Monday 30 December 2019

Driessen and Wojick from WUWT web site. (Permission from authors)

CLIMATE ALARMIST BANKS GO CARBON-COLONIALIST
Africa has the world’s lowest electrification rate. Its power consumption per capita is just 613 kilowatt-hours per year, compared to 6,500 kWh in Europe and 13,000 in the United States, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina observed in July 2017. That’s 9.4% of EU and 4.7% of US electricity consumption. It’s equivalent to Americans having electricity only 1 hour a day, 8 hours a week, 411 hours per year – at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes, hours or days at a stretch.

It’s actually even worse than that. Excluding significantly electrified South Africa, sub-Sahara Africans consume an almost irrelevant 181 kWh of electricity per capita – 1.4% of the average American’s!

In Sub-Saharan Afria, over 600 million people have no electricity, and over 700 million rely on wood, grass and dung for cooking and heating. The region is home to 16% of the world’s population, and 53% of those without electricity. By 2050, its urban populations could increase by 600 million.

Determined to transform the “dark continent,” the AfDB launched a $12-billion New Deal on Energy in 2017 and a Light Up and Power Africa initiative in July 2018. It frequently emphasized that access to sufficient supplies of reliable, affordable modern energy – including fossil fuels – is critical for the continent’s social and economic development. Without energy, it is impossible to create jobs, increase productivity, reduce inequality, improve people’s health and wellbeing, or end poverty.

The bank’s lofty goal for its energy New Deal is 100% access to electricity in urban areas, and 95% in rural areas, by 2025. In July 2017, Mr. Adesina told the African Union Summit he was excited that “Japan has answered our call” to “adopt a balanced energy mix” that includes “its ultra-super critical clean coal technologies” that remove sulfur, nitrogen oxides and particulates, while greatly reducing CO2 emissions.

In 2018, the bank approved seed money for a Nigerian coal project and geared up to finance a 350MW coal plant in Senegal. It also initiated plans for a $2-billion coal-fired power station in the Kenya’s port city of Lamu, after the IMF, World Bank and other western lenders rebuffed Kenya.

But then Mr. Adesina and the AfDB caved in to carbon colonialist pressure. The bank now says almost nothing about coal or even natural gas. Its new themes include: responding to global concerns about climate change, gradually adopting a “low-carbon and sustainable growth path,” significantly reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and transitioning to “green growth” and “clean renewable energy,”

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In September 2019, the bank announced that it planned to begin scrapping coal-fired power plants all across Africa, build “the largest solar zone” in the world, and pull funding for the Lamu power plant. “We’re getting out of coal,” Mr. Adesina said. “Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future.”

So the AfDB has joined the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and other Multilateral anti-Development Banks in caring more about climate alarmism and avoiding criticism from the likes of Greta, the perpetually aggrieved and angry Grinch of Christmas 2019 – than they do about safeguarding the lives, livelihoods, health and living standards of hundreds of millions of electricity-deprived Africans.

This 180-degree flip-flop is delusional, dysfunctional and disingenuous. For many, it will be lethal.

First, there is nothing “green,” “clean” or “renewable” about wind and solar energy. The vast amounts of land and raw materials, mines and factories required to build wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and transmission lines – to harness widely dispersed, insufficient, intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar energy to benefit Sub-Saharan Africans – are anything but clean, green, renewable or sustainable. In fact, trying to meet those needs would require millions of turbines and billions of solar panels.

Second, The AfDB cannot possibly achieve its Energy New Deal or Light Up and Power Africa goals with wind and solar. It will never reach 100% or even 25% access to meaningful electricity that way. No country has ever built or sustained a modern economy this way – and countries that have tried to by mandating wind, solar and fossil-fuel-free economies are paying a terrible price. Headlines tell the story.

Germany’s green suicide: Industrial job losses top 80,000. German wind industry faces extinction. 340,000 German families have pricey electricity cut off. British steel faces insolvency; British families are already deeply in debt to their energy suppliers, before winter even sets in. Meanwhile, the fossil and nuclear-based US economy added another 266,000 jobs in November and wages also grew.

Third, there is no evidence to support claims that temperatures, droughts and weather anywhere in Africa are unprecedented or due to carbon dioxide from fossil fuels – or from wood, grass and dung fires. They and other climate changes have been common throughout history, and an energy-rich, prosperous Africa will be far better able to deal with future changes than a poor, energy-deprived continent could.

Fourth, China, India, Indonesia and other countries are not going stop building coal- and gas-fired power plants – and emitting enormously more CO2. Why should Africa and the AfDb go down a different path?

Finally, banishing fossil fuels (and nuclear), and focusing on pseudo-renewable energy will mean millions of children and parents will continue to suffer and die needlessly every year from diseases of poverty and energy deprivation. This eco-manslaughter at the hands of climate activists and banks must not continue.

Africans have a fundamental human right to more than the few light bulbs, cell phone charging stations and one-cubic-foot refrigerators that can be supported by a wind turbine and solar panel economy.

Thankfully, Botswana, Tanzania and other countries recognize that their continent is rich in coal, oil, natural gas, hydro and uranium. They intend to utilize those resources, take charge of their destinies, develop their economies and improve their people’s lives – by building coal- and gas-fired power plants, hydroelectric facilities, and pebble bed modular or other nuclear power plants. They will also install wind turbines and solar panels in distant villages until electrical grids bring 24/7/365 power to the villages.

No single solution will work everywhere. But “under no circumstances are we going to apologize” for developing Africa’s oil, gas and coal fields, Equatorial Guinea energy minister Gabriel Obiang Lima has said, adding it is “criminal” for any non-African to suggest that Africa should ignore any resources it has.

“Energy is the catalyst for growth,” says Gwede Mantashe, South Africa’s new Mineral Resources and Energy Minister and national chair of its African National Congress. Africa has long exported its oil and gas to the rest of the world, while remaining energy-deficient itself, he noted during a recent Africa Oil Week conference in Cape Town. That is no longer tenable. His new Integrated Resources Plan includes coal and nuclear, and all forms of energy, as appropriate to a given time and situation.


Climate alarmists winning the war of words despite real world evidence that nothing unusual is happenning.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/climate-alarmists-winning-the-war-of-words-despite-real-world-evidence    Dr Jay Lehr and Tom Harris ICSC (International climate science coalition  on Canada Free Press.

Tuesday 24 December 2019

Green ideology, not climate change, makes bushfires worse

Website Coordinator


Miranda Devine
March 5, 2019
Melissa Price, the new federal Environment Minister, has done untold political damage to a government already divided over climate action by spouting idiotic green propaganda about Victoria’s bushfires.
On Tuesday, she linked the fires to climate change, claiming there is “no doubt” of its impact on Australia.
“There’s no doubt that there’s many people who have suffered over this summer. We talk about the Victorian bushfires … There’s no doubt that climate change is having an impact on us. There’s no denying that.”
Sorry, minister, it wasn’t climate change that caused the latest bushfires which have so far destroyed nine homes in Victoria, and it wasn’t climate change that killed almost 200 people in the Black Saturday fires ten years ago.
The real culprit is green ideology which opposes the necessary hazard reduction of fuel loads in national parks and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation around their homes.


Jinks Creek Winery was destroyed after a bushfire engulfed the Bunyip state forest. Picture: Stuart McEvoy / The Australian

The ongoing poor management of national parks and state forests in Victoria and green obstruction of fire mitigation strategies has led to dangerously high fuel loads over the past decade.
That means that when fires do inevitably break out they are so intense that they are devilishly difficult for firefighters to contain. As a federal parliamentary inquiry heard in 2003, if you quadruple the ground fuel, you get a 13-fold increase in the heat generated by a fire.
Locals know the truth. Andrew Clarke, owner of Jinks Creek Winery, which has been destroyed by a fire which raged out of the Bunyip State Forest, “begged” for fuel reduction burns to protect his property.
“I’ve been begging them [Forest Fire Management Victoria] for 20 years to burn off the state forest at the back of our place and still to this day it hasn’t happened,” he told the ABC’s Country Hour.
Clarke said a planned burn-off was called off because of concerns about nesting birds.
So how did that work out for the birds?


Hundreds of emergency workers have worked across Victoria throughout the week to bring fires under control. Picture: AAP / David Crosling

Just three weeks ago, Victoria’s former chief fire officer Ewan Waller warned that state forest fuel loads were reaching deadly, Black Saturday levels. No one paid any attention.
But you can bet Premier Daniel Andrews will hide behind the climate change furphy.
Parroting green lies suits politicians because then they can avoid blame for their own culpability.
The Black Saturday Bushfire Royal Commission criticised the Victorian government for its failure to reduce fuel loads in state forests. It recommended more than doubling the amount of hazard reduction burns.
Instead, in the last three years, alone, the Andrews government has slashed the amount of public land being hazard reduced by almost two thirds.
It’s a crime.
The wonder is that the Morrison government is helping him with his alibi.
Permission granted from VFFA


Sunday 22 December 2019

The Emmas! New Eco Awards for eco-hypocrisy(named after Emma Thompson

The Emmas! Major New Eco-Awards Named After Emma Thompson


  • Date: 21/12/19
  • Press Release, Global Warming Policy Forum

“Emmas” to be annual celebration of achievement in world-leading eco-hypocrisy

Global Warming Policy Forum     www.theGWPF.org

Wednesday 11 December 2019

EU Rebel States reject EU Green finance law . Set back for climate policies

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union states have rejected a set of rules governing which financial products can be called “green” and “sustainable”, an EU official said, in a major setback for the bloc’s climate ambitions.
 
The decision overturned a deal struck just last week by EU lawmakers and the Finnish presidency of the EU, which negotiators hailed as a landmark compromise that could establish a global standard on green bonds and other financial products aimed at climate-conscious investors.
 
Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia opposed the deal at a meeting of EU diplomats in Brussels, fearing it would prevent investments in nuclear and coal projects from being labeled as green.
 
Such investments were not explicitly excluded from the EU’s new classifications, known as taxonomy, but under the rules it would be very difficult to label them as green, potentially reducing future funding for those industries.
 
France relies on nuclear energy, while European countries are still largely dependent on coal.
 
The setback came on the same day the EU commission unveiled plans to make the bloc greener and drastically cut carbon emissions.
      (see report in GWPF    www.theGWPF.org)
 

Saturday 7 December 2019

Snow in 25 States in US!

Ignored by the biased alarmist press

Friday 29 November 2019

225 MEPS say no to Climate Emergency Alarm

EU Consensus Broken As 225 MEPs Vote Against ‘Climate Emergency’


  • Date: 28/11/19
  • Press Release, European Climate Realist Network

28 November: In a significant moment in the history of the European Parliament, a third of MEPs today voted against attempts to exaggerate the impact of global warming. 



The European Climate Realist Network (ECRN) welcomes the votes of 225 MEPs, who this morning rejected the motion by green parties to declare a climate emergency, a motion that was, nevertheless, passed in the European Parliament by 429 MEPs. 

In light of our call yesterday for MEPs to vote against the climate emergency declaration, this is an encouraging sign that unquestioning climate alarm is beginning to be seriously challenged. 

The vote took place on the same day as Tata Steel Europe has confirmed it will cut 3000 European jobs and amid reports that the new EU Commissioner plans to spend a staggering £3 trillion on a unilateral climate agenda.

The growing division within the EU and the European Parliament over climate policies is likely to deepen in the near future as the astronomical economic, social and political costs become increasingly unbearable.

In the coming months, the European Climate Realist Network will work with MEPs from around Europe to help develop alternative policies that are economically, technologically and politically feasible.

Contact

European Climate Realist Network
e: ECRteam@ecr.network  

Thursday 7 November 2019

How a Texan town`s push for renewable energy turned into a nightmare

ENERGY TRANSITIONS
How 100% renewables backfired on a Texas town.  Georgetown pays the price!

Edward Klump, E&E News reporter
Energywire: Monday, November 4, 2019
An inconvenient truth is hanging over Georgetown, Texas: Its celebrated shift to renewable energy doesn’t look like a national model these days.
Electric rates are up. Critics are blasting the costs. And the city north of Austin is trying to figure out how to mitigate the situation.
Georgetown, whose green push gained global attention thanks to former Vice President Al Gore and others, can claim to have 100% renewable power thanks to a credit system tied to electricity purchases. In 2018, the city bought enough power from wind and solar projects to account for all of the community’s consumption. It also pays for power fueled by natural gas.
In all, the city contracts for more electricity than its municipal utility needs to serve customers — and that’s been a problem. Surplus power is sold into a market hampered by weak prices, often delivering financial losses instead of the returns Georgetown expected.
“It’s unfortunate that the Georgetown experiment went so quickly from being a success story to being something of a cautionary example,” said Adrian Shelley, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.
Georgetown declined to discuss many of the details of its renewable contracts, but said on its website that the city “is still obligated to pay the price for energy we secured in our contracts” when the price of energy decreases. It also talked about looking to change its ongoing financial obligations related to energy contracts.

Georgetown recently filed suit against Buckthorn Westex LLC, an affiliate of Clearway Energy Inc. The city is seeking the cancellation of a solar contract over the alleged nondisclosure of information about the expected performance of the facility. In a statement, Buckthorn said it “strongly disputes all claims in the complaint made by the City of Georgetown.”
“Buckthorn has and will continue to honor all terms of its contractual agreement with the City and any claims to the contrary are inaccurate,” the company said.
The monthly bill for an average home in Georgetown that uses 1,000 kWh per month climbed about 22% to $144.35 in 2019 compared with 2018, according to the city. Much of that jump, though not all of it, is related to a higher power cost adjustment.
Read more: https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061456081
My question – why do renewable energy providers need contracts with lock-in clauses?
Climate advocates regularly assure us that renewable energy is cheaper than coal, yet green energy fans like the Mayor of Georgetown seem to feel an obligation to sign long term contracts to purchase renewable energy, with no clawback option if the price of that renewable energy is significantly higher than the prevailing electricity spot price.

Tuesday 5 November 2019

United States bids adieu to the Paris Climate Agreement

Adieu
Friend,

Adieu, adios, addio, tschuss, sayonara, goodbye.

Hopefully not, "see you later."

On Monday the United States formally notified the United Nations that it is withdrawing from the ill-conceived Paris climate agreement.  

CFACT is the preeminent organization reporting on international climate diplomacy from a freedom perspective.  We've been reporting on this every step of the way.  We were at Kyoto, Paris, Copenhagen and all the rest.  We're headed to Spain in December.

It will take a year to get out of Paris.  Multiple presidential candidates have announced their intention to quickly jump right back in if elected.

The U.S. Constitution requires Senate ratification of treaties.  The U.S. did not ratify the prior Kyoto Protocol.  The Paris document was styled as an "agreement" rather than a treaty by making key provisions, such as emissions targets, nonbinding.  This was designed to enable President Obama to sign it without submitting it to the Senate. 

Binding or not, the Paris Agreement is riddled with defects.  Getting out is the right move.

The Paris Agreement would barely impact global temperature, even assuming that the most extreme climate computer models are correct, which they never have been.

It would cost a staggering fortune, potentially hundreds of trillions of dollars, while achieving next to nothing, even under its own assumptions.

It would empower a vast, international climate bureaucracy that does not value individual freedom, would undermine national sovereignty, and would redistribute vast sums to dictators and kleptocracrats around the world. 

The Paris Agreement places all the pressure on the United States, Europe and the developed world, while giving China, India, Brazil and other tremendous CO2 emitters a pass.  China and India are building new coal plants and industrial capacity as fast as their economies will allow.

The main impact of the agreement is to shift manufacturing from American and the West to China and the East with the added environmental "benefit" of shipping goods across oceans on diesel-powered container ships. 

America and other countries are buying vast quantities of intermittent, inefficient wind turbines and solar panels that are unable to provide the power we require.  China has used predatory trade practices to ensure that if we insist on making this mistake, we buy the wind and solar from them. 

The Paris Agreement will not meaningfully alter the temperature of the world, but it would redistribute money and power, not to our benefit.

President Trump was correct to pull us out.  We should stay out.

For nature and people too,
 
Craig Rucker
President

Thursday 31 October 2019

Chile cancels UN climate conference COP25.

Mass protests in Chile because of rising energy costs are a result of subsidies given to renewables to promote man made climate policies.  Clearly the public will not have it.  The same is happening in Lebanon and with the yellow vests in France and in other countries across the world.

Saturday 26 October 2019

Coal capacity in India growing! Independent gets it wrong!

A recent article in the Independent by Ian Johnston highlights a growth in solar energy.  Analyst Tim Buckley in the Institute for Energy Economics mentions this.   however the Indian government paints a totally different picture of increasing coal capacity for the next three years.
G Prasad chief engineer at the Indian Federal Power ministry said
    Solar power definitely has a role to play, but as Mr Prasad noted in the article above:
“If we have to meet demand and address the intermittencies we have with solar and wind, we have no choice but to keep depending on coal-based generation in the near future.”
India Expects coal capacity to swell by a fifth in three years to 238GW!
 https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/08/05/india-expects-coal-capacity-to-swell-by-a-fifth-in-three-years/    The independent have got it wrong!
    acknowledgement to Paul Homewood blog

Consequences of climate policies. Chile explodes in violence

If it can happen in Santiago, it could happen anywhere. That is the uncomfortable message that the rest of the world should take from the sudden breakdown of civil order in Chile, and unfortunately it is correct… The catalyst was a proposal to raise public transport fares and energy bills. There is ample evidence from across the world that these will incite rebellion like nothing else — a point that those who hope to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions via a carbon tax should bear in mind. --John Authers, The Washington Post, 23 October 2019

Climate activists and the United Nations are suffering a major black eye this week as protests and riots resulting from high energy prices have erupted in Santiago, Chile. Chile, which is hosting a major U.N. climate conference in December, earned praise from climate activists for recently imposing a carbon dioxide tax on conventional energy sources and switching the Santiago Metro system to renewable power. Now, the people of Chile are rising up and firing a shot across the bow of other nations considering similar energy taxes and expensive renewable energy programs. --James Taylor, The Epoch Times, 25 October 2019
    Acknowledgement to GWPF web .  (Global Warming Policy Forum)

Monday 23 September 2019

Trump walks past the child Thunberg at the UN

     President Donald Trump made the exact right response to the deliberate trap at the UN .  As the alarmist child protegy Greta Thunberg finished her speech he arrived walking past her as if she did`nt exist.  The UN communists were clearly fuming.  Result?  one for climate truth  zero for climate alarmism!  CFact team erect Banner outside UN climate meeting september 2019