Benny Peiser’s Global
Warming Policy Foundation Reports the World is Drowning In Oil Facing the
Longest Oil Glut In Three Decades. Coal Use Growing Faster Than Any Other
Energy. There is Also a Warning For the Pope - Rising Green Energy Taxes To Hit
Poorest Hardest and US Catholics Divided Over Global Warming
Rising green levies on energy bills risk causing a public backlash that will undermine efforts to tackle climate change, a leading left-wing think tank has warned. Subsidies to fund green electricity projects such as wind and solar farms are paid for through levies on consumer energy bills. Joss Garman, associate director of the IPPR think tank, said: “The government’s plan to hike up green levies on energy bills risks causing a public backlash against action to address climate change, especially because they hit the poorest households hardest.” --Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 17 June 2015
Government policies intended to reduce carbon dioxide are directly harming the poor in both the developing and developed world, according to a report released by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).
Energy sources that are not based on fossil fuels are making both power and food more expensive, the report argues. While the affluent remain relatively unaffected, the poor are bearing the brunt of rising prices. The report, entitled Climate Policy and the Poor, was the written by Professor Anthony Kelly, who died on Tuesday. Kelly, who was widely regarded as the father of composite materials in the UK, points to two major ways government policy is harming the poor in the UK and overseas. --Guy Bentley, City A.M. 6 June 2014
On the eve of a forthcoming encyclical by Pope Francis on the environment and climate change, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that U.S. Catholics’views on global warming are broadly reflective of American public opinion writ large. About seven-in-ten U.S. Catholics (71%) believe the planet is getting warmer. Nearly half of Catholic adults (47%) attribute global warming to human causes, and a similar share (48%) view it as a very serious problem. However, analysis of the survey findings shows that political party identification and race/ethnicity are much better predictors of environmental attitudes than are religious identity or observance. --Pew Research Center, 16 June 2015
Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change should not be treated as official Catholic doctrine binding on all Catholics, but rather a personal position of the Pope, according to Father James Grant, Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. “Many will see the Pope’s encyclical as the official position of the Church on the area of climate change. This is simply not the case,” says Father James. “In Catholic doctrine, it is completely acceptable for Catholics to disagree with the opinions of the Pope in an encyclical. So while the encyclical will hold significant weight in the Catholic community, there is nothing new in the debate regarding encyclicals. Catholics can feel safe in being sceptical about the Pope’s opinions,” says Father James. --Institute of Public Affairs, 16 June 2015
Europe’s car manufacturers and European Union officials are locked on opposing sides as the carmakers would gladly see lax emissions rules as opposed to the governments which want greenhouse emission to go down as fast as possible. The automakers believe even tighter CO2 rules would definitely impact their global competitiveness. --Aurel Niculescu, Inauto News, 16 June 2015
Fracking offers Scotland the chance of a secure energy supply no more harmful to the environment than conventional gas production, according to a new study. The Royal Society of Edinburgh’s advice paper on “options for Scotland’s gas future” finds that “onshore production of unconventional gas” — or fracking —could offer the country security of supply without “significant risk” to health, wellbeing or safety. “The areas of health, wellbeing and safety surrounding an onshore industry do not appear to present significant risks. Domestic production onshore could improve energy security, create jobs and ensure Scotland takes responsibility for its energy consumption.” --Mike Wade, The Times,17 June 2015
Seventeen years ago –June 11, 1998 –Mitchell Energy performed the first modern frack job on a natural-gas well in Texas and unleashed the U.S. energy boom. Whether hydraulic fracturing is a force for good or evil remains one of the most divisive questions in America today. Prof Michael E. Porter says the energy boom is “perhaps the single largest opportunity to improve the trajectory of the U.S. economy.” But, he warns, Americans could fritter away this competitive advantage if they are not careful. This potential advantage could be lost because public support for fracking is weakening. “Further development is increasingly threatened,” the report warns. --Russell Gold, The Wall Street Journal, 11 June 2015
The latest round of UN climate talks have made slow progress on refining a negotiating text for the Paris summit in December, the focal point for efforts to agree curbs on greenhouse gas emissions in developed and developing countries. Despite two weeks of talks at an interim meeting in the German city of Bonn, most of the contradictory proposals that littered the previous 90-page document remain. Familiar disputes blocked progress at the mainly technical meeting in Bonn, which was being held around 500km away from this week’s G7 summit in Bavaria. But in Bonn rich nations failed to give greater clarity on how rich economies will deploy US$100 billion of climate finance a year from 2020. --John McGarrity, India Climate Dialogue, 17 June 2015
The world is on the brink of the longest-lasting oil glut in at least three decades and OPEC’s quest for market share makes it almost unavoidable. --Grant Smith, Bloomberg, 16 June 2015
According to the BP Review, over the decade to the end of 2014, coal use grew by 968 million tonnes of oil equivalent. That is 4 times faster than renewables, 2.8 times faster than oil and 50 per cent faster than gas. That’s hardly justification for a requiem. --Brendan Pearson and Michael Roche, The Australian, 16 June 2015
It has become urgent and compelling to develop policies so that in the coming years the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases is reduced drastically, for instance by replacing fossil fuels and by developing renewable energy sources. --Leaked Papal Encyclical, 15 June 2015
I am very concerned that climate science is becoming biased owing to biases in federal funding priorities and the institutionalization by professional societies of a particular ideology related to climate change. Many scientists, and institutions that support science, are becoming advocates for UN climate policies, which is leading scientists into overconfidence in their assessments and public statements and into failures to respond to genuine criticisms of the scientific consensus. In short, the climate science establishment has become intolerant to disagreement and debate, and is attempting to marginalize and de-legitimized dissent as corrupt or ignorant. Uncertainty and disagreement drive scientific progress. Stifling uncertainty and disagreement stifles scientific progress. --Judith Curry, House of Lords, 15 June 2015
Pope Francis has endorsed the science behind global warming and denounced the world’s political leaders for putting national self-interests ahead of action.--John Follain, Bloomberg, 16 June 2015
Member of Parliament David Davies has warned of the stubborn nature of organisations like Britain’s Royal Society – the oldest grouping of eminent scientists in the world – who have admitted that they will not accept any other thinking on global warming for at least “fifty years”, even if the data shows otherwise. -- Oliver Lane, Breitbart News, 16 June 2015
The [Royal Society] had two guys whose job it was to go around and persuade everyone that we’re all trying the ruin the economy. We pinned them down on this hiatus. They were arguing that yes, there might have been a hiatus, but warming might be going into the ocean, or it could be due to volcanic activity. So we asked at what point would you begin to accept there had been no warming. If there is no warming for five years, or ten years? Finally they conceded they would wait fifty years. Effectively, we’re all going to be dead before the Royal Society admits they’ve got their facts wrong. There could be absolutely no warming every year for the next fifty years, and the Royal Society would still maintain that climate change is a major problem. --David Davies, Breitbart News, 16 June 2015
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