low, dense clouds block the sun’s heat from reaching the surface of the Earth, causing temperatures to drop.

The opposite is true; a more active sun has a stronger magnetic field that shields the Earth from cosmic rays. This means less ionization and cloud-building, so more of the sun’s warming energy reaches the surface.

When the sun’s activity is low for many decades it is called a Grand Solar Minimum. During the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1850, we experienced four consecutive Grand Solar Minimums; at that time the average global temperature was about 1°C lower than today.

Conversely, sustained high solar activity is called a Grand Solar Maximum and the most recent occurrence was during much of the 20th century when we experienced about 1°C of global warming.

The IPCC, with Trudeau‘s adherence, dismiss solar changes even though a 1% reduction in cloud cover could explain the global warming of the past century.

Eliminating The Carbon Tax is a Great Idea.

As Dr. Lars Schernikau, Ph.D. in Energy Economics and who grew up in the centrally planned economy of East Germany points out “…because pricing one externality but not others leads to economic and environmental distortions… causing human suffering.”

His example is particularly applicable to Canada where CO2 pricing is only on combustion, but green technology is exempt:

“How else could a ‘Net-Zero’ label be assigned to a solar panel produced from coal and minerals extracted in Africa with diesel-run equipment, transported to China on a vessel powered by fuel oil, and processed with energy from coal- or gas-fired power using partially with forced labor?”

Technology Cannot Handle CO2 Emissions.

In fact, technology is rather bad at handling CO2 emissions. Let’s look at wind power first. A 15% drop in wind speed equates to a 40% drop in electrical generation. Europe is a prime example of the failure of wind power.

That failure transferred European energy security to Russia which enabled it to invade Ukraine. American solar power failures became the highlight of Michael Moore’s documentary Planet of the Humans.

Hydrogen fuel cells were aptly described by Elon Musk as “mind-bogglingly stupid.” Burning hydrogen directly is not only an extreme safety risk (leaks from plastic local distribution pipelines), but it produces six times the smog-causing nitrous oxides that natural gas does.

Many hydroelectric dams produce more greenhouse gases than the burning of coal due to the cement-related CO2 and methane emissions from the artificial lakes.

Fully electric vehicles are a bad idea for Canada because (a) in very cold weather their driving range is halved while the charging time is doubled and (b) we don’t have the grid capacity to charge them anyway.

Adding ethanol to gasoline does not reduce CO2 emissions. That’s just an accounting trick, but not much of a trick because ethanol emissions are simply not counted. However, it does drive up food prices significantly, as food is converted to fuel. This is devastating to the world’s poor.

Carbon capture and storage in Canada’s oil sector would divert large sums of money away from being available for health care and reducing taxes while providing no impact on the steadily increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration (which incidentally is also driving up global crop yields).

Capping CO2 emissions from Canada’s oil industry just means a dictator’s oil will fill the market gap we could have ethically and responsibly filled.

Canada’s Next Election.

A global fear of climate change has led to panic, panic has led to bad decisions, and bad decisions have led to failure. The result is energy poverty, hunger, massive distortions of the free market, and a shooting war in Europe. That’s a far cry from the United Nations’ mandate of promoting peace.

Trudeau’s game plan for climate change is more fear, more panic, and more failure. Meanwhile, not a single signatory to the 2015 Paris Agreement is on track to meet their 1.5°C emissions reductions target. Additionally, Canada now holds the title of the world’s most useful climate idiot and we have become a house divided.

A rational game plan would include only facts established by the scientific method, and dispassionate deliberation from the larger scientific and engineering community (wherein Canadians still enjoy a respected reputation).

Canadians should not fear climate change; they should understand it and prepare as necessary. We need a new plan based on evident realities, not science “experienced differently” by Trudeau.

What we should truly fear is Trudeau’s fight against climate change.

Best regards,

CO2 Coalition Member Ron Barmby (www.ronaldbarmby.ca) is a Professional Engineer with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, whose 40+ year career in the energy sector has taken him to over 40 countries on five continents. His book, Sunlight on Climate Change: A Heretic’s Guide to Global Climate Hysteria (Amazon, Barnes & Noble), explains in layman’s terms the science of how natural and human-caused global warming work.

Energy Doublethink

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Doublethink: The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Michael Lynch provides the latest doublethink example regarding global energy in his Forbes article International Energy Week Is A Lesson In Cognitive Dissonance. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

A climate activists from the Extinction Rebellion group.. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by … [+]AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The slogan for London’s prestigious International Energy Week now going on is “Transitioning out of Crisis,” reflecting the focus of the conference on the post-Ukrainian-War energy industry and the transition to renewables. As their website says, it is “the global conference focused on transitioning out of the geopolitical and environmental crises facing energy….Climate change impacts and projections are worsening; international prices post-COVID are volatile and hitting consumers hard; and the effects of Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine are rippling out across the global economy. The energy transition offers enduring solutions, some immediate, others longer-term.”

Most of dozen primary speakers are from the renewable energy industry, or renewable/low carbon executives in the fossil fuel industry, with only two ‘pure’ oil executives, the CEOs of BP and Petronas. Presumably, the organizers would argue, the future is a transition to renewable and low-carbon energy, thus the emphasis.

But at the same time, though, we had industry executives commenting: “Demand is expected to hit record levels in the second half of the year,” Vitol Chief Executive Officer Russell Hardy said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The prospect of higher prices in the second half of the year, in the sort of $90-$100 range, is a real possibility.” International Energy Week Returns to London With Talk of $100 Oil – Bloomberg

Cognitive dissonance is the holding of contradictory views:
expecting higher fossil fuel demand while arguing that the crisis is heralding
an accelerated energy transition seems a perfect example.

The lesson of the current energy crisis is not that acceleration of the transition is needed, but that renewables are not capable of stepping up in a crisis and that consumers cherish cheap energy much more than ‘clean’ energy. Imagining a conference that provides much more realistic assessments of our energy future is easy; imagining those arguments given serious consideration by most media and pundits, not so much.

As I have written recently, oil prices could be higher later this year, but they could also be lower, depending on what happens to supply from Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Angola, Libya and Nigeria, not necessarily in that order. But record levels of demand are much more certain for the simple fact that the heavy investments in renewables and electric vehicles have had marginal impact to date on oil demand, or fossil fuel demand overall, as the figure below shows.

Global Energy Consumption in Exajoules THE AUTHOR FROM BP DATA.

Careful scrutiny does show a couple instances when demand fell, namely the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic, however, it seems unlikely that policy-makers will promote those as solutions to climate change.

To paraphrase the famous quote from the Vietnam War,
“We have to destroy the economy in order to save it.”

To date, it appears that renewables have largely supplemented not replaced fossil fuel consumption, despite large-scale investments and much enthusiasm about the glowing success and prospects for the renewable industry (including electric vehicles). This resembles past transitions where consumption of the dominant fuel such as coal does not disappear but new demand is met from its successor, such as oil and gas.

One problem with the conference’s approach is the long-standing tendency
for pundits to embrace consensus, sometimes without regard for reality.

One famous energy pundit in 1983 remarked “But then, in late 1981 and early 1982, U.S. consumers, encouraged by some unknowing writers and economists, began to believe that OPEC members were no longer able to hold up oil prices and that all of America’s energy problems were over. This misperception, which was encouraged by the desire for a simple view and a simple solution, obscured the nature of the energy situation.”[emphasis added; citation from “A Cautionary Tale for Oil Companies Navigating the Energy Transition,” on realclearenegy.com Cautionary Tale for Oil Companies in the Energy Transition | RealClearEnergy] Two years later, the price collapsed and remained low for fifteen years, as if a host of experts had not predicted otherwise.

Additionally, at most conferences the ‘sexy’ is favored over the boring. This is reminiscent of the way Enron was the darling of the media for its insistence that “Vertically integrated behemoths like ExxonMobilXOM -1.9% Corp. (XOM ), whose balance sheet was rich with oil reserves, gas stations, and other assets, were dinosaurs to a contemptuous Skilling.” (emphasis added; source ibid) Speeches hailing the coming of the ‘virtual corporation’ proliferated—until Enron collapsed in scandal and bankruptcy.

Larry Goldstein and I have written about the possible failure of the energy transition, but it is hardly a popular view. Like Midas’ barber, we could be whispering into a hole in the ground: the potential failure is not so much secret as unwanted.

Perhaps there should be a sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth,”
focusing on the difficulties of the transition and the potential that it would not
live up to even the more modest expectations of some advocates.

This probably sounds like the many eccentrics who point out that the scientific community has often been wrong, for example, refusing to accept the theory of continental drift. But that doesn’t mean that the scientific consensus should be ignored, rather that skeptical views should be considered rather than rejected out of hand. And by considered, I do not mean cherry-picking opposite views as evidence. (Something my peak oil critics often did.)

See Also 2022 Update: Fossil Fuels ≠ Global Warming

 

War on Gas Stoves Heating Up

Posted on by Ron Clutz

As explained  below, the move against gas stoves is just an opening into a larger war against methane because of its CO2 emissions.  Coal was bashed as a fuel already long ago, and now activists want to disqualify gas lest it serve as a bridge energy source with much lower CO2 emissions, delaying the desired upheaval.  The current assault on domestic appliances should be seen as the thin edge of a wedge to destroy natural gas supply, in parallel with actions against coal and oil.

February 27, 2023 Update

From E & E Wire: DOE rule may block 50% of current gas stove models

Half of gas stove models sold in the United States today won’t comply with a first-ever efficiency regulation on cooking appliances, according to a new analysis from the Department of Energy.

The projection, which DOE posted online two weeks after the rule’s release Jan. 31, aims to provide more clarification on the expected impact of a proposal earlier this month that is now receiving comments from the public (Energywire, Feb. 1).

DOE says the cooking regulation will preserve some market share for gas stoves that have at least one high-input rate burner and continuous cast iron grates, two features that DOE determined are priorities for the public. Both features use a lot of energy.

If enacted, the proposed rule would be the second major DOE regulation affecting stovetops — existing standards prohibit constant burning pilots for gas cooking products. DOE is moving forward with the rule along with other efficiency standards, including for distribution transformers, washing machines and refrigerators (Energywire, Feb. 16).

Background from Previous Post:  Gas Stoves Just a Starter

Mark Krebs and Tom Tanton explain the ins and outs of this new phase encroaching upon the citizenry where they live.  Their Master Resource article is Gas Stoves: The Beloved Blue Flame is Just Better.  Some excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images and headers.

The Larger Federal Goal:  Transition Away from Natural Gas

The concern should not be about gas stove usage but the public policy of The Biden Administrative State to wean consumers off the direct use of natural gas and propane and on to electric appliances, ASAP. This “transition” includes how to heat your home, heat your water, cook, and drive.

Gas cooking is highly valued by consumers, virtually all of whom have normal taste buds. It is the one gas appliance that consumers see and use daily. The blue flame is part of home life, as is the fireplace run by gas or propane.

In contrast, the furnace and water heater usually tucked away in the basement or equipment closet and operate unseen. Also unseen are the legions of new electric power plants transmission lines and battery storage system to provide ostensibly “clean” juice for these new electric appliances and the serious environmental, strategic, and human rights impacts from mining and processing heavy metals and rare earths.

In fact, no one has done a comparative full fuel cycle analysis to document whether electrification is a good idea or a bad one; at least not a transparent analysis that has been subject to independent technical debate. Neither have the all-electrification busybodies presented a comprehensive plan to produce the millions of batteries necessary for the electrical grid to be able to handle all these new uses, while burdened by intermittent wind and solar.

Govt. Misdirection:  Claims Gas Stoves Hazardous to Indoor Air Quality

The first ploy was to claim gas stoves are unsafe concerning air pollutants.  Several problems with this attempt to regulate away these cooking appliances.

Fear mongering about the “existential threat” from Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hasn’t been working as well as planned. So maybe, they hope, additional fearmongering about how parents are putting their own children at risk due to respiratory ailments, such as asthma from your stove will do the trick.

There are at least three agencies leading the Biden Administration’s whole-of-government fossil-fuel eradication efforts. These are:

  • DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy” (EERE)
  • The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
  • The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

None of these agencies have Congressional authority to regulate “indoor air pollution.” EERE has been pushing electrification at least since the Obama Administration, and it continued even throughout the Trump Administration. The Biden Administration simply removed the nominal (if any) restraints there may have been under Biden’s “whole of government” executive orders (EOs) to reduce GHG’s: e.g., Executive Order (EO) 13990.

In EERE’s case certain EO obstacles include that they still must act “as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.” The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) is one such law. EPCA is also supposed to promote regulatory objectivity. Under EPCA, DOE/EERE must also “consider” safety.

The science that the Biden Administration claims to guide such regulatory decisions
is far from conclusive that gas stoves are harmful.

Instead, the Biden Administration and its supporters “cherry pick” data that supports regulatory expansion. In this case, the science comes from the highly partisan Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). A major activity (and bias) of RMI is its “Electricity Innovation Lab. It reiterates RMI’s mission to achieve a carbon-free electricity monopoly.

According to independent scientific researchers with a deep knowledge of this subject, most of the “indoor air pollution” is emitted from the food itself being cooked. Such pollution is in the form of particulates from cooking food regardless of what form of energy is doing the cooking. Those particulates may be especially harmful to adolescent asthmatics.

More Govt. Hype: Replacements More Efficient than Gas Stoves

Government Orange Gas?

What is it exactly that DOE wants to force on consumers under the guise of “energy efficiency in the case of gas stoves? It appears to be a relatively new type of gas stove burner that glows orange (infrared, a.k.a., “radiant”) instead of the blue flames present in traditional burners that consumers are accustomed to. Infrared burners have been around for a long time, especially for gas BBQ grills but they don’t last long. Infrared burner adoption for consumer kitchen cooking appliances have been limited to a few high-end “prosumer” gas ranges. Costs for such models tend to be in the vicinity of $7,000 to $9,000. One example is Wolf/Sub Zero’s Model # GR364G with a MSRP of $8,760. And only the griddle portion of that model is infrared. According to DOE, there may be one model that is all infrared but good luck finding it.

In comparison, a basic electric range can be purchased for under $500. Granted, if DOE mandates infrared gas burners, mass production could decrease cost premiums. But for cost-conscious consumers, such premiums will likely far exceed those of electric stoves, even induction electric stoves.

Forcibly moving the market via equipment costs is a typical DOE strategy.
And then they say, “let the market decide.

Part of DOE’s bag of tricks for justifying higher gas appliance efficiencies is to minimize maintenance costs and safety concerns.  At a minimum, “worst-case scenario” analyses are needed to determine how infrared burners perform in the “real world” of “messy” stoves. In messy situations, infrared burners may turn into product liabilities. And they may have to be replaced; that can quickly get expensive. It is at least possible that “dirty” infrared burners emit more pollutants than traditional blue flame burners. DOE needs to “consider” safety consequences of its energy efficiency proposals going forward.  It is not evident that they have.

Likewise, DOE tends to minimize its estimations for what the increased prices will be that consumers must bear from increased efficiency.  Taken together with other forms of analytical “trickery,” consumer cost-effectiveness can quickly become negative.

Since pictures are “worth a thousand words, see Shutterstock’s 223 images of infrared gas stoves. Several of these are pictures of infrared burners that have experienced obvious degradation from cooking spills.

There’s also movement on the electrical stove side of all this. That is, electric stoves continue to change and the technology du jour is the induction stove. Induction stoves electro-magnetically couple the stove with the pan, directly heating the pan and not the stove. They are more efficient than tradition hot coil electric resistance stoves but are also more expensive and require magnetic cookware. They too, have associated health risks (Induction stoves may not be safe to use with pacemakers; “People with pacemakers are better off avoiding induction stoves.”)

Perverse Incentives in Inflation reduction Act

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act provides perverse incentives for switching to electricity.  These incentives are summarized as follows:

DOE also needs to consider the safety feature of having a gas stove during extended electric grid blackouts that may make the difference between consumers and their water pipes freezing or not.  This benefit was widely observed in Texas during Winter Storm Uri.

To make a logical scientific argument about consumer safety concerns with gas burners, DOE must clearly and transparently demonstrate a safety issue with conventional “blue flame” burners.  Instead, DOE is proposing a one-way move to infrared burners based upon theoretical economic operating cost advantages of a few percentage points.

Meanwhile, DOE is not mandating a move from electric resistance stoves to higher efficiency  electric induction  stoves that, according to the EPA,  can be “5-10% more efficient than conventional electric resistance units.”  EPA’s verbiage following that quote states: “and about 3 times more efficient than gas.”  That latter verbiage is tantamount to professing a belief that electricity is magically created inside of the house’s electric meter. This is pretty much “par for the course” for the Biden Administration’s “Green New Deal” energy and environmental policies.

Under EPCA’s anti-backsliding provisions, once infrared burners are mandated, there is no going back to traditional (blue flame) gas burners. Thus, if consumers want to regain better cooking maintenance and reliability, they can only switch to electric stoves. We think that’s their plan! Consumers will probably choose electric resistance varieties due to their relatively low initial purchase cost. What this portends, at least for the next few decades, is that energy efficiency when measured over the complete fuel-cycle is massively reduced throughout most of the United States where fossil fuels still dominate electric grid generation. The same goes for emissions when measured along the complete fuel-cycle.

The direct use of natural gas makes the most sense economically and environmentally for consumers. Consumers are losing that choice.

Conclusion–Why The Crusade?

Why is the Biden Administration messing with a piece of Americana. Is it to try the hardest part first? Or because “clean” electrification is where the money is? With passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, it is definitely where the subsidies are. The enormity of these subsidies are like an all-you-can-eat buffet for Green New Deal enrichment.

Phasing out natural gas and propane is not merely for the U.S. to meet its commitments for “deep decarbonization” per the UN’s Paris accords. It’s also about “great reset” social control. With the advent of “smart” electric meters and appliances, it’s relatively easy to centrally control electricity usage.

Coupled with digital currency, it then becomes relatively easy to control behavior, such as remotely changing YOUR living room thermostat or disabling your car. Early dinner? No: you’ll cook when the power is temporarily turned on to your stove.  But if you project the correct attitude of cheerful compliance, you may be awarded with an extra ration of electricity.

DOE needs to stop politicizing energy appliances on unfounded predictions that “clean” renewable electricity will soon dominate the grid. This scenario is not at all probable given the cost and enormity of the quest. Big Brother is already running wild and must be leashed/removed. Given that DOE’s proposed rule calls for yearly energy consumption limits for cooking appliances, rationing might not be totally far-fetched. The time to expose and eradicate is now.

Appendices to Master Resource Article

Appendix A: Call To Action (Next Steps, What You Can Do)

Appendix B: Further Reading

Footnote

Obviously, bans against ICE vehicles will also prohibit those running on LNG (Liquified Natural Gas). See Consumers Report: Tesla Road Trip

As for fertilizer banning,  half of the people on Earth are alive today thanks to nitrogenous fertilizers made of and with natural gas.  So why are governments at home and abroad scrambling to cut off humanity’s natural gas supply?

See Natural Gas – Generated Nitrogenous Fertilizers Prevent Worse World Hunger

Bypass Contrived Catastrophes

Posted on by Ron Clutz

“Nothing so focuses the mind as the sight of the gallows.” wrote Samuel Johnson.  He went on to say,

“Executions are intended to draw spectators. If they don’t draw spectators, they don’t answer their purpose”,  Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Terrence Keeley discusses how to resist our current crop of elites who govern by declaring emergencies instead of solving problems. His insights are timely since this week PM Trudeau was given a free pass by a Canada Appeals court judge to repeat his emergency sanctions against protesting truckers should anyone else object to his policies. The article at Real Clear Wire is Navigating Contrived Catastrophes Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Perhaps this explains why political leaders repeatedly fabricate existential crises in lieu of governing responsibly. Without the sword of Damocles overhead, policymakers just can’t seem to get the adulation they so desperately crave.

Take the fake debt ceiling crisis. The U.S. federal debt cap was first enacted in 1917 when our national debt stood at $5.7 billion. Congress has since raised it more than 90 times with broad bipartisan support. There is ZERO chance they won’t do so again, yet we are told we must quiver and quake until they do. For some reason, a $31.4 trillion limit just isn’t enough to run the greatest country on earth properly.

Or better yet, consider the much-ballyhooed “Net Zero by 2050” time bomb. There was no science behind its selection of the 1.5 degree above pre-industrial temperature target. It was intentionally contrived so politicians and pundits could insist we spend hundreds of trillions of dollars reconfiguring every personal and industrial process to mute it, possibly by a degree or two. Anthropogenic activities are clearly taxing our air, water, and lands. Depending upon tradeoffs like affordability and reliability (and what China, India, and Russia decide to do), less carbon-intensive energy sources may well be preferable, too. Convincing our younger generation they will all die unless the globe urgently reduces its net carbon footprint to zero is another matter altogether. Being more mindful about our consumption patterns while preparing our communities for the probability of more violent weather would be too simple. Better to scare everyone out of their wits so we can get on with doing witless things.

Great societies thrive on consistent policy competence. Failing ones lurch
from crisis to crisis. Contriving catastrophic scenarios all but ensures
hysteria will supplant sober, reasoned analysis.

Some will argue extreme threats are needed to force modest, salutary changes. After all, a handful of U.S. debt ceiling votes brought about useful policy changes, like the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings breakthrough and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Similarly, threats of impending climate doom have led many individuals and corporations to examine their energy use, seek cleaner alternatives, and eliminate unnecessary waste.

But have these modest advances been worth the price of the abject delirium
that has accompanied them? And are recurrent, contrived catastrophes
somehow producing better policy outcomes?

Evidently not. Three essential U.S. social programs – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – are barreling along towards insolvency. Just as the retirement age in France must rise to reflect longer life expectancies and taxation tipping points, so too must U.S. retirement programs respect demographic realities. Maintaining peace through strength in an increasingly dangerous world requires that the U.S. spend more on defense, not less. Unless the current debt ceiling crisis leads to an honest rUeckoning about our most urgent tax and spending priorities, heightened hysteria serves no useful end. Worse, all the faux debt ceiling dynamics convince politicians they’ve somehow done their jobs when instead, they’ve abrogated them entirely.

Similarly, we speak about an “energy transition,” but no realistic projection of future fossil fuel consumption shows any meaningful decline in the century to come. Rising populations, improved living standards, reliability needs for the three billion humans who are still energy insecure, and the first order demands of national security reveal oil and gas will remain crucial sources of our energy mix for as far as the eye can see. The most logical response would be to prioritize energy reliability while recalibrating our emissions mitigation spending towards more climate adaptation priorities. Why spend $100 trillion or more on something that has been entirely contrived and is all but certain to fail when you can spend $50 trillion or less on something that would demonstrably save human lives while improving their livelihoods?

History is festooned with countless ruses about the end of time, some more disruptive than others. They include those of French Bishop Martin of Tours in 375 A.D., and Jim Jones in 1967. Many thousands believed the so-called Y2K cliff would crash every computer, triggering global economic ruin and the rise of the Antichrist. Yet, remarkably, here we all still are, higher in number than ever.

In time, trillions of dollars of investment products now priced against
Net Zero 2050 deadlines will need to be abandoned.

Similarly, the U.S. debt ceiling will be lifted multiple times before responsible members of both parties finally put our tax and spending trajectories into sustainable balance. Panic, like blackmail, compromises sensible thinking. Calm acceptance of measurable risks and their reasonable mitigation are the essence of wise decision-making.

The next time a politician tells you Armageddon is nigh, remind them it’s their only job to make sure it isn’t. If you’ve got the patience for it, you can also show them how easy it would be to avoid.

 

EU Makes ESG Regs Inescapable

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Mish writes at his blog based on a report from South China Morning Post 

The EU Warns “There is No Escape” from its ESG Environment Madness Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. H/T Tyler Durden

The demand for highly paid ESG nannycrats to enforce nonsensical rules is on the rise. This will cause a rippling impact of higher inflation everywhere.

From South China Morning Report: Please note Impending EU Laws on ESG Disclosures Will Be a Matter of Survival for Asian Suppliers.

Impending regulations in the European Union, which is at the forefront on ESG legislation, will soon require tens of thousands of suppliers across the supply chain in Asia to report their ESG performance, said Amfori president Linda Kromjong.

“If you don’t start preparing now, you will be late if and when
the legislation kicks in,” she told the Post.

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, due to be rolled out next year, will require companies to disclose how sustainability issues, such as climate change, impact their business and how their operations in turn affect people and the planet.

Some 50,000 companies – all large companies and listed small and medium-sized firms – will have to make such disclosures, up from 11,700 large companies and public entities with more than 500 employees mandated under existing legislation. Auditing of the disclosures will be mandatory.

These companies will in turn require their global suppliers to disclose their sustainability data, such as greenhouse-gas emissions, so that they can calculate their own environmental footprints and social risk exposure.

The European Parliament’s environment committee last Thursday backed tougher legislation that will force firms with over 250 staff and annual worldwide turnover of more than €40 million (US$42.8 million), to check and report whether their suppliers within and outside Europe use slave or child labour, or pollute the environment.

Escape From the Madness

‘There is no escape’ from impending European Union rules requiring sustainability reporting, Amfori president Linda Kromjong warns Asian suppliers

Also note that Brussels-based Amfori provides digital tools and training for suppliers to do self-assessments on ESG performance and compare themselves with industry benchmarks, based on international standards.

And you probably can guess what that means

If not, then please make another note: Hong Kong to pay 30 per cent more for ESG jobs as companies fight for talent to meet sustainability targets.

If you don’t think this madness is hugely inflationary, then you just are not thinking at all. 

My Comment

Indeed, we can see where this is going.  RegulationFare is like LawFare:  The process is the punishment.  Ronald  Reagan’s observation comes to mind:

In the end, the state directs business to meet state objectives, either through ownership or through agency rules. That brings in the reality described by Trotsky: