Climate Initiatives

McKitrick: New PM Carney Tried for Years to Defund Canada

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England (BOE), reacts during a news conference at the United Nations COP21 climate summit at Le Bourget in Paris, France, on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015. Photo by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Ross McKitrick writes at National Post Carney to lead Canada after trying for years to defund it.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The soon-to-be prime minister’s plan for net-zero banking
would have devastated the country

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is very concerned about financial conflicts of interest that new Liberal leader (and our next prime minister) Mark Carney may be hiding. But I’m far more concerned about the one out in the open: Carney is now supposed to act for the good of the country after lobbying to defund and drive out of existence Canada’s oil and gas companies, steel companies, car companies and any other sector dependent on fossil fuels. He’s done this through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which he founded in 2021.

Carney is a climate zealot. He may try to fool Canadians into thinking he wants new pipelines, liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals and other hydrocarbon infrastructure, but he doesn’t. Far from it. He wants half the existing ones gone by 2030 and the rest soon after.

He has said so, repeatedly and emphatically. He believes that the world “must achieve about a 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030” and “rapidly scale climate solutions to provide cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable replacements for unabated fossil fuels.” (By “unabated” he means usage without full carbon capture, which in practice is virtually all cases.) And since societies don’t seem keen on doing this, Carney created GFANZ to pressure banks, insurance companies and investment firms to cut off financing for recalcitrant firms.

“This transition to net zero requires companies across the whole economy to change behaviors through application of innovative technologies and new ways of doing business” he wrote in 2022 with his GFANZ co-chairs, using bureaucratic euphemisms to make his radical agenda somehow seem normal.

The GFANZ plan they articulated that year put companies into four categories. Those selling green technologies or engaged in work that displaces fossil fuels would be rewarded with financing from member institutions. Those still using fossil fuels, or have investments in others that do, but are committed to being “climate leaders” and have set a path to net-zero, would also still be eligible for financing, as would those that do business with “high-emitting firms” but plan to reach net-zero targets on approved timelines. Companies that own or invest in high-emitting assets, however, would operate under a “managed phaseout” regime and could even be cut off from investment capital.

What are “high-emitting assets”? Carney’s group hasn’t released a complete list, but a June 2022 report listed some examples: coal mines, fossil-fuel power stations, oil fields, gas pipelines, steel mills, ships, cement plants and consumer gasoline-powered vehicles. GFANZ envisions a future in which the finance sector either severs all connections to such assets or puts them under a “managed phaseout” regime, which means exactly what it sounds like.

So when Carney jokingly suggested it won’t matter if his climate plan drives up costs for steel mills because people don’t buy steel, he could have added that there likely won’t be any steel mills before long anyway. If his work as prime minister echoes his work as GFANZ chair, we can expect steel mills to be phased out, along with cars, gas-fired power plants, pipelines, oil wells and so forth.

Mark Carney, former Co-Chair of GFANZ, accompanied by (from left) Ravi Menon, Loh Boon Chye, and Yuki Yasui, at the Singapore Exchange, for the GFANZ announcement on the formation of its Asia-Pacific (APAC) Network.

GFANZ boasts at length about its members strong-arming clients into embracing net-zero. For instance, it extols British insurance multinational Aviva for its climate engagement escalation program: “Aviva is prepared to send a message to all companies through voting actions when those companies do not have adequate climate plans or do not act quickly enough.”

To support these coercive goals, Carney’s lobbying helped secure a requirement in Canada for banks, life insurance companies, trust and loan companies and others to develop and file reports disclosing their “climate transition risk,” set out by the federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI).

The rule, Guideline B-15 on Climate Risk Management, was initially published in 2023 and requires federally regulated financial institutions (other than foreign bank branches) to conduct extensive and costly research into their holdings to determine whether value may be at risk from future climate policies. The vagueness and potential liabilities created by this menacing set of expectations could push Canada’s largest investment firms to eventually decide it’s easier to divest altogether from fossil fuel and heavy industry sectors, furthering Carney’s ultimate goal.

Yet Carney will become prime minister just when Canadians face a trade crisis that requires the construction of new coastal energy infrastructure to ensure our fossil fuel commodities can be exported without going through the United States. He has said he would take emergency measures to support “energy projects,” but I assume he means windmills and solar panels. He has not (to my knowledge) said he supports pipelines, LNG terminals, fracking wells or new refineries. Unless he disowns everything he has said for years, we must assume he doesn’t.

Canadian journalists should insist he clear this up. Ask Carney if he supports the repeal of OSFI’s Climate Risk Management guideline. Show Carney his GFANZ report. Ask him, “Do you still endorse the contents of this document?” If he says yes, ask him how we can build new pipelines and LNG terminals, expand our oil and gas sector, run our electricity grid using Canadian natural gas, heat our homes and put gasoline in our cars if banks are to phase out these activities.

If he tries to claim he no longer endorses it,
ask him when he changed his mind,
and why we should believe him now.

The media must not allow Carney to be evasive or ambiguous on these matters. We don’t have time for a bait-and-switch prime minister. If Carney still believes the rhetoric he published through GFANZ, he should say so openly, so Canadians can assess whether he really is the right man to address our current crisis.

2025 The Poisonous Tree of Climate Change

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Now that Trump’s EPA is determined to reconsider its past GHG Endangerment Finding, it’s important to understand how we got here.  First of all there was the EPA’s theory basis for the finding:

The 3 Lines of Evidence can all be challenged by scientific studies since the 2009 ruling.  The temperature records have been adjusted over time and the validity of the measurements are uncertain.  The issues with climate models give many reasons to regard them as unfit for policy making.  And the claim that rising CO2 caused rising Global Average Surface Temperature (GAST) is dubious, both on grounds that CO2 Infrared activity declines with higher levels, and that temperature changes precede CO2 changes on all time scales from last month’s observations to ice core proxies spanning millennia.

Thus all the arrows claiming causal relations are flawed.  The rise of atmospheric CO2 is mostly nature’s response to warming, rather than the other way around. And the earth warming since the Little Ice Age (LIA) is a welcome recovery from the coldest period in the last 10,000 years.  Claims of extreme weather  and rising sea levels ignore that such events are ordinary in earth history.  And the health warnings are contrived in attributing them to barely noticeable warming temperatures.

Background on the Legal Precedents

This post was triggered by noticing an event some years ago.  Serial valve turner Ken Ward was granted a new trial by the Washington State Court of Appeals, and he was allowed to present a “necessity defense.”  This astonishingly bad ruling is reported approvingly by Kelsey Skaggs at Pacific Standard Why the Necessity Defense is Critical to the Climate Struggle. Excerpt below with my bolds.

A climate activist who was convicted after turning off an oil pipeline won the right in April to argue in a new trial that his actions were justified. The Washington State Court of Appeals ruled that Ken Ward will be permitted to explain to a jury that, while he did illegally stop the flow of tar sands oil from Canada into the United States, his action was necessary to slow catastrophic climate change.

The Skaggs article goes on to cloak energy vandalism with the history of civil disobedience against actual mistreatment and harm.  Nowhere is it recognized that the brouhaha over climate change concerns future imaginary harm.  How could lawyers and judges get this so wrong?  It can only happen when an erroneous legal precedent can be cited to spread a poison in the public square.  So I went searching for the tree producing all of this poisonous fruit. The full text of the April 8, 2019, ruling is here.

A paper at Stanford Law School (where else?) provides a good history of the necessity defense as related to climate change activism The Climate Necessity Defense: Proof and Judicial Error in Climate Protest Cases.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

My perusal of the text led me to the section where the merits are presented.

The typical climate necessity argument is straightforward. The ongoing effects of climate change are not only imminent, they are currently occurring; civil disobedience has been proven to contribute to the mitigation of these harms, and our political and legal systems have proven uniquely ill-equipped to deal with the climate crisis, thus creating the necessity of breaking the law to address it. As opposed to many classic political necessity defendants, such as anti-nuclear power protesters, climate activists can point to the existing (rather than speculative) nature of the targeted harm and can make a more compelling case that their protest activity (for example, blocking fossil fuel extraction) actually prevents some quantum of harm produced by global warming. pg.78

What?  On what evidence is such confidence based?  Later on (page 80), comes this:

Second, courts’ focus on the politics of climate change distracts from the scientific issues involved in climate necessity cases. There may well be political disagreement over the realities and effects of climate change, but there is little scientific disagreement, as the Supreme Court has noted.131

131 Massachusetts v. E.P.A., 549 U.S. 497, 499 (2007) (“The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized . . . [T]he relevant science and a strong consensus among qualified experts indicate that global warming threatens, inter alia, a precipitate rise in sea levels by the end of the century, severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems, a significant reduction in water storage in winter snowpack in mountainous regions with direct and important economic consequences, and an increase in the spread of disease and the ferocity of weather events.”).

The roots of this poisonous tree are found in citing the famous Massachusetts v. E.P.A. (2007) case decided by a 5-4 opinion of Supreme Court justices (consensus rate: 56%).  But let’s see in what context lies that reference and whether it is a quotation from a source or an issue addressed by the court.  The majority opinion was written by Justice Stevens, with dissenting opinions from Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia.  All these documents are available at sureme.justia.com Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007)

From the Majority Opinion:

A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related. For when carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it acts like the ceiling of a greenhouse, trapping solar energy and retarding the escape of reflected heat. It is therefore a species—the most important species—of a “greenhouse gas.” Source: National Research Council:

National Research Council 2001 report titled Climate Change: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (NRC Report), which, drawing heavily on the 1995 IPCC report, concluded that “[g]reenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising.” NRC Report 1.

Calling global warming “the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,”[Footnote 1] a group of States,[Footnote 2] local governments,[Footnote 3] and private organizations,[Footnote 4] alleged in a petition for certiorari that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has abdicated its responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate the emissions of four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.  Specifically, petitioners asked us to answer two questions concerning the meaning of §202(a)(1) of the Act: whether EPA has the statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles; and if so, whether its stated reasons for refusing to do so are consistent with the statute.

EPA reasoned that climate change had its own “political history”: Congress designed the original Clean Air Act to address local air pollutants rather than a substance that “is fairly consistent in its concentration throughout the world’s atmosphere,” 68 Fed. Reg. 52927 (emphasis added); declined in 1990 to enact proposed amendments to force EPA to set carbon dioxide emission standards for motor vehicles, ibid. (citing H. R. 5966, 101st Cong., 2d Sess. (1990)); and addressed global climate change in other legislation, 68 Fed. Reg. 52927. Because of this political history, and because imposing emission limitations on greenhouse gases would have even greater economic and political repercussions than regulating tobacco, EPA was persuaded that it lacked the power to do so. Id., at 52928. In essence, EPA concluded that climate change was so important that unless Congress spoke with exacting specificity, it could not have meant the agency to address it.

Having reached that conclusion, EPA believed it followed that greenhouse gases cannot be “air pollutants” within the meaning of the Act. See ibid. (“It follows from this conclusion, that [greenhouse gases], as such, are not air pollutants under the [Clean Air Act’s] regulatory provisions …”).

Even assuming that it had authority over greenhouse gases, EPA explained in detail why it would refuse to exercise that authority. The agency began by recognizing that the concentration of greenhouse gases has dramatically increased as a result of human activities, and acknowledged the attendant increase in global surface air temperatures. Id., at 52930. EPA nevertheless gave controlling importance to the NRC Report’s statement that a causal link between the two “ ‘cannot be unequivocally established.’ ” Ibid. (quoting NRC Report 17). Given that residual uncertainty, EPA concluded that regulating greenhouse gas emissions would be unwise. 68 Fed. Reg. 52930.

The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized. Indeed, the NRC Report itself—which EPA regards as an “objective and independent assessment of the relevant science,” 68 Fed. Reg. 52930—identifies a number of environmental changes that have already inflicted significant harms, including “the global retreat of mountain glaciers, reduction in snow-cover extent, the earlier spring melting of rivers and lakes, [and] the accelerated rate of rise of sea levels during the 20th century relative to the past few thousand years … .” NRC Report 16.

In sum—at least according to petitioners’ uncontested affidavits—the rise in sea levels associated with global warming has already harmed and will continue to harm Massachusetts. The risk of catastrophic harm, though remote, is nevertheless real. That risk would be reduced to some extent if petitioners received the relief they seek. We therefore hold that petitioners have standing to challenge the EPA’s denial of their rulemaking petition.[Footnote 24]

In short, EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change. Its action was therefore “arbitrary, capricious, … or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 42 U. S. C. §7607(d)(9)(A). We need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding, or whether policy concerns can inform EPA’s actions in the event that it makes such a finding. Cf. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843–844 (1984). We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.

My Comment: Note that the citations of scientific proof were uncontested assertions by petitioners.  Note also that the majority did not rule that EPA must make an endangerment finding:  “We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.”

From the Minority Dissenting Opinion

It is not at all clear how the Court’s “special solicitude” for Massachusetts plays out in the standing analysis, except as an implicit concession that petitioners cannot establish standing on traditional terms. But the status of Massachusetts as a State cannot compensate for petitioners’ failure to demonstrate injury in fact, causation, and redressability.

When the Court actually applies the three-part test, it focuses, as did the dissent below, see 415 F. 3d 50, 64 (CADC 2005) (opinion of Tatel, J.), on the State’s asserted loss of coastal land as the injury in fact. If petitioners rely on loss of land as the Article III injury, however, they must ground the rest of the standing analysis in that specific injury. That alleged injury must be “concrete and particularized,” Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 560, and “distinct and palpable,” Allen, 468 U. S., at 751 (internal quotation marks omitted). Central to this concept of “particularized” injury is the requirement that a plaintiff be affected in a “personal and individual way,” Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 560, n. 1, and seek relief that “directly and tangibly benefits him” in a manner distinct from its impact on “the public at large,” id., at 573–574. Without “particularized injury, there can be no confidence of ‘a real need to exercise the power of judicial review’ or that relief can be framed ‘no broader than required by the precise facts to which the court’s ruling would be applied.’ ” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 508 (1975) (quoting Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 221–222 (1974)).

The very concept of global warming seems inconsistent with this particularization requirement. Global warming is a phenomenon “harmful to humanity at large,” 415 F. 3d, at 60 (Sentelle, J., dissenting in part and concurring in judgment), and the redress petitioners seek is focused no more on them than on the public generally—it is literally to change the atmosphere around the world.

If petitioners’ particularized injury is loss of coastal land, it is also that injury that must be “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical,” Defenders of Wildlife, supra, at 560 (internal quotation marks omitted), “real and immediate,” Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 102 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted), and “certainly impending,” Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 158 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted).

As to “actual” injury, the Court observes that “global sea levels rose somewhere between 10 and 20 centimeters over the 20th century as a result of global warming” and that “[t]hese rising seas have already begun to swallow Massachusetts’ coastal land.” Ante, at 19. But none of petitioners’ declarations supports that connection. One declaration states that “a rise in sea level due to climate change is occurring on the coast of Massachusetts, in the metropolitan Boston area,” but there is no elaboration. Petitioners’ Standing Appendix in No. 03–1361, etc. (CADC), p. 196 (Stdg. App.). And the declarant goes on to identify a “significan[t]” non-global-warming cause of Boston’s rising sea level: land subsidence. Id., at 197; see also id., at 216. Thus, aside from a single conclusory statement, there is nothing in petitioners’ 43 standing declarations and accompanying exhibits to support an inference of actual loss of Massachusetts coastal land from 20th century global sea level increases. It is pure conjecture.

The Court ignores the complexities of global warming, and does so by now disregarding the “particularized” injury it relied on in step one, and using the dire nature of global warming itself as a bootstrap for finding causation and redressability.

Petitioners are never able to trace their alleged injuries back through this complex web to the fractional amount of global emissions that might have been limited with EPA standards. In light of the bit-part domestic new motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions have played in what petitioners describe as a 150-year global phenomenon, and the myriad additional factors bearing on petitioners’ alleged injury—the loss of Massachusetts coastal land—the connection is far too speculative to establish causation.

From Justice Scalia’s Dissenting Opinion

Even on the Court’s own terms, however, the same conclusion follows. As mentioned above, the Court gives EPA the option of determining that the science is too uncertain to allow it to form a “judgment” as to whether greenhouse gases endanger public welfare. Attached to this option (on what basis is unclear) is an essay requirement: “If,” the Court says, “the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment as to whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, EPA must say so.” Ante, at 31. But EPA has said precisely that—and at great length, based on information contained in a 2001 report by the National Research Council (NRC) entitled Climate Change Science:

“As the NRC noted in its report, concentrations of [greenhouse gases (GHGs)] are increasing in the atmosphere as a result of human activities (pp. 9–12). It also noted that ‘[a] diverse array of evidence points to a warming of global surface air temperatures’ (p. 16). The report goes on to state, however, that ‘[b]ecause of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a [causal] linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established. The fact that the magnitude of the observed warming is large in comparison to natural variability as simulated in climate models is suggestive of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one because the model simulations could be deficient in natural variability on the decadal to century time scale’ (p. 17).

“The NRC also observed that ‘there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of [GHGs] and aerosols’ (p. 1). As a result of that uncertainty, the NRC cautioned that ‘current estimate of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).’ Id. It further advised that ‘[r]educing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions of global climate change will require major advances in understanding and modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of [GHGs] and aerosols and (2) the so-called “feedbacks” that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in [GHGs].’ Id.

“The science of climate change is extraordinarily complex and still evolving. Although there have been substantial advances in climate change science, there continue to be important uncertainties in our understanding of the factors that may affect future climate change and how it should be addressed. As the NRC explained, predicting future climate change necessarily involves a complex web of economic and physical factors including: Our ability to predict future global anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and aerosols; the fate of these emissions once they enter the atmosphere (e.g., what percentage are absorbed by vegetation or are taken up by the oceans); the impact of those emissions that remain in the atmosphere on the radiative properties of the atmosphere; changes in critically important climate feedbacks (e.g., changes in cloud cover and ocean circulation); changes in temperature characteristics (e.g., average temperatures, shifts in daytime and evening temperatures); changes in other climatic parameters (e.g., shifts in precipitation, storms); and ultimately the impact of such changes on human health and welfare (e.g., increases or decreases in agricultural productivity, human health impacts). The NRC noted, in particular, that ‘[t]he understanding of the relationships between weather/climate and human health is in its infancy and therefore the health consequences of climate change are poorly understood’ (p. 20). Substantial scientific uncertainties limit our ability to assess each of these factors and to separate out those changes resulting from natural variability from those that are directly the result of increases in anthropogenic GHGs.

“Reducing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions will require major advances in understanding and modeling of the factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and the processes that determine the sensitivity of the climate system.” 68 Fed. Reg. 52930.

I simply cannot conceive of what else the Court would like EPA to say.

Conclusion

Justice Scalia laid the axe to the roots of this poisonous tree.  Even the scientific source document relied on by the majority admits that claims of man made warming are conjecture without certain evidence.  This case does not prove CAGW despite it being repeatedly cited as though it did.

2025 The Legal Landscape Has Shifted For EPA

But much has changed in the legal landscape in recent years that will give opponents to Zeldin’s effort an uphill battle to fight. First is the changed make-up of the Supreme Court. When the Massachusetts v. EPA case was decided in 2007, the Court was evenly divided, consisting of four conservatives, four liberals, and Anthony Kennedy, a moderate who served as the Court’s “swing vote” in many major decisions. Kennedy was the deciding vote in that case, siding with the four liberal justices.

But conservatives hold an overwhelming 6-3 majority on today’s Supreme Court. While Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett have occasionally sided with the Court’s three liberal justices in a handful of decisions, there is little reason to think that would happen in a reconsideration of the Massachusetts v. EPA case. That seems especially true for Justice Roberts, who wrote the dissenting opinion in the 2007 decision.

The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in the Loper Bright Industries v. EPA case could present another major challenge for Zeldin’s opponents to overcome. In a 6-3 decision in that case, the Court reversed the longstanding Chevron Deference legal doctrine.

As I wrote at the time, [w]hen established in 1984 in a unanimous, 6-0 decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, Chevron instructed federal courts to defer to the judgment of legal counsel for the regulatory agencies when such regulations were challenged via litigation. Since that time, agencies focused on extending their authority well outside the original intents of the governing statutes have relied on the doctrine to ensure they will not be overturned.

The existence of the Chevron deference has worked to ensure the judiciary branch of government has also been largely paralyzed to act decisively to review and overrule elements of the Biden agenda whenever the EPA, Bureau of Land Management or other agencies impose regulations that may lie outside the scope and intent of the governing statutes. In effect, this doctrine has served as a key enabler of the massive growth of what has come to be known as the US administrative state.

The question now becomes whether the current Supreme Court with its strong conservative majority will uphold its reasoning in Massachusetts v. EPA in the absence of the Chevron Deference.

The Bottom Line For Zeldin And EPA

Opponents of the expansion of EPA air regulations by the Obama and Biden presidencies have long contended that the underpinnings for those actions – Massachusetts v. EPA and the 2009 endangerment finding – were a classic legal house of cards that would ultimately come falling down when the politics and makeup of the Supreme Court shifted.

Trump and Zeldin are betting that both factors are now in favor of these major actions at EPA. Only time, and an array of major court battles to come, will tell.  [Source: David Blackmon at Forbes]

Footnote:  

Taking the sea level rise projected by Sea Change Boston, and through the magic of CAI (Computer-Aided Imagining), we can compare to tidal gauge observations at Boston:

 

 

Minefield to Defuse EPA GHG Endangerment Finding

Posted on by Ron Clutz

When first using this image, I was noting how naive were politicians (the Brits, for example) to legislate future CO2 emissions reductions, opening themselves up to lawsuits and legal constraints on policy decisions.  Now the same advice applies to the Trump administration targeting the root of the poisonous tree of climate alarmism.  First the lay of the land from EPA Director Zeldin, in italics with my bolds:

Trump EPA Kicks Off Formal Reconsideration of Endangerment Finding with Agency Partners

EPA Press Office (press@epa.gov)

WASHINGTON – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency will be kicking off a formal reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other relevant agencies. EPA also intends to reconsider all of its prior regulations and actions that rely on the Endangerment Finding.

Administrator Zeldin: “After 16 years, EPA will formally reconsider the Endangerment Finding.”  “The Trump Administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas. We will follow the science, the law, and common sense wherever it leads, and we will do so while advancing our commitment towards helping to deliver cleaner, healthier, and safer air, land, and water.”

White House OMB Director Russ Vought: “EPA’s regulation of the climate affects the entire national economy—jobs, wages, and family budgets. It’s long overdue to look at the impacts on our people of the underlying Obama endangerment finding.” 

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum: “The United States produces energy smarter, cleaner, and safer than anywhere else in the world. To achieve President Trump’s vision for energy dominance, we are prioritizing innovation over regulation to attain an affordable, reliable, clean, and secure energy future for all Americans.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright:  “The 2009 Endangerment finding has had an enormously negative impact on the lives of the American people. For more than 15 years, the U.S. government used the finding to pursue an onslaught of costly regulations – raising prices and reducing reliability and choice on everything from vehicles to electricity and more. It’s past time the United States ensures the basis for issuing environmental regulations follows the science and betters human lives.”

Transportation Secretary Duffy:  “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the hard work of Administrator Zeldin, we are taking another important step toward ushering in a golden age of transportation. The American people voted for a government that prioritizes affordable, safe travel and lets them choose the vehicles they drive. Today we are delivering on that promise, and this will allow the DOT to accelerate its work on new vehicle fuel economy standards that will lower car prices and no longer force Americans to purchase electric vehicles they don’t want.” 

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Jeff Clark:  “Since 2009, I’ve consistently argued that the endangerment finding required a consideration of downstream costs imposed on both mobile sources like cars and stationary sources like factories. Under the enlightened leadership of President Trump and Administrator Zeldin, the time for fresh thought has finally arrived.”

In President Trump’s Day One Executive Order, “Unleashing American Energy,” he gave the EPA Administrator a 30-day deadline to submit recommendations on the legality and continuing applicability of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. After submitting these recommendations, EPA can now announce its intent to reconsider the 2009 Endangerment Finding.

When EPA made the Endangerment Finding in 2009, the agency did not consider any aspect of the regulations that would flow from it. EPA’s view then was that the Finding itself did not impose any costs, and that EPA could not consider future costs when making the Finding. EPA has subsequently relied on the Endangerment Finding as part of its justification for seven vehicle regulations with an aggregate cost of more than one trillion dollars, according to figures in EPA’s own regulatory impact analyses. The Endangerment Finding has also played a significant role in EPA’s justification of regulations of other sources beyond cars and trucks.  

Congress tasked EPA under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act with regulating new motor vehicles when the Administrator determines that emissions of an air pollutant endanger public health and welfare. But the Endangerment Finding went about this task in what appears to be a flawed and unorthodox way. Contrary to popular belief, the Endangerment Finding did not directly find that carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. cars endanger public welfare. Instead, the Finding looks at a combination of emissions of six different gases—and cars don’t even emit all six. It then creatively added multiple leaps, arguing that the combined six gases contribute some mysterious amount above zero to climate change and that climate change creates some mysterious amount of endangerment above zero to public health. These mental leaps were the only way the Obama-Biden Administration could come to its preferred conclusion, even if it did not stick to the letter of the Clean Air Act.  

The Endangerment Finding acknowledges and identifies significant uncertainties in the science and assumptions used to justify the decision. In the 16 years since EPA issued the Endangerment Finding, the world has seen major developments in innovative technologies, science, economics, and mitigation. EPA has never before asked for public comment on the implications these developments have had on the Endangerment Finding, but now it will as part of the reconsideration process it intends to undertake. Additionally, major Supreme Court decisions in the intervening years, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, West Virginia v. EPA, Michigan v. EPA, and Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, have provided new guidance on how the agency should interpret statutes to discern Congressional intent and ensure that its regulations follow the law.  

As part of this reconsideration process, EPA will leverage the expertise of the White House Budget Office, including the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other relevant agencies.  

It is in the best interest of the American people for EPA to ensure that any finding and regulations are based on the strongest scientific and legal foundation. The reconsideration of the Endangerment Finding and EPA’s regulations that have relied on it furthers this interest. The agency cannot prejudge the outcome of this reconsideration or of any future rulemaking. EPA will follow the Administrative Procedure Act and Clean Air Act, as applicable, in a transparent way for the betterment of the American people and the fulfillment of the rule of law.

This was announced in conjunction with a number of historic actions to advance President Trump’s Day One executive orders and Power the Great American Comeback. Combined, these announcements represent the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in the history of the United States. The overhaul of the Endangerment Finding along with other massive rules represents the death of the Green New Scam and drives a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion. While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting the environment, the agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.

Objections from the usual suspects

“This decision ignores science and the law,” David Doniger, senior strategist and attorney for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “Abdicating EPA’s clear legal duty to curb climate-changing pollution only makes sense if you consider who would benefit: the oil, coal, and gas magnates who handed the president millions of dollars in campaign contributions.”

Vickie Patton, the Environmental Defense Fund’s general counsel, said any move to undo the finding “would be reckless, unlawful, and ignore EPA’s fundamental responsibility to protect Americans from destructive climate pollution. We will vigorously oppose it.”

“They don’t have a winning hand. Having the power to do this doesn’t tell you anything about whether or not what they’re doing makes sense on the merits,” said Joseph Goffman, who ran EPA’s air office during the Biden administration. “They’ve got nothing on the merits.”

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania dismissed the EPA’s action as “just the latest form of Republican climate denial. They can no longer deny climate change is happening, so instead they’re pretending it’s not a threat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is, perhaps, the greatest threat that we face today.”

The Pathways and the Risks

Shuting Pomerleau gives insight into activists worries and the possibilities:  Is EPA’s Endangerment Finding at Risk?

If EPA’s endangerment finding is rescinded, it may not have any material impact on the agency’s legal basis for issuing future climate regulations on GHG emissions, since the IRA amended the CAA to grant explicit authority to the agency. Nevertheless, repealing the endangerment finding would likely create chaos and uncertainty for U.S. climate policy.

First, rescinding the endangerment finding would make it much easier for the Trump Administration to repeal the existing EPA GHG emissions regulations because the original legal basis for this authority would no longer exist. Under the Obama and Biden Administrations, EPA has issued several sector-based GHG emissions regulations using the endangerment finding as a legal basis.

Second, repealing the endangerment finding would immediately subject EPA to legal challenges that could last years. Before the dispute could be adjudicated by the courts, there would be considerable confusion and uncertainty over compliance with the existing regulations. This would negatively impact the regulatory environment for businesses, as they need durable and consistent policies to make long-term investment decisions.

From the perspective of policymaking, rescinding EPA’s endangerment finding puts a big question mark on the outlook of U.S. climate policies. Currently, at the federal level, the United States uses a patchwork of policies to mitigate GHG emissions, such as handing out massive clean energy tax subsidies under the IRA and relying on command-and-control EPA regulations. The IRA energy tax provisions will likely be subject to at least partial repeal in an upcoming 2025 reconciliation bill. Even if a future administration seeks to regulate GHG emissions via EPA rulemaking, it would take a long time, and generally such regulations are costly, inflexible, and vulnerable to legal challenges.

What to Expect Next

EPA to Accept Nominations for Science Boards

EPA Press Office (press@epa.gov)

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that a notice will be published in the Federal Register seeking nominations for the Science Advisory Board (SAB) and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). Nominations will be accepted for 30 days following publication of the Federal Register notice.

“Reconstituting the Science Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee are critical to ensuring that the agency receives scientific advice consistent with its legal obligations to advance our core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “I look forward to receiving nominations to build an independent group of advisors to aid the agency’s rulemaking.” 

In January, EPA announced its decision to reset these federal advisory committees
to reverse the politicization of SAB and CASAC under the Biden-Harris Administration.

 

 

 

 

Pushback Against EU World-wide ESG Rules

Posted on by Ron Clutz

As Bloomberg reported, EU is attempting to force climate risk and ESG reporting on the whole world, not just its member nations.  

As trans-Atlantic relations grow increasingly fraught, Europe’s ESG regulations are becoming yet another flashpoint that threatens to sour ties.

The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) says proposed revisions to the bloc’s environmental, social and governance rules don’t adequately protect US interests. The complaint is part of a growing US response to Europe’s ESG framework. Republican lawmakers call the rules “hostile” and warn that America’s jurisdictional sovereignty is at stake, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he’s willing to consider “trade tools” to retaliate.

The European Commission proposed changes last week that would rein in the scope of two major ESG laws: the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. However, big international companies with business in the EU would still have to comply.

The upshot is that non-EU companies risk being ensnared by the bloc’s ESG rules, even for products that aren’t sold in the EU, said Kim Watts, senior policy manager for AmCham EU, whose members include Ford Motor Co., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.

AmCham is worried that the EU “is going too far on extraterritoriality,” she said in an interview.

It’s a complaint that’s being backed up in even stronger terms by GOP members of Congress. In a letter sent shortly after the European Commission published its proposed revisions to the bloc’s ESG rules, the US lawmakers wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, warning of the “profound” implications of Europe’s due diligence directive for US businesses.

The lawmakers stated: “CSDDD imposes stringent due diligence requirements on in-scope companies, mandating the evaluation of supply chains to identify, mitigate, and eliminate human rights and environmental abuses as defined by United Nations (UN) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) principles.

“Furthermore, US firms will face increased litigation risks and potential enforcement actions from EU member states, with penalties under the Directive reaching up to 5% of a company’s global turnover.

“However, these principles have not been ratified by Congress, raising concerns about the legitimacy of EU enforcement against US companies based on these principles. Additionally, small businesses that supply larger companies will also be affected, even if their operations are solely within the US compliance efforts will require significant resource allocation, diverting funds away from critical areas such as research and development, talent acquisition, and investment.

CSDDD letter to Sec BessentDownload

SEC Climate Risk Rule is Entrapment

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Stone Washington and William Happer explain the nefarious and ill-advised decree in their article SEC’s Climate Risk Disclosure Rule Would Compel Companies to Make Scientifically False and Misleading Disclosures.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

In March last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued its climate risk disclosure rule, called “The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors.” 

It requires companies to report enormously costly and voluminous data on their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With this rule, the SEC seeks “to achieve the primary benefits of GHG emissions disclosure” for investors, including disclosure of “risks associated” with regulations such as President Biden’s “commitments to reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions … to reach net zero emissions by 2050.”

It will flood investors with pages upon pages of information. As to costs, the SEC’s own numbers found that the proposed rule would increase annual compliance costs from $3.8 billion to $10.2 billion, a $6.4 billion rise — more than all the accumulated SEC disclosure rules’ costs from SEC’s initiation in the 1930s to date – combined. Even though the final rule’s cost is less, the numbers indicate the order of magnitude. It may signal what the ultimate cost of future environmental disclosures would be, in addition to the ensuing fossil fuel divestment. 

The SEC assumes, like many, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim the “evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change,” including, the SEC asserts, “higher temperatures, sea level rise, and drought”, as well as “hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and wildfires.”

However, the little-known accurate science is totally contrary to the SEC’s and IPCC’s premise. Co-author William Happer, an emeritus physics professor at Princeton, explains below how carbon dioxide and other GHGs do not cause any increased climate related risks. The SEC’s and IPCC’s claim is scientifically false. 

Thus, the SEC rule would compel companies to disclose scientifically false and misleading information about carbon dioxide and other GHG’s role in climate-related risks to investors. Accordingly, the SEC rule must be rescinded by the Trump Administration or ruled invalid by the courts, whichever is sooner.

Co-author Happer explains the accurate science in detail in a 28 page comment on the proposed SEC rule with Richard Lindzen, an emeritus physics professor at MIT. The comment explains why there are no added climate related risks caused by carbon dioxide. (The other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are too small to have any significant effect on the environment).

The SEC totally ignored and did not respond to the comment. Three of the many scientific reasons elaborated in the comment are:

First, Carbon Dioxide Now and at Higher Levels is a Weak Greenhouse Gas, So Reducing It to Net Zero Will Have a Negligible Effect on Temperatures

As a GHG, carbon dioxide’s ability to raise Earth’s temperature decreases rapidly as the atmospheric concentration increase.   The science is complex, but the scientific conclusion is simple. At today’s level of about 400 parts per million (ppm) and higher, large increases of carbon dioxide will cause negligible warming of the Earth.

The well-established theory of atmospheric heat transfer allows computing what happens when carbon dioxide’s concentration in the atmosphere increases, for example, doubling from today’s approximately 400 ppm to 800 ppm.   As to temperature, the result would be only a minuscule effect on temperature because carbon dioxide is now, and at higher levels, a weak greenhouse gas. Lindzen and Happer state:

“From now on … we could emit as much CO2 as we like, with little warming effect.” This also means that “our emissions from burning fossil fuels could have little impact on global warming. There is no climate emergency. No threat at all.” 

As to food, carbon dioxide creates more food when its level in the atmosphere increases. Doubling carbon dioxide from 400 ppm to 800 ppm would increase the amount of food available to people worldwide by roughly 40%, with a negligible effect on temperature.

Further, never mentioned, is that reducing carbon dioxide to Net Zero will reduce the amount of food available worldwide.

Second. The EPA’s MAGICC Model Confirms Carbon Dioxide Now and at Higher Levels is a Weak Greenhouse Gas, So Reducing It to Net Zero Will Have a Negligible Effect on Temperatures

The Environmental Protection Agency often uses a model for predicting temperature effects called the Model for Assessment of Greenhouse Gas-Induced Climate Change (MAGICC).  Our comment explains the MAGICC model confirms our conclusion:

“Reducing the current 40 Gigaton CO2 annual emissions worldwide and the 6 Gigaton annual U.S. CO2 emissions to ‘net zero’ would cause only tiny changes of … Earth’s surface temperature.”

Third. 600 Million Years of Carbon Dioxide Data Also Confirms Carbon Dioxide Now and at Higher Levels is a Weak Greenhouse Gas, So Reducing It to Net Zero Will Have a Negligible Effect on Temperatures

Our comment presents 600 million years of data on temperature and carbon dioxide levels that shows an inverse relationship most of the time. “For hundreds of millions of years, temperatures were low when CO2 levels were high, and temperatures were high when CO2 levels were low.”

“When CO2 was record high of about 7,000 ppm, temperatures were at a record low.”

Thus 600 million years of data also confirms carbon dioxide is now a weak greenhouse gas that cannot and does not drive climate change.

Finally, our comment details why the rule if adopted would help cause disastrous consequences for the poor, people worldwide, and future generations of Americans because it would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the use of fossil fuels.

Therefore, science contradicts the SEC and IPCC’s premise that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases introduce climate-related risks. Such assumptions are scientifically false. Thus requiring companies to report their GHG data to investors interested in climate change would require them to report false and misleading information.

Accordingly, the new SEC leadership should immediately rescind its climate-related risks disclosure rule, or the courts should rule it invalid, whichever is sooner.

Finally, there are, of course, nature caused climate-related risks. For nature, the SEC explained, “it has required disclosure of certain environmental matters for the past 50 years,” including “disclosure of climate-related risks and their impacts on a registrant’s business or financial condition.”

Thus, the SEC has already taken care of them. Nothing else need be done.

 

On Energy, Carney the Wrong Man at the Worst Time

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Geoff Russ explains at his National Post article When it comes to energy, Carney is the wrong man at the worst time.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The world is moving on from global climate goals to more pressing matters

Even if only for a matter of weeks, Mark Carney is likely to become prime minister of Canada when this Liberal leadership race concludes. His vision for the country is rife with climate strategies and schemes belonging to a world most can remember, but that no longer exists.

The world has moved on. International accords such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, cooperation between financial institutions on climate goals, and more carbon pricing are no longer priorities for Canada in 2025. Canada is not a superpower, no serious person would say differently, and we have to swim in the global current of change.

Trudeau was not prepared for Trump’s bargaining style.

This doesn’t mean bowing to the whims of an unpredictable strongman, but it does require recognizing that the Obama world of liberal internationalism and high-minded ideals is gone. Whatever chance it had of enduring died with Joe Biden’s presidency.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had already scrambled world energy supply lines, and Trump’s return to the White House, along with the rise of AI technology, have changed everything.

AI in particular has been one of the biggest shifts since Carney’s days as a central banker. The astonishing and rapid growth of AI has resulted in eye-popping demands for energy, with data centres set to consume more electricity than entire cities.

Grids will be pushed to their limits. This spells danger for Canadian provinces like British Columbia, whose hydroelectricity regime can no longer reliably supply its economy and population. For consecutive years now, BC Hydro has been forced to import energy from Alberta and the U.S., the latter of which may soon be subject to counter-tariffs and other heightened costs.

Carney’s ideas about the climate and the so-called “energy transition” are at odds with his promises to grow the use of AI in the public service and future economy. Canada will have to build many data centres to keep up with other G7 countries, but where will their energy come from?

Nuclear energy is the most commonly cited solution, and several American big-tech giants have made plans to use small modular reactors (SMRs) to power the data centres. Once built, nuclear power provides an abundance of cheap, low-emitting, and reliable energy.

B.C. has standing laws that prohibit the building of nuclear generators, and the provincial NDP government unambiguously rejected the possibility of changing that. In the meantime, wind and solar will not cut it, both being subject to weather patterns that make them unreliable and insufficient.

The best alternative is natural gas, 1,368 trillion cubic feet of which sits beneath the feet of Canadians and can serve as an abundant source of power for the modern economy. Unfortunately, Carney’s ideas about carbon pricing would fall directly on the producers, making it far more expensive while deterring investment.

Trump is an unabashed economic nationalist, and Canada needs
to make itself competitive and attractive to
both energy and technological investment.

Canadian natural gas is more important than ever, both for the country and the world. After Russia invaded Ukraine, EU countries had to rapidly seek new, stable suppliers of energy to replace the massive Russian gas imports that supplied much of the EU.

The war revealed how energy security amongst friends and allies was just as important as emissions reductions, if not more so. Canada’s first opportunity was squandered when the Liberal government rebuffed European calls for Canadian LNG as having “no business case”.

Germany has been forced to turn back to coal as a power source as energy bills surge, driving German automobile manufacturers to close down some of their plants. Canadian LNG exports need to be prioritized for domestic use and exports abroad, and insisting on slapping punitive carbon taxes on the industry is against Canada’s interests.

Another challenge to Canada’s economic future is the recently proposed, $44 billion USD LNG project in Alaska. Envisioned as a joint US-Japanese, the project would establish Alaska as the leading LNG exporter to Japan, one of the world’s largest importers of natural gas.

If completed, the Alaska LNG project would be a direct threat to BC’s natural gas industry. One of the major projects, Cedar LNG in Kitimat, is set to come online in 2028, followed by two more in Squamish and near Prince Rupert. B.C. has a good head start, but the US and Japan plowing ahead with $44 billion LNG deals should be a wakeup call to Ottawa.

An LNG export deal with Japan of similar value should be completed while American LNG still has to pass through the Panama Canal to get to Japan, not after it starts being shipped from Alaska. Taxing natural gas producers will slow potential projects down and make Canada less competitive.

Canada cannot diversify its trading partners if the U.S. is allowed to overtake our industries and slowing it down with carbon taxes and Canada’s onerous regulatory regime in the name of outdated climate movements is a gift to President Trump.

Like it or not, major international initiatives live or die
depending on American involvement. This was true of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and it is true of NATO.

Mark Carney’s own attempts to forge agreements such as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which has been abandoned by major American and Canadian banks and financial institutions, have collapsed. Canada needs to prioritize building up our own internal energy infrastructure and making it as competitive and attractive to investors as possible.

This is the age of nationalism, and we should recognize the opportunities it will bring to Canada. If Carney’s pledge to make Canadians “masters of our own house” means trying to captain toothless climate accords and drive away investment, then he should not be the head of our house.

Climate Crusade Is a Dead End

Posted on by Ron Clutz

This post presents the main points and exhibits from Professor de Lange’s presentation February 26, 2025.  Most images are self explanatory, with some excerpts in italics lightly edited from captions, and some added images as well. H/T Bud Bromley.

Prof. de Lange demonstrates that there is no credible climate crisis, and that there is much more to climate than CO2 alone. First, he addresses the discrepancy between satellite temperature measurements and results from climate models. Second, he shows the effect of even doubling the CO2 concentration has only minor effects, while it is in fact crucial to photosynthesis. Third, he shows that how the significant lack of experimental data on cloud composition now hampers progress in climate science. Fourth, he demonstrates that there is no convincing correlation between CO2 and temperature on a geological time scale. Fifth, he addresses global future energy supply, demonstrating that renewables are “unaffordables”, just as are untested technologies (batteries, hydrogen), and he concludes that the future has to be based on nuclear power.

1.  Natural Science and Observations versus Models

2.  Atmospheric Physics and Greenhouse Gases

Warm Surface of the earth can be viewed as a radiator in the infrared that radiates Intensity out Into the atmosphere, and again the flow of infrared energy is not interrupted. It is absorbed by the atmosphere and that’s where the clouds turn out to be extremely important. They delay the outgoing energy into the universe. In climate science we balance the yellow incoming solar energy in watts per square meter with the outgoing radiation from the surface and atmosphere. Some is reflected and some is absorbed and emitted as long wave radiation.  The imbalance is shown at the bottom as ~1 W/m2, which is a small difference between two much larger energy flows showing hundreds of W/m2. If for any reason, there is a slight change in either the incoming or outgoing flows, the imbalance would change dramatically.

The fact that Greenhouse gases play very important role in absorbing infrared radiation in the atmosphere is already 150 years old. We shall see that dependence of the temperature of the earth due to greenhouse gases is not linear, the effect on temperature is logarithmic. This is seen in the graph on the left side.

On the horizontal scale we see the frequency scale expressed in common unit in physics in wave numbers. And here we see the continuous Blue Trace results from infrared radiation that would leave the warm surface of the planet if there were no atmosphere at all. The total surface under the blue trace depends on temperature to the fourth power, very temperature dependent.

We see the effect of atmosphere greenhouse gases represented by the black line, which is a bit lower than the blue Trace. The green line shows the where the black line would be, were there to be no CO2 in the atmosphere. The red line shows that there would be little difference from doubling CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm.

The role of water vapor is terribly important.  Water is the most important Greenhouse gas, but when we Go to clouds, he situation becomes much more complicated than in the absence of clouds. So clouds again are the Achilles heel of of climate Science.  As I said an increase in CO2  leads to a little more warming but the increase is logarithmic. meaning less and Less warming at higher CO2 levels.  Doubling CO2 leads to extra forcing of about 1 percent or about 3 watts per square meter.  Since 1850 when temperature measurements really started since, the planet’s surface has warmed up by about 1°C.   That is not very much, and the effect of CO2 can only be very much smaller.

3.  Scattering in Clouds

The post referenced in the exhibit is Clauser’s Case: GHG Science Wrong, Clouds the Climate Thermostat

4. Is CO2 the only and most important culprit of ‘’disastrous’’ climate change, warming in particular?

5. Supplying Energy to a Growing World Population

US House Targets Biden Climate Rules to Cancel

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Maydeen Merino reports at Washington Times House leadership lays out target list of Biden climate rules to cancel.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

House Republican leadership outlined a number of Former President Joe Biden ’s climate regulations that it will seek to overturn through a special legislative process in the coming weeks.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on Thursday released a list of the previous administration ‘s climate and energy regulations that Republicans will aim to reverse through the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

The CRA allows Congress to bypass the filibuster and take a simple majority vote in the House and Senate to overturn recently implemented rules. The process allows the vote to come to the floor in an expedited fashion, forcing all members to go on the record with their votes.

If Congress votes to undo a rule,
the agency cannot propose a similar regulation.

Scalise listed 10 regulations Republicans will look to undo, with the majority being climate-related.

California Clean Air Act Waiver

At the top of the list is the California Clean Air Act Waiver granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which allows the state to implement stricter vehicle emission standards than federal requirements. California has required all new car sales to be zero-emissions by 2035.  A number of states follow California’s auto emission standards. Republicans have vocally opposed California’s standards as a ban on gas vehicles, and Trump has promised to reverse the waiver.  The waiver has “resulted in higher vehicle prices for consumers, increased costs and manufacturing complexities for automakers, and a more complicated regulatory environment,” Scalise said in a press release .

Waste Emissions Charge

Another prominent target is the Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems, which was implemented as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats and signed by Biden that included hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for clean energy projects. With the charge, the EPA imposed a fee on oil and gas facilities that exceed specific methane emissions thresholds. “The fee is a pass-through cost to consumers that will raise prices, reduce domestic energy production, and increase reliance on foreign energy sources,” Scalise said.

Standards for Gas-fired Water Heaters
Republicans will also look to overturn the Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Gas-fired Instantaneous Water Heaters, which is a set of rules by the Energy Department requiring a minimum efficiency level for gas-powered tankless water heaters. The GOP said the rule places financial burden on consumers and limits consumer choice.

 

Energy Conservation-Appliance Standards

The GOP plans to cut the Energy Conservation-Appliance Standards for certification and labeling, by which appliances must meet specific standards to receive a label informing consumers that they are energy-efficient. Scalise noted that the rule slows the introduction of products to market, limits consumer options, and affects the supply chain.

Off Shore Drilling Regulations

Other climate-related rules include the Oil and Gas and Sulfur Operations in the Outer Continental Shelf, which is a list of strict regulations on offshore oil drilling in high-pressure and temperature environments. Scalise said the regulations increase the burdens on energy operations and raise costs for consumers.

Rubber Tire Manufacturing Emissions Standards

The national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants for Rubber Tire Manufacturing, which addresses hazardous emissions from the rubber tire manufacturing process, is also targeted to be slashed by the GOP . The rule increases compliance costs for the industry and results in higher prices for consumers, the House majority leader said.

Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources,

Lastly, the GOP will look to overturn the Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources, which requires oil and gas lessees and operators to submit archaeological reports for exploration or development on the Outer Continental Shelf. Scalise said the rule blocks domestic energy production and weakens energy independence.

Listing of Voluntary Carbon Credit Derivative Contracts

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Guidance Regarding the Listing of Voluntary Carbon Credit Derivative Contracts will also be on the GOP chopping block. The rule establishes standards to buy and sell carbon credits to offset emissions. The rule prioritizes “political activism goals like environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and Net Zero…” Scalise said.

Digital Payment and Sales Rules

The House majority leader also included the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s General-Use Digital Consumer Payment Applications rule and The Internal Revenue Service’s Digital Asset Sales rule on the list.

“In addition to these rules, the Leader will be looking at more potential CRAs as we continue to fight to undo the damage done by the Biden Administration,” Scalise added.

 

 

 

 

Canada Facing Fork in the Road

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Jordan Peterson writes at National Post Canada must offer Alberta more than Trump could. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

We have been terrible friends to the Americans

There is little doubt that one Donald J. Trump has truly and effectively rattled his northern neighbour’s chains. Aren’t the Americans our friends — and vice versa? Is the president serious in his desire to make Canada the 51st state? He certainly seemed serious enough when discussing his proposed takeover of Greenland with the Danish prime minister last week. Such intensity and unpredictability of purpose has sent the leaders of that country, reminiscent of the Canadian Liberals in their political orientation, into a tizzy — one that has extended to their socialist and globalist European compatriots. Who is this horrible orange-haired man, they wonder, and what does he want?

We’re all about to find out — and, not least, in Canada. Why is all this happening, we ask, wringing our hands; and to us, the self-proclaimed greatest best friend and staunch ally of the elephant who parades so theatrically on the far side of our southern border?

We might begin to answer that suddenly so relevant question by scrupulously questioning the nature of that friendship — and on our side. Perhaps we’re not the partners and collaborators we think we are, for starters. It could well be argued, for example, that our much-vaunted Canuck niceness (that second-rate virtue) in relation to the superpower who overshadows us in every manner is and has been a matter of blunt necessity, rather than a consequence of our genuine reliability as well-wisher and supporter. It is true that Canada has made sacrifices alongside the Americans, when freedom and democracy was truly threatened. That was real — but it was a long time ago. Since then, we have played and continue to play a crooked game with regard to our hypothetical U.S. allies in many other important and consequential regards.

My fellow countrymen continually said things that would have been regarded as clearly racist, sexist or ethnocentric had they been uttered to anyone other than an American citizen — assuming, rightly (given the civilized nature of the people in question) that they would take them politely, and without evident offence. Such comments were much more likely to emanate, as well, from precisely the sort of leftists prone to proclaim first that such behaviour is utterly unacceptable and second that such conduct would of course never show its face among people as good in their thoughts as them.

Such behaviour is, sadly, a Canadian norm, particularly wherever the country is left-leaning; particularly wherever everyone believes axiomatically that we have all the virtues of our democratic compatriots to the south, and then some; particularly wherever everyone is inclined to point self-righteously to the wonders of our now-dreadful and even oft-murderous “free” health-care system and its associated highly dysfunctional, expensive and increasingly unsustainable social safety net and compare it to the free-for-all in the U.S. they inevitably resort to if death threatens and they have the money.

We Canadians also pride ourselves on our peaceful — and peacekeeping — nature (take that, Yanks), contrasting that with the war-mongering attitude of the gunslingers we secretly admire but publicly disdain, forgetting ever-so-conveniently that it is nothing but our positioning under the fearsome nuclear umbrella of the U.S.A. and our knowledge of the certainty of their military protection if push comes to shove that allows us to be the sheep of peace who bleat their undeserved self-regard with so little shame.

This is hardly the way to signal to the U.S. either that we are capable of defending ourselves, thank you very much, or that we are grateful for their existence as big brother captain of the high school wrestling team — much-disdained protector of our junior hippy student radical selves. Such things matter, more than we think — and a lot more, now that middle America is in charge, given the well-deserved contempt that lot have for the niceties of hypocritical socialist smartest-kid-in-the-class peaceniks. Remember, Canucks: the U.S. is now run by exactly the kind of Americans that we tempt themselves so unforgivably to treat as our moral inferiors. This is not how friends behave. It is also no way to keep friends, once they have hypothetically been made. And we’ve been put on serious notice in that regard.

And we are only scratching the surface in our analysis of the problems with Canada-U.S. relations, and with Canada itself, with that nothing-but-preliminary analysis. For the last nine years, Canada has been run by exactly the type of contemptible elitists who are, if anything, even more anti-capitalist, anti-nationalist, and anti-industrial state than the typical Canadian. This has set us against our putative American allies, in a manner much deeper than we want to think — and don’t be thinking that any of this is lost on Trump. He clearly despises the recently departed Justin, and has as much respect for those who elected him as he does for the Democrats, so much like them, who tortured, tormented and despised him and the flyover country MAGA middlebrows who were so much wiser in their political instincts than their Ivy League wannabe masters.

Canadians are Democrats, in Trump’s view, except more so..
We think that’s a virtue. It’s not. It’s a liability.

More specifically, it is a liability in relation to the U.S., particularly now. It has also and more seriously (as if irritating our mighty neighbours is not enough) threatened both Canada’s economic viability and the likelihood it will survive as a nation. We might also note, in that regard, that the newly ordained and inevitable grand poobah of the currently wretched but still dangerously powerful Liberals, one Mark Carney, is one of the world’s prime advocates of the insane inanities of net zero.

He is a man who has planned in writing, not least in his bestselling book Values, the complete destruction of the fossil fuel industry (bye, bye, Alberta). If that’s not bad enough, and it is, he is also simultaneously an advocate of the same “post-national” view of Canada defined by Trudeau junior and his moralistic minions. What are we, according to such good thinkers? Nothing: but if anything, the oppressive patriarchal white supremacist identity-less colonial settler state defined by the progressive ideologues in the think-tanks, the elite dining rooms in eastern Canada, and the protest encampments on the campuses of Canadian universities.

None of this fills the MAGA crowd with admiration, in case it has to be said. None of it bodes well, either, for the economy of Canada— doomed to replacement, according to Carney, by hydrogen, solar and wind power that either does not exist (that would be the hydrogen) or that would doom Canadians to starve and freeze in the dark if it ever came to replace the reliable grid and transportation we all so desperately depend on when it’s 40 bloody below. We may when arguing so expensively and incompetently with the Americans continue to congratulate ourselves on our comparative righteousness. That diet will become even thinner gruel, however, in a future characterized by their explosive economic growth and our rapid descent toward comparative poverty and irrelevance (green though that pathway may be argued, however falsely, to be).

The consequence? No “business case” for the trade deals or infrastructure projects necessary to supply a self-admittedly desperate Europe and Japan with cheap and reliable Alberta energy. No new, plentiful and gratefully received pipelines running west to east in Canada. Abject economic dependence, in consequence, for Albertans (and Canada itself, as we are now finding out) on the purchasing decisions of the mad MAGA Yanks to the south. And now that same Alberta is being called upon to sacrifice its artificially and “morally” limited economy to fight off the looming tariffs of Donald J. Trump, the imposition of which should come as no surprise to anyone the least bit awake. We walked right into this, folks — and boy, we deserved it — but we felt good about ourselves all the way. And what is likely to result?

Trump has offered Canada status as the 51st state. If we had
a well-constituted country, this would have never happened,
or the suggestions would have been laughable.

I see damn few people laughing, however, and more’s the pity. A strong case can be made that such subordinate status would not at all be a good deal for the Great White North as a whole. For Alberta, however — and perhaps for the West as such — the situation is not so clear. Here’s what I might do, given that, if I were in Premier Danielle Smith’s shoes — or at least what I might threaten to do, taking a page from Trump’s art-of-the-deal book, because it’s high time for the Albertans to play hardball. I might travel, say, to Mar-a-Lago (where I did in fact recently encounter that premier). I might have, while there, a forthright, even blunt, chat with Donald J., where I might say to him something like the following:

“Mr. President: My fellow Canadians have for decades compelled us to climb into bed with an eight-hundred pound gorilla. That would be you, Mr. Trump. Now you’ve decided to consummate the deal, so to speak — and we’ve given you the upper hand, on a silver platter (to mix metaphors terribly), while you’re doing so. Canada is unlikely to become the 51st state, however — not even Alberta — as you well know, sir. After all, you’d have to offer us something better than what has been put forward by our fellow Canadians.

“That would be:

  • the continued privilege and expense of subsidizing Quebec, half of whose citizens constantly clamour to secede from the country, while we impoverish ourselves for their benefit;
  • the constant imposition of serious practical impediments from the federal and other provincial governments (hint, hint, British Columbia) to the international business deals and pipelines that would help Alberta bring its resources to market;
  • continual insult on top of such injury in the form of unbearable and naïve moralizing about their superiority in conviction with regard to the “sustainability” of the planet — and, to top it all off,
  • the accusation that I am not patriotic enough to start a trade war with my strange bedfellow in the name of a country whose very leaders proclaim both identitylessness and a multiculturalism that none of my citizens want.”

And Trump might well say (or perhaps is even right now saying): “I think I could top that offer, Ms. Premier, fine as it is.

  • I could offer Albertans the American dollar;
  • full access to our markets for their resources, at full international price;
  • lower costs on almost all manufactured goods and on food;
  • lower taxes, both corporate and personal;
  • membership in a country that prides itself on being a country, and that does not plan to dissolve itself into an unstable multicultural mishmash;
  • genuine admiration for your economic and industrial endeavours, along with a can-do, visionary and deeply entrepreneurial culture;
  • immediate, reliable and guaranteed access to ports and pipelines, and full military defence.

“And, if that’s not enough, dear lady — no transfer payments! And the additional psychological advantage for Albertans in foregoing the perpetual and bullying eastern Canadian attitude of grievance and moral superiority, emanating in particular from the Quebec (‘give us what we want forever or we’ll leave!’) who also shamelessly disdains your dirty fossil fuel — such that they made the fracking Alberta’s economy depends upon literally illegal in their jurisdiction, just to make a point, while simultaneously accepting, and not with good grace, the filthy money so generated.”

What do you think would happen, Oh Canada, if those were the two choices put forth on a ballot before the citizens of Alberta? And why should Smith not take full advantage of this opportunity, to tell her fellow Canadians, in no uncertain terms, a few things that would both make Canada an attractive place for Alberta (and the rest of the West, perhaps) to stay, and much saner and richer, to boot?

And what would that be:

  • Enough pathetic celebrity-wannabe pandering to the international elites of Davos — and, for good measure, the utterly degenerate UN.
  • Enough overt and covert attempt to destroy the basis of the economy of my fair and hard-working province.
  • Enough delaying critical infrastructure development and rejection of international trade offers for natural gas, oil and coal.
  • Enough treatment of the resource economy upon which Quebec in particular so unacceptably depends as a moral pariah.
  • Enough idiot green moralizing.
  • Enough carbon tax.
  • Enough bloody net zero. And how about this–
  • Enough multiculturalism and destruction of the Canadian identity.

“Why belong, so expensively, to a country that despises its own history, economy
and people? Make us a better offer, and quickly, my Canadian friends—
or Trump’s tariffs will be the least of your problems.”

And all of this would be not only be good for Alberta — and, by extension, for the working people of Canada — it is also absolutely necessary for Canada, even, perhaps to survive, both economically and politically. There’s a reason we, like the Europeans, now make a measly sixty cents for every dollar made by our American “friends.” That reason has much to do with the attitudes we have adopted ever since the benighted 1960s that have made us not such good friends at all.

Trump is threatening the integrity of Canada, and very effectively. The fact of that threat, and of its effectiveness, might make us think twice. In such thinking, there could be the opportunity to shed the idiocy that is making us poor, weak, irrelevant on the international stage, and contemptible to our neighbours. We could make his sabre-rattling into an opportunity, increase our cross-border trade, get out of our own way on the energy front, rekindle our national pride at least to the point where we regard our country as both viable and valuable, seek the international markets that would make us more truly independent as a nation, strengthen our commitment to the military that would be increasingly and truly necessary if such independence was pursued, and make of the next hundred years Canada’s triumph instead of the story of its contemptible, self-aggrandizing, moralistic, falsely green and socialist demise.

Getting Climate Crisis Monkey Off Public Health Services

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Advances in medical science and public health have  benefited billions of people with longer and higher quality lives.  Yet this crucial social asset has joined the list of those fields corrupted by the dash for climate cash. Increasingly, medical talent and resources are diverted into inventing bogeymen and studying imaginary public health crises.

Thus it is welcome news that confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) RFK Jr. has stopped funding of climate medicine at National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mother Jones reported its disapproval RFK Jr., Onetime Environmentalist, Kills NIH Climate Change Programs.
Subtitled: He pulled HHS support from projects that aim to protect Americans’ health.  fight climate change. (my correction of MJ subtitle).

On February 14 of this year, his second day as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he ended HHS funding for climate change and health programs at the National Institutes of Health, a move that will likely terminate this work.

That day, Ken Callahan, a senior adviser for policy and implementation in the Immediate Office of the Secretary for HHS, sent an email to Dr. Matthew Memoli, the acting director of NIH, noting that HHS would no longer support three programs run by the agency:  the Climate Change and Health Initiative, the Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center, and the Climate and Health Scholars Program.

In the email, a copy of which was obtained by Mother Jones, Callahan cited Executive Order 14154, titled “Unleashing American Energy,” which President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office last month to revoke executive orders President Joe Biden had previously issued to implement actions to address climate change.

As Richard Lindzen predicted, everyone wants on the climate bandwagon, because that is where the money is. Medical scientists have pushed for their share of the pie, as evidenced by the Met office gathering on Assessing the Global Impacts of Climate and Extreme Weather on Health and Well-Being (following Paris COP). Not coincidentally, the 2nd Global Conference on Health and Climate was held July 7-8, 2016 in Paris. Following that the American Public Health Association declared: 2017 is the Year of Climate Change and Health.

NIH: Why Climate Change Is a Health Threat

The NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative Strategic Framework claims:

For some time, international scientific consensus has been that climate change poses an existential threat to human beings. A report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation’s body for assessing the science related to climate change, concluded in a recent report: “Any increase in global warming is projected to affect human health, with primarily negative consequences (high confidence).” The report further concludes that, “Compared to current conditions, 1.5°C of global warming would nonetheless pose heightened risks to eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, and ensuring human and ecosystem well-being (medium evidence, high agreement)

and they conclude:

A mounting number of assessments and reports provide undeniable evidence that climate change is resulting in increasingly profound changes to the global environment with direct and indirect consequences for human health and well-being. Closely intertwined with this threat are the more tangible and proximal risks of natural disasters, a global pandemic, societal unrest, and the ever-familiar menaces of poverty and inequity. The need for NIH to lead this science-based initiative, in partnership with communities throughout the world, is now warranted and vitally necessary to address the imminent threat that climate change poses to our health, humanity, and our planet.

Comment: 

There are numerous posts here why the IPCC alarmist narrative is speculative and exaggerated, for example:

Climatists Make Their Case by Omitting Facts

Thus it is high time to uncouple the globalist push to fuse health care with CO2 hysteria.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Background:

Climate Health Crisis Meme Goes Viral