Net Zero Now Elephant in Corporate World

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Irina Slav explains the shift away from climate virtue in her Oil Price article Corporate World Goes Quiet on Climate Pledges.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

♦  Major companies are quietly scaling back climate language in reports, with firms like American Airlines, GM, and Coca-Cola reducing or removing net-zero and emissions-related content.
♦  Profitability and political headwinds are driving the retreat.
♦  Corporate climate messaging is becoming more cautious, with 80% of executives adjusting their transition narratives and half avoiding net-zero talk entirely.

Companies in various industries are removing climate change and net zero language from their reports, the Wall Street Journal reported this month, lamenting the fact that corporates were “watering down” their commitments in the area. It may be temporary—or it may be the natural thing.

Analysis of the proxy statements of a number of large businesses conducted by the WSJ showed that many of them were, it seems, less willing to discuss climate change and their response to it in as much detail as they were a few years ago. The WSJ suggested it was an about-turn prompted by the energy policies of the Trump administration and the axing of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Companies “implicated” in watering down their climate change language included American Airlines, Kroger, American Eagle Outfitters, and e.l.f. Beauty. Their crime was either reducing the amount of text dedicated to climate change and the respective company’s efforts to counter it or entirely removing such text.

The above are not the only ones that have gone rather general on climate change. Coca-Cola only mentions climate and emissions in general terms and briefly in its latest proxy statement. GM also does not go into a lot of detail on its net-zero efforts, and neither does United Airlines.

Yet there are perfectly respectable reasons for this,
even from a climate activist perspective.

Most of these companies produce separate reports regarding climate change and emission reduction because it is the done thing these days. Indeed, one of them told the WSJ as much. “We periodically adjust the copy used in the company’s external messaging and communications,” a spokesperson for American Eagle Outfitters told the publication. “AEO’s commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions remains unchanged.”

Other comments from the mentioned companies follow the same lines: these businesses have already internalized emission-cutting language and action, and no longer feel the need to talk loudly about it.

And, of course, there’s the Trump factor at work.

The current administration axed billions on subsidies for transition-related businesses. As a result, these businesses are suffering a fate even worse than theirs already was because of:

♦  raw material inflation;
♦  higher borrowing costs that had nothing to do with the Trump admin, and, notably,
♦  pullback from investors that realized they had grossly overestimated the speed, at which their investment in net zero would be returned.

Trump’s policies certainly hurt the coolness aspect of net-zero pledges and pronouncements but it was the lack of promised profits that likely played a bigger part and led to companies toning down these pledges and pronouncements.

“The whole sector — solar, wind, hydrogen, fuel cells — anything clean is dead for now,” one energy transition-focused hedge fund manager told Bloomberg earlier this year. “The fundamentals are very poor,” Gupta, who manages some $100 million, told Bloomberg, adding, “I’m not talking about long term. I’m talking about where I see weakness right now.” Apparently, the long-term outlook for net zero remains bright, but the short term is more problematic.

Yet considerable problems abound not just in the industries directly related to the energy transition, such as it is. Even companies in other industries, such as air travel and cosmetics, are finding it difficult to stick to their pledges—at least without losing a lot of money. Tracking and reporting Scope 3 emissions, for instance, requires substantial resources and carries equally substantial costs. After all, it involves tracking the emissions of an entire supply chain from suppliers to consumers. Many corporations are realizing investing the money, time, and effort in this endeavor may not be worth it, especially with a federal government that does not care about any sort of energy transition at all.

Another thing they are realizing is that, put crudely, emission tracking does not pay—not without a solid subsidy back that is at present absent. It was the Wall Street Journal again that reported how transition-focused startups were folding as Trump axed those subsidies. EV batteries, direct air capture, and even solar power, which was supposed to have become well established, are now suffering the consequences of overhyping. With the benefits that were promised to come from net zero never materializing, unlike costs related to the transition push, could anyone really blame corporate leaderships for removing net-zero language from their reports?

Indeed, a recent survey from the Conference Board that the WSJ cited in its report found that as much as 80% of corporate executives said their companies were “adjusting” their transition narrative—for fear of backlash that has prompted 50% of the respondents to entirely stop talking about net zero. That backlash can hardly be blamed on Trump. It is a natural consequence of the overhyping that never delivered on the promises made. What is happening, then, is a natural process that, one might argue, was even late in coming.

 

 

Our Atmospheric Heat Engine

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Climate as heat engine. A heat engine produces mechanical energy in the form of work W by absorbing an amount of heat Qin from a hot reservoir (the source) and depositing a smaller amount Qout into a cold reservoir (the sink). (a) An ideal Carnot heat engine does the job with the maximum possible efficiency. (b) Real heat engines are irreversible, and some work is lost via irreversible entropy production TδS. (c) For the climate system, the ultimate source is the Sun, with outer space acting as the sink. The work is performed internally and produces winds and ocean currents. As a result, Qin = Qout.

A previous post presented Michel Thizon’s description of gravity’s effect on the mass of air functioning as a climate thermostat. Some years ago Dr. Murry Salby wrote in detail about the troposphere operating as an heat engine and the stratosphere as a refrigerator. This post consists of excerpts from Salby’s textbook entitled Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate. The title is a link to pdf version of the book Salby (2012). Text in italics with my bolds and added images.

A closed system that performs work through a conversion of heat that is absorbed by it is a heat engine. Conversely, a system that rejects heat through a conversion of work that is performed on it is a refrigerator. In Chap. 6, we will see that individual air parcels comprising the circulation of the troposphere behave as a heat engine.  By absorbing heat at the Earth’s surface, through transfers of radiative, sensible, and latent heat, individual parcels perform net work as they evolve through a thermodynamic cycle (2.13). Ultimately realized as kinetic energy, the heat absorbed maintains the circulation against frictional dissipation. It makes the circulation of the troposphere thermally driven.

In contrast, the circulation of the stratosphere behaves as a radiative refrigerator.  For motion to occur, individual air parcels must have work performed on them. The kinetic energy produced is eventually converted to heat and rejected to space through LW cooling. It makes the circulation of the stratosphere mechanically driven. Gravity waves and planetary waves that propagate upward from the troposphere are dissipated in the stratosphere. Their absorption exerts an influence on the stratosphere analogous to paddle work. By forcing motion that rearranges air, it drives the stratospheric circulation out of radiative equilibrium, which results in net LW cooling to space. Salby (2012) p. 83.

Irreversible processes in the atmosphere. Neglecting radiative processes (not shown here), the largest sources of irreversibility in the atmosphere are those associated with the hydrologic cycle: evaporation, the mixing of moist and dry air, and the melt–freeze cycle (60–80% collectively), and the fallout of precipitation (5–15%). Those contributions limit the entropy generated by frictional dissipation of the winds (5–15%), which ultimately places a limit on the work performed by the atmospheric heat engine in generating circulations. Percentages are estimated based on global climate simulations12 and idealized high-resolution simulations.8

Changes of thermodynamic state that accompany vertical motion follow from the distribution of atmospheric mass, which is determined ultimately by gravity. In the absence of motion, Newton’s second law applied to the vertical reduces to a statement of hydrostatic equilibrium (1.16). Gravity is then balanced by the vertical pressure gradient force. This simple form of mechanical equilibrium is accurate even in the presence of motion because the acceleration of gravity is, almost invariably, much greater than vertical acceleration of individual air parcels. Only inside deep convective towers and other small-scale phenomena is vertical acceleration large enough to invalidate hydrostatic equilibrium.

Because it is such a strong body force, gravity must be treated with some care. Complications arise from the fact that the gravitational acceleration experienced by an air parcel does not act purely in the vertical. It also varies with location. According to the preceding discussion, gravity is large enough to overwhelm other contributions in the balance of vertical forces. The same holds for the balance of horizontal forces. Horizontal components of gravity that are introduced by the Earth’s rotation and other sources must be balanced by additional horizontal forces. Unrelated to air motion, those additional forces unnecessarily complicate the description of atmospheric motion.  Salby (2012) p. 150.

The temperature of a dry air parcel decreases with its altitude at the dry adiabatic lapse rate. To a good approximation, the same holds for a moist air parcel under unsaturated conditions – because the trace abundance of water vapor modifies thermal properties of air only slightly. Under saturated conditions, the adiabatic description of air breaks down due to the release of latent heat that accompanies the transformation of water from one phase to another. Latent heat exchanged with the gas phase then offsets adiabatic cooling and warming, which accompany ascending and descending motion. Salby (2012) p. 162

Net heat absorption and work performed by individual air parcels make the general circulation of the troposphere behave as a heat engine, one that is driven thermally by heat transfer at its lower and upper boundaries. Work performed by individual parcels is associated with a redistribution of mass: Air that is effectively warmer and lighter at the lower boundary is exchanged with air that is effectively cooler and heavier at the upper boundary. This redistribution of mass represents a conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy. The conversion of energy maintains the general circulation against frictional dissipation. Salby (2012) p. 163

The idealized behavior just described relies on heat transfer being confined to the lower and upper boundaries of the layer, where an air parcel resides long enough for diabatic influences to become important. Between the boundaries, the time scale of motion is short. For motion that operates on longer time scales, typical of the stratosphere, the evolution of an individual air parcel is not adiabatic.

Radiative transfer is the primary diabatic influence outside the boundary layer and cloud. It is characterized by cooling rates of order 1 K day−1 in the troposphere (see Fig. 8.24). Cooling rates as large as 10 K day−1 occur in the stratosphere and near cloud (Fig. 9.36). (2012) p. 164

Unlike the troposphere, buoyancy in the stratosphere opposes vertical motion because, invariably, warm (high-θ) air overlies cool (low-θ) air. To exchange effectively-heavier air at lower levels with effectively-lighter air at upper levels, work must be performed against the opposition of buoyancy. The rearrangement of mass represents a conversion of kinetic energy (that of the waves driving the motion) into potential energy. Manifest in temperature, the potential energy is dissipated thermally through LW emission to space. (2012) p. 168

See Also

Fearless Physics from Dr. Salby

In reading the textbook, I found two main reasons why Salby is skeptical of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) alarm. This knowledgeable book is an antidote to myopic and lop-sided understandings of our climate system.

  1. CO2 Alarm is Myopic: Claiming CO2 causes dangerous global warming is too simplistic. CO2 is but one factor among many other forces and processes interacting to make weather and climate.

Myopia is a failure of perception by focusing on one near thing to the exclusion of the other realities present, thus missing the big picture. For example: “Not seeing the forest for the trees.”  AKA “tunnel vision.”

2. CO2 Alarm is Lopsided: CO2 forcing is too small to have the overblown effect claimed for it. Other factors are orders of magnitude larger than the potential of CO2 to influence the climate system.

 

Lop-sided refers to a failure in judging values, whereby someone lacking in sense of proportion, places great weight on a factor which actually has a minor influence compared to other forces. For example: “Making a mountain out of a mole hill.”

Gravity-induced Atmospheric Thermostat

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Michel Thizon published in 2024 a paper explaining why earth’s always variable climate is constrained within a narrow range.  Influence of Adiabatic Gravitational Compression of Atmospheric Mass on the Temperature of the Troposphere.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images

ABSTRACT

The temperature that the Earth’s surface would have without the greenhouse effect, with an atmosphere completely transparent to infrared radiation, or even without an atmosphere at all, is generally estimated at -18°C. The greenhouse effect is estimated to induce a warming of 33°C to justify the surface temperature of +15°C.

To explain this discrepancy, we examine, with the ideal gas law, to which the Earth’s atmosphere obeys with its normal conditions of pressure and temperature, the role that the adiabatic compression of the atmospheric mass subjected to gravity can play. The dimensional analysis of the ideal gas law demonstrates that compression of the atmosphere produces energy, which can be calculated in Joules.

The temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface is influenced by
its invariable atmospheric mass, solar irradiation and the greenhouse effect.

This calls into question the commonly established Earth’s energy budgets which consider almost exclusively radiative effects, and which deduce a back radiation attributed to the greenhouse effect which is abnormally high.

Earth temperature without atmosphere or greenhouse effects

Goody et al., estimated the solar energy available to heat, both directly and indirectly, the earth and its atmosphere at an average of 224 W/m-2 [1]. Applying the Stefan-Boltzmann law they assumed that the Earth radiates as a perfect black body in the infrared band at a temperature of 255.5 K (or min 17.6°C) for the effective emission temperature [2]. These authors noted that this temperature is lower than the average temperature of the Earth’s surface and indicated that much of the radiation to space must come from the atmosphere rather than from the surface. Goody et al., arbitrarily assigned a value of 1 to the emissivity ε for the calculation, while Jacquemoud assigned a value of 0.98 [3].

According to Hansen, a solar irradiance of 1367 W/m-2 or generally accepted today 1361 W/m-2, but varying with solar fluctuations, leads to a surface temperature of 255 K (or min 18°C), which induces a greenhouse effect of +33°C [4]  Cotton reported that the emission temperature is -19°C and the earth temperature is +14°C, which corresponds to a global greenhouse effect of +33°C [5]. The global greenhouse effect is also estimated at +33°C [6-8]
.
Logically, at -18°C the surface of the earth without an atmosphere or with an atmosphere totally transparent to longwave radiation and that plays no physical role, without any greenhouse effect, should be entirely frozen and covered with frost over its entire surface. This would result in a high Albedo which could be on the order of 0.5 to 0.9 instead of an albedo of 0.30 or 0.29 generally accepted in its current state. In this situation, instead of the solar energy absorbed by the surface reaching approximately 160 to 168 W/m-2 (Figure 1) this energy could be on the order of 70 W/m-2 [9-11]. The Stefan-Boltzmann formula yields a potential surface temperature of approximately -85°C [2]. Note that at these temperatures the water vapor pressure above ice is infinitesimal and could only generate an infinitesimal greenhouse effect. However, according to Nikolov et al., the effects linked to the atmosphere would bring approximately 90°C and not 33°C to the surface at a temperature of 15°C [12,13]. This would suggest that the global  natural effect of atmosphere could be on the order of 90°C rather than the 33°C of the traditional purely radiative approach as reported by almost all the authors.

Global mean energy budget of the Earth

Many authors have endeavored to establish an overall assessment of the energy flows to which the earth is subjected to justify the surface temperature in an essentially radiative system. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) itself places great emphasis on this in each of its reports. The Figure 1 summarizes the values and differences obtained while Table 1 summarizes the main authors who evaluated this earth assessment over a period of approximatively twenty years.

Figure 1. Range of nine energy balances (minimum/maximum according to the authors).

Table 1. Global energy balance of the Earth according to the authors.

The dispersion and imprecision of the results do not allow the effect on surface temperature to be deduced with sufficient accuracy. These budgets must be improved as noted by Lupo et al. [22]

Effect of atmospheric pressure

Few authors have mentioned the role that an atmospheric mass subject to gravity could play in temperature. We can nevertheless cite Leroux [23] Jelbring [24], and Chilingar [25] but these authors evoke a potential role of atmospheric pressure on a qualitative level without seeking to calculate and quantify the effects, probably given the difficulty of integrating the atmosphere as a whole. Nikolov et al. clarify the role of atmospheric pressure for several planets through a complex semiempirical iterative approach [11]

Dimensional analysis of the ideal gas law PV=nRT

The ideal gas law PV=nRT is one of the most fundamental laws of physics and applies entirely to the lower troposphere under its usual conditions of pressure and temperature. This universally accepted law, established in 1834 by Émile Clapeyron, has been perfectly stable for nearly 200 years, which is the case for very few physical laws.

  • P is the pressure (Pa);
  • V is the volume of the gas (m3);
  • n is the quantity of material (mol);
  • T is the absolute temperature (K);
  • R is the universal constant of ideal gases (8.314 J K−1 mol−1);

Dimensional analysis leads to:
R=PV/nT i.e., J K−1 mol−1=Pa.m3 K−1 mol−1, Hence J=Pa.m3=energy

The volume of air multiplied by the pressure to which it is subjected is considered energy (Joules). The atmosphere is heated by compression due to the gravitational field to which it is subjected. Isolated in space, the Earth can only exchange energy with space by radiation, but the atmospheric mass cannot radiate spontaneously since its homonuclear constituents O2, N2, and Ar are passive and cannot radiate.

The earth’s surface is warmer and the atmosphere cannot cool down on contact with it. The compression is thus adiabatic. The greenhouse gases contained in the atmosphere at low levels, mainly H2O and CO2, are capable of radiating at long wavelengths but do not interact radiatively with O2 and N2; additionally, they are under the influence of permanent terrestrial infrared radiation, which they are capable of absorbing, and which is generated continuously from the solar energy received by the Earth’s surface.

The process includes the upward expansion, toward vacuum of the agitated molecules whose kinetic energy decreases and therefore the pressure, which causes cooling with altitude. It is not due to a  decrease in gravity which decreases by less than 3/1000 at a 10 km altitude but of a struggle between gravity and the suction of the vacuum, until the equilibrium which defines an adiabatic thermal gradient. Gravity nevertheless prevents air molecules from escaping into space. Only some H2 molecules can reach the release speed.

RESULTS  Heating of the atmosphere in °K by adiabatic compression

Table 2. Data for an air layer 100 m thick. The left part is from U.S. Standard Atmosphere, according to The EngineeringToolBox [26]

As a tight approximation, for 100 m of atmospheric thickness
Altitude 0 m

  • PV=(10.13 × 104 Pa) (5.101 × 1016 m3)=5.167 × 1021 J
  • Volumetric heat capacity of air C=1256 J m−3 K−1 (at 0 m, 15°C)
  • For 5.101 × 1016 m3 of air; +1°K requires 1256 × 5.101 × 1016 J=6.41 × 1019 J
  • 5.167 × 1021 J/6.41 × 1019 J=80.7
  • +80.7 K overheating due to pressure

Note: With an air layer of 200 m the precision is lower and leads to an overheating of 80.6 K

Gravity compression results, to the Earth’s surface, in 80.7°C of natural greenhouse energy equivalence, which means that to reach 15°C the initial temperature without atmosphere would be -65.7°C, very different from the -18°C admitted by radiative approaches for an inactive atmosphere.

Direct application of the ideal gas law T=PV/nR

  • Altitude 0 m T=(10.13 × 104 × 5.10 × 1016)/(2.165 × 1018 × 8.314)=287.1 K (+14.0°C)
  • Altitude 5,000 m T=254.9 K (-18.2°C)
  • Altitude 10,000 m T=222.4 K (-50.7°C)
  • Altitude 15,000 m T=215.3 K (-57.8°C)

The standard thermal gradient from 0 to 10 km is -6.49°C/km. The ideal gas law explains phenomena linked to temperatures up to 10,000 m in altitude. Beyond that, the results diverge, and other factors and phenomena are involved, like ozone and UV influence.

CONCLUSION

The temperature on the surface of the earth is mainly determined by the action of gravity on the atmospheric mass, which is an immutable fact on a scale of millennia. Climatic variations are the result of lesser phenomena. The solar influence is felt during the day by the direct radiation received, mainly when the sun is at its zenith, and the balance is modified by direct thermal exchanges between the sunny surface and the air in contact. The earth’s surface and the upper layers of the atmosphere radiate permanently towards space by emitting infrared radiation day and night, thus restoring the overall balance.

Surface infrared radiation is probably less intercepted in the lower troposphere by greenhouse molecules than is usually thought, thus explaining the surface temperature. However, there is an atmospheric dynamic, in particular through the water cycle, by evaporation-condensation, but whose overall energy balance is zero. Air mass movements and convection contribute to the overall dynamics, mainly due to the rotation of the Earth and the alternations between the presence and absence of solar radiation.

Astronomical fluctuations in sunshine, surface phenomena such as ocean currents, El Niño or La Niña phenomena, extreme weather phenomena or even volcanic eruptions, as well as other factors that are probably poorly characterized, lead to variations in surface temperature that nevertheless remain relatively damped due to the stabilizing effect of the invariable atmospheric mass subject to gravity.

See Also

Planetary Warming: Back to Basics

 

More Lying About Carbon Capture

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Carbon capture tech is pie-in-sky impractical, but was weaponized against coal-fired power plants by requiring CCUS as though it were proven effective and profitable.  Just The News reports Biden’s EPA hid comments from Dept. of Energy that undermined key part of EPA power plant rule.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Clean Power Plan 2.0 was supported by a finding that carbon capture
technology had been “adequately demonstrated.” The EPA sought and
got comments from the DOE, which disputed that “demonstration.”
Somehow those comments never made it into the administrative record.

It appears that the Biden-Harris administration hid comments that would have undermined its Clean Power Plan 2.0 rule (CPP2), which the Trump administration is currently reviewing. The EPA had sought comments from the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) on the efficacy of carbon capture technology prior to proposing the rule. These comments, which were somehow scrubbed from the administrative record, disputed a key claim the rule is based on. Those missing comments, a legal expert says, could provide a basis for the rule’s repeal.

The CCP2 requires all coal plants to install carbon capture technology by 2039, which captures and stores emissions in underground geological formations. It also requires new natural gas-fired power plants to install the technology, with requirements starting in 2032. Experts warned the rules would drive up electricity costs and destabilize the grid by disincentivizing reliable power from coal and natural gas in favor of intermittent wind and solar power.

The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to develop new emissions standards, but those standards must be achievable at a reasonable cost. The technology required for compliance must also be adequately demonstrated. Documents obtained by Just the News show that the EPA formally sought comments from NETL in March 2023 on its soon-to-be proposed rule, which was put out for public comment the following May.

The proposed rule allowed for two technologies — hydrogen and carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) — to meet the emissions standards on fossil fuel-burning power plants. Comer’s letter quotes two unnamed authors expressing that neither technology was viable.

Hydrogen was removed from the rule when it was finalized in April 2024. Carbon capture technology, however, was part of the final rule, even though the comments from one unnamed NETL author stated that:

“CCUS remains prohibitively expensive even after use of funds or tax credits made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.”

The EPA based its determination that CCUS was “adequately demonstrated” on the performance of the Boundary Dam Unit #3 (BD3), which is a Canadian coal-fired power plant fitted with carbon capture technology. An April 2024 report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis called the project an “under-performing failure.” Despite $1 billion CAD spent on the project, it was, as of April 2024, capturing far less than the 90% originally promised. Its capture rate through the end of 2023 was just 57%, which was 63% of the 90% promised, the report found.

Comments from NETL engineers, according to the GOA’s records request, state that “the ongoing operating performance of the same BD3 demonstration project is being, once again, misconstrued as having provided sufficient justification for claiming satisfactory performance to allow the technology to be considered ‘adequately demonstrated.’”

Carbon capture at Boundary Dam 3 still an underperforming failure

To be considered a success, a carbon capture project must capture all or almost all CO2 produced by the facility (power or industrial plant) to which it is attached and must do so for decades. Stantec photo by Kevin Ross.

Another comment states that BD3 only approached the 90% promised target for two months over a period of 8 years and three months. Another comment states that after 8 years and three months “of demonstration, such failure to meet negligible standards for emissions limitations, over a full-year period ending less than one year ago, argues strongly for not considering BD3 as a credible basis for Best System of Emissions Reduction and ‘adequate demonstration’ of the related technology.”

“These comments were sanitized at some point in this process and were not included in NETL’s and/or DoE’s comments to EPA, which made their way into the administrative record,” according to the GOA’s record request.

An EPA spokesperson told Just the News that the EPA, as part of its reconsideration of the CCP2, is developing a proposed rule, which will be published once it has completed an inter-agency review and been signed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

“Many have voiced concerns that the last administration’s replacement for that rule is similarly overreaching and an attempt to shut down affordable and reliable electricity generation in the United States, raising prices for American families, and increasing the country’s reliance on foreign forms of energy,” the spokesperson said.

Canada PM Carney Floats Imaginary “Decarbonized Oil” Pipeline

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Reality intrudes in National Post article Alberta and Ottawa tout a grand bargain on ‘decarbonized’ oil but some are skeptical.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Carney said he’d consider fast-tracking a new oil pipeline
to the West Coast if it shipped ‘decarbonized barrels’

OTTAWA — “Grand bargain” was the phrase of the day on Parliament Hill after Prime Minister Mark Carney and his provincial counterparts found common ground on oil and gas development.  “If (the Conservatives) were listening to yesterday, there is a grand bargain,” Energy Minister Tim Hodgson boasted to the Opposition benches.

“There is a bargain that the Premier of Alberta has signed onto.”  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith left Monday’s first ministers’ meeting with a new deal exchanging oil sands access to coastal waters for massive investments in decarbonization technologies, but experts warn this could be a costly pipe dream. 

“I’m worried we’re seeing (the first ministers) fall into a trap of wanting to have their cake and eat it too,” said Tim McMillan, a partner at Garrison Strategy and the former head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“There’s real potential there (and), if further developed, the federal government will look to advance it,” said Carney.  But McMillan says the devil could be in the details.

“I don’t know exactly what they’re talking about with decarbonization, but… it may be linked to carbon capture, which does not increase our exports (or) investability,” said McMillan.  “If (carbon capture) becomes a long-term requirement for new projects, it will likely have a negative effect on future investments in Canada’s upstream oil and gas sector.”

The Calgary-based Pathways Alliance, a group of six major oil sands producers, has put forward a $16.5-billion decarbonization network that would reroute carbon emissions from nearly two dozen facilities to an underground hub near Cold Lake, Alta.  The big-ticket project has been at a standstill for years over government funding.

Carney and Hodgson have both paid lip service to the Pathways project in recent weeks, but the venture still faces an uphill battle.  A recent independent analysis found the project was likely to lose money due to the limited recyclability of captured carbon.

“Even under optimal conditions, the Pathways project may struggle to break even, and real-world operations are rarely optimal,” read the study, prepared by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.  “The Canadian federal government and the province of Alberta may be pressured to make up the likely shortfall,” it continued.

“An unprofitable carbon capture project will struggle to bring lasting positive economic benefits to host communities and become dependent on external financial subsidies to maintain operations.”

McMillan also noted that Canada’s two biggest competitors in the heavy oil industry, Mexico and Venezuela, are unlikely to follow suit with large-scale carbon capture projects of their own, giving each an edge over Canada on a per-barrel basis.

Footnote:  “Some are skeptical” understates the case.  “Decarbonized Oil” is a Ruinous Farce.

The Study is Financial risks of carbon capture and storage in Canada: Concerns about the Pathways Project and Public Energy Policy.  Highlights in italics with my bolds and added images.

Cost challenges threaten the ability of a large, planned carbon capture project to achieve financial sustainability. The Pathways Alliance plans to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) generated at 13 oil sand processing facilities, compress the gas and send it by pipeline to a storage hub near the Cold Lake region in Alberta. Publicly available financial information on the Pathways project is scant. It is instructive, however, to analyze the experiences of two existing commercial carbon capture facilities in Alberta—the Alberta Carbon Trunk (ACTL) line facility and Shell’s Quest facility.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) examined the two currently operating CCS projects, together with current policy and provincial carbon market dynamics. The resulting report identified troubling cost implications for the Pathways CO2 transport and storage project and raises the concern that the Canadian federal government and the province of Alberta may be pressured to make up the likely shortfall.

  • We find total costs including interest, insurance, depreciation and taxes for existing commercial-scale carbon capture plants in Alberta are approaching thresholds that threaten profitability.
  • Rising project costs are not being offset by commensurate increases in CO2 capture volumes and associated revenue. Operating costs are growing at twice the rate of CO2 captured volumes.
  • CCS operating revenue is uncertain. An effective cap on emission performance credit (EPC) pricing of CAD$170 per tonne limits project revenue potential, while a looming oversupply of carbon EPCs is an example of risks to project cash flows. The option to combine Clean Fuel Regulation credits with EPCs is available to ACTL, but this significant financial benefit is not available to the Pathways project.
  • Performance risk is financial risk. Without substantial efficiency improvements, the cost per tonne of CO2 captured is likely to exceed the revenue that the project can generate for each tonne captured. 
  • An unprofitable carbon capture project will struggle to bring lasting positive economic benefits to host communities and become dependent on external financial subsidies to maintain operations.

Even under optimal conditions, the Pathways project may struggle
to break even, and real-world operations are rarely optimal.

Large-scale public investment in CCS is misguided. The technology has struggled to achieve meaningful emissions reductions or prove its long-term viability. The lack of demonstrated success and heightened financial risks indicate public investments are unlikely to yield the desired environmental or economic benefits.

 

 

Green Schemes Hidden by Greenhushing

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Transcript excerpted from captions of  Interview with Bjorn Lomborg What is behind business ‘greenhushing’? [FN refers to comments from FOx News interviewers, BL to Bjorn Lomborg]

FN: From Climate Talk to climate realism. As energy secretary Chris Wright says climate change is a side effect of building the modern world. Banks and businesses seem to be finally getting on board with this. But moving from unrealistic promises, greenwashing lies and environmental fear-mongering, risks some engaging in greenhushing, purposely keeping quiet about sustainability actions.

Our next guest says climate solutions come with their own set of costs [you can read his op-ed excerpted later in this post]. And joining us now, and Brian and I are both huge fans of Bjorn Lomborg’s work. He’s Copenhagen Consensus President. Bjorn, so great to see you.

What are you concerned with in terms of going from greenwashing to then kind of burying what these corporations are doing now?

BL: Well the real problem is for a long time corporations have been saying “Oh we’re going to be so green,” and they got lots of applause and everybody said “Oh this is great in Davos and stuff.” And of course it’s not what businesses mostly should be doing. But now with Trump and everything else, people are realizing, “Oh wait, this is not a good idea.” So they’ve stopped talking about it but they’re still doing a lot of it. And actually a new survey of of about 4,000 sustainability people in these big corporations said, “Yeah we’re going to talk a lot less about it, but we’re still going to do it. We’re actually going to do a little more.”

And that’s troublesome because this is not what businesses should be doing.
They should be in the business of making great products and high profits.

FN: So there’s a debate out there. You’ve got the CEOs of these companies and the question is: Do they really believe in the green thing or were they just doing it because the social pressure was so strong? And now they’re pulling back because really at the end of the day they agree with you, they just want to run their businesses.

What I hear you saying is in fact the guys running these businesses really are bought into the green agenda and they will do it again when the political environment lets them speak more freely. Is that what you’re saying?

BL: It’s hard to know. I think you’re right a lot of the CEOs are saying, I actually want my business to run and drive a profit. But now they’ve hired so many other people, sustainability experts and everybody else. Of course if that’s your job, you’re pushing for doing more of that. So I think it’s important for businesses to rein in and say:

“Look we’re not going to be doing this anymore, we’re actually going to go back and focus on what we’re good at, namely servicing customers.”

FN: This goes to something else that you’ve written about, that corporations need to focus on creating things profitably, because the environment improves as nations prosper. And the greatest polluter is poverty. We saw with John Kerry here in the United States and him talking to subsaharan Africa about cutting off any funding and financing for them to extract fossil fuels from the earth and thereby bring their nations out of poverty. Keeping nations poor makes the environment worse, rather than allowing them to develop into modern societies.

BL: Absolutely. I wrote two things for Earth Day. First we have to recognize there are environmental problems. And it’s great that we get a better environment, and fundamentally when you get rich you can actually afford to do a lot of this. And as you point out poverty is the biggest polluter, because if you’re poor, you quite frankly have other important issues. So you’ll cut down your rainforest or whatever else you need to do.

Secondly, it also emphasizes as you just pointed out that most nations and especially poor nations need to get out of poverty by doing what we’ve done. They want to have access for a lot more energy and mostly that is going to be fossil fuels. Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe decided to say “All right we’re not going to go and get any energy from Russia.” But they didn’t say “Oh so we’re going to go all green.” They actually went to Africa to buy up their fossil fuels because we want to keep our living standards. But they simultaneously told the Africans, “But you shouldn’t be using it, you should actually go all green.” That’s just hypocrisy absolutely.

Excerpts from Lomborg op-ed Time to pull the plug on corporate virtue-signaling

The era of being cheered on for every green promise and vow
– regardless of how silly or self-defeating – has come to an end

Climate change is undeniably a real problem which has tangible economic impacts. However, climate solutions also come with their own set of costs, often demanding that businesses and individuals rely on pricier, less dependable energy sources. The decision to balance the expenses of climate policies with the advantages of climate action falls rightly under the responsibility of governments, not profit-driven businesses.

Yet over the past decade, even major contributors to climate change – such as the fossil fuel industry itself – invested in extraordinary green policies. Five years ago, BP made an astonishing promise to slash its oil and gas production by 40% by 2030, while increasing green energy generation twentyfold and becoming net-zero.

Now, along with other big, Western oil companies,
it has abandoned those farcical green promises and
recommitted to its primary activity: fossil fuels.

No doubt, this U-turn will be lamented by green activists. But the truth is that these promises were always an inefficient way of helping the planet, and very shortsighted for fossil fuel companies. Even after the world has spent $14 trillion on climate policy, more than four-fifths of global energy remains supplied by fossil fuels.

Over the past half-century, fossil fuel energy has more than doubled, with 2023 again setting a new record. Consumers and businesses are crying out for more energy, while competitor state-owned oil companies from the Middle East have continued to provide more fossil fuels. It is a foolish energy company that declares it will supply less energy.

Banks also had a fling with green policies, and have now dumped them, with the six largest U.S. banks leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and Wells Fargo officially abandoning its goal of achieving net-zero emissions across its financial portfolio by 2050.

In the peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a study finds that of 1,500 “climate” policies announced around the world, a mere 63, or 4%, produce any reduction in emissions.

While some industries are moving faster than others, there are signs that many companies will just change their language, and not their inefficient climate policies.

As leaders of international organizations and corporations scramble to adapt to an entirely new world, it’s important they go further than just shifts in rhetoric. The era of being cheered on for every green promise and vow – regardless of how silly or self-defeating – has come to an end. Now it’s time for those leaders to get back to business.

Sea Level Rise Hype from Climatists Lying by Omission Again

Posted on by Ron Clutz

From Inside Climate News comes this example, New Study Projects Climate-Driven Flooding for Thousands of New Jersey Homes.

Sea-level rise threatens coastal communities even if global emissions drop.

Of course the alarm is picked up everywhere:

As Summer Approaches, New Jersey’s Shore Towns Confront an Unrelenting Foe: Sea Level Rise Inside Climate News

US East Coast faces rising seas as crucial Atlantic current slows, New Scientist

Sea level rise creates a crisis at US coasts: What to know, USA Today

Map Shows US Cities Where Sea Level Rise Is Accelerating, Newsweek

Global sea levels are rising faster and faster. It spells catastrophe for coastal towns and cities, CNN

Etc., Etc., Etc.

Climatists Make Their Case by Omitting Facts

A previous post documented this pattern, of which we have this fresh example.  Let’s start with the tidal gauge at Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It presents a long record of steadily rising levels for more than a century.  The rate is 4.25 mm per year, or a rise of about 1 inch every six years.  The lie is in attributing all of that to sea level rising, and adding in burning of hydrocarbons as the cause.  What’s left out is the well known and documented subsidence of land along the US Eastern seaboard.

Vertical land motion (VLM) across the US Atlantic coast (a) Estimated VLM rate. The circles show the location of GNSS validation observations color-coded with their respective vertical velocities. (b) Histogram comparing GNSS vertical rates with estimated VLM rates. The standard deviation (SD) of the difference between the two datasets is 1.3 mm per year. (c) Land subsidence (representing negative VLM) across the US Atlantic Coast.

The black rectangles indicate the extent of study areas for Chesapeake Bay area and Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina (GA-SC-NC) area shown in Fig. 4. State Codes: ME Maine, NH New Hampshire, VT Vermont, MA Massachusetts, RI Rhode Island, NY New York, PA Pennsylvania, NJ New Jersey, WV West Virginia, OH Ohio, DE Delaware, VA Virginia, NC North Carolina, SC South Carolina, GA Georgia, and FL Florida. National, state, and great lakes boundaries in a, c are based on public domain vector data by World DataBank (https://data.worldbank.org/) generated in MATLAB.

Abstract from paper Hidden vulnerability of US Atlantic coast to sea-level rise due to vertical land motion

The vulnerability of coastal environments to sea-level rise varies spatially, particularly due to local land subsidence. However, high-resolution observations and models of coastal subsidence are scarce, hindering an accurate vulnerability assessment. We use satellite data from 2007 to 2020 to create high-resolution map of subsidence rate at mm-level accuracy for different land covers along the ~3,500 km long US Atlantic coast. Here, we show that subsidence rate exceeding 3 mm per year affects most coastal areas, including wetlands, forests, agricultural areas, and developed regions. Coastal marshes represent the dominant land cover type along the US Atlantic coast and are particularly vulnerable to subsidence. We estimate that 58 to 100% of coastal marshes are losing elevation relative to sea level and show that previous studies substantially underestimate marsh vulnerability by not fully accounting for subsidence.

A further reference to causes of land subsidence:

Land subsidence, in particular, deserves special attention because it can significantly magnify the relative sea-level rise (RSLR) to several times beyond the global average sea-level rise, which usually amounts to just a few mm/yr on its own (Shirzaei et al. 2021). Land subsidence results from various factors encompassing both natural processes and human activities that operate at local or regional scales (Ohenhen et al., 2023). Globally, groundwater extraction is the primary cause of land subsidence (Coplin and Galloway, 1999;Shastri et al., 2023).

Finally, we can observe that the Atlantic City sea level rise of 4.25 mm per year measured at the gauge is close to the subsidence rate shown in the right hand panel.  So yes, authorities in that area need to address the problem with hydro engineering and zoning laws.  But no, reducing CO2 emissions is not the solution.

See Also:

Observed vs. Imagined Sea Levels 2023 Update

Drive Your Car While You Can

Posted on by Ron Clutz


Issues & Insights Editorial Board article is Take A Hike: Driving Will Be Verboten.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Anyone who thought electric-vehicle mandates and policies designed to force Americans out of their cars and into public transit or onto early 18th-century technology (bicycles) are intended to protect the environment is either naive or an accomplice in tyranny. The evidence has been helpfully provided by a Massachusetts senator who wants to limit how far people can travel.

We are well past the point of being fed up hearing that the world has to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions or we’ll scorch our planet. Carbon dioxide produced by man, the fanatics assure us, is an existential threat.

The transportation sector is the largest source of direct greenhouse gas emissions, so of course it is a ripe target for cuts for eco-tyrants. The starting point has largely been a focus on vehicles that burn fossil fuels. They must be replaced with EVs and other “emissions-free” vehicles (there are effectively no true zero-emissions automobiles), public transit, bicycles, and our own feet.

But those are only interim steps to the ultimate goal.

Massachusetts Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Stone Creem believes she knows how to cut emissions. She’s introduced a bill that would “set a statewide vehicle miles traveled reduction goal for the year 2030 and for every fifth year thereafter.” It includes a “a whole-of-government plan to reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase access to transportation options other than personal vehicles.”

It’s an example of “textbook extreme, out-of-touch policymaking,” says the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which suggests that mileage vouchers might be ahead for Bay Staters.

“Creem says EVs aren’t enough – Massachusetts must limit how far you can drive, too,” the organization warns. “Her bill creates a panel to track your mileage and fine you if you go too far. She says just walk or bike instead.”

This “new” and “additional” strategy, as Creem calls it, is simply another effort to separate us from our cars in what we could loosely call the autozoic era. Similar actions include:

Do not think we are exaggerating, that there is no war on cars, because there is.

The authoritarian urges behind the assault on unfettered free travel are strong. The social engineering and malign central planning in the service of “sustainability” and “green” initiatives are hostile to freedom.

Naturally, elected officials, their high-ranking staff members, and senior government functionaries won’t have to abide by any limits. They’ll have some privileged equivalent of Zil lanes, the low-traffic VIP avenues that showed Muscovites that while everyone was equal in the Soviet Union, some were more equal than others.

No invention has liberated humanity or boosted economic prosperity more than the automobile. People choose to buy and drive cars out of convenience and need, and for their love of independence. But the political left wants to take away people’s right to make their own decisions because it suits both lower-case and upper-case “d” democrats’ tyrannical impulses. If anyone needs to take a hike, literally and metaphorically, it should be anti-car warriors.

Footnote:  Au Contraire Say the French People

French MPs vote to scrap low-emission zones

BBC

A handful of MPs from Macron’s party joined opposition parties from the right and far right in voting 98-51 to scrap the zones, which have gradually been extended across French cities since 2019.

But it was a personal victory for writer Alexandre Jardin who set up a movement called Les #Gueux (Beggars), arguing that “ecology has turned into a sport for the rich”.

The low-emission zones began with 15 of France’s most polluted cities in 2019 and by the start of 2025 had been extended to every urban area with a population of more than 150,000, with a ban on cars registered before 1997.

Marine Le Pen condemned the ZFEs as “no-rights zones” during her presidential campaign for National Rally in 2022, and her Communist counterpart warned of a “social bomb”.

The head of the right-wing Republicans in the Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez, talked of “freeing the French from stifling, punitive ecology”, and on the far left, Clémence Guetté said green policies should not be imposed “on the backs of the working classes”.

Green Senator Anne Souyris told BFMTV that “killing [the ZFEs] also means killing hundreds of thousands of people” …

The legislation still has to go through the upper house, though it is expected to. And it doesn’t stop tyrant-municipalities from imposing their own small tourist-deterrent zones. But spread the word in case any of our politicians think this idea is not radioactively awful. They need to know it’s been tried and failed so we don’t have to repeat the experiment.

US Supremes Rein In Politicized Environmental Reviews

Posted on by Ron Clutz

On May 29, 2025 SCOTUS ruled unanimously that NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) can no longer be a tool for political activists against development projects.  The report from MSN is US Supreme Court limits environmental reviews in Utah railway ruling.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback to environmentalists on Thursday by allowing federal agencies to limit the scope of their reviews of the environmental impact of projects they regulate, as the justices bolstered a Utah railway project intended to transport crude oil.

The 8-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that had halted the project and had faulted an environmental impact statement issued by a federal agency called the Surface Transportation Board in approving the railway as too limited in scope. The project was challenged by environmentalists and a Colorado county.

A coalition of seven Utah counties and an infrastructure investment group are seeking to construct an 88-mile (142-km) railway line in northeastern Utah to connect the sparsely populated Uinta Basin region to an existing freight rail network that would be used primarily to transport waxy crude oil.

The case tested the scope of environmental impact studies that federal agencies must conduct under a U.S. law called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enacted in 1970 to prevent environmental harms that might result from major projects. The law mandates that agencies examine the “reasonably foreseeable” effects of a project.

The ruling, authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was joined by four other conservative justices. The court’s three liberal justices filed a separate opinion concurring in the outcome.

Kavanaugh wrote that agencies need only consider environmental effects of a project at hand and not the “effects from potential future projects or from geographically separate projects,” and that courts must offer agencies “substantial deference” regarding the scope of these assessments.

“NEPA is a procedural cross-check, not a substantive roadblock. The goal of the law is to inform agency decision-making, not to paralyze it,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Background Post: US Supremes Hear Climate Lawfare Case to Stop Oil Railway

IER reports the news from December in article The Supreme Court Takes on a Case Involving the National Environmental Policy Act.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Key Takeaways

1  The Supreme Court has heard a major NEPA case that could affect investment in energy and other infrastructure projects in America.

2  Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado will decide whether permit applicants must anticipate far-flung speculative impacts over which federal agencies have no control.

3  The case involves an 88-mile railway accessing oil production in the Uinta Basin in Utah, allowing expansion of domestic oil production as well as access to essential minerals in the region.

4  Green advocates sued the Surface Transportation Board because it approved without considering alleged but inestimable impacts far from the project.

5  Lower courts have sided with the Greens, who oppose mineral and energy development.

6  SCOTUS is expected to clarify the burdens projects must face to comply with NEPA, which has become a tool of delay and denial by those opposing projects of all kinds in the United States.

7 Congress is also looking at NEPA streamlining as the act has become an impediment to rational development in the United States.
The Supreme Court recently heard a major case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, that will affect the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The case concerns the permitting of a proposed Utah railway that would ship oil from the Uinta Basin, potentially quadrupling its oil production. The 88-mile Uinta Basin Railway would connect the oil fields of northeastern Utah to the national rail network running alongside 100 or so miles of the Colorado River to reach oil refineries on the Gulf Coast.  According to The Hill,  at issue is whether and when upstream and downstream environmental impacts should be considered as part of federal environmental reviews. The company behind the railway and a group of Utah counties appealed a lower court decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that those indirect impacts are beyond the scope of the federal reviews.

Background

The case concerns a rail line to support oil development and mineral mining. In 2021, the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) issued a 3,600-page environmental impact statement to comply with NEPA and approved the rail line. The NEPA mandates that federal agencies assess the environmental effects of projects within their authority. Any major initiative that is managed, regulated, or authorized by the federal government must undergo a NEPA evaluation, a process that can span years and frequently exposes projects to legal challenges.

The STB analyzed the railway’s potential effects on local water resources, air quality, protected species, recreation, local economies, the Ute Indian tribe, and other factors. Environmental groups, however, sued the agency, saying that it failed to examine sufficiently how the railway might affect the risk of accidents on connecting lines hundreds of miles away and to assess emissions in “environmental justice communities” on the Gulf Coast from increased oil shipments, among other supposed shortcomings.

According to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, “a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel sided with the plaintiffs and told the STB it must consider the line’s upstream and downstream effects even if they were hard to predict and beyond the control of the agency and developers. This includes the effects of oil shipments on Gulf Coast refiners and their contributions to climate change.” The appeals court ruling found that the federal STB violated the Endangered Species Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act when it permitted the project.

Furthermore, the editorial board also explained that lower court judges—those on the D.C. and Ninth Circuits—ignored the Supreme Court’s past rulings and imposed arbitrary permitting requirements with no limiting principle. The STB lacks authority over Gulf Coast refiners and cannot prevent climate change.

Court Rulings Regarding NEPA

The Supreme Court has heard other related cases and held that agencies need not consider indirect and unpredictable impact, most recently in a 2004 case, Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen. In that case, the Supreme Court held that agencies need only analyze environmental impact with “a reasonably close causal relationship” over which they have “statutory authority” and which they can prevent.

In 2020, the Supreme Court green-lit approval for permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline after nearly seven years of litigation, but the pipeline was scrapped due to legal delays that raised project costs significantly. It takes an average of 4.2 years to litigate a NEPA challenge, which adds to the four or more years to obtain a federal permit. These delays are what frustrate investment in new projects, slowing job creation and economic expansion in the United States.

A judge struck down a Montana coal mine permit because a federal agency did not consider the climate effects of coal combustion in Asia. Additionally, a 225-mile electric transmission line in Nebraska has been stuck in permitting for 10 years because a lower court invalidated a U.S. Fish and Wildlife permit.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court is tackling a case involving the scope of a federal environmental law, NEPA, that involves a rail line to move oil. In this case, lower courts agreed with environmental groups, who are challenging the government’s permit approval of the rail line. The case is instrumental to the issue of what should be considered when determining potential environmental damages. Congress recognizes that NEPA needs reform as delays over lawsuits have killed projects and dramatically increased their costs and it continues to debate ways to make federal permitting easier and quicker. Until that reform happens, however, Supreme Court Justices need to reign in the environmental limits of NEPA so that needed projects can progress in America.

Again, There is No Right to a Stable Climate

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Announced this week was this from Inside Climate News: Trump Executive Orders Violate Young People’s Rights to a Stable Climate, a Lawsuit Alleges.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Twenty-two young people from across the country sued the
Trump administration over the executive orders,
which prioritize the expansion of fossil fuels.

The complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Montana, challenges three executive orders: “Unleashing American Energy,” “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” and “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry.” The lawsuit argues that with the orders, the Trump administration knowingly is advancing an agenda that will increase greenhouse gas pollution that already is stressing the global climate to a dangerous extent.

The litigation argues the situation infringes on the young people’s constitutional rights to life and liberty, as well as falling afoul of other laws approved by Congress that protect public health and the environment. The plaintiffs want the court to declare the executive orders unconstitutional, block their implementation and reaffirm the legal limits on presidential power.

“From day one of the current administration, President Trump has issued directives to increase fossil fuel use and production and block an energy transition to wind, solar, battery storage, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles (“EVs”),” the lawsuit states. “President Trump’s EOs falsely claim an energy emergency, while the true emergency is that fossil fuel pollution is destroying the foundation of Plaintiffs’ lives.”

It’s the same argument from the same people (Our Children’s Trust) that was shot down in flames just a year ago.  There were multiple attempts to undo the damaged legal maneuver to no avail.  Below is why this latest litigation should be put out of its misery at once.

 Appeals Court Rules Against Kids’ Climate Lawsuit, May 1, 2024

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals grants Federal government’s petition for writ of mandamus in the case of Juliana v. United States, originally filed in 2015.  Ruling excerpts are below in italics with my bolds. 20240501_docket-24-684_order

In the underlying case, twenty-one plaintiffs (the Juliana plaintiffs) claim that—by failing to adequately respond to the threat of climate change—the government has violated a putative “right to a stable climate system that can sustain human life.” Juliana v. United States, No. 6:15-CV-01517-AA, 2023 WL 9023339, at *1 (D. Or. Dec. 29, 2023). In a prior appeal, we held that the Juliana plaintiffs lack Article III standing to bring such a claim. Juliana v. United States, 947 F.3d 1159, 1175 (9th Cir. 2020). We remanded with instructions to dismiss on that basis. Id. The district court nevertheless allowed amendment, and the government again moved to dismiss. The district court denied that motion, and the government petitioned for mandamus seeking to enforce our earlier mandate. We have jurisdiction to consider the petition. See 28 U.S.C. § 1651. We grant it.

In the prior appeal, we held that declaratory relief was “not substantially likely to mitigate the plaintiffs’ asserted concrete injuries.” Juliana, 947 F.3d at 1170. To the contrary, it would do nothing “absent further court action,” which we held was unavailable. Id. We then clearly explained that Article III courts could not “step into the shoes” of the political branches to provide the relief the Juliana plaintiffs sought. Id. at 1175. Because neither the request for declaratory relief nor the request for injunctive relief was justiciable, we “remand[ed] th[e] case to the district court with instructions to dismiss for lack of Article III standing.” Id. Our mandate was to dismiss.

The district court gave two reasons for allowing amendment. First, it concluded that amendment was not expressly precluded. Second, it held that intervening authority compelled a different result. We reject each.
The first reason fails because we “remand[ed] . . . with instructions to dismiss for lack of Article III standing.” Id. Neither the mandate’s letter nor its spirit left room for amendment. See Pit River Tribe, 615 F.3d at 1079.
The second reason the district court identified was that, in its view, there was an intervening change in the law. District courts are not bound by a mandate when a subsequently decided case changes the law. In re Molasky, 843 F.3d 1179, 1184 n.5 (9th Cir. 2016). The case the court identified was Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, which “ask[ed] whether an award of nominal damages by itself can redress a past injury.” 141 S. Ct. 792, 796 (2021). Thus, Uzuegbunam was a damages case which says nothing about the redressability of declaratory judgments. Damages are a form of retrospective relief. Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home v. W. Va. Dep’t of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 608–09 (2001). Declaratory relief is prospective. The Juliana plaintiffs do not seek damages but seek only prospective relief. Nothing in Uzuegbunam changed the law with respect to prospective relief.

We held that the Juliana plaintiffs lack standing to bring their claims and told the district court to dismiss. Uzuegbunam did not change that. The district court is instructed to dismiss the case forthwith for lack of Article III standing, without leave to amend.

Background July 2023: Finally, a Legal Rebuttal on the Merits of Kids’ Climate Lawsuit

As reported last month, the Oregon activist judge invited the plaintiffs in Juliana vs US to reopen that case even after the Ninth Circuit shot it down.  Now we have a complete and thorough Motion from the defendant (US government) to dismiss this newest amended complaint.  Most interesting is the section under the heading starting on page 30.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Plaintiffs’ Claims Fail on the Merits

Because Plaintiffs’ action fails at the jurisdictional threshold, the Ninth Circuit never reached—and this Court need not reach—the merits of the claims. . . Plaintiffs’ second amended complaint, which supersedes the first amended complaint, asserts the same claims that were brought in the first amended complaint, which this Court addressed in orders that the Ninth Circuit reversed. Defendants thus renew their objection that Plaintiffs’ claims fail on the merits and should be dismissed pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

A. There is no constitutional right to a stable climate system.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed courts considering novel due process claims
to “‘exercise the utmost care whenever . . . asked to break new ground in this field,’… lest the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause be subtly transformed” into judicial policy preferences. More specifically, the Supreme Court has “regularly observed that the Due Process Clause specially protects those fundamental rights and liberties which are, objectively, ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’”  Plaintiffs’ request that this Court recognize an implied fundamental right to a stable climate system contradicts that directive, because such a purported right is without basis in the Nation’s history or tradition.

The proposed right to a “stable climate system” is nothing like any fundamental right ever recognized by the Supreme Court. The state of the climate is a public and generalized issue, and so interests in the climate are unlike the particularized personal liberty or personal privacy interests of individuals the Supreme Court has previously recognized as being protected by fundamental rights.  “[W]henever federal courts have faced assertions of fundamental rights to a ‘healthful environment’ or to freedom from harmful contaminants, they have invariably rejected those claims.”. Plaintiffs’ First Claim for Relief must be dismissed.

B.  Plaintiffs fail to allege a cognizable state-created danger claim.

The First Claim for Relief must also be dismissed because the Constitution does not impose an affirmative duty to protect individuals, and Plaintiffs have failed to allege a cognizable claim under the “state-created danger” exception to that rule.
As a general matter:

[The Due Process Clause] is phrased as a limitation on the State’s power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety and security. It forbids the State itself to deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law,” but its language cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means.

Thus, the Due Process Clause imposes no duty on the government to protect persons from harm inflicted by third parties that would violate due process if inflicted by the government.

Plaintiffs contend that the government’s “deliberate actions” and “deliberate indifference” with regard to the dangers of climate change amount to a due process violation under the state-created danger exception.

First, Plaintiffs have identified no harms to their “personal security or bodily integrity” of the kind and immediacy that qualify for the state-created danger exception. . . But here, Plaintiffs allege that general degradation of the global climate has harmed their “dignity, including their capacity to provide for their basic human needs, safely raise families, practice their religious and spiritual beliefs, [and] maintain their bodily integrity” and has prevented them from “lead[ing] lives with access to clean air, water, shelter, and food.”  Those types of harm are unlike the immediate, direct, physical, and personal harms at issue in the above-cited cases.

Second, Plaintiffs identify no specific government actions—much less government actors—that put them in such danger. Instead, Plaintiffs contend that a number of (mostly unspecified) agency actions and inactions spanning the last several decades have exposed them to harm. This allegation of slowly-recognized, long-incubating, and generalized harm by itself conclusively distinguishes their claim from all other state-created danger cases recognized by the Ninth Circuit.

Third, Plaintiffs do not allege that government actions endangered Plaintiffs in particular. . . As explained above, Plaintiffs’ asserted injuries arise from a diffuse, global phenomenon that affects every other person in their communities, in the United States, and throughout the world.

For all these reasons, there is no basis for finding a violation of Plaintiffs’ due process right under the state-created danger doctrine, and Plaintiffs’ corresponding claim must be dismissed.

C. No federal public trust doctrine creates a right to a stable climate system.

Plaintiffs’ Fourth Claim for Relief, asserting public trust claims, should be dismissed for two independent reasons. First, any public trust doctrine is a creature of state law that applies narrowly and exclusively to particular types of state-owned property not at issue here. That doctrine has no application to federal property, the use and management of which is entrusted exclusively to Congress. . .Consequently, there is no basis for Plaintiffs’ public trust claim against the federal government under federal law.

Second, the “climate system” or atmosphere is not within any conceivable federal public trust.

1. No public trust doctrine binds the federal government.

Plaintiffs rely on an asserted public trust doctrine for the proposition that the federal government must “take affirmative steps to protect” “our country’s life-sustaining climate system,” which they assert the government holds in trust for their benefit.  But because any public trust doctrine is a matter of state law only, public trust claims may not be asserted against the federal government under federal law. . . The Supreme Court has without exception treated public trust doctrine as a matter of state law with no basis in the United States Constitution.

2. Any public trust doctrine would not apply to the “climate system” or the atmosphere.

Independently, any asserted public trust doctrine does not help Plaintiffs here. Public trust cases have historically involved state ownership of specific types of natural resources, usually limited to submerged and submersible lands, tidelands, and waterways. . . The climate system or atmosphere is unlike any resource previously deemed subject to a public trust. It cannot be owned and, due to its ephemeral nature, cannot remain within the jurisdiction of any single government. No court has held that the climate system or atmosphere is protected by a public trust doctrine. Indeed, the concept has been widely rejected.

For all these reasons, the Court should dismiss Plaintiffs’ Fourth Claim for Relief.

Background Post Update on Zombie Kids Climate Lawsuits: (Juliana vs. US) (Held vs Montana)