Climate Initiatives

What Keeps “Energy Transition” Going? $ $ $

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Robert Gauthier answered posting on a Quora topic How could we reverse the damage done by the “green energy” global scam that brought less efficient and highly polluting energy producing projects and high energy prices? Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Wind and solar power has provided politicians with an excuse to dispense favours—including taxpayer-funded subsidies and tax preferences to a supposedly “green” industry—while appearing to do something for the environment. And yet, despite more than two decades of massive subsidies, tax preferences and purchasing mandates from governments, wind and solar power still represent barely more than a rounding error of global energy production. In jurisdictions where renewables enjoyed strong but ill-considered political support, consumers and taxpayers now face much higher electricity bills and less-reliable power. And despite promises to the contrary, countries such as Germany, which have significantly increased wind and solar electricity production, have seen no meaningful reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Far from being a miracle cure-all for the shortcomings of conventional power generation, wind and solar power exaggerate the symptoms they pretend to address. Added up over the past two decades, the cumulative subsidies across the world for biofuels, wind, and solar approach about $5 trillion, all of that to supply roughly 5% of global energy.

The whole justification for the falling costs of wind generation rested on the assumption that much bigger turbines would produce more output at lower capex cost per megawatt, without the large costs of generational change. Now we have confirmation that such optimism is entirely unjustified – the whole development process has been a case of too far, too fast. Again, this was both predictable and predicted. The idea that wind turbines are immune to the factors that affect other types of power engineering was always absurd. The consequence is that both capital and operating costs for wind farms will not fall as rapidly as claimed and may not fall significantly at all. It follows that current energy policies in the West are based on foundations of sand – naïve optimism reinforced by enthusiastic lobbying divorced from engineering reality.

In the end, however, politicians cannot defy the laws of physics and economics. The promise of wind and solar power will always clash with the need for electricity that is low cost and reliable. That’s why voters routinely punish politicians who pursue flawed renewable energy policies. Rising electricity costs due to increased wind and solar power damage the economy by making businesses that consume significant volumes of electricity less competitive and by leaving less money in the pockets of consumers.

In Ontario, Canada during the run of the Green Energy Act there which attempted to replace coal and nuclear with wind and solar the upshot was a 138% increase in the price of electricity at the meter for the consumers. This led to the government that brought in this legislation to lose the next election so badly that they were no longer recognized as a party in the legislature. Naturally the government that replaced them killed the program and started refurbishing the nuclear reactor fleet there.

Unfortunately, solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. The real estate that wind and solar energy demand led the Nature Conservancy to issue a report last year critical of “energy sprawl,” including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.

Land required for wind farms to power London UK

Building a single 100-MW wind farm—never mind thousands of them—requires some 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, as well as 900 tons of nonrecyclable plastics for the huge blades. With solar hardware, the tonnage in cement, steel, and glass is 150% greater than for wind, for the same energy output

Take batteries. It is estimated that current battery manufacturing capabilities will need to be in the order of 500-700 times bigger than now to support an all-electric global transport system. The materials needed just to allow the UK to transition to all electric transport involve amounts of materials equal to 200% the annual global production of cobalt, 75% of lithium carbonate, 100% of neodymium and 50% of copper. Scaling by a factor of 50 for world transport, and you see what is now a showstopper. The materials demands just for batteries are beyond known reserves.

And that’s just one of the issues. Others include vast costs constituting a multiple of current energy costs; the environmental impact of mining and transporting huge amounts of materials; need for vast amounts of rare elements, far beyond known world reserves; incredibly huge amounts of material to recycle when facilities wear out; and on and on.

Spend enough time researching this stuff and you gradually realize that almost everything you read about green energy shows that at best it’s really a dark shade of brown.

German Death Wish On Display

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Tilak Doshi describes the self-inflicted German downfall in his Daily Sceptic article Germany’s Economic and Political Suicide. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

It’s that festive time of the year when interesting tales get told around a fireplace. So here goes (minus the fireplace).

Once upon a time there lived a country that was the envy of the world. It was among the world’s pre-eminent producers of manufactured goods. From chemicals and pharmaceuticals to precision engineering and the brewing of beer, it was second to none. Its people’s work skills, industriousness and discipline became the national hallmark of civilisational success. The country gained fame and fortune in bringing the luxuries of fine automobiles to the world’s rich and aspiring middle classes.

Alas, a blight visited that once great country not more than a score of years ago, though its destructive seed had been planted earlier. It was not some external force or act of God. Rather it was a sickness of the mind, a debilitating disease of the soul, that vexed that country’s ruling class. In restless search for virtue, the country’s rulers paid obeisance to the Goddess Gaia and promised the nation’s blood and treasure to satiate her inviolable sovereignty over her earthly domains.

This, then, is a tale of woe and misery. This Christmas shall not have been one of unalloyed merry times and good cheer. And while beer will have been drunk and dinners eaten in many a hearth and eating place, the lifeblood of that nation shall be constricted and its breathing blocked by a cursed phlegm as normal life resumes in the New Year.

Within the fateful score of years of becoming afflicted by the primordial cult of Gaia, the world’s envy has now become a sad basket case. Its economy has been tarnished as “the sick man of Europe”.

The beginning of the end of the German miracle

While the travails of Germany along with the economic stagnation of Europe as a whole have been apparent for some years now, the spate of dire headlines have gathered pace in recent weeks as the coalition government collapsed.

“Behind Germany’s Political Turmoil, a Stagnating Economy” — New York Times (December 17th)

“Germany Is Unraveling Just When Europe Needs It Most” – Bloomberg (December 15th)

“Europe’s Economic Apocalypse Is Now” – Politico (December 19th):

If Europe – and its economic powerhouse Germany – remains on its current trajectory, its future, Politico says, “will also be Italian: that of a decaying, if beautiful, debt-ridden, open-air museum for American and Chinese tourists”.

The economic rot induced by the adoption of Energiewende policies for the “energy transition” in 2010 resulted ultimately in the recession of the German economy in the last two years. Among the manifestations of this rot are the growth of corporate bankruptcies in double digits, soaring layoffs as the Federal Employment Agency said that the unemployment figure could exceed the three million mark for the first time in 10 years at the beginning of 2025, and the crown jewel of German industry, its automative sector, announcing massive job cuts.

According to a recent poll, 40% of industrial companies are currently considering reducing their production in Germany or relocating it abroad due to the energy situation; among industrial companies with more than 500 employees, more than half are now considering this. High labour costs, caused by the myriad regulations of a hyperactive administrative state, and among the world’s highest energy prices brought about by its Energiewende folly, have led to the nation’s de-industrialisation.

Germany’s governing coalition collapsed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, plunging Europe’s largest economy into political chaos. This occurred barely hours after Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory triggered existential questions about the future of the Continent’s economy and its energy security. Mr. Trump – a climate sceptic who has promised to bring the U.S. out of the UN’s Paris Agreement and its financial commitments for large scale transfers of funds to developing countries – will pull the rug out from under the EU’s famed if quixotic climate leadership.

Europe’s economic implosion is self-induced. Its ruling elites over-tax and over-regulate the private sector and obsess with promoting unreliable renewable energy to replace fossil and nuclear fuels in its crusade to ‘save the planet’ from an alleged impending climate apocalypse. Its attempt to blame Russia’s President Putin for high energy prices is hollow and self-serving.

Perhaps most revealing of Europe’s regulatory hubris is the Qatari Energy Minister’s recent statement that “I am not bluffing”. He warned that Qatar, one of the world’s largest natural gas suppliers, would cease gas exports to the EU if the bloc’s countries imposed penalties under recently adopted legislation on “sustainability due diligence”. For Europe to tell the world that it would punish foreign countries that did not buy into their “sustainability” beliefs might seem to most non-European observers as the height of arrogance. But such is the delusionary might of the Gaia cult.

The EU’s “Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive”, which entered into force in July, allows for fines of up to 5% of a company’s annual global revenue “if the management fails to address adverse human rights or environmental impacts”. Bumptious Brussels bureaucrats seem to believe that their ideas of “sustainability” command universal acceptance. This, in a world where China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other populous developing countries, accounting for most of the world’s population, are busy expanding their capacity to mine coal and other fossil fuels so as to afford their citizens access to affordable and reliable energy.

 

Back to barbarism

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

So said Adam Smith, the great sage of political economy, over 250 years ago. Germany has shown that the converse may also be true. To go from opulence to poverty and potential barbarism is but a short road, assured by the burden of high taxes in service of an alleged climate crisis, and an intolerable administration of “climate justice” that demands suffocating regulations on the private sector.

UK Labour Caught in Own Net-Zero Trap

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Rupert Darwall explains how UK Labour ensnared itself in his Spectator article  Labour has walked into a net-zero trap of its own making. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The government’s net-zero noose draws tighter. At energy questions in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative MP Charlie Dewhirst asked the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband if the recent report by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) projected higher or lower bills under his policies. Miliband replied that Neso forecast lower overall costs. ‘It is completely logical to say that that will lead to a reduction in bills,’ he said.

Logic and historic data point in the opposite direction. Between 2009 and 2020, the average price of electricity sold by the Big Six energy companies rose by 67 per cent from 10.71p per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 17.92p per kWh. This wasn’t caused by any increase in the cost of natural gas. In fact, the average price paid by major power generators fell by 15 per cent over the period. There was, however, a spectacular explosion in the amount of wind and solar on the grid which rose from 4.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2009 to 37.95 GW in 2020.

Source: efficientbuildingsolutions.co.uk

The upward pressure on prices will only increase as Miliband pushes for more offshore wind. Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported a senior energy investment banker commenting on the hubris of the offshore wind industry, which has been hit by higher interest rates and supply chain inflation. Renewable energy projects require enormous upfront investment costs. The pay-off, its advocates argue, is that renewables have no fuel input costs. But it would be a mistake to assume they have minimal ongoing costs.

Source: Gordon Hughes See: https://rclutz.com/2024/08/21/the-short-lives-of-wind-turbines/

The North Sea is a harsh environment for wind turbines; fixing a defective wind turbine in the middle of the ocean is no easy matter. A 2020 forensic analysis of wind company accounts by Edinburgh University’s Professor Gordon Hughes found that Year 1 operating costs for deepwater wind projects averaged £44 per megawatt hour (MWh), rising to £82 per MWh in Year 12. Moreover, the output efficiency of wind turbines degrades at a rate of around 4.5 per cent a year. When plotted against the market price obtained for wind output, Hughes concluded:

 ‘a significant portion of wind output is expensive to produce and of no value in terms of its contribution to national wellbeing’.

Renewable subsidies are awarded in allocation rounds. The fifth allocation round (AR5), conducted under the previous government, was a dud because of rising project costs caused by higher interest rates and supply chain inflation. Coming into office, Miliband was determined to make a big splash with AR6. He threw bill payers’ money at it with a record-breaking £1.555 billion subsidy pot. The government accepted bids totalling 9.6 GW, which includes 5.34 GW of offshore wind and 3.29 GW of solar, capacity which is useless when it’s likely to be most needed to meet peak electricity demand on winter evenings.

The government gives successful bidders guaranteed prices, irrespective of how much – or, more often, how little – the market values their output. Consumers are then forced to make up the difference between the market price and the set strike price they bid for. The average strike price for AR6 was very nearly £80 per MWh. Based on Professor Hughes’s analysis of load factor decay and rising maintenance costs, there is a high risk that offshore wind becomes lossmaking well before Year 12. Floating offshore wind, which Miliband says ‘is at the heart of the government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower’, was awarded an eye-watering strike price of £176 per MWh.

Larger subsidies and floating offshore wind are hardly conducive to cutting bills.

Until mid-October, the wholesale price of electricity in 2024 averaged £78.70 per MWh. The more wind and solar added at strike prices above wholesale prices mathematically drives up the amount of subsidy consumers must pay. But the cost of renewables doesn’t stop there. Because wind farms are mostly located hundreds of miles from where electricity is used, when grid connections get congested, wind farms are paid constraint payments not to generate electricity.

Decongesting all the wind power on the grid doesn’t come cheap either. Miliband’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, published earlier this month, envisages building twice as much new transmission infrastructure in the next five years as was built in the past decade. The faster the planned build-out, the higher the cost. It means that renewable strike prices are a floor on which constraint payments and higher network costs are added.

That’s not all. There’s a second net-zero factor driving up energy costs. Net-zero policies have been forcing conventional power stations off the grid. Britain’s dispatchable generating capacity (principally coal, gas and nuclear) peaked in 2010, by 2020 declining by 25.1 GW and shrinking dispatchable capacity by 28.5 per cent. This was mostly because 18.3 GW of coal-fired capacity was retired as Britain demonstrated its green virtue to the world by powering past coal. The problem comes when there’s insufficient wind to power the grid. That’s what happened this autumn. Unseasonably windless conditions saw wholesale electricity prices rise through October and November with a huge spike at the beginning of December.

The latest renewable lobbyist talking point is that gas sets the wholesale electricity price. The implication is that gas prices are driving up the cost of electricity. However, gas prices this year have been lower than they were in 2023. The culprit behind the surging electricity prices is not the price of gas, but politicians kicking coal off the grid and Britain not having sufficient gas-powered generating capacity to meet demand when there’s not enough wind. Vladimir Putin and Qatari gas sheikhs are not to blame for home-grown net zero policies that have left Britain with dangerously inadequate non-weather dependent generating capacity.

In this, Britain is not alone. As other countries are finding out, having more renewables on the grid destabilises the electricity market. Sweden has also had soaring electricity prices, says Ebba Busch, Sweden’s deputy prime minister and energy minister. Like Britain, Sweden has an extremely weather-dependant energy system which makes prices highly volatile, worsened by its German neighbour on the other side of Baltic. The need, Busch argues, is for ‘more dispatchable power production’.

This is politically impossible for the Starmer government. Labour is trapped by net zero and decarbonising the grid constitutes its overriding mission. So far, neither the Conservatives or Reform have stepped up. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch calls herself a net-zero sceptic and Reform’s Nigel Farage wants more nuclear. Whatever the merits of nuclear, there is no way in which new nuclear power stations can be built and commissioned fast enough to offset the retirement of Britain’s old ones, let alone substantially increasing the amount of nuclear power. They should be thinking and talking like Ebba Busch: Britain needs an emergency programme to build 20 GW of new gas-fired power stations. If that means suspending net zero, they should make the case that keeping the lights on and electricity bills down is a price worth paying.

 

Danish Fart Tax No Laughing Matter

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Paul Schwennesen explains the nefarious intent behind this latest government hostile takeover in his Daily Economy article.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Cow farts are a distraction, and the joke’s on us. The Danish tax is a
significant step toward state ownership of the means of production.

Denmark, according to The New York Times, is going ahead with its livestock “Burp Tax.” Though hotly contested, the Danish government has nevertheless finally settled on levying farmers 300 kroners (~$43) per ton for carbon dioxide emissions, ramping to $106 per ton by 2035. As is the case with many of these farm-targeted green interventions, the action is ludicrously ineffectual at addressing the trumped-up problem, while remarkably effective at further cementing state controls over economic production.

Part of the reason farms (and especially cows) are such fat targets for this kind of statist intervention is that, politically speaking, they are the perfect scapegoat. It all seems so harmless, after all — so silly even — that serious-minded folk risk looking ridiculous if they object. Is it really so very draconian, goes the argument, to ask farmers to reduce their cow flatulence? The ever-so-reasonable request (enforceable by law, to be sure) glides under the radar in a scree of giggle-inducing copy that distracts readers to what is really afoot.

The Times plays its part in this façade, relishing the chance to print “poop, farts, and burps” in the business section so that the regulation seems plucked from an impish children’s story rather than what it is: a deadly serious infringement on economic liberty.

Defenders of the scheme insist it is necessary to address the pressing issue of climate change. But even if we were to accept the lobby’s poorly understood climate science at face value, the claims would be dubious. Cows stand accused of emitting 5.6 metric tons in annual “CO2 equivalent” emissions. All this politically motivated tabulating and assessing completely ignores the other side of the ledger, the growing recognition that grazing livestock have a complex, largely offsetting (and quite probably net-positive) impact on overall carbon emissions. Nature, after all, doesn’t work in simple equations and we are woefully under-informed about the rich and inherently unmodelable world of stochastic ecology.

Give Daisy a Break.

The New York Times, by way of perspective, accounts for 16,979 metric tons of its own, meaning that it, as a single company, has the footprint of ten Danish dairies. What would readers of “All the News That’s Fit to Print” have to say about an annual tax of $730,000 a year, ramping to $1.8 million, being added to the newspaper stand price? Advocates of a free press might well ask why the government was using state power to make the newspaper of record less competitive.

But in any case, climate science and cow farts aren’t really the issue here.
The issue is essentially about control, and who gets to occupy the
commanding heights of a centrally managed economy.

“A tax on pollution has the aim to change behavior,” says Jeppe Bruss, the Danish “green transition” minister in an unguardedly candid moment. Government programs to change behavior are much easier to introduce slowly, and against somewhat laughable minority sectors like farming than against, say, the population at large. They do not seem eager, for instance, to levy additional burdens on average people’s heating and transport emissions, which combined dwarf the agricultural sector’s. The Times says that livestock emissions are “becoming” the largest share of Denmark’s share of climate pollution which is another way of saying that it isn’t the largest share.

If beef and milk production indeed posed such an existential climate risk, then why not simply tax the consumers of beef and milk who, after all, are the real source of the production signal? The answer, of course, is obvious: no politician wants to be pegged as the one who raised the price of butter for average Danish grandmothers. Politically, it is far easier to go after the farmers, knowing full well that any cost burdens on farm production will be passed along to consumers anyway — only then it will be the farmers’ fault, not the government’s.

It’s an old trick, a kind of regulatory-impact laundering scheme.

The success of the Danish strategy remains to be seen. If examples from the Netherlands and New Zealand are any indication, the plan may well backfire, with frustrated farmers taking to the street and even grabbing back the reins of power. It is a useful warning:

allowing government the power to surgically tax and thereby “change behavior”
of producers is the same as granting them economic planning privileges.

The Danish “Burp Tax” is a significant step toward the state ownership of the means of production, and as the history of centrally managed economies shows, it’s not likely to end well.

•

 

Trump to Bury Already Dead ESG

Posted on by Ron Clutz

John  Authers explains the demise of ESG in his Bloomberg article Trump Will Bury ESG, But It Was Already Dead. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The green investing revolution never stood a chance in the US once
ensnared by the culture wars, but that wasn’t the only cause of death.

Ever So Gone

As was obvious even before voters went to the polls, ESG was already a decisive loser in the US. The concept of Environmental, Social and Governance investing became hopelessly entangled with the culture war agenda, failed to deliver on its promises, and went into retreat. Rather than attempt a technocratic, clean, green way of changing capitalism, America has opted for something more nationalist, even mercantilist.

ESG as a term has been demonized by politicians on the right, to the point that BlackRock’s Larry Fink said that it had been “weaponized” and should no longer be used. Because of Fink’s stand on ESG issues, BlackRock has become a lightning rod for conservative attacks lumped in with identity politics. Startlingly, the company shows up in a list of “decadent and rootless” institutions that should be burned to the ground in a new book by Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, a distinction it bizarrely shares with the Boy Scouts of America and the Chinese Communist Party.

Supporters of the concept were already disillusioned that ESG had become little more than a marketing wheeze, and several big fund managers, including WisdomTree and Invesco, have faced fines in the US for “greenwashing” (claiming their products were greener than they really were). In France, BlackRock is under fire over allegations that 18 of its funds sold as sustainable are in fact investing in fossil fuels.

Regulator attitudes differ starkly across the Atlantic. In Europe, regulators have raised the ante by telling fund managers that they must reach minimum thresholds for environmental impact before they can use the ESG label — a move that makes it hard for them to keep investing in the US, where the best returns are, and requires them to become more active than is currently the case for many.

In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has watered down its requirements on companies to disclose ESG statistics — and the whole concept is close to unworkable unless everyone has to disclose standardized statistics. In September, it quietly disbanded its task force on ESG enforcement. Now, the Trump administration is likely to make dismantling such rules one of its first acts in office.

That will complete a retreat that has largely already taken place. A look at the total market cap of BlackRock’s flagship ETFs covering the global energy and clean energy sectors shows that after a boom in 2021, the clean energy fund has steadily dwindled, and is now worth slightly less than the main energy fund:

Investors Wash Their Hands of Clean Energy
There has been an exodus from clean energy stocks in the last two years

Much of this is driven by the declining share prices of clean energy stocks. However, if we look at the number of shares in the ETF, it’s clear that there were huge inflows during the pandemic, and much of that money has now been withdrawn.

Investors are losing interest in the concept, and claims that ESG would reduce
global warming, or starve fossil fuel groups of capital, look overblown.

Interest among the public has waned in the US — although not elsewhere. Google Trends shows that US searches for ESG and its synonyms tanked over the last two years, while continuing at much the same level elsewhere. The rest of the world still seems happy to give it a try, but America is no longer going along for the ride.

The pattern recurs in the news media. Counting stories published on the Bloomberg terminal from all sources shows interest peaking in 2016, when Donald Trump was first elected, and long before the flow of money went into reverse. By the time that Fink said ESG had been “weaponized,” interest was barely a third its 2016 level and has continued to dwindle.

Critically from the point of view of how capitalism is operating, the same pattern shows up in earnings call transcripts. Bloomberg’s Document Search function shows that executives — not just Larry Fink — no longer want to talk about it. This is our quarter-by-quarter measure of mentions of ESG and its various synonyms since 2010. Mentions exploded after the pandemic, and have tumbled since 2022. With this earning season roughly 90% over, interest from executives in ESG looks to be right back to pre-pandemic levels’.

This is at least in part because fund managers are no longer forcing the issue. BlackRock is admirably transparent about the way it votes its shares, and produces regular reports; here is the latest. As this chart from the report (which is worth a read) demonstrates, the amount of support from shareholders for environmental and social proposals has declined markedly over the last three years:

BlackRock itself upped its support for corporate governance proposals, but only backed 4% of social and environmental proposals (down from 20% two years earlier). It also declined to support any of the various anti-ESG proposals that were put forward, and complained that many of them were duplicative or poorly drafted. But the notion that ESG was going to change the way companies operate seems to be in retreat.

Once Trump is back in the White House in January, we’ll learn much more about how his economic nationalism will work. Fine-tuning capitalism to make it more long-termist and take into account more than the narrowly defined interests of shareholders — the big ESG idea — has been comprehensively defeated. Now we wait to see what version of mercantilism comes in its stead.

Footnote: Fundamental Reasons People Reject ESG Were Not Addressed by Author

 

 

 

 

Straight Talk on Climate Science and Net Zero

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Michael Simpson of Sheffield University did the literature review and tells it like it is in his recent paper The Scientific Case Against Net Zero: Falsifying the Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis published at Journal of Sustainable Development (2024).  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Abstract

The UK Net Zero by 2050 Policy was undemocratically adopted by the UK government in 2019. Yet the science of so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ is well known and there is no reason to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), or nitrous oxide (N2O) because absorption of radiation is logarithmic. Adding to or removing these naturally occurring gases from the atmosphere will make little difference to the temperature or the climate. Water vapor (H2O) is claimed to be a much stronger ‘greenhouse gas’ than CO2, CH4 or N2O but cannot be regulated because it occurs naturally in vast quantities.

This work explores the established science and recent developments in scientific knowledge around Net Zero with a view to making a rational recommendation for policy makers. There is little scientific evidence to support the case for Net Zero and that greenhouse gases are unlikely to contribute to a ‘climate emergency’ at current or any likely future higher concentrations. There is a case against the adoption of Net Zero given the enormous costs associated with implementing the policy, and the fact it is unlikely to achieve reductions in average near surface global air temperature, regardless of whether Net Zero is fully implemented and adopted worldwide. Therefore, Net Zero does not pass the cost-benefit test. The recommended policy is to abandon Net Zero and do nothing about so-called ‘greenhouse gases’. [Topics are shown below with excerpted contents.]

1. Introduction

The argument for Net Zero is that the concentration of CO2 in air is increasing, some small portion of which may be due to human activities and that Net Zero will address this supposed ‘problem’. The underpinning consensus hypothesis is that the human emission of so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ will increase concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere and thereby increase the global near surface atmospheric temperature by absorbance of infrared radiation leading to catastrophic changes in the weather. This leads to the idea that global temperatures should be limited to 2°C and preferably 1.5°C to avoid catastrophic climate change (Paris Climate Agreement, 2015).

A further hypothesis is that there are tipping points in the climate system which will result in positive feedback and a runaway heating of the planet’s atmosphere may occur (Schellnhuber & Turner, 2009; Washington et al., 2009; Levermann et al., 2009; Notz & Schellnhuber, 2009; Lenton et al., 2008; Dakos et al., 2009; Archer et al., 2009). Some of these tipping point assumptions are built into faulty climate models, the outputs of which are interpreted as facts or evidence by activists and politicians. However, output from computer models is not data, evidence or fact and is controversial (Jaworowski, 2007; Bastardi, 2018; Innis, 2008: p.30; Smith, 2021; Nieboer, 2021; Craig, 2021). Only empirical scientifically established facts should be considered so that cause and effect are clear.

From the point of view of physics, the atmosphere is an almost perfect example of a stable system (Coe, et al., 2021). The climate operates with negative feedback (Le Chatelier’s Principle) as do most natural systems with many degrees of freedom (Kärner, 2007; Lindzen et al., 2001 & 2022). The ocean acts as a heat sink, effectively controlling the air temperature. Recent global average surface temperatures remain relatively stable (Easterbrook, 2016; Moran, 2015; Morano, 2021; Marohasy, 2017; Ridley, 2010) or warming very slightly from other causes (Sangster, 2018) and the increase in temperature from 1880 through 2000 is statistically indistinguishable from 0°K (Frank, 2010; Statistics Norway, 2023) and is less than predicted by climate models (Fyfe, 2013). This shows the difference between the consensus view and established facts.

The results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations. In other words, our analysis indicates that with the current level of knowledge, it seems impossible to determine how much of the temperature increase is due to emissions of CO2. Dagsvik et al. 2024

The IPCC has produced six major assessment reports (AR1 to 6) and several special reports which report on a great deal of good science (Noting that the IPCC does not do any science itself but merely compiles literature reviews). The Summaries for Policy Makers (SPM) are followed by most politicians. Yet the SPM do not agree in large part with the scientific assessment by the IPCC reports and appear to exaggerate the role of CO2 and other ‘greenhouse gases’ in climate change. It appears that the SPM is written by governments and activists before  the scientific assessment is reached which is a questionable practice (Ball 2011, 2014 and 2016; Smith 2021).

Other organizations have produced reports of a similar nature and using a similar literature (e.g. Science and Public Policy Institute; The Heartland Institute; The Centre for the Study of CO2; CO2 Science; Global Warming Policy Foundation; Net Zero Watch; The Fraser Institute; CO2 Coalition) and arrived at completely different conclusions to the IPCC and the SPM (Idso et al., 2013a; Idso et al., 2013b; Idso et al., 2014; Idso et al., 2015a, 2015b; Happer, et al., 2022). There are also some web pages (e.g. Popular Technology) which list over a thousand mainstream journal papers casting doubt on the role of CO2 and other greenhouse gases as a source of climate change. For example, a recent report by the CO2 Coalition (2023) states clearly Net Zero regulations and actions are scientifically invalid because they:

  • “Fabricate data or omit data that contradict their conclusions.
  • Rely on computer models that do not work.
  • Rely on findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are government opinions, not science.
  • Omit the extraordinary social benefits of CO2 and fossil fuels.
  • Omit the disastrous consequences of reducing fossil fuels and CO2 emissions to Net Zero.
  • Reject the science that demonstrates there is no risk of catastrophic global warming caused by fossil fuels and CO2.

Net Zero, then, violates the tenets of the scientific method that for more than 300 years has underpinned the advancement of western civilization.” (CO2 Coalition, 2023; p. 1)

With such a strong scientific conviction the entire Net Zero agenda needs investigating. This paper reviews some of the important science which supports and undermines the Net Zero agenda.

2. Material Studied

A literature review was carried out on various topics related to greenhouse gases, climate change and the relevant scientific literature from the last 20 years in the areas of physics, chemistry, biology, paleoclimatology, geology etc. The method used was an evidence-based approach where several issues were critically evaluated based on fundamental knowledge of the science, emerging areas of scientific investigation and developments in scientific methods. The evidence-based approach is widely used (Green & Britten, 1998; Odom et al., 2005; Easterbrook, 2016; Pielke, 2014; IPCC, 2007a; IPCC 2007b; Field, 2012; IPCC 2014; McMillan & Shumacher, 2013).

Evidence-based research uses data to establish cause and effect relationships which are known to work and allows interventions which are therefore expected to be effective.

3. Greenhouse Gas Theory

The historical development of the greenhouse effect, early discussions and controversies are presented by Mudge (2012) and Strangeways (2011). The explanation of the greenhouse effect or greenhouse gas theory of climate change is given in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis (IPCC, 2007, p. 946):

“Greenhouse gases effectively absorb thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, by the atmosphere itself due to some gases, and by clouds. Atmospheric radiation is emitted to all sides, including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus, greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system. This is called the greenhouse effect.”

This is plausible but does not necessarily lead to global warming as radiation will be emitted at longer wavelengths in other areas of the electromagnetic spectrum where greenhouse gases do not absorb radiation potentially leading to an energy balance without increase in temperature. To further complicate matters the definition continues with the explanation:

“Thermal infrared radiation in the troposphere is strongly coupled to the temperature of the atmosphere at the altitude at which it is emitted. In the troposphere, the temperature generally decreases with height. Effectively, infrared radiation emitted to space originates from an altitude with a temperature of, on average, -19°C in balance with the net incoming solar radiation, whereas the Earth’s surface is kept at a much higher temperature of, on average, +14°C. An increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases leads to an increased infrared opacity of the atmosphere, and therefore to an effective radiation into space from a higher altitude at a lower temperature. This causes a radiative forcing that leads to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the so-called enhanced greenhouse effect.”

This sort of statement is not comprehensible to the average person, makes no sense scientifically and is immediately falsified by recent research (Seim and Olsen, 2020; Coe etal., 2021; Lange et al., 2022, Wijngaarden & Happer, 2019, 2020, 2021(a), 2021(b), 2022, Sheahen, 2021; Gerlich & Tscheuschner, 2009; Zhong & Haigh, 2013). It also contradicts the work of Gray (2015 and 2019) and others and has been heavily criticized (Plimer, 2009; Plimer, 2017; Carter, 2010).

3.1 The Falsifications of the Greenhouse Effect

There are numerous falsifications of the greenhouse gas theory (sometimes called ‘trace gas heating theory’, see Siddons in Ball, 2011, p.19), of global warming and/or climate change (Ball, 2011; Ball, 2014; Ball, 2016; Gerlich & Tscheuschner, 2009; Hertzberg et al, 2017; Allmendinger, 2017; Blaauw, 2017; Nikolov and Zeller, 2017).

Fundamental empirically derived physical laws place limits on any changes in the atmospheric temperature unless there is some strong external force (e.g. increased or decreased solar radiation). For example, the Ideal Gas Law, the Beer-Lambert Law, heat capacities, heat conduction etc., (Atkins & de Paula, 2014; Barrow, 1973; Daniels & Alberty, 1966) all place physical limits on the amount of warming or cooling one might see in the climate system given any changes to heat from the sun or other sources.

3.1.1 The Ideal Gas Law

PV = nRT (1)

The average near-surface temperature for planetary bodies with an atmosphere calculated from the Ideal Gas Law is in excellent agreement with measured values suggesting that the greenhouse effect is very small or non-existent (Table 1). It is thought that the residual temperature difference of 33K between the Stephan-Boltzmann black body effective temperature (255K) on Earth and the measured near-surface temperature (288K) is caused by adiabatic auto-compression (Allmendinger, 2017; Robert, 2018; Holmes 2017, 2018 and 2019). An alternative view of this is given by Lindzen (2022). There is no need for the ‘greenhouse effect’ to explain the near surface atmospheric temperature of planetary bodies with atmospheric pressures above 10kPa (Holmes, 2017). The ideal gas law is robust and works for all gases.

3.1.2 Measurement of Infrared Absorption of the Earth’s Atmosphere

It is now possible to calculate the effect of ‘greenhouse gases’ on the surface atmospheric temperature by (a) using laboratory experimental methods; (b) using the Hitran database (https://hitran.org/); (c) using satellite observations of outgoing radiation compared to Stephan-Boltzmann effective black body radiation and calculated values of temperature.

The near surface temperature and change in surface temperature can be calculated. The result is that climate sensitivity to doubling concentration of CO2 is (0.5°C) including 0.06°C from CH4 and 0.08°C from N2O which is so small as to be undetectable. Most of the temperature change has already occurred and increasing CO2, CH4, N2O concentrations will not lead to significant changes in air temperatures because absorption is logarithmic (Beer-Lambert Law of attenuation) – a law of diminishing returns.

Figure 1. Delta T vs CO2 concentration

The important point here is that the Ideal Gas Law, the logarithmic absorption of radiation and the theoretical calculations by Wijngaarden & Happer (2020 and 2021), Coe et al., (2021) based on the Beer-Lambert Law and the Stephan-Boltzmann Law show that there is an upper limit to the temperature change which can occur by adding ‘greenhouse gases’ to the atmosphere if the main source of incoming radiation (the Sun) does not change over time. The upper limit is ~0.81°C.

3.1.3 Other Falsifications

Many climatologists ignore the well-established ideas of the Ideal Gas Law, Kinetic Theory of Gases and Collision Theory which explain the interaction of gases in the atmosphere (Atkins & de Paula, 2014; Salby, 2012; Tec science). For example, it is difficult for CO2 to retain heat energy (by vibration, rotation, and translation) as there are 1034 collisions between air molecules per second per cubic meter of gas at a pressure of 1 atmosphere (~101.3kPa) and on each collision, energy is exchanged leading to a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution (similar to a normal distribution) of molecular energies across all molecules in air (Tec science). The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution has been experimentally determined (Atkins & de Paula, 2014). Thus, the major components of air (nitrogen and oxygen) retain most of the energy, cause evaporation of water vapor by heat transfer (mainly by conduction and convection) and emit radiation at longer wavelengths. The small concentration of CO2 in air (circa 420ppmv) cannot account for large changes in the climate system which have occurred in the past (Wrightstone, 2017 and 2023; Ball, 2014). Plimer (2009 and 2017) presents a great deal of geological scientific evidence which covers paleoclimatology concluding that:

“There is no such thing as the greenhouse effect. The atmosphere behaves neither as a greenhouse nor as an insulating blanket preventing heat escaping from the Earth. Competing forces of evaporation, convection, precipitation, and radiation create an energy balance in the atmosphere.” (Plimer 2009: p.364).

Ball (2014) summarizes a great deal of the geological science:

“The most fundamental assumption in the theory that human CO2 is causing global warming and climate change is that an increase in CO2 will cause an increase in temperature. The problem is that every record of any duration for any period in the history of the Earth exactly the opposite relationship occurs temperature increase precedes CO2 increase. Despite that a massive deception has developed and continues.” Ball (2014: p. 1).

This statement agrees with many other scientists working in geology, earth sciences, physics and physical chemistry as can be seen in cited references in books (Easterbrook, 2016; Wrightstone 2017 and 2023; Plimer, 2009; Plimer 2017; Ball, 2014; Ball,2011; Ball, 2016; Carter, 2010; Koutsoyiannis et al, 2023 & 2024; Hodzic, and Kennedy, 2019). Easterbrook (2016) uses the evidence-based approach to climate science and concludes that:

“Because of the absence of any physical evidence that CO2 causes global warming, the main argument for CO2 as the cause of warming rests largely on computer modelling.”  Easterbrook (2016: p.5).

The results of the models are projected far into the future (circa 80 to 100years) where uncertainties are large, but projections can be used to demonstrate unrealistic but scary scenarios (Idso et al., 2015b). The literature that is used for the IPCC reports appears to be ‘cherry picked’ to agree with their paradigms that increasing CO2 concentrations leads to warming. They ignore the vast literature in climatology, atmospheric physics, solar physics, physics, physical chemistry, geology, biology and palaeoclimatology much of which contradicts the IPCC’s assessment in the summary for policymakers (SPM).

The objective of the IPCC was to find the human causes of climate change – not to look at all the causes of climate change which would be the sensible thing to do if the science were to be used to inform policy decisions. However, there is no experimental evidence for a significant anthropogenic component to climate change (Kaupinnen and Malmi, 2019) which leaves genuine scientists and citizens concerned about the role of the IPCC.

3.1.4 Anthropogenic CO2 and the Residence time of Carbon Dioxide in Air

There is a suggestion (IPCC) that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is different for anthropogenic CO2 and naturally occurring CO2. This breaks a fundamental scientific principle, the Principle of Equivalence. That is: if there is equivalence between two things, they have the same use, function, size, or value (Collins English Dictionary, online). Thus, CO2 is CO2 no matter where it comes from, and each molecule will behave physically and react chemically in the same way.

The figures above illustrate how exaggerated claims are made for CO2 based on the false assumption that CO2 resides in the atmosphere for long periods and can affect the climate. These results are enough to falsify the ideas of anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 and shows how little human activity contributes to CO2 emissions and concentrations in air. The argument is clear, that if the fictitious greenhouse effect were real for CO2 the human contribution would have no measurable effect upon the climate in terms of global average surface temperature.

The residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is between 3.0 and 4.1 years using the IPCC’s own data and not the supposed 100 years or 1000 years for anthropogenic CO2 suggested by the IPCC summaries for policy makers (Harde, 2017) which contravenes the Equivalence Principle (Berry, 2019).

“These results indicate that almost all of the observed change of CO2 during the industrial era followed, not from anthropogenic emission, but from changes of natural emission. The results are consistent with the observed lag of CO2 changes behind temperature changes (Humlum et al., 2013; Salby, 2013), a signature of cause and effect.” (Harde, 2017a: 25).

It is well-known that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is approximately 5 years (Boehmer-Christiansen, 2007: 1124; 1137; Kikuchi, 2010). Skrable et al., (2022), show that accumulated human CO2 is 11% of CO2 in air or ~46.84ppmv based on modelling studies. Berry (2020, 2021) uses the Principle of  Equivalence (which the IPCC violates by assuming different timescales for the uptake of natural and human CO2) and agrees with Harde (2017a) that human CO2 adds about 18ppmv to the concentration in air. These are physically extremely small concentrations of CO2 which suggest most CO2 arises from natural sources. It can be concluded that the IPCC models are wrong and human CO2 will have little effect on the temperature.

4. Conclusions

Like many other researchers it was assumed there was robust science behind the greenhouse gas theory and that Net Zero was essential to achieve, but after investigation it now appears that the greenhouse gas theory is questionable and has been successfully challenged for at least 100 years (Gerlich and Tscheuschner, 2009). Much better explanations for planetary near surface atmospheric temperatures are available based on robust, empirically derived scientific laws such as the Ideal Gas law.

Better assessments of the potential increase in temperature with doubling CO2 concentrations are available and the calculated increase is small ~0.5°C (Coe et al., 2021; van Wijngaarden & Happer, 2019, 2020 and 2021; Sheahen, 2021; Schildknecht, 2020) and will remain very small with increased CO2 concentration because the infrared CO2 absorption bands are almost saturated and absorption follows the logarithmic Beer-Lambert law (Figure 1). Much of the work using the Hitran database has been tested against satellite measurements of the outgoing radiation from the Earth’s atmosphere and the calculations are in almost perfect agreement (Sheahen, 2021).

This suggests that the physicists are correct in their assessment of the likely very small increase in atmospheric temperature and therefore there is a strong case against Net Zero as it will have no discernible effect on temperature and the cost of Net Zero is huge. Therefore, the Net Zero project does not pass the cost-benefit test (Montford, 2024b; NESO, 2024). That is the costs are disproportionately high for little or no benefit. Thus, the correct response to a non-problem is to do nothing. The monies being wasted on Net Zero should be spent for the benefit of citizens (e.g. education, health care, public health, water infrastructure, waste processing, economic prosperity etc.). There are many other pressing public health problems from burning fossil fuels which should be addressed (e.g. air pollution especially particulates and carbon monoxide).

Better calculations of the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations are available and it is small ~18ppmv (Skrable et al., 2022; Berry, 2020; Harde 2017a & 2017b; Harde, 2019; Harde 2014). The phase relation between temperature and CO2 concentration changes are now clearly understood; temperature increases are followed by increases in CO2 likely from outgassing from the ocean and increased biological activity (Davis , 2017; Hodzic and Kennedy, 2019; Humlum, 2013; Salby, 2012; Koutsoyiannis et al, 2023 & 2024).

“In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.” Alimonti etal. 2022: 111.

Many researchers are addressing the ‘CO2 and climate change problem’ by suggesting decarbonization and other approaches such as Net Zero. CO2 is more than likely not the temperature control and has a very minor to negligible role in global warming (The Bruges Group, 2021; De Lange and Berkhout, 2024; Manheimer, 2022; Statistics Norway 2023; Lindzen and Happer, 2024; Lindzen, et al., 2024).

The scientific literature was examined and found to provide several alternative views concerning CO2 and the need for Net Zero. The objectives of this paper have been achieved and the conclusions can be briefly summarized:

  1. CO2 is a harmless highly beneficial rare trace gas essential for all life on Earth due to photosynthesis which produces simple sugars and carbohydrates in plants and a bi-product Oxygen (O2). CO2is therefore the basis of the entire food supply chain (see Biology or Botany textbooks or House, 2013). CO2 is close to an all-time low geologically (Wrightstone, 2017 and 2023) and controls on CO2 emissions and concentrations in air should be considered as very dangerous and expensive policy indeed. Net Zero is not necessary and should be abandoned.
  2. The greenhouse gas theory has been falsified (i.e. proven wrong) from several disciplines including paleoclimatology, geology, physics, and physical chemistry. CO2 cannot affect the climate in such small concentrations (~420ppmv or ~0.04%) and basing government policy on output from faulty climate models will prove to be very expensive and achieve nothing for the environment, public health, or the climate.

“There is no atmospheric greenhouse effect, in particular CO2 greenhouse effect, in theoretical physics and engineering thermodynamics. Thus, it is illegitimate to deduce predictions which provide a consulting solution for economics and intergovernmental policy.” (Gerlich & Tscheuschner, 2009: 354).

  1. The oceans contain approximately 50 times as much CO2 as is currently present in the air (Easterbrook, 2016; Wrightstone, 2017 and 2023) and as such Henry’s Law will work to maintain the dynamic equilibrium concentration in air over the longer term as the ocean will absorb and outgas CO2(Atkins & de Paula, 2014). Net Zero will, therefore, achieve nothing for the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. If the volcanic sources of CO2 are as Kamis (2021), the IPCC and others suggest many times the human contribution, then Net Zero will have no measurable effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Net Zero should, therefore, be abandoned.
  2. The contribution to greenhouse gases, especially CO2, attributable to humans is extremely small, almost negligible (~4.3% or ~18ppmv total accumulation) and half is absorbed by the ocean and biomass. Other naturally occurring so-called greenhouse gases are present in very small/negligible quantities (e.g. CH4, N2O). The systematic attempts to eliminate these trace gases from the atmosphere by reducing industrial output, reducing farming, eliminating fossil fuel use, and changing the way human civilization lives is totally unnecessary – again the ‘do-nothing strategy’ is strongly recommended.
  3. The sciences have been largely ignored by politicians and activists. There have been numerous failings of governments to take notice of scientific findings and they have succumbed to unnecessary pressure from activist groups (including the United Nations and the IPCC). Net Zero is just one example where costly efforts by governments will achieve nothing and not address the real problems of air pollution, public health, or economic well-being of citizens.

“There is not a single fact, figure or observation that leads us to conclude that the world’s climate is in any way disturbed.” (Société de Calcul Mathématique SA, 2015:3).

  1. Circular reasoning is used by the climate modelers. That is, the fictitious greenhouse effect is built into the models such that when the parameter of CO2concentration is increased then the temperature output of the models increases, producing models which run relatively hot compared to natural variability. This reduces the so-called greenhouse effect to little more than a ‘fudge factor’ or ‘parameter’ within models which essentially gives you the answer that you set out to prove. This circular reasoning is hardly scientific enquiry and with data ‘homogenization’ and infilling of missing data begins to look rather peculiar. Climatologists need to recognize these issues, address the real reasons for climate change and offer genuine solutions to any real problems.
  2. The claim of consensus is completely unscientific in its approach (Idso et al, 2015a). Noting that 31,000 US scientists and engineers signed the petition protest (Robinson et al., 2007), recently 90 Italian scientists wrote an open letter to the Italian government (Crescenti et al., 2019), and 500 climatologists and scientists signed an open letter to the UN Secretary General (Berkhout, 2019). All explaining that CO2 is not the cause of climate change. There are thousands of academic papers and books questioning anthropogenic climate change with good data.

Many other concerned individuals have looked at the evidence for anthropogenic climate change based on CO2 and found it wanting (e.g. Davison, 2018; Rofe, 2018).

“If in fact ‘the science is settled’, it seems to be much more settled in the fact that there is no particular correlation between CO2 level and the earth’s temperature.” (Manheimer, 2022).

and

“If you assume the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are right about everything and use only their numbers in the calculation, you will arrive at the conclusion that we should do nothing about climate change!” (Field, 2013).

The academic literature in science offers numerous and far better explanations for climate change than the fictitious greenhouse effect. Researchers should recognize this fact and start to look at dealing with the real causes of climate change. Net Zero is an enormously expensive solution to a non-problem and has no obvious redeeming features. The Net Zero policy is not financially sustainable and should be abandoned.

 

 

 

Biden EPA Falsely Touts First Climate Change Arrest

Posted on by Ron Clutz

NY Post reports Biden admin brought unprecedented climate change prosecution against man for ‘smuggling greenhouse gases’ by transporting refrigerants.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Biden administration boasted in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report released Thursday about the unprecedented prosecution of a California man for “smuggling greenhouse gases” across the border from Mexico and selling them online.

Michael Hart, 58, was arrested in March and pleaded guilty in September to charges related to transporting refrigerants into the US to peddle on Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp and other online vendors between June and December 2022.

Biden’s EPA touted the crackdown on Hart, the first-ever person charged for climate change-related bootlegging of refrigerants — namely, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs) — without the agency’s approval, in its report.

When charging the San Diego resident earlier this year, US Attorney Tara McGrath vowed “it will not be the last” case of its kind.

After some investigation it appears this “victory” in the fight
against climate change is a lot of puffery with very little substance,
and worse more overreach by the EPA.

Background

The Montreal Protocol, ratified in 1987, forced the industrialized world to switch from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) on the theory that CFCs break down the ozone layer.

Both the formation and depletion of the ozone layer depend on ultraviolet light from the Sun. The theory was that UV splits chlorine atoms from the CFCs. The CFCs sat around all winter, moving into position, waiting … and then just as the Sun returned, the chlorine radicals chewed up the ozone as it was being formed, producing a brief downward spike in ozone at the start of the Antarctic summer. This is the famous ozone hole.

The actual measurements look very peculiar, which means there’s more going on than just a simple chain of free-radical reactions. But NASA and the climatologists were confident that the mystery was solved. As with the AGW debate, most agree that it could theoretically happen; the debate is over how big the effect is and how important it is.

Four popular HFCs in use today as refrigerants are R-410a, R-407c, R-143a, and R-134a. The average GWP of the HFCs currently in use, weighted by usage, is about 1600. Enviros are claiming that eliminating these so-called high-GWP HFCs will prevent up to 0.5°C of warming by 2100. Due to the huge variability in the predictions of the various models, this could be anywhere from 8 to 100% of what the models predict. What is remarkable is that absolutely nobody seems to have noticed any of this until the patents ran out.

Global total HFC emissions (GtCO2eq.yr-1; left panel) and radiative forcing (right panel) from the V-2015 baseline scenarios developed in Velders et al. (2015) and the updated scenarios derived here (current policy Kigali independent (K-I) and KA-202. Figure: Velders et al., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2015

From  Chemical Sciences Laboratory

As substitutes for ozone-depleting substances, the emissions of HFCs have increased substantially over the past two decades as a result of the phaseout of ozone-depleting substances under the Montreal Protocol. Due to the growing climate impact of HFCs, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol has scheduled a phase-down of their future production and consumption. The results show that total CO2 equivalent global HFC emissions derived from NOAA observations continue to increase through 2019, but are about 20% lower than previously projected for 2017-2019, mainly because of the lower global emissions of HFC-143a, which is one of the longer-lived HFCs in use today. Current policies reduce projected emissions in 2050 from 4.0-5.3 GtCO2eq.yr-1 in the absence of controls to 1.9-3.6 GtCO2eq.yr-1, and the added provisions of the Kigali Amendment reduce the projected emissions further to 0.9-1.0 GtCO2eq.yr-1. Without any controls, HFC emissions are projected to contribute 0.28-0.44 °C to global surface warming by 2100, compared to a contribution of about 0.04 °C by 2100 with Kigali Amendment controls.

Comment: 

The HFC emissions in the left panel are on a scale of 1 to 5 GtCO2eq.yr-1. So HFCs are estimated to have a GHG effect in single digits compared to CO2 emissions which in 2022 were ~37 Gt.  On the right panel, the warming effect is estimated to range between 0.05 and 0.25 W per m^2.  Putting this into context, The energy budget of our climate system involves the absorption and reemission of about 200 watts per square meter. Doubling CO2 involves a 2% perturbation to this budget. HFCs are an order of magnitude less, taking IPCC estimates at face value.  But there’s more.

Why would HFCs and CFCs cause global warming?

Most articles merely say that HFCs cause global warming because they possess a high GWP. This is a circular argument, because GWP simply means global warming potential.

The real explanation is that they absorb thermal (mid-)infrared radiation at wavelengths that don’t overlap with carbon dioxide. The infrared spectra of HFC-125 and HFC-143a have three bands in the mid-infrared which have little overlap with carbon dioxide (CO2):

But look at the spectrum of absorption by H2O and other IR-active gases:

The absorption spikes by HFCs at  7 to 8 μm are already covered by the higher concentrations of H2O.  There’s little radiation for HFCs to absorb, so the Global Warming Potential is hypothetical.

Footnote: 

A major clarification in 2017 came from the DC Court of Appeals ordering EPA (and thus the Executive Branch Bureaucracy) to defer to Congress regarding regulation of substances claimed to cause climate change.  While the issue and arguments are somewhat obscure, the clarity of the ruling was welcome.  Basically, the EPA under Obama attempted to use ozone-depleting authority to regulate HFCs, claiming them as greenhouse gases.  The judges decided that was a stretch too far.

However a 2020 law passed by Congress prohibits importation of HFCs without allowances issued by the EPA. The law is part of a global phaseout designed to slow climate change.

Biden’s EPA Goes Rogue on HFCs

 

 

Climate Lawfare Goes International

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Activists hope the opinion from the ICJ’s judges will have far-reaching legal consequences in the fight against climate change Image: Peter Dejong/AP Photo/picture alliance

DW reports on hearings underway at ICJ International Court of Justice in the Hague.  Overview of the proceedings in italics with my bolds. Vanuatu urges ICJ to recognise climate change harms

The outcome of the landmark case could lead to the
establishment of legal framework for holding countries
accountable in the fight against climate change.

Vanuatu, was the first of over 100 countries and organizations to present its views in the two-week proceedings seeking an advisory opinion from the World Court.

Handful of countries responsible for climate crisis World Court told

They demand that the failure to address climate change be declared a violation of international law. Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney- general of the Vanuatu archipelago nation said that states have obligations to act with due diligence, to prevent significant harm to the environment, to reduce emissions, and to provide support to countries like his.

Aside from small island states and numerous Western and developing countries, the court will also hear from the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States. [More on those statements later on]

While activists are hopeful the outcome of the hearings will have far-reaching legal implications for violators, others are skeptical given that the UN’s highest court might take even years to implement.

Any decision will be non-binding because the court has no concrete means to enforce its rulings.

The hearings will continue until December 13. The court’s opinion is expected to be delivered in 2025.

Public hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the request for an advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, December 2024 (Photo: International Court of Justice)

Climate Home provides perspectives from the countries prospering from hydrocarbon energy in their article Big emitters accused of hiding behind climate treaties in international hearing.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The US, Saudi Arabia and others have pushed back against a global bid
to clarify states’ legal obligations to tackle climate change.

At a landmark legal hearing in The Hague this week, wealthy countries that are big emitters of planet-heating gases have used the Paris Agreement and other existing treaties on climate change to avoid additional pressure to step up their action to tackle global warming.

Their statements at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) sparked strong criticism from top climate diplomats and advocates who argue that international accords do not place limits on state accountability over climate change.

The two-week hearing is the culmination of years of campaigning by a group of law students from Pacific nations and diplomacy led by the island state of Vanuatu.

Their efforts resulted in a UN General Assembly resolution last year calling on the ICJ to provide an advisory opinion on the legal obligations of states to address climate change and the legal consequences if they fail to do so.

The ICJ says its advisory opinions are not binding. But experts stress that they clarify, rather than create, new law and will be referred to as authoritative documents in future climate litigation and during international climate negotiations.

In total, 98 states are giving oral submissions to the court, alongside a handful of institutions including the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Four days into the hearing, a clear divide is emerging between wealthy nations that are historically high emitters and vulnerable nations on the frontlines of climate change that have contributed little to planetary heating.

The event has seen powerful fossil-fuel producing countries – from the United States to Russia – resist what they regard as an attempt to force them to do more to rein in emissions and provide reparations to those suffering because of their carbon pollution.

On Wednesday, the United States – which does not fully recognise the authority of the ICJ – told the court that sufficient legal frameworks are already in place to deal with climate change.

Margaret Taylor, legal adviser to the US Department of State, described global warming as the “quintessential collective action problem” which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement are carefully designed to deal with.

Those treaties, she said, embody “the clearest, most specific and most current expression of states’ consent to be bound by international law in respect of climate change” – and should therefore be the “primary framework” for determining their obligations.

Taylor told the court, on behalf of the US, that the Paris Agreement does not provide any legal standard against which to judge the adequacy of an NDC or to determine if a country is doing its fair share in global terms. Nor do states breach the agreement if they fail to achieve their NDCs, she added.

Many countries believe that legal obligations should not be limited to existing climate agreements and have asked the ICJ to consider a wide range of written and unwritten international law, including rules on transboundary harm, due diligence and the duty to cooperate and to prevent harm.

The relevance and scope of human rights in the context of climate change has also been hotly debated. States particularly disagree over the applicability of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This was acknowledged by the UN General Assembly in a 2022 resolution but has proved difficult to implement.

Mamadou Hébié, associate professor of international law at Leiden University, representing Burkina Faso at the ICJ, said the Paris Agreement does not create any exemption or derogation from the rest of international law.

Zachary Phillips, counsel for Antigua and Barbuda, said compliance with the Paris Agreement is “necessary but may not be sufficient” to comply with unwritten ‘customary’ international law, including the obligation to prevent harm.

Several of the world’s biggest economies – among those most reliant on fossil fuels – have contended this week, however, that they have no obligations beyond the Paris pact and the UNFCCC. Australia, for example, said these are “central instruments” for global cooperation while China appealed to the court to avoid “fragmenting” international climate law.

Wiebke Rückert, Germany’s director for public international law, said the Paris Agreement strikes a “careful balance” between legal and non-legal commitments and warned that attempts to change that could “seriously” endanger the willingness of states to participate in political processes.

Ghaida Bajbaa, from Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry, said the UNFCCC provides “no basis whatsoever” for the court to authorise limits to fossil fuel extraction and consumption.

This was echoed by Maksim Musikhin, director of the legal department of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who said the transition away from fossil fuels – agreed at COP28 in Dubai last year – is not a legal obligation but rather a political appeal.

Ashfaq Khalfan, climate justice director for Oxfam America, said it was “absurd” for the Biden administration to make arguments against clearer legal obligations on climate change given the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump, who has vowed to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement for a second time when he takes office.

The ICJ hearing continues until December 13 in The Hague, with other big greenhouse gas emitters such as the UK still to speak.

 

 

Movement for Sensible Climate Policy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Many of us are blogging to draw attention to knowledge and information dismissed or suppressed by legacy and social media as “misinformation”, simply because the thoughts and ideas are rational and reasonable rather than alarmist. Tom Harris reminded me in his recent comment that we have many many colleagues speaking out in the public square sharing our concerns.  So let this post introduce a valuable resource in this fight for reasonable climate understandings and policies, namely CANADIANS FOR  SENSIBLE CLIMATE POLICY Join the Movement for Responsible and Sensible Climate Policy.

The home page summarizes why this mission is important and what is at stake and the path forward.

Climate Activism is BIG business

The Green Budget Coalition in 2024 is made up of 21 of the leading Canadian environmental activist organizations publicly lobbying for $287 billion in government spending on their causes.

That is 62% of the total federal tax revenue.

According to public data, in Canada alone these organizations control billions in funds, raise and spend millions on PR campaigns and employ hundreds of staff to achieve these objectives. Globally, the climate activism industry controls trillions of dollars and has armies of advocates. This politicisation of public policy impacts every Canadian.

Even when done with the best intentions, power without oversight isn’t peace, order or good government. To advocate for the best policy, we encourage a range of views, even the controversial ones. We dare to question, to be wrong and to explore all sides of complex issues.

What matters is adopting sober, reasonable and sensible policy in the interests of all Canadians.

Our Concerns

Strange Math

Carbon dioxide gets a lot of attention compared to the many other environmental concerns. Every bad weather event gets assigned to it. The main player in the greenhouse effect remains water and clouds. A changing climate may be unpredictable but that does not mean abnormal.

With prosperity comes costs which must be balanced against the benefits. Strange does not mean unexplainable. Proclamations of doom and crisis are always suspicious.

Odd incentives

Big Oil, corporate interests, corrupt politicians, conspiracy theorists, corporate PR firms and paid skeptics. These are all boogeymen for why, despite general popularity and political backing, there remains a dire crisis with minimal progress.

What if the crisis is exactly because the incentives are designed to perpetuate a cycle? What if the problem isn’t bad intentions or ethics but a social mission over funded to irreverence which needs to be called out as ineffective?

Motivated Reasoning

Motivated reasoning is choosing only the good parts of a story while ignoring the rest because it is what we want to believe. It is quite common in everyday life. When it comes to climate change, calm, pragmatic discussions are rare with many complex and passionate explanations and perspectives.

Those complex explanations may well be accurate, but any analysis of climate change must acknowledge the issue has emotional and personal implications for many Canadians.

Outsourced Problems

When speaking unpopular opinions, one’s intelligence, integrity and ethics will almost always come under fire. When speaking popular opinions rarely is there such scrutiny. It’s human to deeply care for our environment. Why don’t we see the mass implementation of responsible governance, moderation & sustainability? Why so much green washing? Why are 9/10 solutions just shifting our problems into other people’s lands.

Transporting environmental destruction from Canada to Qatar, China or Nigeria is not ethical or effective. If being sustainable was easy or obvious someone would have done it long ago.

Little Accountability

Spending must be within context. Canada is estimated to produce about 2% of the worlds total CO2 emissions with our higher emissions per capita being within expectations for an oil producing nation. Alberta accounts for much of this higher status. The Federal government revenue was $447 billion. A provincial government like Ontario was $179 billion.

A hundred billion or trillion dollar public effort to reduce a rounding error in emissions isn’t just another project, it’s a significant financial commitment with long lasting implications.

Boomers

Your generation has enjoyed a splendid life because of the sacrifices made by your parents during and after WW2. Post war, jobs were easy to find, economies expanded throughout the developed world and Boomers “Never-had-it-so-good.” In retirement your lifestyle was far better than any previous generation enjoyed.

Now, you have a choice, you can either watch economic hardship unfold while passing on huge debts to the next generations or speak up and blow the whistle on the biggest waste of capital the world has ever seen.

Non-Boomers

You are inheritors of a huge debt by the leadership of today. Do you want to spend your life in bad economic times? Do you want your children to live through the same hardships as you stand to inherit? How much time have you invested in thinking about what the Net Zero at 2050 policies cost? Can humans in fact control climate? Is the financial sector pushing that agenda biased? Are the alternative energy jobs long-term or busy-work?

Decide for yourself. Make your thoughts known.

Course Correction

Cost-Benefit Accounting

Alberta and Saskatchewan’s embrace of lower-regulation, pro-petroleum and chemical development is a source of concern to many Canadians. Yet, this comes with benefits to those same groups including massive subsidies to public spending, foreign investment, increased buying power and lowered cost of living in all provinces.

A sensible climate policy transcends politicisation, it works for those who are pro-petroleum or anti-petroleum, left or right wing, those who see increased carbon as beneficial or those seeking net-zero. Sober energy policy improves lives by balancing concerns and offering pragmatic decisions which achieve universal objectives.

Open Discussion

The journalists spread the word and the activists too, the science becomes “settled” and 97% of climate scientists agree. Your life could get a little easier, just don’t listen to skeptics, realists, opponents, the scientists not surveyed, friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, or uncles. An agency will sort the details and inform you of the correct and proper truth.

Never, a sensible climate policy comes from open inquiry, where facts and data are the observations in agreement and the debate is about the meaning and impacts of that data. Experts will breakdown confusion, answer questions and offer clarity.

Prioritize the Everyday Canadian

Climate change policies and activism have a track record of growing budgets, increased powers, and increased access to new technologies and insights. Show us the benefits. Show us the increases in quality of life. Show the practical applications and decreased risks and dangers.

A sensible climate policy is measurable, and though perhaps driven by fear and concern, increased attention and effort means more tangible results.

Maximize Well-being

In cost-benefit analysis, choices are made between conflicting values. Energy and climate policy can be framed as altruists against economics. It can be framed as common good against special interests. It can be framed as differing scientific views.

A sensible climate policy will be driven by maximizing well-being and benefit to society.

Ensure Accountability

Climate policy is often ignored except by special interests. The tale of energy companies against the activists is contradicted by the funding patterns which see energy companies actively funding, hiring and promoting climate change activists. In the energy business “green energy” is just another opportunity.

A sensible climate policy must have checks and balances. Lobbying can benefit everyone in a marketplace of ideas but as a monopoly, everyday Canadians will never be served.