(May 8, 2010) Washington laid the groundwork for the Gulf oil spill by letting the offshore oil industry dodge its liabilities. Continue reading
(May 6, 2010) I agree that climate change and national greenhouse gas emission reduction targets should be on the table for discussion at the G8 and G20 meetings.
I am appalled that the EU27’s current commitment is to reduce GHGs only 2.7% from 2005 levels by 2020. By comparison, Canada and the US have committed to cut GHGs 17% from 2005 levels by 2020.
The EU negotiators disguise the inadequacy of their 2020 reduction commitment by consistently referring to a 1990 baseline. The problem is that while EU27 GHG emissions crashed between 1990 and 1995, they have grown continuously since then.
The fall in EU27 GHGs between 1990 and 1995 had 3 sources: (1) the fall of the Berlin wall and the related immediate shut-down of very old, inefficient and previously highly subsidized eastern European industry and power plants, (2) the massive financial crisis that hit Sweden, Norway and Denmark in 1990 causing 4% to 8% absolute reductions in the output of those economies and from which those nations have yet to fully recover, (3) mad cow disease immediately following a European hoof and mouth epidemic, which combined to result in a 40% absolute reduction in European livestock production and processing between 1990 and 1997 and from which the sector has yet to rebound.
In 1997 in Kyoto, the EU27 signed on to an aggregate cap on their GHGs that was 14% ABOVE the member states’ aggregate 1995 actual emissions.
Even though Canada has made no effort to comply with our Kyoto commitment (I say with great regret), between 1997 (the year of the Kyoto Protocol) and 2008 Canadian per capita GHG emissions FELL 4.2%.
By comparison, according to their official national submissions to the United Nations, EU27 member states’ per capita GHG trends from 1997 through 2008 include: Spain, +32.8%; Latvia, +27.4%; Cyprus, +23.1%; Estonia, +21.0%; Greenland (a Danish colony), +16.6%; Luxembourg, +16.2%; Lithuania, +13.6%; Ireland, +13.0%; Ukraine, +11.5%; Malta, +9.0%; Austria, + 7.5%; Bulgaria, +8.4%; Italy, +5.9%; Belgium, +4.0%; Netherlands, +3.2%; Portugal, +4.2%; France, +1.5%; Finland, -1.6%, United Kingdom, -2.9%.
It should be noted, further, that 100% of the emission “reductions” claimed by EU member states to date derive from offshoring manufacturing of goods and services EU demand, which has actually increased. When any nation offshores production of the goods it consumes, it shifts the GHGs associated with its national consumption to the nations it now relies on for supplies.
For just one insight into the potential implications of offshoring production for global GHG emissions, check out the following article from the UK Guardian newspaper.
Aldyen Donnelly, May 6, 2010
The State of Virginia has decided to investigate possible wrong doing by Michael Mann of Climategate fame. Michael Mann is best known as the scientist, associated with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who came up with the controversial Hockey Stick Graph that became the icon of the global warming movement.
Virginia’s investigation is the first by a government on this side of the Atlantic into possible wrongdoing related to climate change. Other government investigations are likely, particularly if the Democrats lose control of the House or the Senate in the November elections. To see the State of Virginia’s Civil Investigative Demand, click here.
The unauthorized release of the Climategate emails last year have led to several government investigations in the U.K., as well as some by non-governmental agencies.
In the investigation to be conducted under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, has demanded that the University of Virginia produce documents to determine whether Mann misused taxpayer funds in obtaining climate change research grants. At issue is some $500,000 in research grants involving Mann while he was at the University of Virginia between 1999 and 2005. Mann conducted his Hockey Stick research while at University of Virginia.
Cuccinelli’s investigation directly flowed from the Climategate emails, which raised doubts about the legitimacy of climate change research. If Mann knowingly presented inconsistencies in obtaining government research funds, Cuccinelli explained, Mann would be culpable.
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers. LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, May 05, 2010
We simply have to produce green jobs at any cost. Or at least it appears that way, judging by amount of government money earmarked for “green” jobs. Let’s take a quick look at some of the results in other countries that have implemented green-oriented policies.
First stop, Spain
Next up, Denmark
Last stop, Germany
This story is based on a report from the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Energy Probe is a keen supporter of renewable energy. We believe renewable energy has the ability to diversify our electricity supply, while allowing for more decentralized sources of power for consumers. But we’re not in favour of throwing massive subsides at forms of energy that are not technically or economically feasible.
Read the previous gangrene economy report, "Short Circuiting The Green Credentials Of The Electric Car" here.
(May 05, 2010) A recent article in the Toronto Star, “Time to revisit the dreaded carbon tax” is riddled with some highly inaccurate reporting.
To start, the article says: “Last month, three of the world’s biggest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases—America, Australia and Canada—put their key environmental pledges on hold until further notice…”
This is completely untrue. Neither the US or Canada put their pledge on hold. The US commitment to cut GHGs 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 is in the bag, given regulations that are currently in place combined with normal capital stock turnover rates. I explain this in slide 20 in this presentation.
US “cap and trade” bills are trade protectionist measures that are always laid on top of emission reduction-driving regulations. All of the regulations required to achieve the US target are in place now and incorporate emission trading (slides 9 through 16). All Congress has not yet done is added the trade protection element to the mix.
I anticipate that the US cap and tax bill will become law before the end of 2011.
I am more concerned about Canada, which has not backed off our Copenhagen commitment but has not yet put in place the suite of product standard-type regulations required to ensure we keep that commitment.
Australia is another, very weird story.
Before Rudd became PM, the Aussie federal bureaucracy created a customized Australian GHG inventory with inventory does not comply with any commonly accepted GHG accounting methods. You can review this inventory by going here and clicking on “National Greenhouse Gas Inventory”. If this is the inventory one uses to quantify Rudd’s GHG reduction commitment, Australia has very little work to do to keep its Kyoto commitment. This inventory puts Aussie GHGs at 597 MM TCO2e/year in 2007 and 553 MMTCO2e in 2008, compared to 546 MM TCO2e/year for the 1990 base year.
However, using the official UNFCCC GHG reporting methods, Australia’s 2007 GHGs actually totalled 825.9 MM TCO2e/year, compared to a 453 MM TCO2e/year 1990 baseline.
There never was any way that Australia could keep its Kyoto/Copenhagen commitments using any internationally-recognizable GHG inventory accounting methods. I cannot explain why Rudd and his bureaucrats thought they could pull off this scam of appearing to make a significant commitment but not really doing so by using an unique and illegitimate national GHG accounting approach.
In Copenhagen Rudd learned that no other nation would accept this play. This is the primary reason he was compelled to back down from his pre-election commitment. I understand that Rudd did not comprehend the inventory accounting game the bureaucracy was playing when he made his original commitment or even when his party passed the Kyoto Protocol into domestic law after he was elected. It was only recently that he became aware of the actual situation he was in.
The article also says: “…three of the world’s biggest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases America, Australia and Canada…”
In 2008, Canada ranked 16th in per capita GHG emissions from energy consumption, the US ranked 13th and Australia ranked 12th. I am not sure that most readers would equate ranking 16th to “world’s biggest”. Among the top 50 per capita GHG emitters, only 12 (including Canada and the US) have committed to reduce GHGs between 2008 and 2020. Only 2 of those with commitments regiated higher per capita GHGs from energy use than Canada in 2008.
EU member states have committed to cut aggregate GHGs only 2.7% from 2005 actual levels by 2020, compared to Canada’s commitment to cut GHGs 17% from the same base year.
Among the top 50 per capita emitters, Canada was one of only 8 nations that reduced GHGs/person between 1997 (when the Kyoto Protocol was created) and 2008 (the last year for which full data is reported). The majority of EU member states, including carbon-taxing states, realized increases in per capita GHG emissions between 1997—when they signed the Kyoto Protocol and 2008.
The fact is that the GHG “cap” that the EU member states agreed to in Kyoto in 1997 was 14% ABOVE actual 1995 GHG levels for the member states.
Canadian negotiators unwisely committed to cap Canadian GHGs at 13% below 1995 actual levels, in the fact of Europe’s adoption of a “cap” that allowed EU member states to grow GHGs 14% from a comparable baseline. Many observers unwisely equate European compliance with their Kyoto “cap”—which allowed for aggregate GHG growth—with emission reductions. This is a significant error.
The article implies that a carbon tax, or “putting a price on carbon”, is the most effective and essential measure to achieve emission reductions. I have documented in many previous articles that energy consumption taxes have proved highly inefficient mechanisms for incenting energy demand changes. That is why no EU member state has adopted or increased its reliance on carbon taxes since 1999.
More importantly, financing income tax cuts through energy tax increases shifts tax burden from the rich to the poor, and from the private sector to the public sector. Hospitals, schools and universities do not pay income taxes but do pay energy taxes. The most dramatic and direct impact of the “green shift” in EU nations has been large increases in mandatory health care premiums and payroll taxes, made necessary by the shift of overall tax burden from the private sector to the public sector.
Aldyen Donnelly, May 05, 2010
The Arctic ice set 30 records in April, one for each day. According to satellite data received by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Arctic was more ice bound each day of April than it had been any other corresponding day in April since its sensors began tracking the extent of Arctic Ice in mid 2002. Click here to see this tracking on the Japan Aerospace website, run jointly with the International Arctic Research Center.
While Arctic ice has always varied greatly, expanding and contracting during the course of a year and also from year to year and decade to decade, the expansion of the Arctic ice this decade is significant in one respect: It acts to disprove the models that had predicted that the Arctic ice in this century would not recover as it had in previous centuries.
The expansion of the Arctic ice also acts to support a growing number of reports that Earth could be in for a period of global cooling. In one recent example, on April 14 New Scientist in an article entitled “Quiet Sun Puts Europe on Ice” warned its readers as follows: “BRACE yourself for more winters like the last one, northern Europe. Freezing conditions could become more likely: winter temperatures may even plummet to depths last seen at the end of the 17th century, a time known as the Little Ice Age. That’s the message from a new study that identifies a compelling link between solar activity and winter temperatures in northern Europe.”
New Scientist, a widely respected magazine that until recently had blamed human activity for the global warming, is now advising its readers that climate scientists may have had their blinders on in ignoring a dominant role for the Sun. New research, the article explains, “is helping to overcome a long-standing reticence among climate scientists to tackle the influence of solar cycles on the climate and weather.”
The new study that New Scientist refers to, which appears in Environmental Research Letters, a journal of the Institute of Physics, is entitled “Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity?”
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, May 03, 2010
(Apr. 29, 2010) When Ontario’s new time-of-use electricity pricing starts in Owen Sound in the coming weeks, most residential customers’ hydro bills likely won’t increase. Continue reading
Replacing the current fleet of cars with clean, quiet electric cars will result in pollution-free, “green” commutes to downtown offices and suburban shopping malls…right? A new report from the Dog & Lemon Guide says otherwise.
Electric car enthusiasts need to accept, first and foremost, that the electricity used to power these cars often comes from carbon-emitting sources—like coal and natural gas. There is no such thing as a carbon-free vehicle. Instead, what electric vehicles do is move carbon emissions from nearby roads to distant electricity plants.
“The central premise behind the electric car movement—that electric cars will be powered primarily from ‘green’ sources—is essentially wishful thinking,” the authors write. “Electric cars do not stop environmental damage: rather, they tend to merely move it out of sight, from the highways to the power plants.”
But even if they’re not carbon-free, supporters say, electric vehicles are certainly cleaner than their internal combustion counterparts. Not true say the authors when all factors—manufacturing of the car, electricity production and so on—are taken into consideration. The report cites a study in Germany that said in a best-case scenario—20 million electric cars on German roads by 2030—total overall emission reductions would be just 2.4%.
The authors also point out that CO2 emissions will theoretically double when we produce the equivalent energy of one imperial gallon of petrol (4.55 litres) by burning coal in a conventional generation plant. In the end, the authors write, for every ten miles the American electric car owner travels, nearly five of these miles have been powered by coal—with another two powered by natural gas. Nuclear energy accounts for another two miles.
And electric cars will not be getting any “greener” in the near future, as green energy sources still account for a miniscule proportion of production, while carbon-emitting sources of energy like coal will outpace the growth of alternative energy sources in many parts of the world.
In fact, the real push behind electric vehicles is not coming from environmentalists. Instead, it’s a result of car manufacturers looking to tap into generous government subsidies being offered for electric vehicles that’s spurring the market.
“As sales of conventional vehicles falter due to economic recession and tougher environmental standards, the car and power companies hope to gain government subsidies for electric vehicles in order to maintain sales volumes and to capitalise on these tougher environmental laws,” the authors write. “Many governments have shown themselves to be more than willing to spend taxpayers’ money on what is essentially a bailout of ailing car companies, under the guise of environmental concern.”
Ontarians take note. The McGuinty government plans to ensure that electric vehicles account for one out of every 20 vehicles in the province by 2020. To do so, the government is offering rebates between $4,000 and $10,000 for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles purchased after July 1, 2010. It’s also allowing green vehicle licence plates to use the High Occupancy Vehicle (carpool) lanes, even if there is only one person in the vehicle.
But even those subsides won’t cut it. A recent report says by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences calculated that the average electric car will need as much as $18,000 (U.S.) of subsidies to make it competitive with the average gas car.
Energy Probe is a keen supporter of renewable energy. We believe renewable energy has the ability to diversify our electricity supply, while allowing for more decentralized sources of power for consumers. But we’re not in favour of throwing massive subsides at forms of energy that are not technically or economically feasible.
Read the previous gangrene economy report, "Green jobs: The new prisoner’s dilemma" here.
Seeing countries around the world back away from their climate change commitments, and seeing his own electoral support crumble, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced today that Australia will be shelving its cap and trade program for at least three years, until after the next election. “That will provide the Australian government at the time with a better position to assess the level of global action on climate change,” he told the Australian press.
In recent weeks, Rudd has been embarrassed by decisions by the US and Japanese governments to put climate change on the back burner and alarmed by the growing opposition at home to climate change legislation. His once popular plans to cut back emissions by 5% by 2020, which were scheduled to begin next year, have been twice rejected by Australia’s Senate faced certain defeat in a third vote that was expected in several weeks.
Once the darling of the environmental movement, Rudd is now widely seen as ineffectual. A poll commissioned by the Climate Institute and the Conservation Foundation found that just 36% of voters saw Rudd as the best person to handle climate issues, and that 40% found no difference between his Labour government and opposition conservatives. Other polling shows the opposition gaining in the public opinion polls, as an increasingly skeptical public turns against the climate change orthodoxy.
By scrapping next year’s cap and trade plan, the Rudd government – and the Australian public – will see benefits in the upcoming budget, expected May 11. With Australians no longer needing to finance the cap and trade program, budget watchers predict a saving of some $2.32 billion.
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, April 27, 2010
Fewer and fewer people accept the argument that global warming is a threat to the planet, according to the latest Rasmussen Poll, and even those who fear climate change don’t necessarily blame human activities. Meanwhile, those who had been agnostic on global warming are deciding that global warming is a natural phenomenon.
In September, amid the press hype associated with the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, the number of Americans who blamed man rose to 42%. Following the Copenhagen Conference and the revelations about Climategate, many of those 42% lost their confidence in the validity of the man-made theory and switched into the “not sure” category. Only 33% of American voters still believe that humans are primarily to blame for global warming.
Meanwhile, those who had been in the “not sure” camp decided that natural causes were most likely behind global warming. Just 8% remain “not sure” on this issue.
A majority of those polled – 54% – continue to believe that global warming is a problem, albeit one caused by nature. This number has declined from 62% a year ago, as has the number who consider global warming a very serious problem – just 29% still do.
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, April 20, 2010
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