Section 1.1 of the Climate Change Act 2008: ‘It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 100% lower than the 1990 baseline.’
1. It’s unachievable.
Many vehicles and machines (used for example in mining, agriculture, heavy transportation, emergencies, commercial shipping and aviation, the military and construction) and products (for example concrete, steel, plastics – all needed for the construction of renewables – fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, anaesthetics, lubricants, solvents, paints, adhesives, insecticides, insulation, tyres and asphalt) essential to life and wellbeing require the combustion of fossil fuels or are made from oil derivatives; there are no easily deployable, commercially viable alternatives. Our civilisation is based on fossil fuels; something that’s unlikely to change for a long time.
Wind is the most effective source of renewable electricity in the UK … but: (i) the substantial costs of building the huge numbers of turbines needed for Net Zero, (ii) the complex engineering and cost challenges of establishing a stable, reliable non-fossil fuel grid by 2035 (2030 for Labour) – not least the need to cope with a vast increase in high voltage grid capacity and local distribution, (iii) the enormous scale of what’s involved (immense amounts of space and of increasingly unavailable and expensive raw materials, such as so-called ‘rare earths, required because, unlike fossil fuels, the ‘energy density’ of wind is so low), and (iv) the intermittency of renewable energy (see 2 below), make it most unlikely that the UK will be able to generate sufficient electricity for current needs let alone for the mandated EVs and heat pumps plus industry’s requirements and other demands such as the predicted growth of AI.
In any case, the UK doesn’t have enough skilled technical managers, electrical and other engineers, electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics and other tradespeople (probably about a million) to do the multitude of tasks essential to achieve Net Zero – a problem worsened by political demands for massively increased house building.
‘Net Zero’ means that, where emissions are unavoidable, equivalent amounts must somehow be removed from the atmosphere. There’s no detailed, costed (or indeed any) plan for this, thereby invalidating the entire project.
2. It would be socially and economically disastrous.
Neither political party’s all-renewable energy project includes a fully costed engineering plan for the provision of comprehensive grid-scale back-up when there’s little or no wind or sun; a problem that’s exacerbated by the pending retirement of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Both are now talking of building new gas-fired power plants – thereby undermining Net Zero – but they’ve not published any detail and, in any case, intend it seems to fit them with carbon capture and underground storage systems – an unproven, wasteful and expensive technology that hasn’t been shown to be viable on a national scale. This issue is desperately important: without full back-up, electricity blackouts would be inevitable – ruining many businesses and causing dreadful problems for millions of people, including health consequences threatening everyone and in particular the poor and vulnerable.
Even more serious is the fact that, because there’s no coherent plan for the project’s delivery, little attention has been given to overall cost. All that’s clear is that it would almost certainly be completely unaffordable: for example, a recent National Infrastructure Commission projection of £1.3 trillion is probably far too low – estimates in excess of £3 trillion seem likely to be more accurate. The borrowing and taxes required for costs at this scale would destroy Britain’s credit standing and put an impossible burden onto millions of households and businesses.
Net Zero would have two other dire consequences:
(i) As China essentially controls the supply of key materials (for example, lithium, cobalt, aluminium and so-called rare earths) without which renewables cannot be manufactured, the UK would greatly increase its already damaging dependence on it, putting its energy and overall security at most serious risk.
(ii) The extensive mining and mineral processing operations required for renewables are already causing appalling environmental damage and dreadful human suffering throughout the world, affecting in particular fragile, unspoilt ecosystems and many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people; the continued pursuit of Net Zero would make all this far worse.
3. It’s pointless.
For two reasons:
(i) It’s absurd to regard the closure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting plants in the UK and their ‘export’ mainly to SE Asian countries, commonly with poor environmental regulation and often powered by coal-fired electricity, as a positive step towards Net Zero. Yet efforts to ‘decarbonise’ the UK mean that’s what’s happening.
(ii) Most major non-Western countries – the source of over 75% of GHG emissions and home to 84% of humanity – don’t regard emission reduction as a priority and, either exempt from or ignoring any obligation to reduce their emissions, are focused instead on economic and social development, poverty eradication and energy security. As a result, global emissions are increasing and are set to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. The UK is the source of less than 1% of global emissions – perhaps 1.5% if ‘exported’ emissions are somehow included – so further emission reduction cannot have any impact on the global position.
In other words, the Net Zero policy means the UK is legally obliged to pursue an unachievable, disastrous and pointless policy – a policy that would probably result in Britain’s economic destruction.
Robin Guenier – April 2024
Climate Scepticism 
There are two ways to stop the net zero insanity
1) let it continue until a good dose of reality stops it
2) vote for parties who don’t support it
LikeLiked by 1 person
Concerning the point you make that our civilisation is built upon fossil fuels (and is totally dependent upon them) this brought back a memory of making this point in UEA’s main lecture hall where every year I used to ask 110-140 undergraduates to identify something that didn’t involve the involvement of fossil fuels. Over 7 years only one person came close, suggesting their self-knitted woollen purse. Even that failed when it turned out the knitting needles had been plastic.
It is possible to come up with such an item, but it takes a great deal of thought. My challenge amply illustrates our current absolute dependence upon fossil fuels as essential feedstocks or energy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lots of people get bogged down in the weeds of the engineering challenge and logistics involved to achieve Net Zero when they rarely question whether we need to do it at all. The answer is we don’t. CO2 is not the thermostat regulator for the planet. There’s not a scrap of irrefutable evidence to prove that it is.
It’s only below 300ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere when changes in the concentration has an effect on the amount of energy reflected back. Above that level, any change has zero additional impact. Currently, the concentration of CO2 is approximately 420ppm, so adding any more does not increase how much energy is reflected in the manner of a greenhouse.
It’s the output from the sun (which is not a constant) and our relative position to it that dictates changes in global temperatures. The earth’s orbit is impacted by the relative positions of the larger planets of the solar system.
CO2 only rises in response to an increase in global temperature due to amount of CO2 that can be dissolved in the oceans at any given temperature and the partial pressure of that gas above the fluid. See Henry’s Law. The irony is that the more CO2 we extract from the atmosphere, the more CO2 the oceans will release to re-establish the balance between dissolved CO2 and its partial pressure in the atmosphere.
Anyone that claims we should reduce CO2 emissions is either lying or is scientifically clueless. Or both.
LikeLike
Can we have a new version of ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!’ where politicians, journalists, climate activists and assorted other Net Zero talking heads are challenged to exist for a month outside, in a temperate climate zone, without any products (including food and drink) derived from hydrocarbons. They can request any stuff from the outside which is zero carbon, if they can think of it, which will make their month long net zero existence more bearable.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Infographic: What’s Made from a Barrel of Oil? (visualcapitalist.com)
ps – Jaime – Great Idea for a reality show I would watch with great interest. need somebody to pitch it to TV execs, anybody know any?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well said Robin.
LikeLike
Jo Nova has an important article this morning:
‘Just as power grids struggle, the AI and EV electricity monsters turn up for breakfast
As Western grids are teetering, people are suddenly realizing demand for electricity is about to skyrocket’
She concludes:
It’s a subject I touch on in the first part of my latest update (the second paragraph) – a problem that will get worse if the UK gets round to building any battery factories or data centres.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yes, de-stabilising and rendering unreliable our electricity production at the same time as increasing demand (both deliberately, by “de-carbonising” transport and heating, etc, and by the growth of things like AI and crypto-currencies) is quite extraordinarily stupid. Regrettably, the stupidity of it doesn’t seem to register with those in charge.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mark, I begin to wonder if anyone is really “in charge”. Who do you believe has this power? I suspect there are many diverse voices each singing their own song.
LikeLike
Alan, MPs (and also, annoyingly, unelected peers) are in charge in theory, and to an extent, in practice. They are the people who passed the Climate Change Act, with scarcely a dissenting vote, and they are the people who nodded through (after a few minutes’ discussion) the net zero requirement when Theresa May was PM. They are the only people with power to repeal or amend that crazy piece of legislation.
Behind the scenes, of course, there are plenty of vested interests/true believers, lobbying and working away to prevent any retreat – green billionaires; the BBC; the Guardian; civil servants; renewable energy companies; academics; the likes of the IEA, etc. At the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese and Russian governments are also doing their bit, since it’s in their interests that the west commits economic suicide, though that’s a tightrope for the Chinese – they need us to trash our industry so that we become dependent on them for the things that we need, but they do need us to be able to afford to buy them. If the west collapses completely, then that wouldn’t be in their interests.
LikeLike
INCONCEIVABLE STUPIDITY ?
Sometimes I look for echoes of our current parlous situation in the writings of former times. On this occasion, however, I find that a recent book by a former Bank of England chief is very illuminating: Mervyn King, “The End of Alchemy “, Abacus, 2016, at page 88:-
“In his account of the origins of the First World War, historian Max Hastings quotes an exchange that took place in 1910 between a student and the commandant of the British Army staff college. Surely, the student suggested, only ‘inconceivable stupidity on the part of statesmen’ could precipitate a general European war. Brigadier-General Henry Wilson replied, ‘Inconceivable stupidity is just what you’re going to get.’ “
Regards, John.
LikeLiked by 2 people
O/T perhaps, but I recommend the End of Alchemy to anyone interested in how the Bank of England works, monetary and fiscal policy etc. I found it very interesting and thought-provoking.
LikeLike
More than that Mark – ‘the End of Alchemy’ is also a pretty harsh look at how we’re governed. I too recommend it. Thanks to John for the reminder.
LikeLike
I believe Mark that you are agreeing with me. So many players, so many different views professing a common cause but actually playing different, and commonly antagonistic, tunes. So much so that you can almost predict the poor outcomes and the supportive messaging. All so familiar. Feeling rather bereft today. Don’t know why. If the rain keeps away will devote my time to gardening.
LikeLike
I feel a bit overwhelmed this morning. First there was Jo Nova with an article on a subject I touched on in my update and now there are three more:
First, an interesting report on a Bloomberg interview with a renewable supporter who nonetheless believes that wind and solar are a ‘lousy business’. He correctly points to their huge delivery costs but somehow manages to overlook the intermittency problem.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/bloomberg-wind-and-solar-will-need-subsidies-indefinitely/
Then there’s Ross Clark telling us about Claire Coutinho’s attack on Labour for having a Net Zero policy that puts our security at risk because it in effect hands our energy security over to China – ignoring the fact that her policy is essentially no better.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/01/net-zero-threatens-our-national-security/
And thirdly an excellent article by Fraser Myers in Spiked about how the wrath of Europe’s farmers is terrifying the EU’s elites. As he says:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/01/the-fury-of-europes-farmers/
All are worth reading in full.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Alan,
By and large I am agreeing with you, though I remain perplexed as to how almost the entirety of the membership of a bicameral legislature can have been so successfully captured in this way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yet more relevant stuff: responding to an article in the Telegraph, Net Zero Watch’s Andrew Montford has described Coutinho’s plan to move renewables subsidies from electricity bills onto general taxation and gas bills as ‘sleight of hand’. He’s right.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/coutinho-sleight-of-hand
LikeLiked by 1 person
I said a few days ago that Lionel Shriver was one of my favourite journalists and a good novelist. Well she’s just been interviewed by Laura Dodsworth in the Daily Sceptic about her latest novel MANIA. I thought I’d share this extract:
[My emphasis]
LikeLiked by 1 person
“I’m a celebrity …” -v- ”The Mikado” ?
Jaime, I have been considering for some time how the pleasures and pitfalls of Net Zero could be brought to a very large general audience so that they (and we!) can more clearly see the EROEI cliff before they (and we!) are unceremoniously herded over its edge by the motley assortment of ‘green’ evangelists, rent-seekers etc. Your not entirely tongue-in-cheek idea of a television show based upon “I’m a celebrity …” fits the bill rather well.
My slight problem with the “I’m a celebrity …” idea is that Net Zero is such a failure of policy/governance on so many levels that it does not, for me, catch the tenor of the ‘crime’ being perpetrated on the UK, its economy and its people.
I feel that something nearer to a TV version of the Mikado’s, “My object all sublime I shall achieve in time- To let the punishment fit the crime- The punishment fit the crime” would be much more appropriate to the “inconceivable stupidity” of the policy bind we find ourselves in. However, I must stop dreaming along such lines since, as far as I know, no actual crimes have been committed. And so any TV format that brings home the dire consequences of continuing on our current Net Zero trajectory would be very informative and helpful, especially if, to take up W.S. Gilbert’s refrain, “it is achieved in time” – although I am currently not at all hopeful in that regard.
Regards, John.
LikeLiked by 1 person
John C,
Roger Hallam thinks that MPs, journalists and goodness knows who else are guilty of treason against the British people for not stopping climate collapse, so I think you’re entitled to say that the net zero madness represents a crime against the British people. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
LikeLike
Robin – thanks for that “MANIA” link.
Partial Quote from the book –
“Exams and grades are all discarded, and smart phones are rebranded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word and encouraged to report parents for using it. You don’t need a qualification to be a doctor.“
Partial Quote from the auther –
“The most heartening aspect of the last 15 years for me has been the emergence of a cadre of independent thinkers who have been willing to risk their careers to say the suddenly unsayable. They give me hope for the future. You’re one of them, Laura.”
Power to your elbow, more people need to say the same thing.
LikeLike
“Nobody is buying into the net zero madness
There’s no consensus that climate policy needs to hurt the living standards of ordinary Britons”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/02/green-energy-net-zero-heat-pumps-national-grid/
“…The ultimate challenge will be the wholesale conversion of electricity from coal, oil and gas to renewables – all without a satisfying answer to the question of what to do when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.…”
Redwood’s conclusion:
“…The truth is there are determined minorities on both sides of the argument. One group says it is essential people are made to change to stop the rise in temperatures, wanting tougher tax rises and bans on fossil fuels. One group says it is all nonsense, with a variable climate affected by many things in addition to human carbon dioxide. They dislike the government interfering and don’t worry about an extra degree of warming. The majority in the middle would like policy to be gently pointing in a lower carbon direction, but not in a way that would worsen their living standards.
If green prosperity is simply a convenient slogan, policymakers must be honest with voters about the consequences of net zero. Government astroturfing is no alternative for genuine consumer buy-in, nor can it paper over the myriad issues currently plaguing our renewable source alternatives. The real test of our energy transition hasn’t even begun.”
LikeLike
Mark: the headline of that Redwood article is misleading. Plenty of people are buying into Net Zero: all major political parties, the whole of academia, most major institutions – even the general public who regularly tell pollsters that they support the policy. Now, although polls also show that the general public do not accept that the policy ‘needs to hurt the living standards of ordinary Britons’, I’m far from convinced that politicians, academia, institutions etc. don’t accept precisely that. That’s why I suspect that those who are calling for a referendum on Net Zero (including the Reform party) may be making a mistake. Of course, I could be wrong about that if pre-referendum a full debate with all the facts on the table was allowed. But, even then, I fear the debate might well get bogged down in dreadful and fruitless haggling about ‘climate science’ – painting those who oppose the policy as ‘deniers’. Depressing.
I think Net Zero will only be widely understood to be the potential disaster that it is when things begin to go wrong. And that, I suggest, could happen quite soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ross Clark has an article today about the difficulties a Labour administration would face in meeting its housebuilding promises. His sting in the tail is to question whether we have sufficient skilled tradespeople. Always on the lookout for an opportunity to mention Net Zero, I added this comment:
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin – you say “those who are calling for a referendum on Net Zero (including the Reform party) may be making a mistake”
How can it be a mistake? even if the vote is “haggling about ‘climate science’” the facts about the economic damage to UK families should win out.
Whoever wins at least the public have had a voice.
ps – the UNI vs Skills problem – agree.
LikeLike
dfh: if there’s a referendum (unlikely), it’s critically important that we, the antis, win. But, for the reason I’ve stated – plus the fact that our opponents will move heaven and earth to ensure they win – we may not. Therefore it’s best not to have a referendum.
LikeLike
There are many problems with referendums. The first, and most obvious one, is that we are supposed to live in a representative democracy, where Parliamentary legislators make the decisions on our behalf. We have no great history of referendums (unlike, say, Switzerland), and where resort has been had to referendums, it’s usually been to let MPs off the hook or to get a Prime Minister out of a hole.
They tend to be problematic. For instance the legislation that gave rise to the Brexit referendum was very badly drafted. It made provision for the remain campaign to be able to spend far more then the leave campaign. The basis on which the “official” organisations campaigning for leave and remain were selected, was shambolic.
It didn’t include any provision for the result to be binding on Parliament, which resulted in MPs and others being able to claim that there was no reason to implement it, with the result that we had years of in-fighting, Parliamentary stasis, and little else being discussed in the media for far too long. The establishment refused to accept the result and did everything in its power to ensure that Brexit didn’t happen. EU membership is hard-wired in to the establishment’s DNA – net zero is that and more. Imagine the chaos that would ensue in the event that – despite the obstacles that the establishment would put in its way when drafting the terms on which a net zero referendum might take place – the British public voted to halt net zero. It would be the Brexit chaos all over again, but this time on stilts.
Attracted though I am by the idea of a net zero referendum, I don’t see any way in which we could win it. The establishment has learned its lesson from the Brexit referendum, and won’t allow its wishes to be overturned in such a way ever again. They believed that the public would vote to remain in the EU, which is probably the only reason they allowed the referendum on Brexit to go ahead. I suspect they know there’s a real risk that – after a full and informative referendum campaign with a level playing field – the public would vote to ditch net zero. So they simply won’t let that happen. Any referendum would be on terms that would be stacked against us. And once they had won, the establishment would declare the issue closed for a generation.
Regrettably, I think the only way to overturn net zero is for it to crash and burn, for the public to realise what it means, to turn against it en masse, with the result that politicians have no alternative other than to drop it if they don’t want to spend decades in the electoral wilderness.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The Speccie has an article this morning headed ‘How Britain smashed the slave trade’. It’s an excellent piece and well worth reading, but the reason I mention it here is because of this comment by Julian Hodgson (a relation Mark?):
LikeLiked by 3 people
Never forgetSun Tsu’s first art of war:
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” That is exactly what is happening as Western governments pursue self-harming Green Energy policies. There is no better way to damage Western societies than by rendering their power supplies unreliable and expensive. From one point of view the promotion of “Green” ideologies in the West should be seen as a very successful branch of the long-term and continuing “The Cold War”. Cui bono Who Benefits ??
and
The late Professor Sir David MacKay:
“The dependence on Weather-Dependent “Renewable Energy” to power a developed economy is an Appalling Delusion”.
There’s so much delusion and I think it’s so dangerous for humanity that people allow themselves to have these delusions that they’re willing to not think carefully about the numbers and the realities, and the laws of physics and the realities of engineering… humanity really does need to pay attention to arithmetic, and the laws of physics.”
Arithmetic? Laws of physics? Engineering? They are lost on politicians, to our incalculable cost.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Regarding a referendum on Net Zero.
This cannot be a bad idea. In a fair fight, we win, because the facts are on our side. The way to ensure a fair fight is a referendum campaign where both sides are equally financed and given the same air time and so forth.
We may feel sure that Net Zero will explode on its own, and that may be true. But how much damage will accrue in the meantime? Is the UK ever going to put itself back together after this? The present state of things does not inspire confidence. It feels almost as if inertia and bloody-mindedness is all that is keeping the show on the road. Everywhere you look, prospects are terrible. [Caveat: people can always take a series of examples and use them to “prove” that we are in a handcart to hell. Is this moment any different?]
There is also the rather sinister turn that events have taken, where we the proles are being gaslit about the cause of our woes. For example, that expensive energy is due to “over-reliance on fossil fuels.” Without much more open public discussion, we are at risk of taking more and more poison (badged as medicine) the sicker we get.
A referendum will not be permitted, until it is. I think back to the Brexit Party and how its challenge led to the referendum – seemingly as a measure to de-fang it. If enough people want something, they will have it. Even in Britain.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jit,
The problem is that you say “In a fair fight, we win, because the facts are on our side. The way to ensure a fair fight is a referendum campaign where both sides are equally financed and given the same air time and so forth.“
As I said in my last comment on this topic, they won’t allow a fair fight, they won’t allow both sides to be equally financed and they won’t ensure equal air time to both sides of the debate.
They didn’t in the Brexit referendum – the dice were well and truly loaded – and still they lost. They will never make that mistake again.
If Reform were to win the general election with a policy of allowing a referendum on net zero, then it might take place, but the media, civil service, state institutions, global institutions (UN, World Bank, EU, US Government – assuming Trump doesn’t win in November -European Central Bank, et al) and others with vested interests would interfere in the referendum to fight for net zero. It would never be a fair contest. In my view, Reform would do better to adopt a simple policy or reversing net zero, then if they won a majority (fantasy world – they won’t) they would have a mandate for it. Why complicate things with a fraught referendum?
LikeLike
Ben Pile has published a most important article – ‘Time for MPs to Come Clean About the Green Blob’ – at the Daily Sceptic this morning. He makes a cogent case for Tory MPs who are critical or worried about the green agenda to make themselves heard. As he says:
He concludes:
Well worth reading in full. I intend to get this message to my MP. I hope others here may be able to do likewise.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s probably not going to happen though is it, because for the past 4 years, not only has science, society and democracy been hijacked and captured by the Green blob and its host of Green blobbyists, it has been totally captured by the medical-industrial complex too, whose aims intersect significantly with the aims of those promoting Net Zero. To expose one would be risking exposing the other – and perhaps the overarching interests of those trillionaire blobbyists behind the entire eco-fascist/communist/globalist Great Reset.
As John rightly points out in his post on Michie, the fear propaganda behaviourist psychology practised by the proponents of lockdowns and NPIs is remarkably similar to that practised by the climate crisis scare-mongerers. It is no coincidence that the Green scam was ramped up considerably in concert with the restrictions placed upon us to control and eliminate a ‘deadly novel coronavirus’ cooked up in a lab. More is coming our way. The Tories would not want to risk exposing the main actors behind this fake ‘crisis’ drama.
LikeLike
But Jaime, Ben isn’t calling for the Tory party to explain these things. Quite obviously – largely for the reasons you state – that isn’t going to happen. No, he’s calling for those Conservative politicians who have a ‘genuine concern for the future of this country’ – and there are some, albeit a minority – to explain, based on their own direct experience, how ‘regressive and anti-democratic policies have been imposed on the public’ by the ‘green blob’. I believe he’s right to call on for action by these people and have no doubt that, if they were to comply (far from unlikely), it would be an important step in the right direction. As I’ve said before, this is not the time to give up.
LikeLike
I think we agreed above that, although it was just possible (no more than that) that a Net Zero referendum might end the wretched policy, the issue was essentially academic as a referendum was most unlikely to be held. I suggested that was unimportant as harsh reality must eventually highlight the absurdity and unacceptability of the policy, adding that I thought that could happen quite soon.
I’d like to reiterate that latter point and, at the risk of sounding over-optimistic, to add that, by ‘quite soon’, I mean well before we could experience the acutely damaging ‘crash and burn’ that some believe must happen before Net Zero’s is abandoned.
But just think about it – the signs of Net Zero’s impossibility are getting clearer by the day. For example, many of same politicians who are so keen on it are also anxious to jump on another fashionable bandwagon: artificial intelligence. But that means the construction of huge data centres – which, together with battery factories and the growth of crypto-currencies and quantum computing – mean a massively increased demand for electricity. All this (plus the need for substantial additional power for EVs and heat pumps) is happening now, just as we are closing worn-out nuclear, coal and CCGT power stations. The answer, the politicians seem to believe, is more and more ‘renewable’ power. But, for the reasons well-rehearsed here, that ‘solution’ faces huge, probably insurmountable, obstacles: costs, material shortages, a total distribution network update and, not least, the unsolved problem of wind and solar intermittency.
And, as well as all that, we’re faced by another reality: the UK’s serious skills shortage. Quite simply, we don’t have the skilled people needed to implement Net Zero – a shortage made far worse by current political pressure (yes, it’s the same politicians!) for hugely increased housebuilding. And of course someone has to build all those data centres.
I believe it’s already obvious that Net Zero cannot ever be implemented – including its near-term objectives – although our political ‘leaders’ have yet to realise that. But they will – they have no choice.
And something that’s impossible isn’t going to happen.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It occurs to me that some renewables in the right place are perfectly O.K. I once contemplated a wind turbine in a rural garden and once had solar heated water in California). What we don’t want are is an absolute reliance upon renewables that screws up energy supply and pricing. The thought of ever increasing amounts of electricity pylons criss crossing our countryside is also just too much. So oppose Net zero itself but support decreasing our reliance upon fossil fuels as suppliers of all electricity I.e support TNZ (towards Net zero)?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Alan, fossil fuels haven’t been suppliers of all electricity for a long time. So we’re stuck with many of our existing renewables anyway: I don’t think anyone is proposing that we get rid of them.
LikeLike
Alan,
It’s nice to be in agreement with you. A measured and well thought-out plan for moving steadily towards net zero in a way that doesn’t bankrupt the country, destroy what’s left of our manufacturing sector, plunge poor people into greater poverty and trash our countryside would be fine by me.
It’s the uncosted rush to virtue signal at the expense of so many aspects of our country, in pursuance of “tackling” climate change (it won’t) that I oppose with every fibre of my being.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Excellent article by Roger Caiazza on WUWT on the issues confronting New York in planning to get to zero fossil fuels by 2040. The plans call for “Dispatchable Emission-Free Resources” to back up wind and solar in place of fossil fuel generation. The discussion raises many technical challenges, including the fact that much of what’s needed is unproven at any scale or is even yet to be invented.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/06/renewable-energy-gap-characterization/
Are any such discussions happening here? If they are, there has not been any publicity. NY recognises that the timescale is tight and they are aiming for 2040. Perhaps they should invite Mr Milliband along to tell them how we’re going to do it 10 years sooner…..
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Mike for your reference to Roger Caiazza’s article – about a rare discussion when people who know what they’re talking about consider the problems of a 100% renewable grid. It’s an issue, again about New York, that’s been addressed comprehensively by Francis Menton: https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/11/Menton-Energy-Storage-Conundrum.pdf.
For me alarm bells rang as soon as I came across the assertion that ‘dispatchable emission-free resources (DEFR)’ were required. True – but did the participants, despite their agreement that ‘that new technology is needed’ really understand the far-reaching implications of this? See the Menton article cited above. Their comments that ‘candidate technologies are not commercially available’ surely grossly understates the problem? As does the comment that ‘there are affordability concerns’.
One vitally important matter that seems to have been ignored is that, although these problems are bad enough given today’s electricity requirement, they’re going to get progressively much worse as the growth of EVs, heat pumps, AI, crypto-currencies and quantum computing begins to bite, vastly increasing the demand for electricity.
BTW Caiazza makes it clear that the NY authorities were not involved in these discussions and are – like ours – living in a dream-world:
Sadly that hope seems unlikely to be realised. And yet, as you say, Miliband seems to think he can solve all these problems 10 years sooner than NY.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Surely Mark you cannot be absolutely certain that catastrophic climate change is totally, totally impossible, even if the chances are utterly remote. Thus I trust a few of your being fibres are reserved for this so so remote possibility.
Remember (was it Conan Doyle, speaking through Sherlock Holmes’s) dictum.
LikeLike
Alan, I cannot speak for Mark but my view is that, if the continued emission of GHGs were likely to lead to catastrophic climate change (as some scientists maintain), the attempted implementation of the UK’s Net Zero policy (which would, as Mark fears, ‘bankrupt the country, destroy what’s left of our manufacturing sector, plunge poor people into greater poverty and trash our countryside’) would do nothing to avert it. Do you disagree?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Alan – what Robin said.
I don’t believe there is even the remotest possibility of a catastrophic outcome from human-made climate change, but even if I did believe that, I would still oppose the UK’s uncosted, inadequately planned and ultimately futile attempt to avert it while most of the rest of the world is continuing to increase greenhouse gas emissions. There is no point at all in worsening our living standards, and therefore our ability to adapt to climate change if our attempts to mitigate it are rendered null and void by the rest of the world. The only logical policy in those circumstances is to do what can be done to ensure security of energy supply and to ensure our national finances are in the best possible position to see us through the “crisis”. Net zero is the opposite of that, utterly lacking in any logic at all.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mark, Robin
please give me some leeway. You cannot really believe that I really think that we should act on a remotest of possibilities that catastrophic climate change is possible. Having spent too long discussing communist-nudged nudging with John and getting more and more sad that my modest objections garnered no support, I ceased upon Mark’s extreme commentary on this thread, with him committing “every fibre of his being” to write a response that might be seen to be somewhat mirthful. Failed again!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Alan,
Apologies for my humour bypass. I suppose it’s because net zero is such a vitally important subject, but not for the reasons its proponents believe.
It threatens to destroy our society and bankrupt the country, while making no measurable difference to the global climate. I despair that apparently intelligent, decent, well-meaning people have signed up to an act of such monumental folly, that they have ensured that it is now inserted into pretty much every aspect of our lives, that they are terrifying and brainwashing young people into believing it’s necessary, and that after all that, they think we are the ones who are crazy.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Very well said Mark, I completely agree. What’s happening re Net Zero is (or in a rational world, should be) astonishing. Take for example that article by Roger Caiazza referred to above: about a discussion by reasonably knowledgeable people who, despite missing some key obstacles, concluded it was most unlikely that New York would meet its 100% renewable electricity by 2040 target. Yet Miliband thinks he can do it by 2030!
Alan: apologies from me as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
MikeH – thanks for the article by Roger Caiazza on WUWT link.
Partial quote which may have relevance to UK grid –
“I was interested in her comments on inverter-based resources relative to a dispatchable resources. She noted that 1,000 MW of offshore wind is equivalent to 100 MW of dispatchable resources in transmission security analyses. That means to replace the 2,000 MW of dispatchable Indian Point nuclear power that the State shut down a couple of years ago, 20,000 MW of offshore wind must be deployed. Note that the Climate Act mandates 9,000 MW of offshore wind which is far less than what is needed to simply replace Indian Point.”
LikeLike
MikeH – as an added partial quote from the article by Roger Caiazza
“Conclusion
New York’s vocal proponents of the Climate Act believe that New York can “rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro” and that “it could be done completely with technologies available”. The position that “it could be done completely with technologies available at that time” had an out-sized influence on the Climate Action Council decision to approve the Scoping Plan that guides the net-zero transition. After all, if there are no technological barriers then it is simply a matter of political will.
This session proves this belief is wrong. The work of Prof. C. Lindsay Anderson, Chair of Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering Cornell; Zach Smith, VP System Resource Planning, New York Independent System Operator; and Kevin Steinberger, Director, Energy and Environmental Economics all found that a new resource that has all the attributes of fossil-fired peaking units but without any emissions is needed. At some point, New York State is going to have to confront the fact that the naïve implementation plan based on rhetoric and not facts must be changed. Hopefully, the confrontation will occur before there is a catastrophic blackout.”
Wonder if major cities in the UK like London etc… have any clue what “keeping the lights on under Net Zero” will entail?
LikeLike
The answer dfh must be No. But Roger Caiazza doesn’t seem to think that NY does either.
LikeLike
Robin – that’s scary for NY & any major urban areas in the west. playing dice (craps) springs to mind.
LikeLike
A message from Dreamland:
England could produce 13 times more renewable energy, using less than 3% of land – analysis
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/09/england-could-produce-13-times-more-renewable-energy-using-less-than-3-of-land-analysis
LikeLike
Robin,
I see that’s about a report prepared by Exeter University for Friends of the Earth. Enough said.
Needless to say , still no explanation of what we do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes Mark – nor is there anything about the vast costs of ‘renewables’, the severe shortages of materials, the hopelessly inadequate distribution network or the serious skills shortage (made worse by the demand for accelerated house building).
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Net Zero Leaves U.K. Paying Five Times More for Electricity Than China”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/09/net-zero-leaves-u-k-paying-five-times-more-for-electricity-than-china/
LikeLiked by 2 people
An excellent article Mark, thanks for the link. Note: it’s about much more than the headline. For example, here’s an extract:
True.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A remarkable post by Jo Nova:
‘World to burn by 6pm, but only 3% of young voters say Climate Change is the top issue’
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/04/world-to-burn-by-6pm-but-only-3-of-young-voters-say-climate-change-is-the-top-issue/
An extract:
Do we have even one MP who could do that?
LikeLike
Francis Menton has just published a splendid commentary about DEFR (Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource) — i.e. the “resource” with all the good characteristics of fossil fuels but without any of the carbon emissions. It’s a devastating review of why hydrogen isn’t the answer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Spectator has an excellent article today titled: Why academia failed to challenge trans ideology. I commented as follows, starting with an extract from the article:
It has – ahem – attracted the most up votes.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Robin – Slowly, slowly catchy monkey.
LikeLike
The second most popular comment on the above Spectator article (by ‘Anitawales’) may, I suggest, be more telling than mine:
LikeLiked by 2 people
An article in the Spectator today (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/if-apple-loses-against-china-so-will-the-west/) headed ‘If Apple loses against China so will the West’ is about how Apple, one of the few Western businesses with a product, in this case the iPhone, that’s preeminent throughout the world, is beginning to yield that leadership to China – something that’s described as ‘a snapshot of what is already happening in many other industries’.
The most liked comment said, correctly in my view, that the battle was lost 20 years ago when Western businesses moved their manufacturing and technology to China. My comment was the second most liked, but came in in a long way behind the leader:
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin; This sub-heading from the FT website echoes the themes you have been pushing:
“Strains in supply chain pose threat to UK renewables targets, report warns Government-commissioned analysis outlines threats such as a lack of crucial parts and shortage of key skills”
The article itself is behind a paywall.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh dear – but not a surprise:
Strains in supply chain pose threat to UK renewables targets, report warns
Rachel Millard, Financial Times:
Government-commissioned analysis outlines threats such as a lack of crucial parts and shortage of key skills, with significant co-ordination across industry and government needed to resolve supply chain constraints
LikeLike
Thanks Mike – I posted my reference to that FT article before I’d seen yours. As I said, the result of the analysis should not be a surprise – but I suspect it was.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin; yes, it’s hard to understand why anyone would be surprised by something so elementary and obvious. I fear the same fate awaits much of the renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Spectator has an article today (by Eliot Wilson, a clerk in the House of Commons from 2005 to 2016) on what, especially from our perspective, is interesting and important news: ‘It’s no surprise the SNP’s climate change law has failed’ (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/its-no-surprise-the-snps-climate-change-law-has-failed/). Reviewing the history of this embarrassing debacle (especially the fact that the Scottish government has consistently missed its climate targets), he notes how passing a declaratory law in an attempt to bind future governments is unlikely to work, commenting that
Here’s my comment, the third most popular:
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, Robin, for reminding me of Ayn Rand’s words; they have often been my companions in recent years while I have have contemplated the key questions:-
How did we in the West get into this mess?
And how do we get out of it (and stay out of it)?
A partial answer to the first question is suggested by the sub-title of this thread of yours, namely through adopting “Unachievable Disastrous Pointless” policies. So your words, and Rand’s, resonated with me recently while reading Phillip W. Gray’s ‘Totalitarianism, the basics’ (Routledge, 2023) where at page 17 he writes:-
“There is one other trait that should be mentioned here. Totalitarian governments will often engage in, and maintain, policies that look irrational (or even borderline insane) when viewed from the outside.”
I suspect that Varoufakis’s book ‘Techno Feudalism’ may also well have something useful to say – but that, for me, is future reading matter.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Regarding the acknowledgement that Scotland is missing its “climate” target – not in fact a climate target since it will not have any effect on the weather – the first twenty minutes of last night’s PM made for a rather bizarre broadcast.
We had Evan Davis perplexed that the target had been missed, the Greens leader blaming his coalition partners (implicitly) for a lack of ambition in policies but assuring us that the next set of targets would be met, and a former SNP cog blaming the failure on a Machiavellian plot by the opposition to raise the target from 70 to 75%.
Don’t worry, was the consensus – we’ll make the big target, the 2045 one.
No-one seemed to realise that the target was always obviously impossible and that anyone claiming otherwise was either delusional or dissembling. The 2045 target likewise – but at least it’s far enough in the future that we can keep the fantasy going for another decade at least.
The key as so often is that virtue is displayed by an announcement, not an achievement.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, John. I regret that I cannot answer your two key questions, but I’ve just started to read a novel that casts a clear light on the first. It’s ‘Mania’ by Lionel Shriver. Hilarious but deadly serious, it’s based on the reality that society today is willing to adopt manias – such as transgender theory, critical race theory and the climate catastrophe cult – that only a few decades ago would have been dismissed as absurd. What Shriver does is envision an alternative society where the ‘Mental Parity Movement’, backed by government, academia and the media, has become established – a society where discrimination based on intelligence is effectively outlawed and dissent can have serious consequences. She shows, very convincingly, how this has come about in much the same way as current manias have come about. What I think she’s trying to illustrate is that today’s ‘modern’ society is no different from earlier societies where other manias, such as phrenology and bloodletting – you name it, were established. It’s very clever and thought-provoking: I’ve only read a few chapters but I think I’m going to enjoy the rest.
BTW your extract from Phillip W. Gray’s book reminds me of another favourite saying, this time by Marcus Aurelius (Roman emperor, 161-180): ‘The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.’
LikeLiked by 2 people
The Greens wondering whether the Scottish gov’t coalition is extreme enough for them. They do seem to be quite a waggy tail.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rather to my surprise Liz Truss has published a fairly good article (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/19/unaccountable-net-zero-elite-has-seized-control-of-britain/) on Net Zero in the Telegraph: ‘An unaccountable net zero elite has seized control of Britain – The zealous drive to net neutrality is making business less competitive, hitting taxpayers, and acting as a drag on economic growth’.
It doesn’t contain anything new for anyone here – but nonetheless it’s worth reading in full if possible. Here’s an extract:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Meanwhile, as though determined to make her point:
“Chris Stark: Rishi Sunak has set us back, head of climate change watchdog says”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68863796
LikeLiked by 2 people
One quote from that nonsense piece:
“Rishi Sunak has “set us back” on climate change and left the UK at risk of falling behind other countries, the head of a government watchdog has said.”
On what basis is falling behind other countries in trashing the economy and the energy system, a “risk”?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Anyone who can spare an hour and twenty minutes really should watch Toby Young’s interview with the brilliant Lionel Shriver here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEFFqB5UAFE.
LikeLiked by 2 people
As Mark has already mentioned, the BBC website had an article yesterday about an interview with Chris Stark (CCC head) by Laura Kuenssberg: Chris Stark: Rishi Sunak has set us back, head of climate change watchdog says (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68863796). The interview will be shown in full this morning, as will a follow-up interview with Claire Coutinho. Viewers were invited to send in any questions they would like Kuenssberg to ask Coutinho. So I did:
I don’t suppose it’ll be asked. But you never know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
David Turver has a ‘must read’ this morning: ‘National Grid Resorts to Propaganda The National Grid is paying for shameless propaganda in the Guardian’ (https://davidturver.substack.com/p/national-grid-propaganda). His objective is to debunk the National Grid’s claims about the “myths swirling around clean energy and upgrading the grid”. He makes a wholly convincing case although I think he could perhaps have made some points more strongly – e.g. about the dangers of relying on interconnectors to solve renewable intermittency and the probable increase in demand for electricity (no mention of the likely demands of AI, data centres etc.).As Turver says, the biggest issue is why did the National Grid feel it necessary to commission and pay for such a blatant piece of propaganda.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How to separate the wood from the trees!
LikeLike
I recorded and just watched the Laura Kuenssberg programme. It was almost entirely about climate change and didn’t really come to very much because, as must be expected, everyone who appeared – Kuenssberg, Chris Stark, Claire Coutinho, Shabana Mahmood (shadow Justice Secretary), Chris Packham (!), a dreadful Libdem whose name I’ve forgotten and businessman Luke Johnson – with the honourable exception of Johnson who was calm and quite impressive – took it for granted that climate change was a serious challenge that Britain had to ‘address’. Not only was the science not discussed but nor were the practicalities of the policy. However, to her credit, Kuenssberg did get Mahmood to accept (reluctantly) that Labour’s ‘clean electricity by 2030’ policy would still require gas-fired power as a ‘strategic reserve’. That was about the only point of interest – apart from the nonsense expressed in particular by Stark and Packham.
[Edited]
LikeLiked by 3 people
Give me strength!
LikeLike
I noted yesterday that, everyone taking part in the Laura Kuenssberg programme – except Luke Johnson – took it for granted that climate change was a serious challenge that Britain had to ‘address’. I made some notes of Johnson’s contribution:
CC is not people’s no 1 concern – and support will drop when it becomes apparent that NZ is simply unaffordable.
Despite all the hype and investment, renewables (wind and solar) amount to only 3% global consumption. The reality is that FF will continue to be central to global energy use for the foreseeable future.
The UK’s energy costs are five times higher that China’s. And we pay over twice as much for electricity as the US – higher than almost every other country.
China is building one coal-powered power plant every two weeks – despite investment in renewables, its economy is and will continue to be massively dependent on FFs.
Renewables are not the answer because there’s as yet no solution to their intermittency – the technology is simply not there for energy storage.
The reality politicians don’t seem to understand is that ordinary people want to be able to drive a car and go on holiday by air. Moreover they don’t want to be colder and poorer.
Simple but telling points. And none of the other panellists tried to dispute them. Did he get anywhere? Not during the programme. But Kuenssberg’s Sunday programme has a huge audience and some viewers must have taken note. This I think is the way forward for those of us who are determined to reverse climate policy – quiet persistence.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin,
There’s a big problem here and it is only getting worse. With the exception of the odd person like Luke Johnson, the necessity of Net Zero is basically taken as a given and this means that all public ‘debate’ on Net Zero is extremely limited and skewed towards arguments centred around practicality, implementation, economic impacts etc. Packham in particular is a scientifically illiterate, factually challenged, millenarian moron, yet he dares to cite ‘science’ as his justification for taking the government to court to prevent it from granting North Sea oil and gas licences, and nobody, bar Johnson, is challenging him on that. It’s ridiculous and it cannot go on like this. The whole of the Net Zero issue has to be opened up for debate, especially the science, which sharply brings into focus the necessity argument, plus the urgency argument too (so even if man-made climate change is real, it is relatively minor according to some, thus the phase out of fossil fuels becomes very much less of a priority).
LikeLiked by 3 people
Does anyone know when Peter Hitchens took on the mantle of Robin Guenier and fired this broadside at George Monbiot on Question Time? “Even if George is right [about the science]” it’s nonsense etc. I think it does show the strength of the approach but annoyingly Wide Awake Media doesn’t bother to give details.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If I may, I would like to quote once again from Free Your Mind, by Patrick Fagan and Laura Dodsworth. On the subject of net zero and the potential for a backlash to the nudging campaign, they write:
Remember that Fagan is a behavioural scientist. He is supposed to be one of the enemy, but he is so refreshingly open-minded.
LikeLiked by 3 people
A few days ago John C told us that, over recent years, he’s contemplated, re the climate madness, two key questions:
How did we in the West get into this mess?
And how do we get out of it (and stay out of it)?
Well, since John’s note, I too have been contemplating those questions. Neither is easy to answer. As I said in my answer to John, Lionel Shriver’s excellent book ‘Mania’ casts some light on the first. And, since I wrote that, her outstanding interview with Toby Young (see my recommendation and reference above) has I think at least partially answered both questions. And I’m beginning to think that John’s second – and arguably most important – question is the easiest to answer. Indeed I suppose I’ve already begun to answer it by citing Ayn Rand’s words: ‘we can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.’ As I observed, we’ve been evading realty for a long time – and now the consequences are upon us.
But, as I also observed: ‘Our political ‘leaders’ have yet to realise this. But they will – they have no choice’. And there I suggest is the key to answering John’s second question. What we, and those with the same objective, should be doing, whenever we get an opportunity, is to accelerate that realisation. It won’t be easy, but it should be possible – the facts are all on our side. Go back and read the article that prompted this thread. I don’t think there’s anything I said there that isn’t obviously accurate. That’s why, if you put any of these issues to a group of believers, they won’t dispute them because they can’t – see for example how Luke Johnson’s simple but telling remarks yesterday were ignored. But they cannot ignore them for ever. And especially not when reality bites. As has happened for the SNP.
Jaime: you said just now ‘that all public ‘debate’ on Net Zero is extremely limited and skewed towards arguments centred around practicality, implementation, economic impacts etc.’ But most unfortunately that isn’t so: there’s been barely any such debate – I wish there had because I’m sure we could easily win it. (Unlike a debate about the science that would sadly but inevitably be unpleasant – howls of ‘denier’ etc. – and drag on forever.)
The conclusion must be that we have to find a way of getting that ‘public debate’ around practicality etc. started.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I think this is potentially very interesting:
“Net zero has become unhelpful slogan, says outgoing head of UK climate watchdog
Chris Stark says populist response and culture war around the term is inhibiting environmental progress”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/22/net-zero-has-become-unhelpful-slogan-says-outgoing-head-of-uk-climate-watchdog
“The concept of “net zero” has become a political slogan used to start a “dangerous” culture war over the climate, and may be better dropped, the outgoing head of the UK’s climate watchdog has warned.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said sensible improvements to the economy and people’s lives were being blocked by a populist response to the net zero label, and he would be “intensely relaxed” about losing the term.
“Net zero has definitely become a slogan that I feel occasionally is now unhelpful, because it’s so associated with the campaigns against it,” he said. “That wasn’t something I expected.”
Politicians on all sides are now wary of associating themselves with the term, he said, which was inhibiting progress. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, made several policy U-turns last year, including delaying the changeover to electric vehicles, while the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, watered down a promise to invest £28bn a year in a green economy.…”.
Net zero, it seems to me, has (at least since Mrs May pushed it through by amending the CCA) been a shibboleth, a rallying cry, an article of faith, for the climate alarmed. To see a potential retreat from this dominant phrase is most encouraging, although it seems to me that behind the scenes they intend to maintain it as an objective, while possibly pretending otherwise. I thought in that respect that this comment was particularly revealing:
“If it [net zero] is only a slogan, if it is seen as a sort of holding pen for a whole host of cultural issues, then I’m intensely relaxed about dropping it,” he said. “We keep it as a scientific target, but we don’t need to use it as a badge that we keep on every programme.”
Interesting times. Let’s hope they become still more interesting.
LikeLiked by 3 people
This is also a little bit of a surprise:
“A heedless dash for net zero will waste cash and, later, votes
Keir Starmer must learn from the Tories’ failures and ensure green projects are well planned and resourced”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/20/a-heedless-dash-for-net-zero-will-waste-cash-and-later-votes
An interesting critique of financial waste in the rush to net zero, albeit while maintaining the need for net zero, of course.
LikeLike
Mark: ‘Interesting times. Let’s hope they become still more interesting.’
Well said. These Guardian reports might turn out to be encouraging as well as interesting. But let’s not get too excited.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, thank you for your comments on my two questions.
While I largely agree with what you have written I just wanted to say that I feel those powerful forces which drove us into this mess will want to keep us there … while they squeeze every last penny out of the current economic dispensations, whether they be climate or pandemic related. In that sense the two questions are strongly linked via positive feedback. We need to break that link or we may find that any respite is but temporary.
Whatever the scare, real or imaginary (e.g. 2008 banking crisis, or the climate change/Net Zero panic) the M.O. has been broadly the same, and so, given its success to date, it is likely to be the same PPOSMM model next time around (e.g. for Disease X):-
Firstly, panic (you, particularly in the West, must act very rapidly or things will become so much worse);
Secondly, pay (for very expensive but not necessarily effective ‘treatment’ e.g. wind turbines or green energy funds, or vaccines);
Thirdly, obey (by signing away sovereignty to undemocratic supranational bodies which seem to be strongly influenced (i) by key nations with a strong sense of national identity/purpose, and (ii) by “charitable organisations” set up by a small number of activist billionaires);
Finally, follow up by sending more money to aforesaid supranational bodies, both to ‘minimize’ your nation’s future exposure and suffering during the next crisis and also to show your nation’s ‘virtue’ through its collegiate behaviour.
This PPOSMM model in its various guises (see above) seems to be a variant of the Moral Hazard scenario whereby one party (e.g. billionaires) reaps the considerable benefits while another party (e.g. the ordinary members of the public/tax payers) covers the very considerable costs.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Richard, looks like this episode. Troubled myself to dig for it as wanted to hear it myself! Haven’t confirmed yet but both the relevant characters are there, and it’s recent.
LikeLike
Further to my recent comment (22nd April @ 8.59pm), there is an article today by Ben Pile in The Daily Sceptic about the forces that wish to milk the present dispensations for all they are worth:-
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/23/profits-of-doom/
Or as Ben puts it, “So there we have it – four key ways in which the unimpeachable cause of saving the planet is in fact driven by the same old lust for money, power and influence.”
Regards, John C.
LikeLike
Yes Jit that’s the one. The relevant discussion starts at 38 min in and goes on for about 10 mins. The only panellists worth listening to are George Monbiot and Peter Hitchens – the politicians both mouth meaningless rubbish. Monbiot sensibly keeps it simple: his answer to the question (What single outcome would you wish to see from COP28?) is agreement to keep all fossil fuels in the ground because he says, unless we do, we face global catastrophe no matter how many wind turbines and solar panels we install. It’s a position that gets loud support from the audience. Hitchens – as was shown in the clip above – said that, even if George’s predictions about apocalypse are right, we have to face the reality that, when the wind isn’t blowing, we rely on gas for our electricity and also that in any case China is, as we speak, building the equivalent of two coal fired power stations a week and India also has a vast coal fired power station expansion programme. And the contribution of the UK to all this isn’t merely minimal it’s non existent – everything we do is blotted out by the actions of much larger countries. So, if you want to live in a country where people lose their jobs because there’s no energy, where we’re all going to be cold, where computers – essential for so much these days – shut down … then demand to keep it in the ground is intelligent and thoughtful. Good points – but his argument was in my view too complex and it got only a smattering of applause. In subsequent discussion – from which Hitchens was excluded – Monbiot’s simple message won every time.
LikeLike
John C, thanks for the link to Ben Pile’s excellent article. His final paragraph sums up his message:
But, as I noted re that Question Time extract, it’s the simple message that gets through. Perhaps we should learn from that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jit: Thanks, that looks the one. I’ll also try and watch today. (In looking at the most recent QT it was striking to see David TC Davies on the panel for the Tories. But no mention of the Cass Review or anything else to do with the trans issue for the MP who was outstanding in his support for Venice Allan and co in the earliest days when all the others lived in fear. Too hot and embarrassing a debate for the BBC even now I guess.)
LikeLike
Richard: re Monbiot/Hitchens see my post above (10:09 AM).
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Anyone who can spare an hour and twenty minutes really should watch Toby Young’s interview with the brilliant Lionel Shriver here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEFFqB5UAFE. “
– Yes, Robin.
Put the blame on Meme, boys.
H/t Rita Hayworth.
And how will Net Zero fare when AI makes demands its mega demands on energy ?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin: Thanks. Sorry I missed that. I’m still thinking about about message simplicity problem.
LikeLike
Richard: here’s simple answer to the question (‘What single outcome would you wish to see from COP28?‘):
‘That there should be no more of these absurd COPs. As George said, they essentially all fail. Why is that? Because major non-Western countries – the source of over 75% of emissions – are not, and never will be, seriously interested in emission reduction.’
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here is another link that discusses the often malign influence of the super rich and their political allies:-
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/22/the-rise-of-corporate-totalitarianism/
The article is by Dr Rowena Slope (Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing at Bournemouth University and author of Care in the Iron Cage: A Weberian Analysis of Failings in Care) from whom I quote in order to give a flavour of the arguments put forward:-
“Corporate totalitarianism represents a new ideological development in the history of humanity. Its proponents are the oligarch class who own investment funds and corporations, dynastic families and individuals of extraordinary wealth. They belong to the same class from which powerful politicians and statesmen are drawn, and they help coordinate their activities at the helm of political parties, from within Government departments and across the multitude of non-governmental bodies that are involved in the policymaking process. Global in nature and outlook, their identification is not with any country, religion or culture, and among their chief goals is the continued accumulation of wealth and power.” This sounds to me like a modern variant of The Iron Triangle phenomenon.
Slope ends by writing, “So far, Western liberal democracy and Christianity have provided little resistance to woke culture or corporate totalitarianism and this poses a troubling conundrum to those seeking to challenge its nihilistic vision of humanity.”
I wonder if part of the explanation for the West’s “little resistance” is the naivety of the former Left which seems to have absorbed much of the “progressive” rhetoric without adequate critical analysis. This is why I have previously labelled this misdirection of the former Left as blight-wing politics. Blight-wing politics will probably remain a major coup for the oligarchs until the once politically significant old Left realizes that it has been hoodwinked – only then will we see the West start to stir.
Regards, John C.
LikeLike
Beth: Thanks for recommending the Young/Shriver interview. I felt I should watch right away (and that I’m afraid isn’t common). There is much of value, not least how honest she is about the personal cost, the real pain of rejection by those ‘more woke than thou’ who you previously thought were friends. But there is much else, including the different strangenesses and timescales of transgenderism and climate mania.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks John for the link to Dr Slope’s well-argued and exceptionally concerning article. However, I believe we can take some comfort from the fact that the climate issue doesn’t quite fit the pattern. For example, unlike BLM, climate change has not prompted outbreaks of mob violence. Yes, climate science has been disgracefully distorted and professional criticism silenced and yes, climate propaganda is a continuing issue. But – unlike I think all the other examples she mentions – only climate ideology is about to run slap into harsh reality: no propaganda, despite being funded by an insanely wealthy oligarch class, can overcome the impossibility of for example making scarce and increasingly expensive wind turbine materials available and inexpensive, overcome the huge challenges of establishing an adequate and reliable ‘renewable’ grid by 2030, fix the intermittency problem and find sufficient skilled people to deal with the needs of Net Zero as well as an massive and expanding house building programme.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have repeatedly interacted with Guardian readers and their ilk over what can be done to ‘save the planet/ human race/stop climate change/power our modern civilization’ etc (delete as appropriate), I have yet to recieve a single constructive answer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lionel Shriver has another interesting article in the Speccie this morning: ‘It rarely pays to be ahead of your time‘ (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-rarely-pays-to-be-ahead-of-your-time/). Her point, referring to the consequences of the Cass report, is that those who pointed out the iniquities of the transgender mania won’t benefit from their foresight – no thanks, no apologies. And nor will those who actively supported the madness ever be held to account.
But then – something that may be of interest to many of us here – she says this:
Of course there’s a lot of truth in this but my comment (moving up the ‘liked’ ladder) took a rather different line:
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin,
The ‘science’ of lockdowns has collapsed over the course of just two years on account of the fact that it never was ‘science’, it was just invented on the hoof at the start of the Covid pandemic. But it masqueraded as settled science for well over a year; enough time to get the jabs into billions of arms.
Climate ‘science’ is a bit more challenging. It has developed slowly over decades, largely unchallenged except by a few outlying sceptics who could easily be dismissed as cranks and ‘deniers’. But then it had to evolve rapidly, from global warming, to climate change and then ‘climate breakdown’ in order to justify the rapid Green energy transition. It now rests on very shaky foundations and, though it probably won’t collapse like Lockdown Theory did, it certainly won’t be around for too much longer, not 359 years, not 50.
Shriver says:
Indeed, by being a conformist, you may increase your personal chances of survival, but this is not the ‘survival of the fittest’, it is the ‘survival of the thickest’ and in times of mass hysteria and delusion, it is the non-conformists who ensure the survival of the species, even if they fail to ensure their own survival. That is their true reward for being ahead of their time. You can’t ask for more than that in my opinion.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin on Shriver:
Not completely true. Some people have had their careers blighted but they’re in much better shape now because Cass has done such a superb job than if she hadn’t. More importantly, vulnerable kids who would have been ‘transitioned’ (read mutilated) no longer will be. What is irreversible are the mutilations already done. But, don’t worry, the courts will soon be full of ‘detransitioners’ suing the doctors who carried out this abomination.
All of which means that Cass is different to Climate. For reasons Jaime also gives. I may say more in a new Cliscep post tomorrow.
LikeLike
Avoiding reality requires resting on shaky foundations as Robin et al , above,
and Stan Freberg, way back machine, recognise.
LikeLike
I disagree Richard – Shriver got it right. Her article makes it clear that Cass has been hugely beneficial, resulting in widespread changes of heart and, in particular, because:
But she says:
And, although those who bravely criticised the madness will feel vindicated and are now as you say, ‘in much better shape’, she says (correctly in my view) that they’re unlikely to get any thanks or apologies because:
Yes, Cass and climate are different. But that’s another issue altogether. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Robin. I pretty much 100% agree with your quotes from Shriver there. Mañana it will have to be for the post.
LikeLike
This morning the formidable Kathryn Porter celebrates the eighth anniversary of her Watt-Logic blog with a post that takes a look at pretty well all of the key UK climate issues. She makes the interesting, but not I think surprising, comment that over the past year ‘the biggest difference is in the levels of engagement I am having and growing signs that my contrarian views are no longer quite so contrarian!’ .
Her post is well worth a read and, headed ‘You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality’, it can be accessed here: https://watt-logic.com/2024/04/27/watt-logic-8/
PS: I think that quote from Ayn Rand (she calls her ‘Ann’) is slightly incorrect – but no matter.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin, thank you for the link to Kathryn Porter’s excellent blog. I particularly liked this quote, “Still, we need to do more to avoid designing energy markets with the affluent in mind, while ignoring the reality of the majority.” Yes, the elites (and their media pals) have for years been having a field day at the expense of the rest of society – the most exquisite luxury beliefs are surely those that other people pay for!
I am pleased, too, that she quoted Ayn Rand’s sentiment that you can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. That sentiment might just become the mantra of the fight-back.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Even though reality is slowly dawning in Scotland, there’s not yet any sign of that happening in Northern Ireland:
“Fracking: Minister wants NI ban on petroleum exploration”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68916982
The economy minister has said he wants to ban fracking and all other forms of petroleum exploration and production in Northern Ireland.
Conor Murphy said he will soon ask the Executive to approve a ban and, if granted, will introduce legislation.
Existing laws will have to be amended and the legislative process will stretch into next year.
In the meantime, Mr Murphy’s department will not accept or process onshore petroleum licensing applications.
He said the ban reflects broader policies to reduce carbon emissions and comes after a recent consultation.…
Yes, you read that right. The economy minister wishes to take measures which may cause harm to harm the economy.
LikeLike
In the Manhattan Contrarian yesterday (https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-4-27-a-shockingly-inept-report-on-battery-storage-of-energy-from-the-iea) Francis Menton makes a scathing attack on what he describes as a ‘shockingly inept’ report on battery storage by the International Energy Agency. This extract epitomises his view:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin,
AGAIN, energy ‘experts’ quoting battery storage capacity in MW, which is an instantaneous power rating and says nothing about how long that power output can be maintained for. They do something very similar by quoting wind capacity figures in MW, ignoring the fact that when the wind isn’t blowing these turbines produce little or no power for long periods and gas power stations have to be fired up to meet the demand.
And talking about the Royal Society report on low wind periods:
It is obvious that a zero carbon grid without huge gas back up is not achievable with current technology and there is little prospect of it being achievable (or economically viable) in the next decade. But politicians and Green zealots keep pretending it is a realistic prospect and they keep pushing for ever more wind turbines and solar panels, ignoring the fact that grid scale storage is a myth. At the same time, the last remaining coal-fired power station is being retired, aging gas stations are being retired and the modular nuclear reactor dream has already collapsed (Rolls Royce just pulled out). Labour will kill off gas and oil exploration. We will be totally reliant upon imports. The lights are going to go out and civil war will be waged in the dark and the cold.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Sam Leith – the Spectator’s literary editor – has an article today headed ‘The parable of Blackpool’s potholes’. Noting how Blackpool Council’s success in filling its potholes led to a remarkable reduction in pothole-related injury, he argues that ‘small things give in to big ones’, citing New York where the ‘broken windows’ theory of policing led to huge reduction in overall crime. Surely, he says, the fact that ‘an ounce of prevention might save us a ton of cure’ could apply to other policy areas? He lists several instances from the UK. For example: ‘Chiselling money from education budgets now puts a great dent in the economy of the future’.
But then he says this:
My response quickly garnered the most up votes:
LikeLiked by 4 people
You can’t get through to these people Robin: it’s a cult-like belief system, resistant to facts and logic. Firstly they believe that a small rise in a trace atmospheric gas (all caused by emission from burning fossil fuels) is what controls the temperature of the entire planet. But that’s not absurd enough for them: they also believe that if the UK’s trace contributions to global emissions of GHGs (0.8%) are reduced to zero, then that will make a big difference to the temperature of the earth in the decades to come, even though the major GHG emitting countries won’t be reducing their emissions any time soon, in fact they will be increasing them. It just doesn’t occur to them that this is irrational, because they have permanently abandoned all reason for emotive virtue-signalling.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jaime: it’s very simple, all I’m asking the likes of Sam Leith to understand is that, even if the problem is as bad as many scientists say, there’s nothing the UK – the source of less than 1% of global emissions – can do about it. Therefore it’s foolish for us to take any ‘hit to our economy’. Is that simple reality really too hard for them to understand?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin, you have posed the question, “Is that simple reality really too hard for them to understand?” and I have to say, rather in agreement with Jaime, that it is indeed too much for such people to understand as the following tale relates ….
I have a friend, an academic of about my age (70-ish), who self-identifies as a socialist. I have been having, on and off, an e-mail argument with them since 2019 about climate/energy policy etc. At the time, about a year ago, when the possible opening of a new Cumbrian coal mine was very much in the news, my friend was decidedly against the opening of the mine despite knowing the simple facts about the UK being the source of very little of that “deadly” CO2. The reason for my friend’s antipathy to the new mine was that “It would set a bad precedent for China when eventually it comes to consider relinquishing fossil fuels.”
My friend did not explain why China with its huge economy would be in the least interested in what little Britain had done years before – I am here naively assuming that my friend is correct in his assertion that China will, one year not too far hence, decide against fossil fuels.
So there we have it. No matter what damage it may do to the Cumbrian economy, the misnamed “virtue signalling” won out over real jobs for ordinary people that traditional socialists might have coveted.
As I almost said elsewhere recently, “The most exquisite luxury beliefs are surely those that modern socialists expect other people to pay for.” What further examples do we at Cliscep have of modern socialism’s dominant sub-set, namely its graduate class, being turned inside out (just as Matthew Goodwin related in his recent book ‘Values, voice and virtue’). Blight-wing politics, anybody?
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well John I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that your friend trotted out the old precedent/leadership argument. It’s funny really – as I said in my ‘Leadership?’ post (https://cliscep.com/2023/03/23/leadership/):
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin,
The proof will be in the pudding. Let us know if you receive a response to your comment to Sam Leith.
LikeLike
Behind a paywall, regrettably. Jaime, can you wave your magic?
“Net zero risks crushing businesses, warns Energy Secretary
In speech to technology entrepreneurs in London, Claire Coutinho will say climate policy is at ‘a fork in the road’”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/29/net-zero-risks-crushing-businesses-warns-energy-secretary/
LikeLike
Mark – there’s no need to read the article, its final paragraph says it all:
A slight problem: Net Zero is totally incompatible with that desirable ‘approach’.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mark,
If she is serious about letting the free market drive carbon reduction policies, then this necessarily means that CCA 2008 should be repealed. It is inherently anti-competitive and anti-free market. You can’t fix that. Coutinho is still talking about imposing Net Zero policies. That excludes the free market by definition. It’s just more meaningless waffle as far as I can see, a tinkering at the edges.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jamie: there no possibility of my getting a response from Sam Leith – with the exception of the wonderful Julie Burchill, Speccie authors don’t reply to comments – I suspect some don’t even read them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, Jaime , thanks for that. Not so promising as I hoped from the headline, then.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s a good article in the Telegraph today – ‘Electric grid wars are a direct assault on the Western middle class If we want prosperity for all, electricity must be cheap and consistent. The energy transition cannot leave ordinary people behind’ (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/04/29/joe-biden-net-zero-energy-transition-renewable-middle-class/)
There’s a lot that I’d like to quote here, but I’ll confine myself to this:
The author, Joel Kotkin (just as well he isn’t British – with that name he’d have had a hard time at school!) concludes with this:
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m pleased to be able to report that a slightly amended version of my header article here has just now been published by The Daily Sceptic: https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/30/the-case-against-net-zero/ It concludes with a link to Cliscep.
LikeLiked by 3 people
A nice comment by Paul Homewood: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/04/30/the-case-against-net-zero/#more-73105
LikeLiked by 2 people
The despair of Guardianistas can perhaps offer hope to those who seek a rational UK energy policy:
“‘There is despair’: fears for Scotland’s green policies as power-sharing ends”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/30/there-is-despair-fears-for-scotlands-green-policies-as-power-sharing-ends
I think this is all for the good. The part of the article that drives me to distraction is the conflation of environmentally damaging net zero policies with positive environmentalism:
The other thing that drives me mad is this sort of bilge – a simplistic belief that this trilemma is actually a virtuous circle:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Notalot has a post (https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/04/30/net-zero-watch-says-coutinho-must-translate-words-into-action/) about the Net Zero Watch reaction Claire Coutinho’s ‘fork in the road’ speech. There are some good comments – not least an excellent one by Jaime.
LikeLiked by 2 people
From the FT today:
The second coming of Ed Miliband
Labour’s shadow energy secretary could be among the most powerful — and radical — of Starmer’s close allies
What a ghastly prospect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin,
If that’s the case, then the Second Going Away is not going to be gentle, like the First. It will be bloody and brutal.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/ed-miliband-to-resign-as-labour-leader
LikeLike
Jaime: we’ll see. I suspect he’s going to find it harder than he expects to implement his mad climate policy.
LikeLike
Perhaps this is the wrong place for it, but … Francis Menton has just published a scathing criticism of the Biden administration’s latest attack on the US energy system:
The Biden Administration Ever More Delusional On Energy
(https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-5-1-the-biden-administration-ever-more-delusional-on-energy).
This extract gives a taste of Menton’s view:
Worth reading in full.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Sunak to allow oil and gas exploration at sites intended for offshore wind
Exclusive: decision to grant licences condemned by critics as a stunt that shows Tories are ‘playing politics with climate’”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/02/sunak-to-allow-oil-and-gas-exploration-at-sites-intended-for-offshore-wind
Fossil fuel companies will be allowed to explore for oil and gas under offshore wind-power sites for the first time, the government will announce on Friday, in a move that campaigners said is further proof that ministers are abandoning the climate agenda.
The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates North Sea oil and gas production, will confirm that it is granting licences to about 30 companies to look for hydrocarbons on sites earmarked for future offshore windfarms.
The move has brought renewed criticism of Rishi Sunak from environmentalists, including from the prime minister’s own former net zero tsar, who worry that any future oil and gas production could hamper clean energy generation.
But it will also give the embattled prime minister a welcome piece of news to sell to his restive backbenchers – many of whom are keen to see more oil and gas production in the North Sea – the day after what are set to be a bruising set of local election results…
Then they wheel out Skidmore for a typically extreme comment. It seems to me that if we’re going to industrialise our seas, we might as well extract maximum benefit from the harm thereby caused to the environment.
LikeLike
“Forget Brexit – Net Zero is the real threat to the car industry
Extreme green targets pose an existential threat to UK carmakers.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/02/forget-brexit-net-zero-is-the-real-threat-to-the-car-industry/
The concluding paragraph:
As long as our political class remains in the grip of climate apocalypticism, then car manufacturers will be in trouble. Both Labour and the Tories see our car industry as a problem to be managed, as a cause of environmental disaster, rather than a source of growth, wealth and jobs. This is the real threat to Britain’s carmakers.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mark; those restive backbenchers may have to wait for some policy changes before anything happens in the North Sea. From the Energy Voice website:
“Oil and gas firms are being framed as the “devil incarnate” as general election rhetoric ramps up, a top North Sea dealmaker has complained.
Andrew Austin said is firm Kistos Holdings (AIM: KIST) is one of several which has pulled out of deals due to political uncertainty and that the windfall tax is being seen as a “victimless” crime as the UK gears up for an election.
Speaking to The Herald, he said: “Part of the problem is both parties are rightly trying to chase the 18 to 24 year old vote and in their minds climate change and oil and gas companies are the devil incarnate, therefore taxing them is effectively a victimless crime; that’s what’s driving it on both sides of the house.’
Mr Austin, who built up his former company RockRose Energy into a £250m business, said committing fresh capital to projects in the North Sea “is definitely off the table” until there’s certainty as to “the Government and the Government’s position”.
There have been four changes to the windfall tax since 2022 under the ruling Conservative government, while Labour, which is leading the polls, has promised a “proper windfall tax” should it win power.
Last month, the CEO of Hartshead Energy told Energy Voice the uncertainty on Labour’s plans have led to it cutting project team jobs.
Meanwhile the party’s pledge – which includes cutting investment allowances while hiking and extending the levy – has led to warnings it will kill off North Sea investment.
Kistos’ partner in the West of Shetland, TotalEnergies, told Energy Voice last year that the uncertainty is impacting potential Final Investment Decisions for their projects in the region.
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/527632/totalenergies-windfall-tax-2023-exclusive/embed/#?secret=v6kbAdWily#?secret=1tqgOAHn1P
Mr Austin told The Herald that the windfall tax is not making Shell or BP the victim.
“The victims are the small independents who effectively have become the mantle-holders for the North Sea as the majors and super-majors have exited.”
That announcement is just window-dressing, like the postponement to 2035 of the ban on ICE car sales. It is meaningless without repeal or modification of the underlying legislation.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin G: you may be interested in a quote from your MP which featured in an article by Kathryn Porter on the burden of over-regulation:
““First, we need to tackle the alarming growth in poorly made and conflicting regulation which permeates every area of economic life, strangling economic activity for small businesses. Second, we must address the continued expansion of judicial review, which is slowing or stopping critical decisions and pushing up costs for everybody. Only when we have started to make progress on these aspects of government will we be able to turn our policy intentions into results on the ground”
– Bim Afolami, Conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpen”
Net Zero should be a prime target for his criticisms but, from your correspondence, he seems to turn a Nelsonian eye…..
The overall article is excellent, explaining many of the delays and cost over-runs which bedevil UK projects (not just nuclear): https://watt-logic.com/2024/04/14/nuclear-regulation/
LikeLiked by 3 people
This article (Friends of the Earth wins High Court fight to make government redraft plans to keep UK on track to meet Net Zero) about today’s High Court decision ordering the government to redraft its Net Zero strategy has just been published by the law firm Leigh Day, two of whose solicitors represented Friends of the Earth which, with others, brought the challenge against the government: https://www.leighday.co.uk/news/news/2024-news/friends-of-the-earth-wins-high-court-fight-to-make-government-redraft-plans-to-keep-uk-on-track-to-meet-net-zero/. Essentially, Mr Justice Sheldon ruled that the Secretary of State’s decision that his proposals and policies would enable the carbon budget to be met was irrational and not justified by the evidence.
The case turns upon what would seem to me to be the Court’s accurate interpretation of the terms of the 2008 Climate Change Act. Therefore, we should not in my view be criticising the High Court for reaching its decision. The problem of course is that, for the reasons repeatedly discussed here, it’s hard to see how this or any future government can implement the Act’s terms without causing serious social and economic harm to the UK. But paradoxically it’s equally hard to see this or any future government repealing the Act – or at least not for some time.
So what happens now?
Some might be interested in this comment by Rowan Smith, one of the Leigh Day solicitors representing Friends of the Earth:
The full record of the High Court proceeding can be found here: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Friends-of-the-Earth-v-Secretary-of-State-for-Energy-Security-and-Net-Zero-003.pdf
LikeLiked by 2 people
MikeH: thanks for drawing Bim’s remarks to my attention. Of course he’s right – although today’s High Court ruling (see above) is far more than judicial review. And, yes, Kathryn Porter’s article is, as you say, excellent
LikeLiked by 1 person
This morning the Daily Sceptic has published a remarkably good article by Ben Pile: ‘Green Blob Tells Government to Spend £30 Billion on Machine to Remove CO2 From the Air’ (https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/05/green-blob-tells-government-to-spend-30-billion-removing-co2-from-the-air/).
It contains so much good stuff that I’ve struggled to find an extract to post here. Essentially, Ben is making two points:
And he makes them well. His conclusion:
Essential reading.
LikeLiked by 2 people
But they have an idea – called Net Zero – and that is all they need. They will follow the idea, religiously, puritanically, until the bitter end and they will destroy themselves and us along with it. The idea is everything. These fanatics have no concept of collateral damage. If they are not stopped, they will destroy the country.
LikeLike
Anyone here who may have any lingering admiration for Boris Johnson should I suggest read this (from the Independent): ‘Boris Johnson to co-chair ex-Tory MP’s net zero initiative. The former prime minister has announced he will join ex-net zero tsar Chris Skidmore’s company, Better Earth.’ (https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/boris-johnson-chris-skidmore-downing-street-climate-change-committee-british-b2537895.html)
LikeLike
Also, Robin , it should be read by anyone who has any lingering admiration for Chris Skidmore. I wonder what his colleagues at Bath University will make of him now?
LikeLike
I don’t know how anyone could have been taken in by Johnson. He locked the country down, mandated masks, pushed the jabs even to the point of considering mandating them, scuppered a peace settlement in Ukraine, enthusiastically embraced Net Zero as soon as he became PM, nay, even before he became PM, endlessly spouted the WEF ‘Build Back Better’ crap whilst in office and partied whilst the country was under house arrest. A sopping wet rag of a ‘conservative’ MP if ever there was one. That fat, Pol Pot-bellied bastard has done incalculable harm to this country, along with his rotten Parliamentary Party, now intent on handing over the reins to Mad Miliband and Insipid Starmer in order to finish the job of destruction which they started and which Johnson accelerated from March 2020 onwards.
LikeLike
Well Mark, if my understanding of the views of today’s academics is correct, I image Chris Skidmore’s erstwhile colleagues at Bath University are delighted by his views on climate change.
Here’s a report on the launch of the ‘Better Earth‘ initiative: https://www.edie.net/chris-skidmore-announces-better-earth-initiative-to-accelerate-climate-policy-initiative/. Apparently. ‘its core focus will be “prioritising real-terms, real-time reductions in emissions by 2030’. The report notes:
As there isn’t the remotest chance of the world achieving the 1.5ºC target, that would seem to be a particularly interesting challenge for Chris.
LikeLike
Robin, all that’s true, but Bath, like most universities, is full of academics who are pro-EU, and who hate Boris with a passion, because of Brexit.
LikeLike
The Telegraph has published an utterly terrifying report today: ‘Labour plots new net zero crackdown on corporates Ed Miliband to legally oblige directors to publish their company’s carbon footprint’ (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/04/labour-ed-miliband-plots-new-net-zero-crackdown-corporates/ )
A few extracts:
(I don’t suppose Miliband knows that ‘the world’ agreed no such thing – indeed major emitters such as China, India, Indonesia and Iran were specifically exempted from having to make any emission reductions.)
(A wonderful way of driving our few remaining industries out of the UK and of ensuring there is no inward investment. And of course hugely benefiting China.)
He’s quite mad. Perhaps voting for the Tories might be the best option after all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
God help us .
LikeLike
It’s so easy to use exaggerated language, to dash off a comment that we later regret, and I would normally disapprove of describing anyone as mad. However, in this case I share Robin’s opinion. The truly terrifying thing is that Starmer, the likely next UK PM presumably agrees with Miliband. Does that mean Starmer is mad? And the rest of the shadow cabinet? What on earth has happened? How have politics sunk to such an abysmal low?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, Mark,
Alas, God won’t help us and the Tories would do the same eventually, if by some miracle they were to get back into office. The only difference between the Cons and Labour is that Labour now have the balls to front their insane energy and economic policies with an unhinged lunatic, knowing that they are virtually guaranteed a landslide at the next election, gifted to them by the Tories. Barring a mass uprising, and the physical removal of politicians from Parliament, I fear the destruction of UK PLC is now hardwired into the system.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was going to post a gif of Saruman saying “So… you have chosen death…” but I didn’t want to lower the tone. Imagine I did, but that I subsequently tidied it up.
In any sane world, such policies would make Labour a laughing stock. Now? *Shrugs*
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin, I am trying to find a crumb of comfort in this ‘Labour plotting new Net Zero crackdown on corporates’ story … but crumbs of any kind are very hard to find. Could it be that because Miliband is no longer allowed to blue £28 billion/year on green “investment” he has been given a consolation prize, a sort of wooden spoon with which to beat everybody and every large company? If so then this is barking mad! But it is the only possible crumb – more like gristle – I can find by way of explanation.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
John C, here’s a possible crumb. This afternoon I sent an email to my MP – now a junior Minister – the text of which was almost precisely the same as my post here at 11:30 this morning. The only real difference was that I opened it by saying that I was sorry to say that, for reasons widely discussed in much of the media, I had decided that I could no longer support the Conservative Party. However, I concluded that with the comment that, in view of Miliband’s planned policies, voting for the Tories might be the best option after all.
Obviously I don’t expect the Tories to seize this argument and thereby retain power – obviously there isn’t the remotest chance of that happening. But, if enough of the more sensible Tories (and there are some) were to use Miliband’s comments as clear evidence that Labour is determined to destroy Britain, it might contribute to a change of attitude towards Net Zero.
As I said, a possible crumb.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin; In case you haven’t seen it, Paul Homewood has an article up covering an engineering doctoral thesis on the impact of EVs on the local distribution systems. It reinforces the points you make about the lack of resources and trained personnel:
“In extremis, it may be necessary to upgrade (reinforce) local substations and cables. Such reinforcement includes:
• replacing the transformer
• digging up the road and relaying cables
• a spend of c. £45 k per 100 served homes i.e.
25 million * £ 450 = £11.25 billion (approx assets costs; a “broad-brush” estimate)
Which, after manpower costs plus profit is added may be perhaps x 2 or x3 as much.
Note that the politics to this falls into three sections:
Hence, a new generation of electrical engineers and technicians are needed.“
That’s just for EVs – heat pumps will be a far greater load.
LikeLiked by 1 person
MikeH – plus data centres, AI and cryptocurrency.
LikeLiked by 1 person
MikeH – Paul Homewood has updated that Steve Broderick article: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/05/06/steve-broderick-update/#more-73180. Re the lack of trained personnel, I found this comment by David W. particularly interesting:
Well said. And this is just one example of a vast problem (the lack of skilled people) facing the entire Net Zero project.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin; thanks for flagging up that update – I’ll read it later.
Given that the shortage of skilled people is so obvious, it’s surprising that the various professional institutions and trades bodies aren’t making some noise. Or maybe they are but it’s not getting any air time?
Taking the heat pump example again, a huge number are expected to be retrofits, replacing gas boilers, which involves major revisions to the pipework, radiators, etc plus installation of a hot water tank in many cases. Where are all the plumbers to take on this huge load of work? From local experience, plumbers are already extremely busy!
Someone should interview that guy who owns Pimlico Plumbers…..he must be contemplating a private jet to go with his high-end cars!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sub-headline from the FT (article pay-walled):
“The $9tn question: how to pay for the green transition The bill for meeting climate goals will be immense. Governments worldwide are trying to figure out how to foot it.”
Reality is dawning……
LikeLiked by 2 people
MikeH – see: https://www.itv.com/news/2024-02-15/help-we-need-a-builder-britains-skills-shortage, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65855506fc07f3000d8d46bd/Employer_skills_survey_2022_research_report.pdf and https://www.ribaj.com/intelligence/market-analysis-construction-skills-shortage-aging-workforce-reduced-immigration.
LikeLike
Of course the lack of skilled personnel is not only the obstacle to Net Zero, far from it. For example there’s also our hopelessly inadequate electricity grid and distribution system. Surprisingly, the Guardian recognises this in relation to housebuilding in particular:
‘Capacity crunch: why the UK doesn’t have the power to solve the housing crisis Our inadequate electricity network is stopping the building of thousands of new homes. And the necessary move to low-carbon heating and cars is only increasing demand’ (https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/04/capacity-crunch-why-the-uk-doesnt-have-the-power-to-solve-housing-crisis).
The report opens with an interview with Susan Brown, leader of Oxford city council. And it closes with her making this ‘you couldn’t make it up’ comment: “What concerns me is that it is delaying housing, making it more expensive, and it is affecting our ability to make housing zero carbon, which is so important.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Net Zero Watch’s Director, Andrew Montford, makes an excellent comment today about the report on Miliband’s plans to which I referred on Sunday:
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin,
But we get to self-destruct, therefore denying Putin the pleasure. What’s not to like?
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Revealed: Tory MPs face solar farm fury in these UK seats
Dozens of Conservative MPs in traditionally safe seats are looking nervously at large, unpopular solar developments in their constituencies.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-election-2024-heartland-tories-in-solar-scrap-to-save-their-seats/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin; thanks for those links. They paint a grim picture – no surprise – especially that massive report (I only read the executive summary).
LikeLike
What was the link for the Andrew Montford quote Robin?
LikeLike
Richard, I got it as an email via NZW’s ‘SamizDat’ newsletter.
LikeLike
Ah ok.
LikeLike
UK policy-makers take note:
“Australia backs gas beyond 2050 despite climate fears”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjq5gky4e5no
Australia has announced it will ramp up its extraction and use of gas until “2050 and beyond”, despite global calls to phase out fossil fuels.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government says the move is needed to shore up domestic energy supply while supporting a transition to net zero.
But critics argue the move is a rejection of science, pointing to the International Energy Agency (IEA) call for “huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas” to reach climate targets.
Australia – one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas – has also said the policy is based on “its commitment to being a reliable trading partner”.
Released on Thursday, the strategy outlines the government’s plans to work with industry and state leaders to increase both the production and exploration of the fossil fuel.
The government will also continue to support the expansion of the country’s existing gas projects, the largest of which are run by Chevron and Woodside Energy Group in Western Australia.
It argues these moves are needed for Australia’s domestic energy supply as it tracks towards its targets of delivering 82% renewable energy to the grid by 2030, and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
LikeLike
Another excellent article by Ben Pile, once of this parish. I could post it under a number of threads, since it touches on so many aspects of criticisms that we have discussed at Cliscep, but placing it here is as good as anywhere:
“Peter Lilley Warned 16 Years Ago That Enshrining Carbon Emissions Targets in Statute Would Open the Govt to Judicial Review. He Was Right”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/09/peter-lilley-warned-16-years-ago-that-enshrining-carbon-emissions-targets-in-statute-would-open-the-govt-to-judicial-review-he-was-right/
LikeLiked by 1 person
A few notes on Ben Pile’s excellent article in the Daily Sceptic this morning to which Mark referred just now:
It’s about the High Court’s decision last week that the Government’s carbon reduction targets are insufficient to comply with its 2021 ‘Net Zero Strategy’ – which it is legally obliged to observe under the 2008 Climate Change Act. Pile points out how democracy has been ousted by lawfare – lawfare which is backed by massive funds provided by Government itself and by eco-billionaires. He notes how Peter Lilley (then my MP) anticipated the danger of this before the CCA was enacted.
An extract from Pile’s article:
[My emphasis]
His conclusion:
Worth reading in full.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Guardian has gone into alarmist overdrive this morning with two articles by its Environment editor, Damian Carrington:
World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target
Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds
(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/world-scientists-climate-failure-survey-global-temperature)
We asked 380 top climate scientists what they felt about the future
They are terrified, but determined to keep fighting
(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair)
Interestingly, assuming the IPPCC’s 2118 Special Report was correct, I’m sure they’re right to expect ‘global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century’.
However I’m not so sure about this:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Further to the above, I thought this was interesting:
His focus on the Anglosphere is interesting. No mention of the EU and especially none of China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, despite these countries being the source of over 50% of global GHG emissions and the Anglosphere of only 14%.
LikeLike
For those who haven’t seen it, this is a ‘must read’: Climate Uncertainty and Risk by Dr Judith Curry: https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2024/05/Curry-2024-GWPF-Lecture.pdf?mc_cid=3dddce11d1&mc_eid=4c64ced7e9
I’ve always liked her trademark contrasting of a ‘tame problem’ with a ‘wicked problem’.
LikeLike
My above three posts are only barely relevant to this thread. I suggest (Mark?) that we may perhaps need a generic thread for broad climate change issues.
LikeLike
Robin,
By coincidence, I was on Amazon only today looking for a good read, and I was sorely tempted to splash out on Judith’s book on uncertainty because it is now out in paperback. Even so, it’s still over £20 and I’m a bit too Yorkshire for that!
On a different subject, I believe one of the reasons for Open Mic was to give people somewhere to post ‘orphan’ comments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah – Open Mic seems to have gone dead for some reason lately?
LikeLike
Yes Robin,
I try to find an appropriate thread when commenting on news articles, but if there isn’t an obvious one, then John R is correct – Open Mic is a good place to put “orphan” stories. In the days when Bishop Hill was thriving, its Unthreaded page served that purposes, and my understanding is that Open Mic here is intended to serve that purpose.
LikeLike
I thought this quite interesting. A few days ago I emailed Peter Lilley – now Lord Lilley – who was my MP prior to Bim, attaching a pdf version of my ‘Case Against Net Zero’ and saying this:
He replied:
I’m sure he’s right about the BBC and other MSN – but he seems to hope I’ll be able to help him rather vice versa.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ben,
Yes, that is interesting. Is it the government or the BBC that needs bringing down? Sometimes it is difficult to discern where the real power lies.
LikeLike
Robin: It’s great to hear that you’re still in contact with Peter Lilley. Something like
would I think be worth incorporating in a future version of your Case Against Net Zero.
Would this satisfy Jaime on the need to also debate the science?
I guess not. But I think it deserves consideration.
LikeLike
Mark:
Yes, Open Mic arose because Alan Kendall asked for something like BH’s Unthreaded on Cliscep. I disliked the way Unthreaded comments (some of which have been very good) didn’t have a reliable permalink so you couldn’t point to them as you quoted from them. Open Mic’s design is better in that respect.
For example I can in May 2024 point to Alan’s first comment on Open Mic in May 2021, which also sought to explain the purpose.
But no worries if there are times it’s not used. Every dog has its day.
LikeLike
Richard: I disagree. The ‘any cost would be worth paying‘ argument is not really relevant to my essay – even if there were a peer reviewed study supporting it. That’s because the problem, assuming there is one, is global and I cannot see any evidence that most non-Western governments are at all likely to prioritise emission reduction. Therefore the result of paying ‘any cost’ would be the utter ruin of the UK for no purpose.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Richard / Mark:
Re Open Mic, I’ll be rather more specific. What I’d like to see is a thread that deals with the same issues as this (Net Zero) thread but from an international rather than a UK perspective. I suppose you might say – ‘OK Robin post a suitable article and it’s done’. True – the trouble is that, at my advanced age, I’m not sure that I’ve got sufficient energy to do that. But I’ll give it some thought.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin: Here’s my disagreement with your disagreement.
You(we) need to establish that cost-benefit analysis is highly appropriate in assessing Net Zero.
But there is a significant proportion of our audience (voters in the UK) who think that science* has found that the cost of doing nothing* is so great that the cost of doing Net Zero (the inverse of the benefits of not doing it) is pointless to consider. Thus they tune out the whole of Case Against Net Zero.
The fact* that there are no peer-reviewed* studies finding that the human race would face extinction or immiseration if we did nothing* is key to our audience considering your great work**.
* definitions are important here. But I believe LIlley’s fact is a fact and a really important one.
** beware flattery at all times!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Richard: here’s my disagreement with your disagreement with my disagreement.
I am unaware of any evidence that a significant proportion of voters thinks the cost of doing nothing (i.e. abandoning the Net Zero policy) is so great that it would be pointless to consider it. Much more compelling in my view is the finding of various opinion polls that, although voters support the policy in principle, that support largely disappears when they are asked if they accept that the policy would mean additional costs for ordinary people. Therefore the fact that there is no peer-reviewed evidence that humanity faces extinction or immiseration if we (humanity) do nothing, although interesting, is of relatively little importance.
LikeLike
Are we at risk of going round in circles with these arguments?
The principle of renewable energy is a good one. However, the practice (at the current state of technology) as measured by the EROEI parameter totally undermines the case for doing anything with current renewables technology. Current renewables technology just makes matters worse, although it has the “virtue signalling” characteristic of appearing to be beneficial.
So, for me, the message to propagate is that Net Zero (using current technologies) will make matters a lot worse both for Gaia and for ordinary people. Those promoting Net Zero, however, may benefit hugely – but I am not worrying about them.
Apologies if I have missed the point.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Talking about Open Mic above, I just posted this link which may be relevant on this thread – Greta Thunberg’s climate crusade is heading for defeat | Michael Shellenberger interview (youtube.com)
LikeLike
“Ministers consider making UK’s carbon targets easier to meet
Fears Climate Change Committee’s advice not to allow carryover from last carbon budget will be ignored”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/11/uk-carbon-targets-carryover-budget-climate-change-committee
Fewer emissions result from struggling economies, but instead of recognising that, campaigners are doubling down and demanding more pain:
Ministers are considering plans to weaken the UK’s carbon-cutting plans by allowing the unused portion of the last carbon budget to be carried over to the next period.…
…The UK has emitted less carbon dioxide in recent years than was expected, owing to factors including the Covid-19 pandemic and sluggish economic growth. This should be ignored, allowing for the next set of five-yearly emission targets to be more stringent, the better to reach net zero by 2050, the CCC has said.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Daily Sceptic is today quoting prof. Happer, “It is good that you point out strong evidence that the dogma that CO2 is the control knob of Earth’s climate is certainly wrong. But it is being used as an excuse for suicidal economic policies supported by glassy-eyed fanatics and clear-eyed opportunists. This is bad news for humanity.”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/11/climate-change-is-driven-by-changes-in-orientation-of-earth-to-sun-not-carbon-emissions-new-analysis-of-berkeley-earth-data-shows/
I agree that the suicidal economic policies are certainly bad news for humanity.
Regards, John C.
LikeLike
I’m totally bemused by that DS article. If it was orbital forcing that was responsible for the increase in global temperature since 1880, you would expect the complete opposite of what has actually happened, i.e. for summers at high latitudes to get significantly warmer due to increased solar insolation, not the other way round. The author appears to be arguing that because winters in Greenland (when the sun is not around) have got much warmer than other seasons, this is somehow evidence of orbital solar forcing! Eh? A far more likely explanation is changes in North Atlantic ocean heat transport plus general circulation changes.
LikeLike
Jaime, it seems as if the author ought to have done a little reading before plotting one set of numbers against another set of numbers and making a triumphant disproof of global warming.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sales of New Petrol Motorcycles Set to Be Banned From 2040″
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/12/sales-of-new-petrol-motorcycles-set-to-be-banned-from-2040/
The move would affect all vehicles classed as “L3” and upwards, including scooters and light, medium and higher-powered motorcycles. There are around 1.3 million motorcycles registered in the U.K.
It is expected to be revealed soon, according to industry sources, although it is not clear whether Downing Street has signed off on the policy yet.
The change would also be accompanied by a plan to ban sales of new petrol-fuelled mopeds earlier, from 2030.
That reflects the already-high numbers of electric mopeds being sold. They accounted for roughly half of U.K. moped registrations last year.
By contrast, the market for electric motorcycles is far less developed and represented less than 2% of total sales in 2023.
They also suffer from some of the same “range anxiety” issues as electric cars, with many e-motorcycles currently limited to ranges of less than 100 miles while not all are compatible by default with electric car charging stations. …
In a consultation published two years ago, the Department for Transport asked companies to comment on either a 2030 or 2035 ban for motorcycles and mopeds. A ban in 2035 would have been in line with the phasing out of sales of new petrol cars.
But while cars and taxis accounted for 57% of the U.K.’s transport-related carbon emissions in 2021, motorcycles and mopeds represented just 0.5%.
The Motorcycle Industry Association had previously warned that phasing out petrol-fuelled motorcycles by 2035 was “unrealistic” and could cause some manufacturers to “review their place in the U.K. market”.
LikeLike
A week ago I sent my MP, Bim Afolami, an email drawing his attention to the report that Ed Miliband is planning a ‘net zero crackdown on corporates’, legally obliging ‘directors to … show that their business’s policies were ‘compliant with the UN Paris climate treaty signed in 2015‘. I noted that the principle would also apply to banks and financial institutions, potentially meaning that businesses could only get loans if they were ‘climate compliant’.
I said that this policy is quite mad and would destroy the British economy. I suggested that, if publicised, it might persuade doubters to support his party after all.
Here’s his reply, received this morning:
Unimpressive.
LikeLike
“UK considers delaying some carbon capture projects as costs soar. The UK is considering delaying support for some carbon capture projects until after this year as costs rise for the fledgling technology”
Sub-headline from the Energy Voice website – the article is paywalled.
Reality bites again?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ben Pile has another good article in this morning’s Daily Sceptic: ‘Many of the ‘Climate Experts’ Surveyed by the Guardian in Recent Propaganda Blitz Turn Out to be Emotionally-Unstable Hysterics’ (https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/13/many-of-the-climate-experts-surveyed-by-the-guardian-in-recent-propaganda-blitz-turn-out-to-be-emotionally-unstable-hysterics/)
His opening and concluding paragraphs:
Worth reading in full.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin,
Bim’s lacklustre response reinforces my conviction that the Tories exist now only in order to ensure the smooth hand over of the baton to Labour. They don’t care that Labour will finish the job of destroying the country which Labour started and which they enthusiastically continued with 14 years in office.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Guardian and others are promoting such emotionally incontinent drivel from ‘scientists’ because they are acutely aware that the actual science and data does not support their chosen policy agenda. But why worry? The science was supposedly ‘settled’ years ago and the only bone of contention between ‘deniers’ and those promoting Net Zero in response to imminent Thermageddon was how we arrive at the target deemed absolutely necessary by calm contemplation of the ‘physics’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve just replied to Bim:
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is the government response to the petition to repeal the CCA 2008. It is clear what we are up against. They are still banging on about the ‘necessity’ of Net Zero, as ‘proven’ by IPCC settled science – the “mainstream scientific consensus”.
You see now what we are up against. The Science. It is an immovable object. It dictates everything. It ‘proves’ that the cost of doing nothing far outweighs the cost of Net Zero. Until that immovable object meets an irresistible force, nothing is going to happen that will deter this government and successive governments from pushing ahead with Net Zero which has been made a legal requirement and is a gift to the climate lawfare brigade. Democratic dissent is not allowed. And the language is truly Orwellian: “. . . . . . will require the public to make green choices.” Well if it’s a requirement, then it’s not a choice is it! Disgusting from this current administration and Labour will be even worse. Mandatory impoverishment and immiseration beckons. Civil war does too.
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is the government response to the petition to repeal the CCA 2008. It is clear what we are up against. They are still banging on about the ‘necessity’ of Net Zero, as ‘proven’ by IPCC settled science – the “mainstream scientific consensus”.
Dear Jaime Jessop,
The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 and Net Zero targets”.
Government responded:
You see now what we are up against. The Science. It is an immovable object. It dictates everything. It ‘proves’ that the cost of doing nothing far outweighs the cost of Net Zero. Until that immovable object meets an irresistible force, nothing is going to happen that will deter this government and successive governments from pushing ahead with Net Zero which has been made a legal requirement and is a gift to the climate lawfare brigade. Democratic dissent is not allowed. And the language is truly Orwellian: “. . . . . . will require the public to make green choices.” Well if it’s a requirement, then it’s not a choice is it! Disgusting from this current administration and Labour will be even worse. Mandatory impoverishment and immiseration beckons. Civil war does too.
Comment posted with hyperlinks removed. First went into moderation!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I give up! I removed the hyperlinks and the comment I made has still gone into moderation!
LikeLike
Jaime,
I agree that we will get nowhere whilst the narrative of ‘settled science’ is unchallengeable. I do hope you are wrong about civil war. There will be strife, but I expect it to be very disorganised.
LikeLiked by 2 people
How stupid do they think we are, I wonder? Quite stupid, it would seem. It’s quite obvious that it is possible to disprove the necessity of Net Zero without any knowledge of climate change. All you need to do is to observe what is happening around the world.
Our gov’t may not have heard of freeloading, but it’s very clear that any transition costs endured by UK taxpayers benefit non-UK taxpayers to a far larger degree (inasmuch as there are such benefits). This is because the UK population is only 1% of the whole and endure all the costs, while the benefits are spread out evenly.
Other countries are not on the same path as us. Their actions seem to indicate to a rational observer that they understand the benefits of fossil fuels to far outweigh the costs of fossil fuels.
The plan only makes sense if all other countries join us. Otherwise, we take the pain, and not the alleged gain.
That is why I suggested a better approach for us would be to promise to match global average per capita CO2 emissions, rather than promise zero CO2 emissions. It is achievable and the level of pain depends on others joining us.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The costs of global inaction to tackle climate change significantly outweigh the costs of action. Indeed, delaying action will only put future generations at risk.
If you take this stuff seriously then global inaction may well be a problem. But as the Impact Assessment to the CCA makes clear, in the absence of global action, the UK will be incurring costs and seeing no benefits. Given that most of the nations on the planet are cheerfully increasing their emissions, why then does the government persist with an agenda that ignores its own logic and which ignores the contents of the Impact Assessment relating to the statute in whose name the agenda is pursued?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Francis Menton has another good post today. Titled ‘The Green Energy Wall Cannot Arrive Quickly Enough’, it’s about how practical obstacles will end the quest for net zero long before the target date is reached. A short, easy and entertaining read: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-5-13-the-green-energy-wall-cant-arrive-quickly-enough.
How close is the UK to Menton’s ‘Wall’?
LikeLike
Jaime and John R: you won’t be surprised to hear that I believe the Government’s response to the petition demonstrates why it’s best to ignore the ‘Science’ altogether. As I believe I’ve demonstrated, it’s possible to completely destroy the case for Net Zero without mentioning the ‘Science’ – and, by so doing, avoiding endless painful argument.
LikeLike
Robin,
And you won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree. You have demonstrated that it is possible to completely destroy the case for Net Zero, but apparently that still doesn’t mean anything to those who feel compelled by the science.
We are never going to agree with each other on this point, so I think the best thing to do is to leave each other to fight the good fight as we see fit.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is Andrea Jenkyns the Andrew Bridgen of Net Zero? Will her debate on the true costs of Net Zero be as well attended as Bridgen’s debate on vaccine harms? Will even one single Labour MP turn up? We shall see.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But of course according to the government, the true cost of not unilaterally reducing our current global net GHG contributions of 0.8% to zero by 2050 will be complete global ‘climate breakdown’ and incalculable financial loss. But seeing as the major polluters are not reducing their emissions, the unchallengeable Science says that complete climate breakdown will happen regardless of our unilateral self-sacrifice. But that’s not how sacrifices work, says the government. If we slaughter our herds, kill our babies and industrialise our green fields and seas, the Weather Gods will smile upon us and honour us for faithfully Following the Science. Welcome to the post normal Unenlightenment.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jaime: have you any idea how much Andrea Jenkyns knows about the cost of Net Zero? She talks about what it’s costing the ‘consumer’ now, and certainly that’s important, but the critically important issue is how much the project is likely to cost the British economy. If she hasn’t already done so, she should read this paper by Michael Kelly: https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Kelly-Net-Zero-Progress-Report.pdf. Or better still speak directly to Professor Kelly.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Further to the above, I’ve just emailed Professor Kelly suggesting that, if he’s not already in touch, he should contact Ms Jenkyns.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin,
I’ve no idea what Jenkyns knows about the future projected costs of Net Zero. I would hope (expect) that she would be suitably well informed on that crucial issue if she is organising a debate on the ‘true costs of Net Zero’, but you can’t take anything for granted about our MPs nowadays.
LikeLike
Jaime: I agree that you can’t take anything for granted about our MPs nowadays. That’s why I’ve emailed Kelly.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve just received this email from Michael Kelly:
LikeLiked by 3 people
Robin, great that you got Michael Kelly involved.
OTOH, Brendan O’Neill adds support to the concern that Zero Carbon zealots are impelled by a narrative that renders them impervious to rational arguments with facts and analyses. His Telegraph article is:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/12/queen-greta-has-exposed-the-truth-about-the-green-movement/
My synopsis:
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ron – thanks for the link to your post. liked the cartoon at the end –
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cross-posting a comment by “Cobden” on NALOPKT:
“Dutch adapting to reality…
‘In depth: The new right-wing Dutch coalition agreement’ [16th. May]:
https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/05/in-depth-the-new-right-wing-dutch-coalition-agreement/
After months of difficult negotiations in the Netherlands, a right-wing coalition Government has been formed.
[…]
There will also be what was termed a “big impulse” for housing construction, infrastructure and the energy transition, with the building of four nuclear power plants.
[…]
The country will shift toward climate adaptation rather than fighting climate change.
[…]
Not only will the Government try to soften the effects of energy bills, requirements on energy labels for houses and mandatory heat pumps will also be eliminated. An announced heightened carbon tax will be pulled back and subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles will end in 2025.”
Hopefully the start of a trend……
LikeLiked by 3 people
Interesting:
“Union urges Labour not to ban new North Sea licences without plan for jobs”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/17/union-urges-labour-not-to-ban-new-north-sea-licences-without-plan-for-job
Unite is launching a billboard campaign in six Scottish constituencies aimed at persuading Keir Starmer to commit more investment to north-east Scotland, the centre of the offshore oil and gas industry.
Unless Labour can show it will protect jobs and communities, it should be willing to continue issuing new licences for oil and gas exploration, Unite argues. The slogan for the union’s campaign is “No Ban Without A Plan”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yesterday the Tony Blair Foundation published a long paper titled ‘Reimagining the UK’s Net-Zero Strategy’: https://www.institute.global/insights/climate-and-energy/reimagining-the-uks-net-zero-strategy#executive-summary.
Much of it is a confusing word salad that, although it sounds as if it’s proposing new and radical solutions for the delivery of net zero, is far from clear about precisely what Britain should do. Thus, although it says we should maintain the overall net zero target, it also notes that we should abandon targets that are unrealistic and threatening to make people poorer. At least I think that’s what it’s saying.
Nonetheless it makes some sensible observations. For example, having stated that now is the time for ‘a clear-eyed assessment of what is really required to tackle climate change’, it defines this as a major challenge ‘that a UK net-zero strategy must consider’:
True – but typically it doesn’t go on to grapple with it.
In an article in the Spectator, Ross Clark quotes two other sensible passages:
Again true – but it’s far from clear what we’re supposed to do about it.
Yet again true – but I cannot find anything in the paper that indicates a solution to this serious dilemma. However, as Clark notes, it challenges Ed Miliband’s absurd argument, that switching to renewables will promote energy security.
There’s a lot more here that Miliband isn’t going to like. But will he – and Labour – take note? I doubt it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Further to the above, Fraser Nelson has an article in the Telegraph this morning about how Starmer’s strategy announcement yesterday amounted in effect to … almost nothing at all. Nelson goes on to say this:
Perhaps I was wrong and Labour are taking note. If so, I’m beginning to think this may herald the end of Net Zero – or at least its radical watering down. I certainly hope so.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Further to the above, I should have noted that the heading of Ross Clark’s article is Tony Blair’s Foundation takes Ed Miliband to task over Net Zero
Good – the more pressure on Miliband the better.
The article can be found here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/tony-blair-paper-warns-against-net-zero-dogma/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh dear – yesterday I suggested that Miliband might be in trouble because of the Tony Blair Foundation’s recent paper. But now I learn that he faces a far more serious challenge from the Unite union:
Oil and Gas | No ban without a plan
https://www.unitetheunion.org/campaigns/oil-and-gas-no-ban-without-a-plan
There’s a lot of good sense here. For example:
And Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says this:
Hmm … it looks as though Labour’s mad Net Zero policy is in more trouble. Good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin,
Tough talk from Unite. But, the law demands that North Sea gas and oil workers must be sacrificed upon the altar of Net Zero. If this government, or the next, does not do it, then the climate lawfare brigade will take them to court, arguing (almost certainly successfully) that continuing to grant licences for North Sea oil and gas extraction is incompatible with achieving Net Zero targets. Will Starmer’s Labour administration ignore a high court ruling in favour of the unions? It seems unlikely.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jaime,
Everything you say is true. It’s going to be interesting to see how Starmer’s government gets on without union support.
LikeLike
Perhaps so Jaime, but Labour will find it hard to ignore their paymasters and this is a very tough and uncompromising statement from Unite. More of the same – note that GMB general secretary Gary Smith said last year that decarbonising the grid by 2030 is impractical – and Labour might even be forced to consider a CCA revision. Whatever the outcome, it will be satisfactory to see Miliband squirm.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sir Brian Langstaff has reported and it seems, unsurprisingly to readers here, that Britain has its own very filthy Augean stables to clean out. Perhaps we could start by following the example of Heracles and divert the rivers of subsidies going to the mis-named renewables industry.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
An excellent idea John. But who’s going to get this started?
LikeLike
Good question, Robin! The answer may (or may not) come from one of two directions:-
The recent and definitive Cass report seems (from my perspective) to have largely calmed the trans debate. This shows that the existing system can be helped back towards a calmer democratic normality given the correct stimulus, provided that the stimulus has sufficient clout. In like manner, but of much wider significance, is yesterday’s Langstaff report which has essentially shown that much of the Establishment has been implicated in an insidious but blatant cover-up for years. The fall-out from this has surely barely begun, especially as the number of scandals having the same Establishment fingerprint is already much too long – and may still be growing (e.g. cheap renewable energy and the totality of the Covid response, to quote just two possibilities of interest in this parish). The Establishment will probably move swiftly, but not too swiftly, in an attempt to calm the waters and resume business as usual. However, it is possible that the enormity of the scandal is such that heads must roll in sufficient numbers to effect a complete changing of the guard. For myself, I fear that too much of the Establishment is implicated; and so I am not hopeful that this much-needed renewal will happen in this manner.
The second direction follows from the failure of the first and is, IIRC, as Jaime indicated, namely protest marches etc., rather in the manner of the Poll Tax protests thereby ramming it home to the political classes and their supporters that the current dispensation is well past its sell-by date.
In haste. Regards, John C.
LikeLike
The problem I suggest John is that the trans debate and climate change policy are quite different. The former had become a major public issue with prominent people getting seriously concerned. In contrast, climate policy is in no sense a major public issue. R
LikeLike
Yes, Robin, I fear you are largely correct: the uni-party’s ‘Show the Love’ campaign, which reinforced the CCA, put climate policy beyond political debate … at least for now. So is Cliscep’s role, at least in part …
Firstly, to change your final sentence to, “Climate policy is in no sense a major public issue YET” and, secondly, to take up that challenge by making energy central to the UK’s coming general election’s debate? No mean feat.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“‘We’re up for this fight’: Labour plans to make climate key focus of election
Leadership now sees environment as core issue for voters and strong dividing line against the Tories”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/24/labour-plans-to-put-climate-front-and-centre-general-election-campaign
Well, the Tories haven’t been interested in taking our advice, yet it’s possible (if the Guardian headline is correct) that the idiotic Labour Party leadership might yet dig the Tories out of the hole they are currently languishing in. Mind you, the Tories will need to be aggressive and point out why Labour’s energy policy is so dangerously flawed, and that will involve the Tories admitting that they messed up energy policy badly themselves. Interesting times.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mark,
I don’t actually think the Tories want to win this election, but it appears that the Labour party are even more stupid than we gave them credit for. The decision to put climate change at the forefront of their campaign will expose them to growing ridicule and anger from the public who, contrary to the polls, have become very sceptical of the whole subject, with many now seeing it as one enormous grift. JSO and XR have further hardened public opinion against climate alarmism. The Tories might not actually have to expose their own hypocrisy on the issue too much once Miliband starts opening his mouth!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh dear! I probably won’t be commenting much before July 5th as I have to mentally restrain myself from commenting upon politically biased comments written by others. I constantly have to remind myself that there are very important matters to be resolved other than climate insanities and energy stupidities. For example I await hearing promises regarding the clearing up of our befouled rivers and coasts. An absolute disgrace.
LikeLike
Jaime, a few comments:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Alan, just two points:-
LikeLike
Alan,
I absolutely agree that there are many other important issues. However, energy policy/net zero is central. It is costing so much money, and causing so much damage to the economy, that it means there is no money available to spend on other issues. That is why net zero is so damaging and dangerous, why I believe it is the most important single issue in the election, and why I oppose it so vehemently.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s a mess in so many ways. Here Boris (the arch net zero traitor post Brexit, for me) is seen as teamed with Frost – one of the most persuasive sceptics in Tory ranks. And Sunak is blocking Frost.
https://x.com/christopherhope/status/1793948079743267214
LikeLike
My decision not to comment on politically contentious matters is a personal one. In the past matters have become heated and I do not wish this to happen again. I value what happens in Cliscep.
I am not downgrading the great importance of matters energetique but there are other concerns which should, in my opinion, not be ignored. In the past such concerns have been.
LikeLiked by 1 person
GB News article: Boris Johnson ally David Frost banned from standing as Tory candidate in General Election. I assume that’s accurate but who knows?
LikeLike
Updated 25 minutes ago by the BBC, another loss for team sceptic in the Commons but inspiring in other ways:
I’m really grateful that the last GWPF meeting I was able to attend, in December 2022, was chaired by Mackinlay, alongside Peter Lilley and Jerome Booth. All the very best to him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As you were. Maybe
LikeLike
Well if Starmer’s not pushing the ‘we’re going to cut energy bills by setting up GB (homegrown, renewable) Energy’ fairytale, he’s trying to convince people that he grew up working class and faced ‘hard times’:
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1793581014456918218
“It was a struggle . . . . they cut the phone off.”
What? You mean his family had a home phone? In my day, we had to make and receive phone calls using the public call box on The Green! Us Londoner working classes didn’t have the luxury of a home phone!
LikeLike
Robin,
Mad Marxist Ed has already called it:
Of course, he might be overruled, but judging from Labour’s campaign tweets so far, the focus is very firmly on the pie-in-the-sky promise of cutting energy bills by setting up GB (renewable, homegrown) Energy, paid for by a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies. The British public can see right through this scam claim that renewables are cheaper than gas, coal and oil. It would actually play better for the Cons if they just shut up and let Ed get on with it, because the public are acutely aware that the Cons have also perpetrated the ‘cheap renewables’ scam too, whilst in office, and they will only get vicious blowback if they try to challenge Labour by saying that they are bringing down energy bills for customers.
https://x.com/Ed_Miliband/status/1789961767075856751
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘The British public can see right through this scam claim that renewables are cheaper than gas, coal and oil.’
Jamie: I really wish that were true, but I don’t think it is. The great majority of people, I suggest, note and are irritated by all the climate change scares they keep hearing but assume there must surely be some truth in it. And that’s why they tell pollsters that they’d like to see it fixed – provided, as I said above, that they don’t have to pay for it. I’d like to see the Tories, having apologised for having taken all this so seriously, go strongly into an attack on Ed’s position, exposing the total absurdity of what he’s saying. But unfortunately I don’t see this happening as far too many Tories agree with Ed – probably believing he’s exposing a Tory vulnerability.
It’s a grim prospect. But we know that there are a lot of intelligent, well-informed and articulate people out who very much agree with the broad Cliscep position. The challenge therefore is to help efforts to get the message firmly into the public domain and onto the political agenda.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yep – what Robin said.
LikeLike
Miliband is doing exactly as predicted. David Turver responds:
https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/1794112834424438804
Ben Pile responds:
https://x.com/clim8resistance/status/1794114716152799409
More to the point, the public response (on X at least) is overwhelmingly critical and it is pretty obvious that most people responding are well aware that renewables are pushing up energy prices. Keep going Ed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jaime – “The British public can see right through this scam claim that renewables are cheaper than gas”
No – the majority take the BBC/ITV news as the only reference on this topic & the “renewables are cheaper than gas” is rolled out by both/all news channels.
that’s were Jit’s graph on another post might help.
LikeLike
The Guardian article linked to by Mark uses the word “divisive” as a pejorative which is common these days in political discourse:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/24/labour-plans-to-put-climate-front-and-centre-general-election-campaign
“Sunak appears to have invited such a response, using his speech to attack “environmental dogma” he implied was to blame for high energy prices, a remark green campaigners condemned as “divisive” and “dangerous rhetoric”, as well as a potential vote loser.“
So if you agree with Sunak that high energy prices are the result of environmental dogma you are labelled as divisive. If you think otherwise you are an ok person and will be welcomed at the Guardian. This means that any questioning of net zero is divisive and presumably should not be allowed. Apparently objecting to net zero is also waging a “culture war”;
“The reference to environmental dogma in Sunak’s speech was a big mistake. If Labour win this election, it will be very clear that the Tories have misread public opinion on the climate and lost the culture war they are trying to wage.“
If they are resorting to these flimsy labels rather than engaging in serious debate they are likely on the losing side.
LikeLiked by 2 people
There’s an interesting article by Brendan O’Neill in the Daily Mail this morning. He says that a war is brewing within the Tory party for the soul of the party – a war that could be ‘even more bitter – more savage – than the fight’ between Sunak and Starmer. It’s the war, he says, ‘for the soul of the Conservatives between the new ‘wets’ and the more traditionalist wing of the party’. He goes on the compare some of the policies advocated by the ‘self-consciously trendy Tories’ and the policies that he hopes the more traditional Tories would support. He says that the latter should be putting forward ‘a singular vision, one that will connect with the silent majority’. He lists a few of the components that he thinks must be part of this vision, concluding with this:
We will indeed. I’m not hopeful.
LikeLike
Robin,
A useful exercise might be to identify the huge numbers of Tory MPs who are standing down at the election, and see where they stand on net zero. We are certainly losing some sceptics (Craig Mackinlay, John Redwood). Of course, that’s only part of the picture, since a substantial number who aren’t voluntarily resigning may well lose their seats anyway. Then we would need to know something about those candidates who are not yet MPs but who are standing in safe seats and who may scrape in to Parliament.
The rump Tory party that emerges after the election will almost certainly look very different. The key question, as Brendan O’Neill has identified, is how those differences will manifest themselves. I am not, never have been, and never will be a Conservative, but I do think the party needs to stand for something if it is to be relevant. I have no idea what the current crew represents, other than half-baked incompetence.
LikeLike
Mark:
I don’t for a moment think the Conservatives have a hope of winning the GE nor, I’m afraid, do I see them taking O’Neill’s advice and ending up with a rump of traditional Tories – quite the opposite I suspect. But what I would hope to see is a cohort of Tories, pre-election, making the anti Net Zero case. And, following O’Neill’s advice, making it their top item. That way we could at last see Net Zero as a major item on the political agenda.
LikeLike
The Tories are determined to press the self-destruct button and leave us with an even worse Labour government. This is not an election which is being fought tooth and nail between two opposing main parties. It’s time to bury that illusion forever. All that remains to be seen is what kind of working majority the incoming Starmer government will have and how the public will respond to Labour’s electioneering lies and propaganda and in particular the Great British Energy Swindle.
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1794103562588278933
LikeLike
Robin: I hope you are right. That anti-NZ cohort may be motivated partly by the threat from Reform which has repealing the CCA as a core policy
LikeLike
Please don’t contract Net Zero to NZ. Every time I see this I wonder what the political party concerned has against New Zealand.
I agree that the Conservatives will be battered from the left, but also from the right, not to mention from the Lib Dem’s, so why not dismiss them as a viable possibility for government? The only possible bright spot, viz climate and energy policies, might be to wish for a hung Parliament and some sensible compromises forced upon Labour. Can we dream?
LikeLike
Robin, Alan, I have no doubt the Tories will be devastated at the election. The only interesting part of the election is whether the huge numbers of disenchanted voters will go to the polls, and if so who they will vote for. In recent local and by-elections, considerably fewer people have voted than have gone to the polling station. That should send a huge message to politicians, but unfortunately they aren’t listening. Prepare for lots of politicians after the election telling us they need to work harder to get their message across.
LikeLike
So far as I am concerned, the most interesting part of the election campaign – I don’t suppose it’s likely to make much difference to the result – is whether or not Net Zero becomes a major item on the political agenda. I suppose I might even be quite pleased to see it become a relatively minor item on that agenda. The reason I say this is that most people – ‘ordinary’ people – are, understandably, not particularly concerned about the policy because they know so little about it. But get the issues (how it will drastically affect them) in front of them and they’re not going to forget it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This morning David Turver has published a devastating article roundly criticising the Climate Change Committee and calling for it to be disbanded: https://davidturver.substack.com/p/disband-the-climate-change-committee
An extract:
It’s a scathing attack and no doubt the CCC’s many critics will agree with Turver’s criticisms and recommendation. But the prospects of the latter’s implementation are poor as only a handful of those critics are Members of Parliament who would be willing to speak up. It’s worth noting however that, as Turver observes, the Committee is currently vulnerable as its without both a permanent chair and permanent chief executive.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Ed MilibandJust Stop Oil ‘alienates people’ from its cause, says Ed Miliband
Labour shadow energy security secretary agrees climate crisis is emergency but ‘massively questions’ activist group’s tactics”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/25/just-stop-oil-alienates-people-from-its-cause-says-ed-miliband
It is a massive worry that this man may soon be in charge of UK energy policy. A couple of quick examples:
If Labour wins, he said the UK would “be the first major country in the world to commit to having all of our power coming from zero-carbon energy services by 2030, which is a massive commitment and requires massive change”.
He forgot to mention massive cost and infeasibility. Does he really not understand the difference between power and electricity? In the highly unlikely event that the grid is decarbonised by 2030, upwards of the UK’s energy (power) will still be provided by fossil fuels – gas cooking and central heating; diesel and petrol transport etc.
He added that “the most optimistic and the most important thing that has happened over the past 15 years” is that for “90% of the world, now new renewables are cheaper than new fossil fuels”, so “the costs of not acting are now higher than the cost of acting”.
There’s just one problem with that statement. It isn’t true. If he doesn’t believe it, then he shouldn’t be saying it, and if he does believe it, then IMO he is unfit to be in charge of UK energy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mark:
Peter Hitchens this morning on why it’s wrong to say this part … “By saying this, from your privileged platform, you help Starmer. Stop it.”
That’s to a Tory journalist but for me the same goes all round, including a anti-Net Zero journalist like Mr Hodgson!
Peter Hitchens on why not to vote for Reform covers this …
“A vote is not some mystical ceremony in which you purify yourself. It is a practical act with a material effect.”
The idea of a “huge message” from the numbers not voting is for me part of the “mystical ceremony” error. Let’s be practical and vote against what we don’t want:
I’ve been amazed by how many gender critical feminists, who have always voted Labour, are saying they’ll vote Tory. Because of what they don’t want. Clear thinking, not mysticism.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the Miliband link Mark. Here’s another example of his total unsuitability for the role he’s almost certain to fill quite soon:
This arrogant assumption that Britain has ever exercised or could in future exercise ‘international leadership’ on climate change is fatuous: https://cliscep.com/2023/03/23/leadership/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Richard,
Peter Hitchens isn’t my cup of tea. I take his point that the only way to prevent a Labour government is to vote Tory, but I suspect many people find themselves in my position of wanting neither a Labour nor a Tory government. I may well be “wasting” my vote, but I will be voting SDP. I simply can’t bring myself to vote either Labour or Conservative (not can I vote Lib Dem or Green; I would have to hold my nose to vote Reform, their only redeeming feature being their hostility to Net Zero).
LikeLike
“Scrap net zero targets to win election, Liz Truss urges Sunak
Conservatives must change course to ‘deliver policies the public actually want’, former prime minister tells The Telegraph”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/25/scrap-net-zero-targets-win-election-liz-truss/
Asked whether it was time for the Government to abolish all of its net zero targets, she replied: “I believe so, yes.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark: Hitchens may not be your cup of tea, but surely on this occasion he’s right? If, as I believe you do, you think the implementation of Net Zero would be an utter disaster for Britain, then the only action that makes sense is vote against it – and, as the only parties with a realistic chance of achieving power are Labour and the Tories, that means voting for the latter. Yes, I know that the Tories, as well as being hopelessly incompetent, officially say they support Net Zero – but they’ll clearly trying to edge away from it and, in any case, their incompetence means they couldn’t implement it anyway. And maybe, as Hitchens suggests, they could even win. But they certainly won’t if people like you (and me) don’t vote for them.
LikeLike
Robin, but are the Tories really trying to edge away from Net Zero? It seems to me that they are trying to have it both ways: every so often Mr Sunak bemoans the costs of NZ to ordinary people in a way that hints to us that “he gets it”. However, simultaneously, the CCA is doing its utmost to undermine the UK economy while hosing down the “renewables” industry with huge subsidies. So my question is this: where is the evidence that the Tories are moving away from Net Zero.
Personally I feel as though Tory policy is a sort of striptease with all the emphasis on the teasing and none on the stripping away of Net Zero. Regards, in frustration, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, some Tories (Truss, perhaps) get it, but as John C says, Sunak doesn’t really intend to abandon Net Zero. I almost think the least worst option is for Labour to demonstrate once and for all that Net Zero is both ridiculously expensive and unachievable, by trying and spectacularly failing to decarbonise the Grid by 2030. Perhaps such spectacular and obvious failure will finally kill it off?
I hear what you say, but I can’t vote Tory for so many reasons.
LikeLike
John: Tory edging away from Net Zero is I think evidenced by Sunak’s delaying the ban on ICE cars and weakening targets for the phasing out of gas boilers. Further evidence is afforded by Claire Coutinho’s recent comments that the Government didn’t want to ‘heap costs on families’ in its pursuit of Net Zero: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68868296. She’s no fool: she must know that the implementation of Net Zero is bound to ‘heap costs’ on ordinary people.
And here’s a comment she made in her recent Chatham House speech:
https://www.clairecoutinho.com/news/chatham-house-speech-energy-security
I accept all this doesn’t (yet) amount to very much – that’s why I only refer to ‘edging away’ – and I suspect the Tories don’t really know what they want regarding Net Zero. But at least it’s utterly different from Miliband’s recent mad pronouncements.
LikeLiked by 1 person
People should not have policies imposed on them which are not in their interests. That will never be this government’s approach.
There’s just one problem with that statement – it isn’t true. It has been the approach of the Tories at least since they queued up to vote for the Climate Change Act. Nothing that has happened since then suggests otherwise. Imposing damaging policies, only to delay them slightly, can’t be prayed in aid.
LikeLike
Coutinho’s comment is certainly untrue of past Tory actions. But I don’t think any senior Tory has said anything like it before – and certainly not re climate policy. So there obviously has been a change of heart – albeit not yet tested. My point is simple: Labour’s policy – if Miliband’s mad pronouncements are a reflection of that policy – are appallingly dangerous whereas Coutinho’s reflect at least an indication of reality. Therefore, if it’s necessary to choose between the two (as Hitchens says it is), the choice is obvious.
LikeLike
Robin, forgive me, but I see two sides of the same coin, and shades of grey. From Claire Coutinho’s speech:
“…But Britain’s history, our expertise in energy, our geology, our infrastructure, our skills, mean that we have a competitive advantage.
We must not throw that away.
That’s why we are doubling down on our offshore wind sector, which will provide us with cheap, clean, homegrown energy, replacing oil and gas as our North Sea reserves naturally decline.
Our world-renowned Contracts for Difference auctions, introduced in 2014, weave together the Conservative principles of competition and enterprise to drive down costs for consumers.
We have the first, second, third, fourth and fifth largest offshore wind farms anywhere in the world and we will go further thanks to our new auction round with the largest ever pot for renewables….
…So let me tackle this head-on: Britain is the poster child for net zero.
We’ve halved our greenhouse gas emissions since 1990.
Out of the top 20 largest economies in the world, nobody has done more than us.
To give you an idea, the EU has cut emissions by only 30%, the US not at all, and China’s emissions are up by 300%…
…That’s why we are putting investment first. Since 2010 we have seen £300bn invested into green technology, creating jobs up and down the country.
And in my past 6 months, I’ve delivered £30 billion of business investment into our energy revolution thanks to the negotiations and policy we’ve put in place….
…And I fully believe that this country can be a global leader in CCUS. We have the right geology, the right infrastructure, and the right skills to be a world leader in carbon capture.
That’s why the government is making a massive £20 billion commitment to this game-changing technology and why I am focusing on how to create a competitive CCUS market by 2035….
…Our Green Industry Growth Accelerator now totals over £1 billion and will grow the supply chains for all the clean technologies we need for the future.
We are doing everything we can to help our future technologies develop, with multi-billion pound programmes, and capital allowances for clean investments in carbon capture, hydrogen, fusion energy and offshore wind…
And that is why we are working hard to grasp the opportunities of renewables for consumers. With a smarter energy system, we can shave up to 11% off peak demand. It sounds technical, but that is a £50 billion opportunity for billpayers over the next 25 years.
An electric car driver on the right tariff could charge overnight when electricity is cheapest, meaning that while they used to pay 17p per mile using petrol, they now pay 2p per mile. The same would apply to household energy bills.
Our work on smart energy tariffs based on the cheapest price of energy in the day could save households up to £900 a year.
There is huge potential here for us to cut the cost of living. We should give families the choice to use cheaper energy when it suits them. We will use our conservative principles of competition, choice and efficiency, to give families the best chance of cheaper energy.
And this will cut costs for businesses too.”
If she really believes in this, then I can’t vote Tory. I seriously think that Labour will crash net zero in the next five years by rushing madly ahead to try to achieve unachievable targets, whereas the Tories might keep the madness limping along for much longer.
It’s matterless to me – it’s Hobson’s choice, and my vote will be cast elsewhere. We need to break the spiral of doom whereby we get fed up of one set of incompetent politicians and vote for the other set of other incompetent politicians we voted out last time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin and Mark, thank you for these comments. And thank you Richard for introducing the Hitchen’s argument which in reality is of long standing since, for about a century, it has been a two horse race (with any other runners usually being well down the field). And each time we have run this race, usually about every 4 years, we have had the same old nags line up at the starting line, occasionally some of the nags are, admittedly, wearing somewhat different colours from their earlier outings.
This time there seem to be two new factors. Firstly, one of the regular winners appears to have been badly hobbled in training and the stable’s vets have been unable to agree upon an effective treatment; so this former blue ribbon champion is likely to be slow to finish. If it is very slow then perhaps the knacker’s yard beckons. To avoid that fate it desperately needs something of a miracle cure.
The second factor is the arrival of a youngish new contender which has ambitions, based on its performance in cross-country and point-to-point competitions, to jostle for the lead in the final furlong. I am no judge of horseflesh and so am unable to judge the quality of the horse, but I have a feel for the quality of its jockey and of its trainer.
At the moment the loudspeakers say we are about 5 furlongs away from the finishing line. But in the poor visibility out on the course I cannot quite make out the colours, nor the numbers, of the leading horses. Is it a two horse race? Or is there a third horse in the pack? If there is a third horse in the race then the Hitchen’s calculus seems less of a racing certainty; all bets are off. Who is better sighted than me?
Regards, John C.
LikeLike
Mark, you seem to have forgotten what I’m hoping will happen: that Net Zero becomes a major (or even a minor) item on the political agenda so that the public can at last begin to get a feel for the dangerous reality of the policy. I believe that one way of achieving that might be, for example, to emphasis some of the realities that Coutinho expressed in her Chatham House speech. A lot of what she said was of course a reasonably accurate overview of the UK’s climate change history, leaving open an implied question: isn’t that sufficient for us to wait for others to catch up? And, when she talks of ‘replacing oil and gas as our North Sea reserves naturally decline’, that could hardly be more different from Labour’s position. And ‘we are working hard to grasp the opportunities of renewables for consumers’ doesn’t sound too certain of success. But consider these comments:
I believe that you and I can agree with much of that. Yes, a lot of what she said was nonsense, but it’s impossible to see how that nonsense, tempered by the above comments, could possibly get very far in implementing Net Zero. No, it suggests to me that the Tory leadership is having serious doubts, although it’s not yet prepared to say so because it’s not sure how the inevitable storm of outraged criticism that would ensue if they did so would affect public attitudes.
I suggest we should be doing anything we can to encourage that storm, and get people thinking and talking.
BTW (and I apologise for possibly being an annoying pedant) Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one thing is actually offered. That’s not what’s happening here where we have a free choice of numerous offerings but where all except two are effectively pointless
LikeLiked by 1 person
A lovely analogy John. And I don’t suppose my eyesight is any better than yours. But I doubt if that third horse is up there with the pack, although it could have been had its brilliant potential jockey not declined the opportunity. No, I strongly suspect it’s the usual two horse race – albeit with one having had serious problems – and that Hitchens’ comments are therefore still applicable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, you finish by writing, “… we have a free choice of numerous offerings but where all except two are effectively pointless”. I can believe that to be the case in many constituencies but I would still ask the question, “Which two?”
Currently, in most constituencies, the answer is probably Labour and Tory. However, it is not obvious to me that the same answer is true in all English and Welsh constituencies – I have not seen the latest survey data down to constituency level i.e. seat by seat. Have you?
If the key objective is to defeat the very dangerous Labour offering (although Mark has argued today at 1.39pm for getting their bad policies put into action so as to collapse the house of cards soonest) then there may be constituencies (e.g. strongly Brexit) where the Tories are not the key opposition to Labour.
Thus I currently suspect that the Hichens doctrine can be improved upon for at optimal result. The Hitchens calculus is, however, surely good as a broad brush policy. Regards, John C.
LikeLike
Yes John I agree that there are a few English or Welsh constituencies where it might be possible to vote for someone other than a Labour or Tory candidate with a real chance of that candidate being elected – an example might be George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain. I was referring however – I accept not very clearly – to a party’s potential for forming the government.
LikeLike
Don’t know the players as you folks do. I wonder your take on article by Dan Hitchens (not Peter) at the Compact:
https://www.compactmag.com/article/keir-starmers-choice/
It ends this way:
“Here is a prediction for the Labour government which, barring any major upset, will begin in six weeks: As hopes of material radicalism fade, Labour will devote itself more and more to the destructive social radicalism with which Starmer has already begun to associate himself. Assisted suicide for the vulnerable, crackdowns on “conversion therapy,” childcare expansion to “help parents back into the workplace” as fast as possible, constitutional tinkering (perhaps in the form of citizens’ assemblies or an “Ethics Commission”), racialized equality legislation.
In a way, Starmer symbolizes the steady transformation of the left, its collective loss of nerve in the face of economic injustice. Back in his student days, he wanted to combine traditional left politics with the new identitarian movements. “Is it possible,” he asked Tony Benn in an interview for Socialist Alternatives, “to create this emancipatory alliance as it could be called without, on the one hand, subordinating the demands of the new social movements to the class struggle and without, on the other hand, undermining the importance of the class struggle?” Starmer’s subsequent career is the depressing answer to that question.”
Left unsaid was any thought about zero carbon policy.
LikeLike
Robin, thank you for the clarification. I, too, was thinking about the formation of the next government and had been influenced by Matthew Goodwin’s, “Values, Voice and Virtue”, especially the Conclusion and the Afterword which had led me to ponder on the likelihood of a hung parliament, given the current weaknesses of the two traditional major parties i.e. their elitist, detached attitudes towards many of the people they rule over (or hope to rule over).
Goodwin ends [page 183] with this comment, “Whether the new elite can … find their way to representing the values of the wider majority, recognizing the voice of many people who feel excluded and respecting all groups in society will ultimately determine whether the counter-revolution against them will now gradually fade away or, alternatively, soon escalate to all new heights.” That too is my concern for the country, a concern that neither Labour nor Tory parties (with their current policies) seem willing to acknowledge let alone address. Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Having promised myself on another thread that I would not vote for anyone who does not repudiate Net Zero (here for posterity), I do find myself tantalised by Mark’s idea of allowing Labour to crash the car sooner, thereby softening the impact. But this is not the ideal outcome for the country, which seems out of reach. In fact, the ideal outcome is pure fantasy politics. The best that could be hoped for is a very close result, wherein Labour’s plan for National Suicide comes under immediate pressure by a reinvigorated Opposition with a more populist agenda.
However, I foresee a wipeout, and (at least) five years of destruction at a faster rate than the previous 15. I do not foresee the Tory rump as having a more sceptical position. Most Tory MPs are not Conservatives. Some observers may hope that the destruction will be biased towards these types, but I see rather a random scythe swinging through.
If a candidate is a Net Zero sceptic, they might get my vote, even if their party’s manifesto is gung ho. [The previous Tory candidate here was in just such a position, but was forced to resign after some injudicious remarks on the trans issue.]
I propose a thread of manifesto analysis, when they are released.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jit,
I was also planning a piece analysing manifesto pledges in due course, but as I am rather busy with other matters just now, and am also temporarily without a laptop, I am both pleased and relieved to leave it to you. 😊
LikeLike
Robin, thank you for trying to see through the very patchy fog out on the course. My view was slightly different from yours. I thought I had seen the blue ribbon horse veer briefly into the path of the young buck, causing the latter to peck badly and in turn dislodging its rider. Now we have one loose horse and one loose, slightly dazed and unseated rider running hither and thither on the track. Those two may yet cause some havoc among the traditional contenders, especially as the unseated rider has long promised (contrary to National Hunt rules?) to sow as much confusion as possible in a foggy field.
So I am not yet quite convinced that it is, as usual, a two horse race. I’m hoping to see more clearly once the field comes out of the final bend and into the final 2 furlongs. My binoculars are trained on that part of the course – but the fog is still too thick for me to see clearly, which makes me wonder why the stewards allowed the race to start in such poor conditions. Regards, John C.
LikeLike
A couple of interesting pieces in the Times just now, behind a paywall unfortunately. Can anyone access them?
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/apocalyptic-outlook-uk-energy-sector-political-turmoil-qtd0r0tlk
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/offshore-wind-needs-bigger-subsidies-warns-government-adviser-p3d823xjv
The words in the links speak for themselves, however. Why don’t our politicians understand that they are taking the UK down a very dangerous road?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark, it’s possible to access those articles by using this tool: https://12ft.io
LikeLike
Mark, here’s the first of those Times articles:
Why don’t our politicians see the danger of allowing this to happen? It would seem to be that either they’re in thrall to the net zero obsession or they’re scared they might provoke the wrath of the blob.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Robin . Very useful. I think we are OK with copyright if we see the opening paragraphs. First:
The UK’s energy sector is facing an “apocalyptic scenario” with firms considering quitting the country because of high taxes and the threat of banning new oil and gas drilling, the industry has warned.
One company has stalled a project worth £400 million that would have created hundreds of jobs in the northeast of Scotland, warning that it was just one of many on hold.
Industry confidence in UK activities has plunged to a record low, according to the 39th Energy Transition report from Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce.
It highlighted the UK government’s windfall tax, which Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has extended by a year in a move that angered his Conservative colleagues.
Second:
State subsidies for new offshore wind projects may not be generous enough to drive the projects needed to achieve targets for boosting clean energy, a leading climate adviser to the government has warned.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chairwoman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Climate Change Committee, the independent non-departmental public body, said Britain had been “slow” and “not very clever” in its handling of offshore wind auctions.
The government has raised the so-called strike price, a guaranteed price that generators are paid for the power they produce, to £73 per megawatt-hour for this year’s auction and has set the budget at a record £800 million in the hope of attracting new offshore wind schemes. Last year’s round failed to secure any bids to build
NB the figure of £73 quoted in that final paragraph is over £100 in 2024 prices.
LikeLike
Mark, thank you for those alarming but unsurprising links. Was it the Manhattan Contrarian who suggested that oil & gas companies should simply call their bluff and quit those jurisdictions which are unwelcoming? The UK seems to be pushing oil & gas out of the door simply by its current attitude towards them – let alone possibly electing a government that is actively hostile to them, presumably in the naïve belief that super subsidies for “renewables” will magically provide cheap, secure and abundant energy. We live in strange but very dangerous times. Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Just scrutinised the Conservative pitch for my local area which came through my letterbox. Brief and confusing mention of Net Zero “Protecting your back pocket while we transition to Net Zero giving families and businesses more time to adjust while we invest in more renewable and nuclear power.”
“More time to adjust”: does this mean that the Conservatives of South Norfolk (not really noted for its nuclear or renewables) will be more tardy with their support for Net Zero?
More local promises (road infrastructure and supporting a new GP surgery) would seem to be already in the hands of local government.
Can’t wait to see promises and stance of the other parties to these and other matters.
LikeLike
I’ve been trying to determine what I hope will be the optimum outcome of the election. In doing so, I’ve made two assumptions: (1) that, despite Hitchens’ valuable reminder, the Conservatives will lose quite badly and Labour will form our next government; and (2) that Miliband will then be hoping to get started on his mad policy.
However, I believe this may not be so easy as he may well have had to face various problems that came to the fore as we got nearer to July. For example:
So here’s my optimum outcome: that there turn out to be so many obstacles blocking his way that Miliband is obliged to severely water down his mad plans. Or even to defer them altogether with the not impossible result that, as the Labour government gets caught up a multitude of dreadful difficulties, they never get revived.
LikeLiked by 2 people
But even the threat of a Labour government with Mad Miliband in control of energy is enough to severely dent confidence in investment in the oil and gas sector. The Cons themselves started the rot with their windfall tax in 2022 – now extended. If a Labour government are installed with a large majority, that alone will be enough to drive companies out of the North Sea for good and they won’t return.
Such a policy will moreover do nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, because it will mean that Britain just has to import the oil and gas which it would have produced from its own reserves in the North Sea. Mad Miliband’s hallucinatory Clean Energy public sector giant, GB Energy, is not going to suddenly replace the fossil fuels which we rely upon for 75% of our primary energy in this country:
Utterly insane.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/25/election-end-north-sea-labour-policies-doom-oil-industry/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin, I can well believe in your frightening scenario by which Miliband gets totally bogged down in the Net Zero slough of despond. However, as Jaime has pointed out, oil & gas developers are already leaving the UK. Thus I cannot see a way out of the foolish and dangerous situation into which Miliband is marching us, all the while with his eyes wide shut and with his fingers in his ears.
Even if Miliband were to have a Damascene conversion, where could he turn for help and who/what could help him (and the rest of us)? These off-ramps continue to be lacking from my vision. Please can you help because energy is the lifeblood of every modern economy? Without it the future becomes very, very grim, very quickly and as (IIRC) Jaime has indicated elsewhere, we the people may become mutinous having been sold such a pack of “renewables” lies for so many years. Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jaime – see my item 2 (above): I don’t think Starmer and Reeves are totally insane. As well as being under increasing pressure from their paymasters the unions (my item 1), they’ll be aware of the threat and understand (albeit dimly) the enormous damage the exit of the oil and gas industry would cause. And, as they’re obviously determined to everything they can to make a success of government, I think may well decide (reluctantly) to soften their position. Miliband won’t like it – but I suspect they won’t regard this as too serious a problem.
I think you’ll tell me that you believe they are insane and that they’ll back mad Ed and their green supporters to the hilt. You may be right. I hope not – but we’ll see soon enough.
LikeLiked by 1 person
All I can say is Robin, Starmer is enthusiastically promoting the virtues of GB Energy in his electioneering campaigning right now, and shows no sign of backing away from the madness of Net Zero and the cancellation of the UK oil and gas industry. It’s either insanity or it’s pure malice. I tend to the latter but admit it may be the former. Either way, his stance is exceptionally dangerous and if he does not reverse pronto, that will be it: the death of the British oil and gas industry.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can almost hear the BBC/Guardian headline – “Ed says there will be pain for the UK, but gain for the planet”
LikeLike
Jaime, to be clear: my intention was not to make a prediction but to state what I hope will be the optimum outcome of the election. Yes I know Starmer is showing no sign of backing away from Net Zero, but there are sufficient straws in the air for me to hope that he might change his position.
LikeLike
On Radio 4’s “Today” a few minutes ago, Labour’s spokesman was talking about both growing the UK economy while also further embracing Net Zero. To me, these objectives seem to be mutually exclusive because the further we head over the EROEI cliff, the more energy is required to produce a given product. So I am still looking for those off-ramps that Labour (and indeed any party) can use to get back to a sensible energy policy – but I don’t yet see them. Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
To be clear. A passive policy of crashing Net Zero into any of the many hurdles in its path will not be enough to derail it. The CCA is enshrined in law and so any underperforming government will be subject to lawfare to ensure that the Net Zero pain to the economy and to the population is real. Only an active policy to dilute, delay or (ideally) destroy the CCA can have any prospect of bringing relief to the country. Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Essentially you’re right John. Thus, when, in my ‘optimum outcome’ post, I referred to a Labour government, faced with so many hurdles, being ‘forced to take notice and quite probably review the policy … or even to defer [it] altogether‘, I was certainly including the possibility of their being obliged, as you put it, to ‘dilute, delay or (ideally) destroy the CCA’.
There’s another intriguing possibility. Suppose the government was faced with an insurmountable obstacle – say a hopeless lack of skilled electrical engineers or a total failure in the supply of a key rare earth element for wind turbines (neither impossible and the former quite likely) – and the greens nonetheless took them to court. What happens then? Even the Supreme Court cannot make the impossible possible.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Another straw in the wind?
Net Zero Watch says SNP U-turn would leave Labour looking like ‘eco-extremists’: https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/zlozfreiv6hdawwtjh68nssvi3tf53.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin, that is the sort of off-ramp that is needed i.e. Labour (or any party) having to make a choice between economic growth and Net Zero pieties. They (and the country) cannot have it both ways. Ideally this general election campaign should hold all parties feet to the fire on this fundamental issue, although with our feeble media I’m not holding my breath. So will the desire for power overcome the uni-party approach of the ‘Show The Love’ campaign? Personally, I hope so! Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s an extract from an email I just sent to my MP:
LikeLiked by 3 people
I received a letter from my Labour candidate today. Of her 5 stated missions, the top one was:
“Action to lower your bills with investment in clean energy”
Which shows that reality need not impinge on such offers. Even if wind etc were cheaper on net than proper forms of generation, there is still the obvious point that for the renewables there is a large up-front cost, which has to be paid for by borrowing at interest rates that are no longer rock bottom.
As you point out Robin, Labour’s promises are easy targets. But the incumbents have played too similar a tune to for any criticism of them to ring true. A counsel of despair perhaps, but a populist revolution will have to wait until after the defeat, I think. And even then it may not come to pass.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jit, I think there’s a difference. First, the Tories have backed away a little from their climate commitments whereas Labour, criticising them for so doing, has doubled down on theirs. Second, Labour’s ‘clean electricity’ by 2030 really is absurd whereas the Tories’ softened (see Coutinho’s recent speech) 2035 target is slightly more realistic. Third, I don’t think the public have so far taken much notice of all this – but they are very much aware of the cost of living ‘crisis’ and are, in my opinion, very likely to take note of a Tory campaign drawing their attention to the harsh reality that Labour’s plans will be massively expensive and are most likely to impact their already damaged standard of living. Also such a campaign is likely to undermine Starmer’s and Reeves’ so far successful determination not to do or say anything that might threaten Labour’s coming triumph.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bim has just replied to my email:
I despair.
LikeLike
Robin,
It sounds as though he hasn’t bothered reading your correspondence, and you have been treated to a standard reply. Quite frankly, with behaviour like that, the Tories deserve to lose. They won’t even allow themselves to be helped!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not so sure Mark. What he writes is all true and pertinent. He and other MPs, including those who were Ministers have lost their official positions (except for emergencies) and their first concerns are getting re-elected. Robin’s letter, although potentially could contain suggestions that might aid this aim, are probably not focussed enough to be helpful at this stage. Also they require co-operation with senior figures in the party, people with their own problems of getting re-elected or who are being roped in support of others. Net Zero is almost certainly not considered the most significant issue in this election so will not be given any priority by any party.
LikeLike
My note to Bim specifically acknowledged that Net Zero is not a significant issue in the election. But the economy/cost-of-living most certainly is and that’s why I suggested to him that highlighting the enormous and unknown costs of Miliband’s 2030 plans could benefit his party. I fail to see how my suggestion could be better focussed.
LikeLike
Oh I agree Robin, but no degree of your focussing could divert your former MP’s attention away from what must be his own focus – namely getting his and his party re-election. Also note, I was disagreeing with what Mark had written, not with what was in your post or letter.
If Labour does form the next government, then your advice might become even more relevant to the opposition and to anyone in the U.K. that would be affected by the rushed Net Zero madness.
LikeLike
I suspect net zero and the costs it imposes on society will finally become a controversial party political issue during the next Parliament. With (as I assume) a Labour government with a large majority determined to accelerate the decarbonisation of the Grid, aided and abetted by supportive nationalist, Green and Lib Dem MPs, a demoralised and rump Tory party will need an issue to revitalise it.
Once they have been out of office for a year or two, the Tories can start to distance themselves from the net zero madness, and as the cost, environmental damage, practical impossibility and generally hugely damaging aspects of Labour’s energy policy become increasingly apparent, it is an issue that will gain traction with the electorate.
Well, I can dream…
LikeLike
I don’t understand your post Alan. The purpose of my email to Bim was to suggest a weapon that could support his current focus on re-election.
Once the Tories are defeated – probably heavily if Bim’s refusal to listen is typical – my deliberately narrow point about how the cost of Miliband’s 2030 plans would impact the electorate would be irrelevant.
LikeLike
I fear Mark that your ‘demoralised and rump Tory party’ will be stuffed with left-leaning MPs who are reluctant to do more than nibble at the edges of worst aspects of Net Zero implementation. That’s why I think the next few weeks are so important – a short period when the realities could be communicated to an electorate with a rare opportunity to exert some influence. And that’s why I thought it might be worthwhile to have a go at Bim.
BTW I haven’t completely given up. Here’s my reply to his email this morning:
I don’t expect this will get anywhere. But there’s nothing to lose.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Andrew Bridgen posted on X today that he is no longer an MP because Parliament has been dissolved, which shocked me at first, but it’s true I guess. None of them are MPs until such time as they are re-elected (or not) at the forthcoming GE. For a period of 5 weeks we effectively have no democratically elected representatives. They are all just regular citizens, like us. We’ve got rid of the whole stinking lot of them! If we could now just extend the dissolution period for a year or two, Net Zero will collapse, the war mongers won’t be able to send any more money to prosecute phoney conflicts, etc. etc. and then we can think of electing genuine representatives to Parliament who will actually work on our behalves and in the best interests of the country. I know, silly idea, but I like the thought that there are no MPs left in Parliament – at least for 5 blissful weeks.
LikeLike
The astonishing double standards of the SNP, and a headline I never thought I would see. Perhaps there is still hope for an outbreak of common sense in the election, with regard to energy policy:
“Starmer vows green energy push, but SNP says plans will destroy jobs”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69078711
Energy is clear dividing line between the parties
The cost-of-living crisis was driven mainly by soaring energy bills in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Labour Party say that demonstrates the need to wean ourselves off volatile fossil fuels by investing in renewable energy paid for in part by further hiking taxes on oil companies – which the Lib Dems also back.
Labour’s plan to make Scotland the headquarters of Great British Energy is telling, as it’s the centre of the UK’s offshore wind and also its oil and gas industry.
The SNP says Labour’s plan to veto any new oil and gas licences would cost 100,000 Scottish jobs and deter future investment. The Conservatives put the figure at 200,000 jobs across the UK.
Rishi Sunak – who last summer granted a hundred new North Sea licences — has said it’s foolish to ignore energy resources in our own waters while we are still importing half our energy from abroad.
Labour’s green investment plans have been scaled back from their initial ambitions to spend £28bn a year – thanks they say to the worsening public finances they will inherit if they are elected. But energy remains one of the clearest policy dividing lines between the parties.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That rolling news item on the BBC is now a separate article:
“Labour pledges clean power push ‘within months'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9xxpypr8d0o
The BBC Verify time is slow out of the block again, I wonder why? This statement (from Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy) quoted without comment deserves to be analysed, since so far as I can see it is the opposite of the truth:
Labour is right that the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels added thousands of pounds to bills…
LikeLike
I am not a Richard Tice fan, and I shall not be voting Reform in the forthcoming election. However, this purported fact-check by Simon Evans (of Carbon Brief, they of the “9 times cheaper than gas claim”) is interesting:
“Factcheck: no, Richard Tice, volcanoes are not to blame for climate change
Reform UK’s leader has made some eye-opening statements on the climate, and his party’s manifesto is packed with even more falsehoods”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/31/factcheck-no-richard-tice-volcanoes-are-not-to-blame-for-climate-change
Perhaps we need to check the fact-checkers The opening letter, conflating dubious claims about weather with the need for consensus on climate/energy policy, doesn’t get off to the best of starts:
Despite 40C record heat in 2022 and the wettest 18 months on record this winter, this general election seems set to test the UK’s political consensus on climate change like never before.
Implicitly Mr Evans seems to find this common-sense statement of truth and logic to be unacceptable and misleading:
Last Friday, in an interview with BBC Breakfast, the Reform leader, Richard Tice, offered a summary, saying that the UK should scrap its net zero target since, he claimed, it would “make zero difference to climate change”. Instead, he argued we should simply adapt to global heating.
Then Mr Evans says this:
Contrary to Tice’s first falsehood, reaching net zero emissions is the only way to stop climate change, according to the IPCC.
The point, Mr Evans, is that the IPCC calls for global action to reduce emissions to net zero. I challenge you to find a single statement from the IPCC to the effect that the UK can stop climate change by achieving net zero if the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit. That, after all, is the point Richard Tice was making.
It goes on and on. I’ll leave you to decide what you make of it, if you are interested.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I believe we should welcome Labour’s plan for (according to the BBC this morning) a ‘clean power push within months’ as it should mean that we’ll have a practical demonstration of the absurdity and danger of their intentions before they do too much harm.
Ross Clark has an excellent article in the Spectator this morning, setting out many of the problems with Labour’s plans in admirable detail:
Labour’s energy plan doesn’t add up https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labours-energy-plan-doesnt-add-up/
LikeLiked by 2 people
I cannot bring myself to ‘welcome’ such an eventuality Robin. To me, it’s like saying, let’s hand over the keys to the kingdom to a stark raving lunatic and just watch them trip over themselves trying to unlock all the doors, and then we can take the kingdom back. That might be the only option we are faced with now, with Labour pushing hard Net Zero and the Cons pushing a softer, fluffier, more cuddly and consumer friendly Net Zero, but it’s not something I feel inclined to welcome. I shall continue to rage, rage against the dying of the light (bulbs). Oh, and here’s labour’s new GB Energy logo. Note the screwfit lighbulb . . . . as in, we truly are.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jaime, I understand and sympathise with your comment – indeed I suppose I agree with it. But my reason for saying I welcome this eventuality is simple. We know (or believe we know) that Labour’s energy plans, as well as foolish and dangerous, are in reality unachievable. The sooner they find this out from practical experience the better. And it seems they’re about to do that, thereby saving the country unnecessary pain. That’s what I welcome.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My concern Robin is that Net Zero comes with an immense amount of inertia. So even if Labour get started very early on their promised Clean Energy cheaper bills Green Utopia, it will take a few years for reality to finally dawn, by which time huge and irreversible damage will have been done to the economy, our energy and transport infrastructure and last but not least, the environment. With the destruction of the Conservative ‘opposition’, there will be nobody to hold them to account in Parliament and the protestations from the public and the unions are going to have to reach fever pitch very quickly in order for Mad Miliband and WEF Starmer to even consider backing down on their insane plans.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This Robin. I think disaster must come before the fall of the Net Zero dream.
https://x.com/aDissentient/status/1796460666095817150
LikeLike
I’m with Jaime and Andrew Montford that it’s foolish to wish for disaster.
(I also put your other comments into spam on the other thread, JJ.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have to admit I made my decision yesterday:
For me the distance between the two parties in this area, which matters incredibly to me, is unbridgeable. Helen Joyce expressed well why in The Critic in Sorry is the hardest word two days ago.
Net Zero? Not as clear cut, though I side with Robin, Hitchens et al on that too.
LikeLike
Jaime, you say: ‘it will take a few years for reality to finally dawn’.
I suggest a very few. Labour’s plan is for 100% ‘clean’ electricity by 2030 means that within five years:
** Hundreds, probably thousands, of wind turbines must be commissioned. Even if possible – it isn’t (think HS2) – it would be massively expensive.
** A stable, reliable non-fossil fuel grid by must be established, able to cope with a vast increase in high voltage grid capacity and re-engineered local distribution. Even if possible – it isn’t (think HS2) – it would massively be expensive.
** The challenge of finding the immense amounts of space and of increasingly unavailable and expensive raw materials, such as so-called ‘rare earths’, must be overcome.
** A fully costed engineering plan for the provision of comprehensive grid-scale back-up when there’s little or no wind or sun must be both devised (there’s only vague talk at present) and fully implemented.
And, arguably the biggest obstacle of all: the UK doesn’t have nearly enough skilled technical managers, electrical and other engineers, electricians, welders, mechanics and other tradespeople to do the multitude of tasks essential to achieve the 2030 target – a problem exacerbated by Labour’s high priority plans for massively increased house building.
I suspect that all this means that unavoidable reality could dawn within little more than 12 months and before ‘huge and irreversible damage’ is done to the economy. As Ayn Rand is supposed to have said: ‘we can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.’ Well, Labour’s been evading realty for a long time and very soon the consequences will be upon them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin, yes, those are all very good reasons for Net Zero to fail. However, the UK needs an active policy to abandon the Net Zero treadmill before ever more damage is done. Those off-ramp opportunities are currently as rare as hens’ teeth. Which party is going to seek out those opportunities and thus destroy Net Zero?
I have the image of the Duracell bunny having fallen over and yet its Net Zero legs continue to wave ineffectually. The bunny is going nowhere. However, its competitors long ago gave up the ghost. But that’s battery storage for you! Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well John you know as well as I that there’s no realistic prospect of any politician likely to achieve power adopting an active policy of abandoning Net Zero. But, if the points I’ve set out are accurate, Net Zero could well prove to be almost entirely undoable. In which case an active abandoning policy would not be needed.
LikeLike
Robin, I apologize if I have misunderstood the thrust of your argument. However, …
I entirely agree that NetZero may be undoable. But does not the country need some politician or party to have a minimum of courage to dilute, delay or destroy the CCA? Otherwise the misery/damage will continue while activists use lawfare to hold all uni-party governments’ feet to the fire? Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, John – I agree such a politician or party is very desirable. But I don’t envisage such person or party attaining power for a long time. Therefore, as I also agree that the obstacles to Net Zero I’ve listed cannot affect the terms of the CCA, it’s true that activists would not be prevented from going to law and making peoples’ lives a misery – although I suspect they might be less likely to do so when a Labour administration that ‘means well’ is in power. However as I said recently, even the Supreme Court cannot make the impossible possible.
But in any case, my main point stands: if Net Zero is not doable, it cannot inflict ‘huge and irreversible damage’ on the economy.
LikeLike
From Net Zero Watch today:
Labour’s energy claims are ‘divorced from reality’
The Labour Party is saying that its energy policies – a rapid decarbonisation of the electricity system – will save consumers money. The claim is apparently based on an October 2023 report by Ember,[1] which says that a decarbonised electricity system can reduce bills by £300 per household.
However, the report also says[2] that the authors are assuming that windfarms in the future will secure ‘the same price as [Contracts for Difference] auction round 4’. The prices achieved in Round 4 (£37.50) are around half the price (£73/MWh) currently on offer to offshore windfarms in Round 6 [3]. And industry insiders are suggesting that even the latter figure may be inadequate.[4]
In other words, Labour’s claimed savings rely on assuming that wind power costs half of what it actually does.
A second problem Labour’s putative savings figure is that Ember’s report compares bills in their hypothetical decarbonised electricity system against bills in the third quarter of 2023, which were still inflated by the Ukraine war.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
And Mr Montford continued by calling for a new reality-based debate on Net Zero.
Notes for editors
1. https://ember-climate.org/app/uploads/2023/10/Report_-Cutting-the-bills_-UK-households-profit-from-clean-power.pdf
2. Page 20.
3. All values are in 2012 prices, as is standard practice when discussing CfDs. In current prices, AR4 is worth £47/MWh, and AR6 is offering around £102/MWh.
4. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/offshore-wind-needs-bigger-subsidies-warns-government-adviser-p3d823xjv
LikeLike
Thanks Mark. Anyone who wants to read the referenced Ember report (I don’t especially recommend it) should note that NZW’s footnote 2 should refer to page 19, not to page 20.
LikeLike
Fear not. BBC Verify has got it all covered:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmjjy17284vo
LikeLike
Hello Robin, I would like, if I may, to interrogate your main point further, namely that “if Net Zero is not doable, it cannot inflict ‘huge and irreversible damage’ on the economy”.
Some 20 years of large subsidies to the EROEI-incompetent renewables industry have greatly distorted the energy market (and most other dependent markets) thus rendering the British economy considerably less competitive and less wealthy than it might otherwise have been. Future years of bashing our heads against the unachievable Net Zero wall can only deepen our immiseration. Each policy aimed towards Net Zero will worsen the situation just a little bit, thereby forcing us further and further over the EROEI cliff. I agree that the immiseration cannot be final because each new policy will be incrementally less effective than the previous one.
We seem, as a nation, to have embarked uncritically upon a policy of the modern equivalent of Bastiat’s window breaking concept i.e. break more windows to boost the wealth of our latter-day rent-seeking glaziers (i.e. renewable industry investors) while caring little for those who are having their windows (= jobs / lives) broken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
While I do not wish to argue about whether the damage to the economy is ‘huge’ or simply ‘large’ (or some similar synonym), I hope we can agree that the economic distortion and damage are considerable. However, the word ‘irreversible’ I do find somewhat worrying because, while literally true (in my opinion), it fails to capture the increasing difficulty that we will have climbing back up the EROEI cliff. The further we fall, the harder and higher we have to climb simply to recover our previous situation; and in a competitive and increasingly global market that reclimb will be harder still.
In short, the politicians of the UK have, in effect, embarked upon a “virtue signalling” course which is the reverse of, say, South Korea’s in regard to wealth creation, and all without the informed consent of the electorate. So I cannot see how this will end well until such time as the CCA is diluted, delayed or destroyed. Agreed that there are very few politicians among the current crop who will dare to offer any resistance to the onward march of Net Zero. Thus the lawfare-driven destruction will continue until such time as everybody can see and feel what a disaster it has all been – everybody, that is, apart from the renewables rent-seekers and their allies.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 3 people
John: thank you for a most interesting and thought-provoking post. I’ll respond tomorrow.
LikeLike
Wonder where the “The SNP says Labour’s plan to veto any new oil and gas licences would cost 100,000 Scottish jobs and deter future investment. The Conservatives put the figure at 200,000 jobs across the UK.” came from ?
Maybe comment/link by MikeH at 28 MAY 24 AT 10:46 AM over on the “Where Did All The Green Jobs Go?” post is the source from this link https://www.agcc.co.uk/files/ET39-Report.pdf
LikeLike
“Electricity grids creak as AI demands soar”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ll89dy2mo
There’s a big problem with generative AI, says Sasha Luccioni at Hugging Face, a machine-learning company. Generative AI is an energy hog.
“Every time you query the model, the whole thing gets activated, so it’s wildly inefficient from a computational perspective,” she says….
...A Generative AI system might use around 33 times more energy than machines running task-specific software, according to a recent study, external by Dr Luccioni and colleagues. The work has been peer-reviewed but is yet to be published in a journal.
It’s not your personal computer that uses all this energy, though. Or your smartphone. The computations we increasingly rely on happen in giant data centres that are, for most people, out of sight and out of mind.
“The cloud,” says Dr Luccioni. “You don’t think about these huge boxes of metal that heat up and use so much energy.”
The world’s data centres are using ever more electricity, external. In 2022, they gobbled up 460 terawatt hours of electricity, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects, external this to double in just four years. Data centres could be using a total of 1,000 terawatts hours annually by 2026. “This demand is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan,” says the IEA. Japan has a population of 125 million people….
LikeLike
The Guardian has a variation of that story too:
“The ugly truth behind ChatGPT: AI is guzzling resources at planet-eating rates”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/30/ugly-truth-ai-chatgpt-guzzling-resources-environment
…the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.
This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.…
…Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.
Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects. This will only get worse as households move away from using fossil fuels and rely more on electricity, putting even more pressure on the National Grid. In Bicester, for instance, plans to build 7,000 new homes were paused because the electricity network didn’t have enough capacity.…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Can’t AI work out how to make itself use less electricity? 🤔
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oldbrew, I’m sure your comment is tongue in cheek, but the answer is no: the AIs don’t know anything. This article by Andrew Orlowski at Spiked deploys a term I had not heard before: Habsburg AI. This refers to the way that AI hallucinations are polluting the information on the internet; as new AI trains on an information base with an increasing proportion of hallucinations, “knowledge” becomes increasingly divergent from “reality.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Luccioni’s outfit Hugging Face is uncomfortably close to Face Hugger.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The extraordinary impact on energy consumption of burgeoning AI is covered in compelling detail by Mark P Mills in this interesting article:
The “Energy Transition” Won’t Happen
Foundational innovation in cloud technology and artificial intelligence will require more energy than ever before—shattering any illusion that we will restrict supplies.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-energy-transition-wont-happen
An extract:
LikeLiked by 3 people
From Spiked: ‘The algorithm cannot say ‘I don’t know’ when asked a difficult question, because it doesn’t ‘know’ anything.’ — Hardly the definition of intelligence.
LikeLike
Key point oldbrew. Will demand peak because of this? One known unknown where I sit.
LikeLike
John C – this is my response to your interesting post yesterday afternoon.
UK energy policy has been a muddled mess for over twenty years, essentially because, to a greater or lesser extent, almost all our politicians have felt they had to pay obeisance to ‘green’ dogma. Hence for example, the debate-free passage of the CCA (twice), the refusal to support fracking, the failure to invest in nuclear power and the cross-party determination to do the CCC’s bidding and to implement Net Zero. A recent example was Sunak’s extension of the EV and heat pump mandates which – as Ben Pile noted this morning – was not a U-turn but an attempt to save Net Zero from conflict with reality. And there you have the essence of my position: so far, this muddle and lack of sense has not had to face practical reality. Nor has it seriously harmed most people – yes, we’ve lost much of our industrial strength and yes, energy bills have increased, but the lights have stayed on and people’s lives have not been unduly disturbed.
But that could be about to change. Whereas the Tories have deferred a reckoning until 2035, Labour’s looms in 2030 – which means in practical terms almost immediately. I think one of two things is likely to happen: either they’ll find that, for financial or practical reasons (or both), they have to defer policy implementation – or, probably more likely, they’ll try to push on regardless, incurring massively wasteful expenditure which, because additional borrowing will be impossible, will be loaded onto the bill payer – who now for the first time will also have good reason to fear the likelihood of power blackouts. Either outcome would be an enormous embarrassment to the new government – a government facing an avalanche of other problems with higher priority. The only practical solution will be to quietly defer (in practice cancel) the whole thing. For the first time politicians, hitherto in thrall to vague wishful thinking, will be face-to-face with reality. And reality will win.
Of course the CCA will still be there as will the extensive and wealthy green establishment. No doubt it will make life difficult for the politicians, although – as I said yesterday – I think they may hesitate before attacking a Labour government too strenuously. Nonetheless I accept that these obstacles will not go away and are quite likely to cause real problems. But my main point remains: it’s possible that the back of Net Zero will at last have been broken (something that could not be undone) – it will not be doable and therefore cannot inflict ‘huge and irreversible’ damage on the economy.
Best – Robin
LikeLiked by 2 people
More from the always excellent David Turver:
“Labour’s Great British Energy Suicide Note
Labour’s numbers on energy bills, cost of renewables, jobs and funding do not add up”
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/labours-great-british-energy-suicide-note
It is patently obvious that Labour’s plans are a fantasy. Their numbers on energy bills, the cost of renewables, jobs and sources of funding simply do not add up. If renewables really were cheaper, then private companies would be falling over themselves to install new capacity without Government subsidy.
The fact that subsidies are rising substantially in AR6 proves that Labour’s claims are a simply a big lie.All in all, they amount to a Great British Energy suicide note. More expensive energy will be a disaster for industry and crippling for the poorest in society. Time for Labour to take their Great British Energy plans, and its logo, to a darkened room with a bottle of whisky and a revolver.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You may perhaps have noticed Mark that I’ve posted a couple of comments on that Turver thread. Perhaps someone here might like to join me?
LikeLike
Robin, there are many detailed, thoughtful and intelligent comments there already, so I don’t think I can add anything useful. It’s just a pity that most, if not all, politicians will fail to read it. If they did, they might learn something very useful.
LikeLike
Thus I pointed my X followers to this (including quite a few gender critical folk). Turver is a great asset to us and to this country. Someone else later pointed to his tweet version, responding to Hitchens in begging mode:
I may make some points about this phase of the debate later.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I did not see the Scottish debate, but it sounds as if John Swinney was under quite a bit of fire for not being willing to say that he supported new oil and gas licenses. He wanted a “climate compatibility test.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69082668
LikeLike
Gareth Roberts has an amusing article on the Spectator blog this morning. Entitled ‘Even Nigel Farage will struggle to make this election exciting’ he argues that the election is hopelessly dull and tawdry – describing it as akin to a Buridan’s ass situation (where a hungry ass placed between two piles of hay of equal size starves to death because it cannot decide which to eat). It’s after the election, i.e. when Labour attains power, that he thinks that things will get interesting. For example:
[My emphasis]
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/even-nigel-farage-will-struggle-to-make-this-election-exciting/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Farage certainly has the ability to make it interesting if he only goes on the attack against Starmer and Mad Miliband. He doesn’t even need to focus on the Tories because they have suicided themselves. All he needs to do is expose the Labour lies and propaganda and the touch paper will be lit. The press will go into a frenzy and the Labour leadership will start running around like headless chickens.
LikeLike
Jaime. Are your comments about the election prospects of the various parties predictions or wishes?
LikeLike
Alan,
I don’t think I commented on the election prospects of the various parties, other than noting that the Tories’ prospects are grim, given that they have decided to sign their own suicide note at this election. But if Labour lies and propaganda can be more widely exposed, their predicted huge majority might not be ‘in the bag’. My wish is that the public wake up to the lies and deceptions of ALL politicians and the fact that the majority do NOT work in our best interests. Farage has the ability to open that can of worms ahead of the crucial vote on July 4th. Does he have the inclination or the courage? Who knows.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Farage’s focus is largely on immigration. So far as I can see he’s shown little interest in Net Zero.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If so, then he’s a fraud Robin. Net Zero and energy policy are up there along with immigration as THE vital issues to be addressed at this election – and Labour are pushing energy policy like mad, lying through their teeth as they do so. The goal is wide open.
LikeLike
Jaime, my memory from yesterday is that Farage on camera was totally explicit, albeit briefly, about Net Zero and British families paying too much for their electricity/energy for the last 20 years.
I suspect that immigration (e.g. TV footage of boats in the Channel) is much easier to understand for the electorate than are the many intricate strands of the ruinous Net Zero policies. So I infer that Net Zero will be of lesser importance for Reform’s campaign. However, Farage is a good communicator and so if he keeps the message on Net Zero/energy costs simple then I imagine he will cut through with the voters.
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘If so, then he’s a fraud‘
Not necessarily. He knows the electorate are seriously worried about immigration (far more than Net Zero) so his decision to keep things simple by focusing on that makes some sense. But you may like the Reform energy policy: https://www.reformparty.uk/energy-and-environment
The first of their ‘Critical reforms needed in the first 100 days‘:
LikeLike
And Farage has said that he aims to take votes from both Labour and Tories; he can take votes from Labour by highlighting their preposterous and ruinous energy policies – it is an open goal as you say, Jaime.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Robin: As you probably know, after his stints writing for Dr Who, Gareth Roberts has become best known as a gay man supporting women’s rights in the face of aggressive and abusive transgenderism. (See him in spiked and Helen Dale praising his recently published book Gay Shame.) So his comments about Miliband’s energy madness are another instance of the two areas of interest coming into sync.
LikeLike
Robin, John,
Andrew Montford agrees with you:
However, this is the relevant tweet from Starmer:
You don’t have to be technically-minded to point out the fact that Starmer is lying. We don’t import much or any gas from Russia, we still need gas and closing down North Sea operations in favour of weather dependent renewables is going to REDUCE energy security, not deliver it. That’s not complicated and Farage should be pointing it out, in real time, to potential Reform voters, as well as plugging immigration. By not addressing such an existential and easy to communicate issue, he will be failing voters. Let’s hope he does, very soon.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s a question of tactics Jaime. The objective is to get peoples’ support. If you can do that by focusing on one simple issue that people are concerned about you’re winning. There’s nothing to be gained by adding other issues that complicate your message – especially something like Net Zero that’s not in the forefront of peoples’ minds.
LikeLike
The FT has an interesting article this morning:
World falling short on renewable energy goal for 2030, IEA warns
UN talks kick off as countries fall behind the curve on targets and global warming heads for 2.7C since pre-industrial times
https://www.ft.com/content/5b2770aa-b42d-4fba-8944-30431a365101
I posted this comment on the OxCAN website (a climate related site for Oxford alumni):
Sadly OxCAN subscribes these days to full fat climate change orthodoxy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I would say the cost of living and the cost of energy in particular are issues which are at the forefront of people’s minds in this election Robin. Labour promising to reduce bills by driving away investment in our oil and gas industry whilst simultaneously insanely building more costly and inefficient ‘renewables’, with massive infrastructure projects which are even now negatively impacting more and more people up and down the country SHOULD be challenged, especially by Reform. Also, if Farage focuses almost exclusively on immigration, then he is playing directly into the hands of his left wing opponents who label him as ‘far right’ and ‘racist’. If he wants to broaden the appeal of himself and the party he leads, he should broaden his campaign. He can start by robustly attacking Labour’s flagship GB Energy policy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well Jaime, I believe Farage knows exactly what he’s doing and why. He doesn’t need advice from you or me.
LikeLike
“Why are Green parties polling badly for the European elections?
There is little data to support fears of a ‘greenlash’ – instead voters may have other priorities such as inflation or the Ukraine war”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/04/why-green-parties-polling-badly-european-elections
Voters may deal Green parties a blow that costs them up to one-third of their seats, if polls before this week’s European elections prove correct, in a shift that could lead to a rollback of climate policies with the effects rippling far beyond the continent.
At first glance, the projected slump in support – which follows months of protests from farmers against environmental rules – reads like a backlash against climate policies set by politicians who tried to move too far, too fast.
Of course , the Guardian finds people who don’t think that’s true:
But political scientists are unconvinced by that narrative. There is little data to support fears of a societal “greenlash” from voters unhappy with the costs of the transition, according to the authors of a recent survey of 15,000 voters in France, Germany and Poland.
And yet, and yet….
Some research hints that the environment may be a “luxury goods issue” – one that has a bigger influence on voting decisions in times of plenty. A study in 2017 found voters punish governing parties they associate with environmental policies more severely when they perceive the economy as “weak”, but reward them for a green reputation when it booms…
Germany, where the Greens are in government and also run the climate and economy ministry, is where the biggest losses are likely…
Which suggests to me that the implementation of green policies leads to electors understanding the downside, and that if it’s a choice between financial comfort and “saving the planet” then financial comfort will win every time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mark: Germany is such a different situation to ours, because the Greens have been inside the government in a big way, during a very difficult period. Whereas in the UK the crony capitalist faux-greens have indeed been inside the government but nothing like as obvious. Hence the suggestion that Farage is ‘keeping things simple’ by not talking about Net Zero. In fact, if you think back, Dominic Cummings did exactly the same thing with the successful Vote Leave campaign in 2016, also sidelining Farage and Banks.
I’m delighted if the Reform manifesto shows others what might be on energy (and climate) policy. And I’ll be super-delighted if the UK eventually elects a government that has both the will and legal and administrative expertise to ‘scrap Net Zero and related subsidies’.
LikeLike
“reads like a backlash against climate policies set by politicians who tried to move too far, too fast“
Sums it up for Germany & UK.
LikeLike
Richard,
I think it’s interesting that wherever Greens have foisted their mad policies on nations as part of their price for participating in a coalition government (Germany and Scotland being the obvious examples), there has been a public backlash against them. In Scotland the hapless Yousaf terminated the power-sharing arrangement (admittedly for reasons other than simple the anti-Green backlash) and now the SNP is in a mess over “green” policies. They are retreating from the ban on wood-burning stoves; they have abandoned one stage (that was never practicable) of the march to net zero by 2045; and now they oppose Labour’s policy of issuing no new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea (while bizarrely stating that any new licences must be granted only if they pass a “climate compatibility” test).
If (as seems likely) Labour wins the forthcoming UK general election and plunges ahead with its mad plan to “decarbonise” the Grid by 2030, the costs (financial and practical) will soon become obvious, and then I anticipate that the UK will face a similar anti-Green backlash. Politicians can pretend that renewables are cheap and practical all they like, but when those claims are put to the test, reality will prevail, and the electorate will be angry at having been hoodwinked.
The crony capitalist faux-greens, as you so accurately describe them, will then be exposed for what they are, and voters will also see the emperor’s new clothes in all their fake glory.
If Labour presses ahead with its insane policy, I give it three years at the most before reality dawn’s. The alternative means that common sense has won. I am coming round to Robin’s view that the worst won’t happen. The alternative (that senior Labour politicians, civil servants and sundry advisers and QUANGO heads really are that stupid) is too awful to contemplate.
LikeLiked by 2 people
why all this focus upon Farage and Reform? At best (?) Farage will win his Clacton seat but I can’t see any other successful Reform MP. So a lone voice. Just like the Greens in recent years.
LikeLike
Alan,
I think the focus on Reform is for a few reasons. Firstly, unless the Tories react in a dramatic way to the increased threat posed to them by Reform, then they really could be reduced to a rump Parliamentary party. I think they have demonstrated astonishing degrees of stupidity over the past few years, but I assume that Sunak understands the scale of the threat. As several of us have observed here in recent months, one way to turn the tables on Labour (and potentially to undermine the threat from Reform) is to backtrack on Netflix Zero and to call Labour out over it.
Secondly, under the UK’s first past the post electoral system, it’s possible that a rejuvenated Reform Party might gain millions of votes (I am guessing they will get more votes than the Lib Dems and Greens combined) and yet achieve only a single MP (or possibly no MPs at all). If opposition to Net Zero is an important part of the campaign, then post-election they will make a lot of noise about Labour being able to push ahead with a policy that such a large part of the electorate voted against. While Reform’s intervention at this election will almost certainly work to Labour’s advantage, in the above scenario it could work very much against Labour at the next one. Starmer will have to think long and hard about energy policy rather than risk it all in five years or less.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark, so what is the likelihood that the Tories at this late, late stage would put into reverse a Net Zero policy (and that the voters would believe them or even agree with them)? My guesstimate is near zero. Like Farage’s evaluation, voters are likely to be more concerned with legal and illegal immigration than with Net Zero machinations that for many are below their horizon. Many voters will also support Net Zero.
With regard to your second point, I’m not sure that concern about an election potentially five years hence will have any significance. Nor do I believe that a single MP, however strident, can have much influence. There is also the possibility that Farage will spend much of his future effort upon supporting Trump in the USA.
LikeLike
Mark, you wrote, “The alternative (that senior Labour politicians, civil servants and sundry advisers and QUANGO heads really are that stupid) is too awful to contemplate.”
I think that the word “stupid” is probably incorrect in this context. As I see it, the issue with ALL these groups of people is not their intelligence but the great depth of their commitment to the green or faux-green cause. So, post General Election, having marched the country much deeper into the quagmire of Net Zero, not only will they not know the way back to safety, they will collectively not want to even try seeking safe haven. And that for me is the risk i.e. there is (and will be) no off-ramp policy direction coming from within the ruling elite.
And the current Tories are just another face of the same uni-party approach to energy policy. Of course the Tories (if they exist in any meaningful way after the election) may change direction. But I am struggling to see a way in which the country will avoid being drawn into a future that, to use your words, is “too awful to contemplate.” Damage done cannot quickly and easily be undone (as per the thermal power stations so joyfully blown up by our green-posing politicians). Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Farage’s objectives are I think clear: to achieve a substantial share of the vote on 4 July – approaching or even surpassing the Tory share – to win one or possibly two seats and then, with what’s left of the Tory party in demoralised disarray and as the Labour government makes a total hash of government, to upend UK politics by bringing together traditional conservatives into an entity that will get elected in 2029.
In the debate yesterday evening, Starmer was unambiguous: under Labour we’ll get ‘clean’ electric power by 2030, with lower electricity bills and energy security. That doesn’t change my view. Prior to the election he has to say this to avoid a massive and highly-publicised upset, to keep Miliband and his gang on side and to ensure ‘green’ voters don’t switch to the Green Party. After 4 July none of this really matters and he and Reeves can deal with reality.
[First paragraph substantially amended two hours after initial post]
LikeLike
Alan,
The Tories have certainly boxed themselves into a corner with regard to energy policy, but they could still put clear blue water between them so and Labour in this regard if they were clever and it. Perhaps, however, they are just too stupid (not for nothing are they known as the stupid party).
I have higher hopes with regard to my second point. Labour has been in the wilderness for a long time. Starmer is taking nothing for granted, and while all his focus is on the current election, I should be surprised if he doesn’t have an eye on the next one too.
LikeLike
Robin, I agree with what you say about Farage’s objectives. And I would dearly like to agree with what you say about Starmer and Reeves dealing with reality. My concern is that they both have records which suggest they may well be more interested in the alternative reality that is Net Zero, at least initially (i.e. until Ayn Rand’s ‘consequences of ignoring reality’ make their presence felt).
Anyway, not too long to wait to find out. Fingers and toes crossed. Safety belt fastened. Brace for impact. Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark, you say that the Tories ‘could still put clear blue water between themselves and Labour’ re climate policy but are ‘just too stupid’ to have done so. Well, in yesterday’s debate Sunak tried to do just that. And to anyone who doesn’t understand the issues – i.e. nearly everybody – he may have succeeded. After Starmer had reiterated Labour’s mad policy, Sunak – having noted that it would inevitably impact people’s energy bills – said that the Tory approach to Net Zero would be measured and designed to ensure household bills were unaffected. Nonsense of course. But it may have worked.
LikeLike
John C – I deliberately didn’t say how soon reality will be apparent to Starmer and Reeves, but my reading of the facts indicates that it will be months rather than years. As you say, we’ll soon see.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Robin,
I didn’t watch the debate and won’t be watching the others, but thanks for the precis. It will be interesting to see if Sunak makes more of this over the next four weeks.
LikeLike
“Starmer’s Great British Energy Plans Would be a Disaster”
https://dailysceptic.org/?p=219440
Good stuff again from Ben Pile. He concluded:
Policymakers’ and others’ focus on electricity has therefore been a huge and dangerous distraction. Ultimately, the Net Zero agenda requires the ‘electrification of everything’, including heat and transport. But there exists very little evidence of consumer demand for EVs and heat pumps without massive subsidies. And that is because the technology simply does not exist – and may never exist – to meet policy targets without imposing huge costs on consumers and taxpayers. Merely ‘decarbonising’ the grid does not make EVs and heat pumps viable any more than it protects people from foreign tyrants, international market price volatility or the cold.
The myth of our susceptibility to volatile Russian gas prices persists. But Britain has never been dependent on Moscow for heat. Since the turn of the century, natural gas from Russia has amounted to less than 1% of imports. In spite of Starmer’s offering seemingly being an alternative to the last 14 years of Conservative Government, he manages to epitomise the political Establishment’s total divorce from reality. Promises to protect the country’s homes from despotic Norwegian warlords would be scarcely more plausible than his promises to reduce our bills and protect us from Russia, markets and the elements. Wrap up warm, because it’s going to be an increasingly cold five years, and possibly much longer.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I differ in approach to the issue and also as to the conclusions to be drawn, but it’s difficult to disagree with regard to the unlikelihood of net zero targets being met:
“Study: UK on track to overshoot 2030 offshore wind goal by 18 years”
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4269095/study-uk-track-overshoot-2030-offshore-wind-goal#:~:text=Domestic%20supply%20chain%20weaknesses%20singled,a%20new%20report%20has%20warned.
The UK will not meet its 2030 offshore wind capacity target until 2048 if the current “slow pace” of wind farm manufacturing and installation persists, a new report has warned.
LikeLiked by 1 person
From the FT today:
The next UK government faces tough choices on green energy
This election is a chance to put substance behind the empty rhetoric that too often passes for climate policy
True.
LikeLike
Mark:
Did you mean
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4269095/study-uk-track-overshoot-2030-offshore-wind-goal#:~:text=Domestic%20supply%20chain%20weaknesses%20singled,a%20new%20report%20has%20warned.
or
https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4269095/study-uk-track-overshoot-2030-offshore-wind-goal
??
This is a fairly recent addition to the URL specification:
Sometimes very handy, sometimes very annoying.
I’ll put something on Tech Notes about this before long.
Sorry to interrupt!
LikeLike
Yes, Richard, I did! They difficulties of posting while just using a phone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is an important link at Paul Homewood’s NALOPKT site – the title says it all!
Regards, John C.
LikeLiked by 1 person
John, such an admission either exposes the massive lie of Net Zero or it exposes the catastrophic, insane, irresponsibility of Net Zero. I’ve just challenged my MP – busy criticising Labour’s loony GB Energy policy – on X to explain which, knowing that I will not get a reply.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There’s most interesting interview in The Daily Sceptic this morning with Tom Nelson who produced Climate: The Movie. Headed “The Climate Scare Will Crumble Sooner Than You Expect” (https://dailysceptic.org/2024/06/08/the-climate-scare-will-crumble-sooner-than-you-expect-an-interview-with-climate-the-movie-producer-tom-nelson/) it’s well worth reading.
The conclusion:
LikeLiked by 1 person
New paper on the prospects of Net Zero by Vaclav Smil. Have only read the summary so far. One of the bullet points claims:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Robin, I would like to think Tom Nelson is correct, but I don’t think he is. There’s too much money at stake for the rent-seekers, and while embarrassed politicians and media may reach the point where they would like it to go away and to that end they might stop talking about it, the Lawfare crowd, academics, “green” pressure groups and billionaires aren’t going to go quietly.
LikeLike
Alas, that’s not how it’s going to end. In the UK, it’s going to end with us being totally dependent upon imports of fossil fuels in order to keep our economy running, because the Cons and then Labour drove away investment in exploitation of our own fossil fuels. It’s going to end with us sitting in the dark and the cold recalling that the reason for so doing (almost every week now) is that politicians and scientists assured us that the failed Net Zero project was absolutely essential in order to save the planet from overheating due to deadly emissions of greenhouse gases . . . . . but nobody talks about that anymore.
LikeLike
Thanks Jit. I’ve also seen that Smil paper. I liked this:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark: I agree with you about Tom Nelson. But, regarding your comment that ‘the Lawfare crowd, academics, “green” pressure groups and billionaires aren’t going to go quietly‘, I have my doubts. Although it’s true that Net Zero madness isn’t going to end because they’ve decided to go away, my view is that it will quite soon simply prove to be impossible; and these people will not be able to make the impossible possible. So what do they do then?
LikeLike
Robin,
If I may suggest this delicately, you are too sensible, and you assume that others are as sensible as you, that they will accept reality when it stares them in the face. I don’t think the noisy zealots or the rent-seekers will go quietly. The zealots don’t accept reality and the rent-seekers don’t care about it.
We will win, though – reality means that is inevitable. However, it will be neither quick nor easy.
LikeLike
Mark, it isn’t a question of whether or not they ‘accept’ reality: if what they want to do cannot be done (e.g. because there isn’t any money and/or there aren’t enough skilled people and/or key minerals are unavailable) then it won’t be done. Not because they’re at last being ‘sensible’ but because it’s impossible. OK, this isn’t going to happen immediately, but I think it will happen within months rather than years.
LikeLike
Robin,
I don’t disagree with that, but I don’t believe it will be over quickly, nor do I believe that the true believers and those who benefit financially from net zero will give up on it readily.
It ought already to be obvious that Net Zero in the timescale urged on us by politicians and others is an impossibility, but lots of people believe in it. When it ought to dawn even on them, they won’t accept it. Unless a new PM at some point pushes through the repeal or substantial amendment of the Climate Change Act, the Lawfare will continue unabated.
LikeLike
Mark: let’s assume that, for some reason – perhaps one of the reasons I’ve identified – a key aspect of the CCA could not possibly be observed. I accept that, were this to happen, continued lawfare could be a nuisance. But I don’t see how it would be especially damaging not least because, as I’ve said, it would not be able to make the impossible possible.
LikeLike
Robin, do we not need a government that will ACTIVELY adopt policies that deliver, for example, 50GW of CCGT in short order (as per DESNZ’s recent admission)? This requires acting contrary to the spirit/letter of the CCA. What government is going to do that when its feet are being held to the fire by lawfare and by the crony capitalists who have its ear?
In short, I am still looking for that off-ramp that will avoid the worst of the coming storm. Regards, John C.
LikeLike
Yes John, such a government would be a fine thing. But I’m afraid there’s not the slightest prospect of our getting one. In reality the real prospect is a Labour government that will try its very best to comply with the CCA – perhaps to go even further. So is the ‘coming storm’ now inevitable? I suspect not because I believe it’s likely that they will find – with months – that complying with the CCA is simply impossible. However they won’t breathe a private sigh of relief and regard this as an off-ramp. On the contrary they’ll regard it as a disaster and look around for someone to blame – probably Tories and evil ‘deniers’.
PS: I’ve gone to a third update (not much different from the second) because comments here are approaching saturation.
LikeLiked by 1 person