Satellite Data Reinstates Global Temperature Pause

Three (Perfectly Democratic) Reasons Donald Trump
Will Smother The Paris Climate Deal

Brought to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum
 

Satellite data indicates a large fall in the temperature of the lower Troposphere back to pre-El Nino levels. This decrease has reinstated the so-called “pause” in lower atmosphere temperature. The decrease is seen in the land only data. Data from the sea shows a decline but not as much. This is expected given the ocean’s thermal lag. Data from the RSS group that provides satellite temperature services show that late-2016 temperatures have returned to the level it was at post-1998. This clearly shows the recent El Nino for what it is – a short term weather event. Now that it is over it can easily be seen that the lower Tropospheric temperature displays no long-tern trend between 1999 – 2016. --Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor, 21 November 2016

  US President-elect Donald Trump is set to slash Nasa’s budget for monitoring climate change and instead set a goal of sending humans to the edge of the solar system by the end of the century, and possibly back to the moon. According to Bob Walker, who has advised Mr Trump on space policy, Nasa has been reduced to “a logistics agency concentrating on space station resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring”. This year Nasa’s Earth Science Division received $1.92 billion in funding, up nearly 30 per cent from the previous year. Its funding has gone up 50 per cent under President Barack Obama. At the same time Mr Obama proposed cutting support for deep space exploration by $840 million next year. --Nick Allen, The Sunday Telegraph, 20 November 2016

US president-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that among his first actions as president will be to “free up” and “fire up” the shale gas and “clean coal”, promising “millions” of jobs by beginning his assault on Barack Obama Clean Power Plan. In a video update on the Presidential Transition, Trump outlined some policy plans for his first 100 days in office, and his day one executive actions when he takes over the reins on January 20 2017. On energy, he said he would “cancel job-killing restrictions” on the production of American fossil fuel resources, including unconventional shale energy and the yet-to-move-beyond-conceptual clean coal. He said this would create “many millions” of jobs. --Renew Economy, 22 November 2016

The election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States signals the beginning of the end of international climate alarmism. Trump’s victory has shaken the green movement to its core and will almost certainly lead to the Paris climate agreement’s unravelling. --Benny Peiser,Financial Post, 21 November 2016 

But if Trump does pull the US out of the futile UN programme to prevent manmade climate change — it’s an impossible objective with the developing world continuing rapidly to increase its exploitation and consumption of coal — perhaps a British cabinet might dare to question Westminster’s religious faith in the Climate Change Act. If Mrs May ever wanted to demonstrate real substance in her stated desire to represent the interests of “the just-managing ordinary workers” over the concerns of the “Westminster elite”, scrapping the Climate Change Act would hit the bullseye. Ask the Donald. --The Sunday Times, 20 November 2016

My liberal friends sometimes ask me why I don’t devote more of my science journalism to the sins of the Right. It’s fine to expose pseudoscience on the left, they say, but why aren’t you an equal-opportunity debunker? Why not write about conservatives’ threat to science? My friends don’t like my answer: because there isn’t much to write about. Conservatives just don’t have that much impact on science. I know that sounds strange to Democrats who decry Republican creationists and call themselves the “party of science.” But I’ve done my homework. I’ve read the Left’s indictments, including Chris Mooney’s bestseller, The Republican War on Science. I finished it with the same question about this war that I had at the outset: Where are the casualties? Where are the scientists who lost their jobs or their funding? What vital research has been corrupted or suppressed? What scientific debate has been silenced? --John Tierney, City Journal, Autumn 2016

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Europe's Climate Poker

EU Agrees Non-Binding Climate Deal Conditional On UN Treaty

 

Editor's Note: Please view this video: Europe's New Climate Targets: Myth & Reality and then ask yourself - What planet are these people living on? They're willing to destroy their nation's - and all of Europe's - economies in order to reduce CO2 emissions for no reason. We're long past understanding that CO2 has no effect on the world's weather. We know the world stopped the small amount of warming that was taking place 18 years ago while CO2 emissions increased substantially. Furthermore, we're long past believing "alternative" energy is any more viable that it was during the Carter administration. We're long past believing any of their dire predictions of disaster due to global warming will happen. Those kinds of disasters didn't happen 1000 years ago when the world was substantially warmer than it is now and there's no reason to believe anything disastrous will occur now. However, the price of energy is the beginning of wisdom and it is my belief all of this Anthropogenic Global Warming horsepucky will end up on the ash heap of history soon. I just hope the promoters of this in politics, the media and the junk scientists in academia end up there also.

 

EU leaders Thursday night committed by 2030 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40%, and increase energy efficiency and renewables by at least 27% [provided there is a legally binding UN climate treaty]. French President François Hollande said the deal would send a clear message to other countries such as China and the US ahead of the talks in Paris next year to agree global legally binding greenhouse gas emissions. A special “flexibility clause” was added to the final text, making it possible for the Council to return to the targets after the UN summit. --EurActiv, 24 October 2014

 

European leaders have struck a broad climate change pact obliging the EU as a whole to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030. But key aspects of the deal that will form a bargaining position for global climate talks in Paris next year were left vague or voluntary, raising questions as to how the aims would be realised. A clause was inserted into the text that could trigger a review of the EU’s new targets if other countries do not come forward with comparable commitments in Paris. --Arthur Neslen,

The Guardian, 24 October 2014 

EU leaders have reached a landmark deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. The binding decision (sic) came after heated discussions at a summit in Brussels, as some members had argued that their varied interests should be protected. –Roger Harrabin, BBC News, 24 October 2014

The EU announcement was reported in the media as if the EU has already adopted these aggressive new CO2 targets. This is however not the case. In reality the EU Commission only proposed a conditional offer as a negotiation card to be played during the 2015 negotiations at the UN climate conference in Paris. In the absence of an international agreement it is very unlikely that the EU will adopt any new unilateral targets. The EU has made it perfectly clear that it is no longer willing to go it alone. --Benny Peiser, Global Warming Poliicy Foundation, 9 February 2014

Global Warming: From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

New Paper Refutes Walrus-Climate Scare

Walrus Haulouts Are Nothing New

London, 20 October: A briefing paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation refutes claims that Arctic walruses are in distress and danger due to global warming.

The paper, written by Canadian zoologist Dr Susan Crockford, assesses the recent mass haulouts of walrus females and calves on the beaches of Alaska and Russia bordering the Chukchi Sea. The events have been blamed by US government biologists and WWF activists on lack of summer sea ice, amplified into alarming scare stories by news media around the world.

Such claims ignore previous haulouts that suggest a different cause. Scientific reports about large walrus haulouts that have occurred repeatedly over the last 45 years show that they are not new phenomena for this region.

At least two documented incidents of similar magnitude have occurred in the recent past: one in 1978, on eastern St. Lawrence Island and the other in 1972, on the western end of Wrangel Island. The 1978 event involved an estimated total of almost 150,000 walrus hauled out within in a small geographic area.

Moreover, sea ice maps for the months when known mass haulouts occurred, compared to years when they did not, suggest no strong correlation with low sea ice levels.

“The WWF and American walrus biologists have categorically linked the Point Lay mass haulout event to global warming, but available evidence suggests that’s alarmist nonsense,” Dr Crockford said.

“Blaming lack of sea ice for recent events ignores the documented factor –large population size – that drove walruses onto beaches en masse in the past, when plenty of ice was available.

Conservation measures have almost certainly led to a spectacular recovery of walrus numbers over the last few years. This suggests that recent mass haulouts are more an indicator that Chukchi walrus are nearing maximum capacity than a sign of impending global warming catastrophe,” Dr Crockford added.

Full paper (PDF) available here


Contacts
Dr Susan Crockford
sjcrock@shaw.ca

Dr Benny Peiser
Director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
tel: 020 70065827
mob: 07553 361717
benny.peiser@thegwpf.org

Poland To Veto EU’s 40% CO2 Reduction Proposal
New Unilateral CO2 Targets Would ‘Destroy European Industry’ Poland Warns

If the EU summit next week maintains the European Commission’s proposal on reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent by 2030, Poland will have to veto it, Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Janusz Piechociński told Polish Radio on Thursday. “If this initial proposal will look as it does now, then Poland will have no choice but to veto it,” Piechociński said. “For the Polish economy minister and the majority of EU economy ministers the 40-percent option, which destroys half of Europe’s industry, is unacceptable,” he added.--Warsaw Business Journal, 16 October 2014

Poland’s Economy Minister and Deputy PM Janusz Piechocinski has said that the EU’s proposal on CO2 emissions reduction would “destroy European industry”. “Europe shouldn’t be naïve, and it shouldn’t decide on anything which would be harmful for European industry,” Piechocinski told Polish Radio, Thursday morning. --Polish Radio, 16 October 2014

Poland’s largest opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) says it would support a veto by Prime Minister Kopacz on climate change in Brussels next week if the move harmed the Polish economy. Law and Justice’s unusual solidarity with the government comes after Poland’s deputy prime minister and economy minister Janusz Piechociński confirmed on Thursday that if there is no movement on the EC’s proposal at the summit then “Poland will have no choice but to veto it”.--Radio Poland, 17 October 2014

A week before the start of a Brussels summit on climate goals, member states disagree on various points of the so-called climate and energy policy framework for 2030. In the comments on the draft conclusions member states wrote this week – of which EUobserver has seen 22 – the disagreement appears largest on targets for energy efficiency and on which share of energy consumed in the EU should be from a renewable source in 2030. --Peter Teffer, EUobserver, 17 October 2014

Owen Paterson’s GWPF speech is worth noting by the capital markets as it indicates that the current political consensus on energy policy maybe be challenged going forward. In our view the public and political debate is only likely to grow as the inherent contradictions and unforeseen negative consequences of the current policy become more apparent as time goes on. We have long argued that current EU/UK energy policy is deeply flawed and that utility companies and public market investors should be wary of committing further capital to support and deliver it. Advice which has been increasingly accepted in recent times. After all, an energy policy that has the Hinkley Point C contract and off-shore wind as its two flagship achievements must eventually collapse under the weight of its own idiocy. --Peter Atherton, Liberum, 16 October 2014

HURRAH! At last a senior politician has finally plucked up the courage to tell the truth about the Government’s climate change policies – they are ruinously expensive, they won’t keep the lights on and they are deliberately designed to punish the poor and further enrich the wealthy. What we need is an urgent and radical re-think of our energy needs. The useless Climate Change Act and its entirely arbitrary and damaging targets should be scrapped. The punishment of the poor and subsides for the rich should stop. --Bill Carmichael, Yorkshire Post, 17 October 2014

Angela Merkel Casts Doubt Over EU Climate Summit
Britain Needs Political Climate Change To Cut Soaring Energy Bills

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dampened expectations about the EU climate summit next week. It was “still open whether it would succeed to adopt the Climate and Energy Framework 2030 next week or later,” Merkel said in a government statement to parliament. In light of these differences, the Chancellor called for patience with hesitant countries. It was right, “to take into account the specific circumstances of all member states and not to ask too much of anyone”.Merkel pointed out that EU climate targets would have to be adopted unanimously. Poland in particular is balking at ambitious [unilateral] CO2 targets. --Der Stern, 17 October 2014

Climate change scepticism is on the rise in Europe. Governments are not going to back a planned 40 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030 at a time when the EU is on its knees economically. Poland has promised a veto, threatening a global domino effect. Citing Polish Radio, Britain’s Global Warming Policy Forum said in a press release that Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Janusz Piechociński believed the plan was suicidal. --The Commentator, 18 October 2014

Owen Paterson also said, [the Climate Change Act] is “the single most regressive policy we have seen in this country since the Sheriff of Nottingham”. He is right, and because his party, and the Liberal Democrats, and Labour, have all agreed to the sheriff’s extortions, they are letting Nigel Farage play Robin Hood. As the theme song of the TV version used to say, “He cleared up all the trouble on the English country scene, and still found plenty of time to sing”. --Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2014

It is a great shame that Owen Paterson had to be sacked as environment secretary to expose what is an expensive futility. But earlier this week, in a wide-ranging speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, he tore into Britain’s cross-party consensus on climate change. The real casualties of the West’s green policies aren’t the poor in this country but in the developing world. Aid money that could be going to tackle malaria or to build a health infrastructure capable of containing ebola often goes to dubious green projects. Barack Obama has stopped US aid from helping build any new coal-fired power plants. This policy will literally kill people. --Tim Montgomerie, The Times, 18 October 2014

In a packed hall in Westminster this week, a respected former Conservative cabinet minister railed against his own government. Calling on the 300-strong Westminster crowd to “challenge current group think” and “stand up to the bullies in the environmental movement”, Paterson ended his speech by calling on his own government to “drop the 2050 target” and “repeal” the Climate Change Act. As political speeches go, this was a corker. From the back of the hall, I saw before me a speaker at the top of his game and an audience transfixed. It was passionate, old-school oratory, the likes of which seems rare in contemporary public life. --Liam Halligan, The Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Climate Change Lobby

‘Has African Blood On Its Hands’

Owen Paterson Says:

‘Wicked’ Green Blob Kills Thousands Every Day

 

The former Environment Secretary attacked a so-called ‘green blob’ at the heart of Government yesterday – accusing Whitehall officials and ministers of raising energy prices for the poor. Owen Paterson said their support for flawed wind and solar power cost billions and made electricity and gas needlessly expensive. He said the ‘green blob’ included civil servants and quangos in thrall to the climate change and environmental lobby. Speaking to the Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank, Mr. Paterson claimed the effects of climate change had been ‘consistently and widely exaggerated’, and policies to encourage onshore wind farms will cost £1.3trillion by 2050. --Daniel Martin, Daily Mail, 16 October 2014

Film stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio who campaign to reduce consumption of fossil fuels are consigning millions of Africans to a life of poverty and ill-health, according to Britain’s former environment secretary. Owen Paterson said the focus on climate change had obscured the real causes of deprivation in poor countries. His comments were made while delivering the annual lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think-tank known for being sceptical of climate change [policy]. Mr Paterson said: “The sight of rich film stars effectively telling Africa’s poor that they should not have fossil fuels, but should continue to die at the rate of millions each year from the smoke of wood fires in their homes frankly disgusts me.” --Ben Webster, The Times, 16 October 2014

We must challenge the current groupthink and be prepared to stand up to the bullies in the environmental movement and their subsidy-hungry allies. --Owen Paterson, 2014 Annual GWPF Lecture, London, 15 October 2015

As a member of the Cabinet for four years I supported Coalition energy policy. However I have become increasingly aware from my own constituency and from widespread travel around the UK of intense public dissatisfaction with heavily subsidized renewable technologies in particular onshore wind. I have used the last three months since leaving the Cabinet to learn more about the consequences of this policy. And what I have unearthed is alarming. Our current policy will cost £1,300bn up to 2050. It fails to meet the very emissions targets it is designed to meet. And it fails to provide the UK’s energy requirements. I call for a robust, common sense energy policy that would encourage the market to choose affordable technologies to reduce emissions. --Owen Paterson, 2014 Annual GWPF Lecture, London, 15 October 2015

Dozens of small nuclear reactors should be installed throughout the country near towns and cities if the UK wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep the lights on, the former environment secretary, Owen Paterson, has said. “This is a well established technology,” he said in his first major speech since he was sacked in the summer Cabinet reshuffle. “We have nuclear plants in our submarines which are accepted.” The plan was among a set of energy measures Mr Paterson outlined on Wednesday in a lecture to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which questions the cost of many climate change policies. --Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 16 October 2014

In its response to the 2014 Annual GWPF Lecture given last night by Owen Paterson, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has issued a statement to what Mr Paterson said. Unfortunately when it comes to Paterson’s claim that the earth’s surface temperature hasn’t risen in 18 years the CCC shows itself to be out of step with what has now become mainstream scientific opinion. Only campaigners, committees and some commentators use misleading phrases like ‘slowdown’ or ‘warming trend.’ In the peer-reviewed scientific literature, most scientists call it a temperature “hiatus” or “pause.” In fact, the global warming pause has become, as the journal Nature acknowledges, the biggest problem in climate science. It is a real problem that the CCC doesn’t think actually exists. --David Whitehouse, Global Warming Policy Forum, 16 October 2014

Six years ago today, an ambitious Labour politician, newly appointed climate change secretary, set Britain on a ruinous path that threatens our energy-dependent civilisation with collapse. Such is the devastating conclusion of Owen Paterson, the Tory former Environment Secretary, who yesterday joined Lord Lawson among the highest-profile critics of the political consensus on energy policy. Like this paper, he accepts emissions should be cut – though without ruining ourselves in a vain bid to meet EU targets. Indeed, Mr Paterson sets out alternative means of achieving cleaner energy more cheaply. At the very least, his ideas deserve full examination. --Editorial, Daily Mail, 16 October 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Poland Leads East European Opposition To EU Climate Deal

Climate Fears Exaggerated, Says Ex-Environment Secretary

Poland and other eastern European countries are prepared to scupper the EU’s landmark climate change deal next week if they do not receive greater guarantees about their future energy costs. Spearheaded by Germany, Britain and France, the EU wants to seal an agreement at a summit on October 23-24 to ensure the 28-member bloc will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But coal-dependent Poland and some of its neighbours argue that the EU’s proposals to compensate them for modernising their heavy industry do not go far enough. The opponents to the deal, led by Poland and the Czech Republic, but also including Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, are ready to walk away from the summit if they are not offered improved terms. --Financial Times, 15 October 2014

“This may fail,” Rafal Trzaskowski, Poland’s European affairs minister, told the Financial Times. “We have our well-entrenched red lines. . . If they are not ready to take into consideration our apprehensions, then we will decide later this week or early next week not to deal with the issue at the summit.” A senior Polish official involved with the negotiations said that Warsaw was “not confident” that there would be a deal next week. Marcin Korolec, Poland’s environment minister, said on Monday that EU countries were still “very far” from a compromise. --Financial Times, 15 October 2014

Predictions about the rate of climate change have proved to be ‘wildly exaggerated’, former environment secretary Owen Paterson will claim today. In a speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Mr Paterson will highlight recent studies and temperature records that he says pour cold water on many of the most alarmist forecasts. --John Stevens, Daily Mail, 15 October 2014

British householders are facing soaring energy bills and winter power cuts thanks to the “folly” of relying on wind power, experts said last night. The green crusade of successive governments is set to double electricity bills for households and cost homes £26billion a year by 2030, it was claimed yesterday. The cost of renewable energy and carbon taxes will put an extra £983 a year on household bills by then, compared to relying on a mix of nuclear and new gas-fired power stations, three experts told a Lords committee. Last night Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Forum said: “The irony is that energy prices around the world are falling, particularly for oil and gas. But households are not profiting because Government policies are making energy more expensive.” --John Ingham, Daily Express, 15 October 2014

It sounded like a good idea [not]: build massive solar energy plants in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East to supply Europe with 15 percent of its electricity needs by 2050. But the consortium behind the ambitious plan has now admitted defeat following disagreements over funding and persistent political instability in the desert nations where the plants were going to be built. --Associated Press, 14 October 2014

Press Release: Global Warming Policy Foudation

Rainfall and Floods - Observations More Reliable Than Climate Models

 

New GWPF Briefing Paper

London, 10 October: A new briefing paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reviews the scientific literature on rainfall and floods and finds little evidence that there have been significant changes in recent years and little support for claims that they will become worse in future.

Despite claims to the contrary, there has been no significant change in rainfall trends in recent years both at global and UK levels. It remains very difficult to make strong claims about any changes there have been because of high natural variability in rainfall patterns, particularly in the UK.

Rainfall is a particularly difficult area for climate models, which have limited ability to recreate what is seen in the real world. Since these climate models are the main basis of claims that extreme rainfall and flooding events are being adversely affected by man-made global warming and that rainfall will become worse in the future, policymakers should treat such modelling with extreme caution.

Author Andrew Montford said, “We are constantly bombarded with insinuations that storms and floods are caused by or ‘linked to’ climate change.”

“In reality these claims are usually based on climate models, which have a demonstrable inability to tell us anything reliable about rainfall. The scientific evidence shows that a simple extrapolation of rainfall averages over time can give better rainfall predictions than climate models,” he added.

Full paper (pdf)

Contacts:

Andrew Montford awmontford@gmail.com

Dr Benny Peiser
Director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
mob: 07553 361717 benny.peiser@thegwpf.org

From Benny Peiser's Global Warmng Policy Foundation

Central and Eastern European Nations Oppose

EU Climate Goals 

Green Energy Policy May Trigger Mass Exodus Of EU Industry, Experts Warn

With only three weeks to go before the European Council is to make a final decision on new climate goals for 2030, six Central and Eastern European countries have declared their opposition to the proposed targets. In March and June, the European Council failed to agree on the commission's proposal. When the EU government leaders meet again on 23 and 24 October in Brussels, they hope to reach a “final decision on the new climate and energy policy framework”. However, the ministers and deputy ministers for environment of six Central and Eastern European countries, declared on Tuesday (September 30) their opposition to binding targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency. --Peter Teffer, EUobserver, 2 October 2014

Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz says she has told the European Council president in Brussels that Poland would not accept new EU climate change policies if they cause a rise in energy prices. Speaking after a meeting with Herman van Rompuy during her first trip abroad as prime minister of Poland, Ewa Kopacz told journalists that during the talks on Monday she laid out the “expectations of the Polish government at the European Council meeting [on 23 October]”. Last week PM Kopacz said that Poland could use a veto on any proposal that would cause electricity prices to rise for consumers. --Polish Radio, 7 October 2014

A European Union plan to label tar sands oil as highly polluting in its fight against climate change has been abandoned after years of opposition led by major producer Canada. A proposal published by the European Commission on Tuesday removes an obstacle to Canada exporting tar sands crude to Europe and comes at a time when tensions between the EU and top oil supplier Russia are running high. Environmental campaigners and Green politicians criticized what they saw as a step backwards. Greenpeace accused the European Commission under outgoing President Jose Manuel Barroso of putting trade ahead of the environment. --Barbara Lewis, Reuters, 7 October 2014

Brussels must consider fundamental energy policy changes to prevent a mass exodus of industrial players, according to speakers at a conference held at London’s Chatham House on Monday. European industry has suffered recently in comparison with the United States, where energy-intensive players have benefited from rock-bottom gas prices as a result of the North American shale gas revolution.  Some companies are suffering as a result of EU policy. German chemicals company BASF – which traditionally invests two thirds of its expenditure in its home country – recently said it would be investing more outside Germany than domestically over the next five years. “Europe should be asking itself serious questions about the viability of its manufacturing base as the foundation of that base continues to erode,” another speaker said under the Chatham House rule. --Tom Hoskyns, Interfax Natural Gas Daily, 6 October 2014

A new report from the European Commission has found that 14 European Union member states will fail to meet their 20% renewable energy target by 2020 based on current progress. According to Keep on Track!, “in order for Member States to achieve their 2020 target, it is essential that a predictable and stable legislative framework for RES is ensured at the national level and, in particular, that any retrospective or retroactive changes to existing support schemes are avoided.” This “predictable and stable legislative framework” is exactly what is causing some countries — such as the UK and France — into this position where they may miss their targets. --Joshua Hill, Clean Technica, 7 October 2014

Rich nations have been warned that unless they cough up for the Green Climate Fund by December, chances of a UN climate deal in 2015 will be dead. The 54-strong Africa Group wants to see US$ 7 billion by the time the next round of international climate talks start in Lima later this year, according to Tosi Mpanu Mpanu an envoy from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “If that key is not turned, we believe we will not turn the Paris key,” he told RTCC on the sidelines of a climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco. In 2009 wealthy countries promised to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020, a large chunk of which was to be channeled through the GCF. But so far a fraction of that has been delivered. --Sophie Yeo, Responding to Climate Change, 8 October 2014

Could India soon overtake China as the world’s biggest consumer of seaborne thermal coal? For many miners and traders, the answer to that question, posed at the Financial Times’ inaugural Commodities Retreat in Singapore last week, is yes.  India’s rising demand is in sharp contrast to that of China, where the authorities in Beijing are attempting to reduce imports of thermal coal. Although China is the world’s largest producer of thermal coal, it has imported large quantities of the combustible rock since 2009 to meet surging domestic demand. One footnote is that India could overtake China next year if only standard grades of thermal coal – bituminous and sub bituminous types – are counted. --Neil Hume, Financial Times, 7 October 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

UK Business Minister Finally Admits Green Taxes  Are Damaging British Businesses

GWPF Calls On Government To Suspend Fourth Carbon Budget 

Editor's Note: For some time I've used the line that the price of energy is the beginning of wisdom.  At some point everyone will come to the irrevocable conclusion the environmental movement is an insane secular religious cult, and be treated accordingly.  That can't happen soon enough, since they have caused - and are now causing - so many in the world to suffer from living in squalor, misery, sickness and early death all over the world with their insane demands.  Dystopia follows the green/left movement like Sancho Panza followed Don Quixote - a mad man. 

Green taxes on energy are undermining British businesses by imposing costs which are not faced by international competitors, Vince Cable has said. He said that British firms are "struggling" to compete with their international rivals on price, which is leading to work going abroad. "Many of our manufacturing companies and exporters – particularly in areas like steel and cement and others which consume lots of electricity – are struggling against international competition because of the cost of energy. --Steven Swinford, The Daily Telegraph, 5 October 2014

The Global Warming Policy Forum has welcomed Vince Cable’s belated admission that the government’s climate policy is damaging British businesses. “At a time when most major economies are turning to cheap and abundant fossil fuels, Britain alone seems prepared to risk its economic competitiveness by adopting policies that are making energy ever more expensive,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director. “Given the manifest reluctance of major economies to follow Britain’s unilateral policy, the government should now suspend the fourth carbon budget and all post-2020 climate targets,” he added. --Global Warming Policy Forum, 6 October 2014

This week saw the 18th anniversary since the Earth's temperature last rose - something that Dr Benny Peiser, from the Global Warming Policy Forum, says experts are struggling to understand. Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) once predicted a temperature rise of 0.2 degrees per decade - but are now baffled by the fact our planet's temperature has not increased for almost two decades. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Dr Peiser said: "What has happened is that the public has become more sceptical because they were told we are facing Doomsday, and suddenly they realise ‘Where is the warming that we were promised?’" --Levi Winchester, Daily Express, 6 October 2014

Policy-makers should carefully consider the implications of the pause or “hiatus” in global warming when crafting climate policy, concludes a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. The study, Climate Policy Implications of the Hiatus in Global Warming, spotlights the warming hiatus, and what it means for public policy in Canada and around the world. “Many politicians, journalists and others claim the climate is warming faster than expected. But over the past two decades, the pace of warming has actually slowed well below almost all model projections, and the implications for climate policy have not been adequately discussed,” said Ross McKitrick, study author, Fraser Institute senior fellow and economics professor at the University of Guelph. --Fraser Institute, 2 October 2014

Coal-fired power producer, Drax, and French energy group, EDF, have qualified for a UK scheme to reward power companies for keeping plants on standby, officials announced on Friday. The auction is one of several so-called capacity mechanisms that countries across the EU plan to avoid supply crunches and provide back-up on grids with growing proportions of intermittent electricity supplied by wind farms and other renewable generators. “These handouts look very much like the ‘perverse fossil fuel subsidies’ lambasted by David Cameron at the UN climate summit in New York last week,” said Lawrence Carter, Greenpeace UK energy campaigner. “No wonder they waited until 6pm on a Friday to bury the bad news.” --Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 3 October 2014

Poland's new prime minister said Thursday her coal-reliant country would not rule out vetoing the high carbon cuts likely to be demanded by other European Union members. "We will definitely be firmly stating our position," Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said in an interview with Poland's commercial broadcaster TVN24. Asked if Poland would opt to exercise a veto in negotiations over carbon dioxide emission cuts, she said: "I'm not ruling it out." --AFP, 2 October 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Britain’s Green Energy Fiasco Deepens

 

Expensive Green Energy A ‘Bad Gamble’ As Gas Price Drops

Families face paying up to £40 extra each year for wind and solar farms to meet climate change targets after the government revised its energy price forecasts. The subsidy required for each unit of renewable electricity will rise after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) conceded that gas was much cheaper than it had predicted. A glut of gas on the world market means gas-fired power stations have become cheaper to run, making wind and solar farms comparatively even more expensive. --Tim Webb & Ben Webster, The Times, 3 October 2014

 

Peter Atherton, energy analyst at Liberum Capital, said that green energy was “always a hell of a gamble and now looks like an increasingly bad gamble”. “Year after year [energy secretary] Ed Davey has been banging on that one of the core reasons [for backing green energy] is to protect ourselves against inevitably high and volatile fossil fuel prices. Now their own forecasts are saying fossil fuel prices are going to be very affordable,” he said. --Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 3 October 2014

The impact of rising household energy bills will be greatly reduced by climate change policies which could save consumers around £166 by 2020, according to the energy and climate secretary, Ed Davey. "Global gas price hikes are squeezing households. They are beyond any government's control. The analysis shows that our strategy of shifting to alternatives like renewables and of being smarter with how we use energy is helping those who need it most to save money on their bills," he said. --John Vidal, The Guardian, 27 March 2013

In a bizarre statement, energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne told the House of Commons that his [green energy] policies mean consumers will actually be better off. Dr Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Foundation, said Mr Huhne’s reassurances were ‘political spin’. Government policy is based on an assumption that gas prices will continue to rise, but Dr Peiser said the price could fall. He said: ‘Prices are likely to come down very significantly.’ --Sean Poulter, Daily Mail 24 November 2011

 

By 2020, British Energy & Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne routinely insists, families and businesses in the United Kingdom will be better off – despite his plan to shift the country towards expensive renewable energy. His claim is based on the assumption that the price of fossil fuels can only go up as we “run out” of oil and gas supplies. As a result, energy prices will inevitably shoot into the stratosphere, making very costly renewables competitive in the future. I am afraid Huhne’s assumptions are misguided. In reality, we are in the middle of a global natural gas revolution. Indeed, gas prices have dropped by half in the United States in the last two years as a result of a glut in cheap shale gas. --Benny Peiser, Public Service Europe, 19 January 2012

As we look at UK energy policy now, DECC has had the country make a massive financial gamble on the back of a prediction that was wholly unfounded and which has been obviously so for many years. We now learn that DECC has also distributed this astonishing wave of public money in a manner that can only be described as monstrously incompetent, and which many will assume to be monstrously corrupt.
Any reasonable person would close down DECC right now and lay off all the environmentalists who staff it. --Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 3 October 2014

Global warming is a ‘public health emergency’ that will cause thousands of deaths worldwide, a leading medical journal warns. The BMJ’s editor Dr Fiona Godlee calls on the World Health Organisation to declare the issue a public health emergency – putting it on a par with the current ebola outbreak in West Africa. Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Forum accused the BMJ report of being needlessly alarmist. ‘The World Health Organisation would become a global laughing stock if they were to follow the ridiculously over-the-top demands of a green alarmist editor. There is a real disconnect between what they are saying and the reality.’ --Sophie Borland and Ben Spencer, Daily Mail, 2 October 2014

Happy Anniversary From Benny Peiser: 1 October Marks 18 Years Without Global Warming Trend

Global Warming Pause Comes Of Age

The Earth’s temperature has “plateaued” and there has been no global warming for at least the last 18 years, says Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at the University of Alabama/Huntsville. “That’s basically a fact. There’s not much to comment on,” Christy said when CNSNews.com asked him to remark on the lack of global warming for nearly two decades as of October 1st. --Barbara Hollingsworth, CBS News, 30 September 2014

What will the Warming Pause do next? Get a job? Go on a gap year? Maybe go to college and rack up some proper student debt. Who knows, but it's worth celebrating the good news that the planet's temperatures are not accelerating to thermageddon.–Josh, Bishop Hill 1 October 2014

The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant. --Phil Jones, University of East Anglia 5 July 2005

Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried. -Phil Jones, University of East Anglia 7 May 2009

2014 will probably be in the top five warmest, but at the moment it will probably not turn out to be warmer than 2010. It is impossible for it to beat 2010 by a statistically significant margin, even if we define that as only one standard deviation above the decadal mean. Even if 2014 does beat 2010 it will only be by a statistically insignificant margin and well within the inter-annual error bars. In all probability 2014 will continue the global surface temperature standstill in a statistically perfect manner. When will the global surface annual temperature start to rise out of the error bars of the past 18 years? --David Whitehouse, The Global Warming Policy Forum, 28 September 2014

It's fair to say that this pause is something of an embarrassment to many in the climate research community, since their computer models failed to indicate that any such thing could happen. Just how long the temperature pause must last before it would falsify the more catastrophic versions of man-made climate change obviously remains an open question for many researchers. For the time being, most are betting that it will get real hot real fast when the hiatus ends. --Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, 9 September 2014

Former United Kingdom environment secretary Owen Paterson launched an attack against the “wicked green blob,” saying policies to stop global warming might do more harm than good. “There has not been a temperature increase now for probably 18 years, some people say 26 years,” Paterson told an audience at the Conservative party conference over weekend. “So the pause is old enough to vote, the pause is old enough to join the army, the pause is old enough to pay its taxes.” --Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, 29 September 2014

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

"Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined." -  Charles MacKay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, London 1852.

 

 

 

Obama’s £100 Billion Climate Promise May Sink UN Climate Deal

China’s Demand For UN
Climate Deal: $100 Billion

President Obama arrives [in Copenhagen] on Friday morning bent on applying a combination of muscle and personal charm to secure a climate change agreement involving nearly 200 countries. The world is looking to Mr. Obama to wrest some credible success from this process. The administration provided the talks with a palpable boost on Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that the United States would contribute its share of $100 billion a year in long-term financing to help poor nations adapt to climate change. --The New York Times, 17 December 2009

What once seemed a harmless token of good will from rich countries to poor ones could derail negotiations over a global climate deal next year. Developing nations want industrial countries to contribute the $100 billion they promised for a Green Climate Fund by 2020 to pay for clean energy and other projects meant to help them adapt to a changing climate. That $100 billion was never realistic. Rich nations that were expected to contribute when the U.N. started the fund in 2010 aren't feeling rich anymore. Unless developing nations drop their demands, negotiations over a binding climate pact next year in Paris might be over before they really begin. --Zack Colman, The Washington Examiner, 29 September 2014

While President Obama challenged China at the United Nations to follow the U.S. lead in pushing for drastic reductions in national carbon emissions to save the planet from “climate change,” it appears that China has dramatically different ideas. As in: no. China insists that the U.S. and other developed countries endure most of the economic pain of carbon emission cutbacks, and need to make significantly more sacrifices in the months ahead. A promised $100 billion in annual climate financing that Western nations have already pledged to developing countries for carbon emission control and other actions by 2020 is only the “starting point” for additional Western financial commitments that must be laid out in a “clear road map,” which includes “specific targets, timelines and identified sources.” --George Russell, Fox News, 24 September 2014

Global communities might have missed India’s point at the climate summit in New York on September 23, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi made up for the loss four days later by articulating the country’s views on the necessary actions to be taken to face the challenges of climate change during his UN general assembly speech on 27th of September. In a remark which may disappoint rich nations, specifically the US, Canada and the European Union (EU) countries, Modi insisted on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” (CBDR) and made it clear that this should “form the basis of continued action” in future. It’s a clear signal that India will not dilute its well-stated position when the country representatives would assemble in Lima, Peru in December for climate change negotiations in the run up to the global deal in Paris next year. --Vishwa Mohan, The Times of India, 28 September 2014

Have we beaten “peak oil”? For decades, it has been a doomsday scenario looming large in the popular imagination: The world’s oil production tops out and then starts an inexorable decline—sending costs soaring and forcing nations to lay down strict rationing programs and battle for shrinking reserves. But a growing tide of oil-industry experts argue that peak oil looks at the situation in the wrong way. The real constraints we face are technological and economic, they say. We’re limited not by the amount of oil in the ground, but by how inventive we are about reaching new sources of fuel and how much we’re willing to pay to get at it. --Russell Gold, The Wall Street Journal, 29 September 2014

From the beginning 25 years ago the arguments over climate science have dominated the scene and distracted us away from the fundamental problem: the prescribed method for preventing climate change is essentially replacing nearly all hydrocarbon energy, in the space of less than two generations. For the developing world, it means remaining poor for several more decades. The developing world needs to triple its energy supply over the next generation if it is going to raise hundreds of millions out of abject poverty, and that means using abundant hydrocarbon energy, not expensive boutique energy popular with ever-preening rich Americans and Europeans. The climate change community has reacted to this wreck of a policy not with second thoughts or openness to alternative frameworks, but with rage. --Steven Hayward, Forbes, 29 September 2014

Owen Paterson: Fight Against Climate Change ‘May Cause More Harm Than Global Warming’ 
 

No New Climate Targets Without Binding
UN Climate Agreement, EU Energy Chief

Measures to combat climate change may be causing more damage than current global warming, a former environment secretary has said. Owen Paterson, who was sacked in David Cameron’s reshuffle in July, attacked what he described as a “wicked green blob” of environmentalists for failing to explain the pause in global warming. --Matt Dathan, The Times, 28 September 2014
There has not been a temperature increase now for probably 18 years, some people say 26 years. So the pause is old enough to vote, the pause is old enough to join the army, the pause is old enough to pay its taxes. We were never told the pause was coming along, there are – as I understand it – about 30 different explanations for it and nobody explains why the pause is suddenly going to disappear and we’re going to get back on the track upwards. So I’m concerned that the measures being taken to counter projected dangers may actually be causing more damage now than those dangers. –Owen Paterson, The Times, 28 September 2014

Europe should only push ahead with its planned cuts to carbon emissions if the rest of the world agrees to a global climate change deal at a crunch summit in Paris next year, according to the EU’s energy chief. “If there is no binding commitment from countries as India, Russia, Brazil, the US, China, Japan and South Korea, whose governments are responsible for some 70% of global emissions, I think it is not really smart to have a -40% target,” the EU’s outgoing energy commissioner, Gunther Oettinger, told an oil and gas conference in Brussels. --Arthur Neslen, The Guardian, 25 September 2014

In a blow to American hopes of reaching an international deal to fight global warming, India’s new environment minister said Wednesday that his country would not offer a plan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a climate summit next year in Paris. The minister, Prakash Javadekar, said in an interview that his government’s first priority was to alleviate poverty and improve the nation’s economy, which he said would necessarily involve an increase in emissions through new coal-powered electricity and transportation. It would be at least 30 years, he said, before India would likely see a downturn in CO2 emissions. --Carol Davenport, The New York Times 24 September 2014

What cuts? That’s for more developed countries. The moral principle of historic responsibility cannot be washed away. India’s first task is eradication of poverty. Twenty percent of our population doesn’t have access to electricity, and that’s our top priority. We will grow faster, and our CO2 emissions will rise. --Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, The New York Times 24 September 2014

Two Nasa astronauts, whose photographs of Earth from space helped to start the environmental movement, believe the images have been “exploited” by campaigners against global warming. Charlie Duke, a member of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 who took one of the blue marble images, told last week’s Starmus science festival in Tenerife: “Climate science is bogus. The world has got no warmer for more than 15 years. It is a great irony that the images taken on the Apollo missions have been used in this way. We helped to start it [the environment movement] but I do not agree with it.” Walter Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7, said: “Climate science is one of the greatest scientific fiascos of all time.” --Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times, 27 September 2014

Germany’s energy revolution—its energiewende—was supposed to blaze a trail, and show off a new way countries could meet their energy needs without wrecking their environment or the climate. It was an audacious experiment, but it’s hard to read much success out of it these days. It’s hard to imagine a worse set of outcomes for Germany — higher electricity prices, a rising reliance on the dirtiest fossil fuel around (coal), an accelerated phase out of one of the only zero-carbon baseload power sources around (nuclear), and a less diverse, less secure energy mix that leaves Germany exposed to the machinations of exporters like Russia. --Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 27 September 2014