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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Thursday, May 29, 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Foundation

Germany’s Green Jobs Miracle Collapses
 
Number Of Green Jobs Falling Rapidly

Renewable energy was supposed to create tens of thousands of green jobs. Yet despite three-digit Euro billions of subsidies, the number of jobs is falling rapidly. Seven out of ten jobs will only remain as long as the subsidies keep flowing. …..“A few years ago the renewable sector was the job miracle in Germany, now nothing is left of all of that,” said the deputy leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, Oliver Krischer. …..The same green subsidies have led to rising costs and job losses in many other areas, such as heavy industry and commerce as well as conventional power plants. For a net analysis of employment, the number of jobs that have been prevented or destroyed as a result would have to be deducted from the gross number of green jobs. Researchers such as the president of the Munich-based IFO institute, Hans-Werner Sinn, believe that the net effect of subsidies for renewable energy on the labour market is equal to zero. --Daniel Wetzel, Die Welt, 26 May 2014

Claims by politicians and lobbyists that green energy policies will create a few thousand jobs are not supported by the evidence. In terms of the labour market, the gains for a small number of actual or potential employees in businesses specialising in renewable energy has to be weighed against the dismal prospects for a much larger group of workers producing tradable goods in the rest of the manufacturing sector. --Professor Gordon Hughes, --Gordon Hughes, Global Warming Policy Foundation, 4 September 2011

The number of workers employed by the German PV industry fell by almost 50% last year, according to figures released on Monday by the German energy and economics ministry. The federal ministry for economic affairs and energy’s statistics show that the PV industry’s workforce numbers in Germany fell from 100,300 people in 2012 to 56,000 in 2013. --PV Tech News, 28 May 2014

Berlin-based leftist daily TAZ here reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel isn’t going to bother attending the Ban Ki-Moon initiated climate conference in New York this coming September. The paper adds this has been “confirmed by a government spokesman“. Merkel’s decision to snub the event is likely another sign that efforts to forge a climate agreement are already dead in water. --Pierre Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, 26 May 2014

Britain has approved enough onshore wind turbines to meet climate change targets, leaving the public to choose other ways to cut emissions in future, the government’s chief climate adviser has said. Lord Deben of Winston appeared to contradict forecasts by his own Committee on Climate Change of a tripling in the number of wind farms by 2030 — equivalent to almost 10,000 more turbines. The Conservatives pledged last month to end subsidies for new onshore wind turbines if they win the next election. Lord Deben declined to comment on the move, saying that he spoke as an independent on climate change. He appeared, though, to support the government’s announcement this month that it would end subsidies for large solar farms in the countryside. --Ben Webster, The Times, 27 May 2014

Nigel Farage inflicted another body blow on the three main political parties on Sunday night as Ukip scored a stunning victory in the European Parliament elections. The anti-EU party dramatically built on its success in the local elections in England last Thursday when the results of the Euro poll on the same day were announced. A jubilant Mr Farage hailed the outcome as “an earthquake” because “never before in the history of British politics has a party seen to be an insurgent party ever topped the polls in a national election”. --The Independent, 26 May 2014

Lord Deben said people like Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former chancellor, should not be classed as ‘climate change deniers’ but should instead be referred to as “dismissers.” He said these people do not say climate change is not happening but deny the urgency to take action. Lord Lawson of Blaby has warned that climate sceptics are treated with same vitriol as Holocaust deniers. He also accused the Prince of Wales and the Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey of being hostile. Lord Lawson, who founded the Global Warming Policy Foundation think-tank, said he had never experienced such vilification either in his private or political life.  Claire Carter, The Daily Telegraph, 28 May 2014

According to our Energy Information Administration, Europe sits on reserves equaling 639 trillion cubic feet of gas — roughly equal to half of Russia’s reserves (the world’s largest) and more than enough to make Europe independent of Putin and Gazprom. Every government in Europe knows fracking would produce enormous government revenues, create tens of thousands of jobs, reduce natural-gas prices there to something approaching the price here (which is about a quarter of what Germans or Italians pay). But Europe’s environmentalists still see natural gas as a dreaded “fossil fuel” and so won’t let it happen. And so Putin is empowered to increase his grip over the continent’s future — even though the solution sits directly under everyone’s feet. --Arthur Herman, New York Post, 26 May 2014

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