Source; Anonymous
-James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, said when the Paris accord was agreed to that it was "a fraud really, a fake."
-China made clear any cooperation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will depend on the biden regime’s willingness to ignore China’s theft of US residents’ intellectual property, Beijing’s aggressive geopolitical ambitions, its currency manipulation, its genocidal actions against the Uyghur minority, and its violation of human rights and its own international commitments during its crackdown on Hong Kong’s self-rule. China’s Communist Party recently released its 5yr plan for economic development. It contained no cut in coal use. It would be surprising if it did. In recent years, China has brought dozens of new, large coal-fueled power plants on line and has hundreds more in various stages of construction, development, and planning, within China, across Africa, the rest of Asia, and the Middle East.
-While planning for increased coal use, China is disincentivizing new construction of wind and solar facilities, which the National Energy Administration (NEA) referred to as "unreliables." The NEA has told provinces they could auction off grid capacity for new wind and solar projects, with the proviso that one-third of the contracts would be reserved for developers willing to forgo money China’s government already owes them for previously developed wind and solar power facilities. In addition, under NEA’s new policy, winning bidders will be limited to a fixed but guaranteed rate for the power produced by new facilities.
-The NEA proposal clearly shows the central government is ending the expensive subsidies it offered to help wind and solar power become economically competitive with coal. In fact, instead of increasing the target rate for reducing energy use and CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, the proposed five-year plan maintains the previous plan’s targets. Under this plan, both energy consumption and emissions will grow as an absolute amount even as they decline as a percentage of GDP.
-While planning for increased coal use, China is disincentivizing new construction of wind and solar facilities, which the National Energy Administration (NEA) referred to as "unreliables." The NEA has told provinces they could auction off grid capacity for new wind and solar projects, with the proviso that one-third of the contracts would be reserved for developers willing to forgo money China’s government already owes them for previously developed wind and solar power facilities. In addition, under NEA’s new policy, winning bidders will be limited to a fixed but guaranteed rate for the power produced by new facilities.
-The NEA proposal clearly shows the central government is ending the expensive subsidies it offered to help wind and solar power become economically competitive with coal. In fact, instead of increasing the target rate for reducing energy use and CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, the proposed five-year plan maintains the previous plan’s targets. Under this plan, both energy consumption and emissions will grow as an absolute amount even as they decline as a percentage of GDP.
-A push by most European Union nations for the world’s biggest economic trading block to commit to going carbon-neutral by 2050 failed. Under the Paris climate agreement, the EU pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions across the trading bloc by 40% below its 1990 levels by 2030. In the EU’s last scheduled negotiations before the next climate summit in September, France and Germany pushed the 28-member EU to set an ambitious new climate goal of becoming carbon dioxide emission neutral by 2050. This would require either sharp reductions in CO2 emissions or undertaking steps to remove from the atmosphere the equivalent of the amount of CO2 any EU country emits. The EU estimated member states would have to invest an additional 175 billion to 290 billion euros per year in clean energy technology to meet the net-zero goal. Unanimity was needed among the EU countries to adopt those goals. With no clear plan for how the investments would be financed or how the costs would be divided, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland said no.
-The EU, already well behind the pace of emission cuts needed to meet its Paris climate agreement targets, is taking steps that make it even less likely the bloc will meet its final goals. To stop temperatures from rising by the Agreement’s targeted amount will require reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70% by 2050, and for countries to become fully carbon neutral by 2100. Yet the plans submitted by the 184 nations will result in less than half the greenhouse gas cuts required to halt temperatures at the upper limit of 2.0 degrees. In other words, even if the goals were legally binding, temperatures would still rise much higher than the United Nations bogus man-made global-warming theory says is critical to keeping its alleged climate disasters manageable.
-The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) shows policies implemented in the United Kingdom (UK) to limit greenhouse gases harm UK businesses’ competitiveness and limit the UK’s attractiveness as a place to start a new business or relocate an existing one. By energy costs for non-tax-payer subsidized businesses will be 76% higher than they would be without existing climate policies. These figures do not include the estimated £7.6 billion a year in renewable energy subsidies the government provides.
-Several Canadian provinces are backing down from their plans to reduce CO2 emissions, calling into question their countries’ abilities to meet their Paris Climate Agreement commitments. Additionally, China, France, and Germany have increased their CO2 emissions over the past years, falling well behind their Paris commitments.
-Reports indicate Australia and Japan are scaling back their commitments to cut CO2 emissions by NOT ending the use of coal for electric power generation. Their governments’ decisions to continue the use of coal to generate electricity arrive despite the IPCC’s recent report saying governments must make steeper emission reductions than they promised under the Paris climate accord.
-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull removed a pledge to cut CO2 emissions by 26% by 2030 from his National Energy Guarantee plan, after MPs in his own party revolted and threatened to challenge his leadership position. That plank of the energy plan was aimed at meeting Australia’s obligations to cut emissions under the Paris climate agreement. Turnbull’s last-minute effort to save his job over the climate dispute was unsuccessful: he was ousted from power. “Cheaper power has always been our number one priority when it comes to energy policy.” After facing reality too late, Turnbull now will be delivering the keys to office to someone else.
-Growth in energy demand in developing countries like India, China, the Balkans, Indonesia, Latin America, Pakistan, Turkey and in Africa, threatens to undermine any greenhouse gas reduction commitments made in the Paris climate agreement.
-When looking at China (the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter) and India (the 4th largest and 1 of the fastest-growing emitters), we find neither country actually commits to cutting carbon emissions at all. If emissions by China rise by just 15% before leveling off, that will swamp all the emission cuts promised by the US and every other developed nation. If China’s emissions go higher, say double or even triple, then nothing the rest of the world can do will actually result in lower emissions. And India’s government has forthrightly stated it will build hundreds of new coal-fired power plants in the coming years, possibly quadrupling its carbon dioxide emissions.
-China has backtracked on policies implemented to increase solar power, announcing it would not approve any wind and solar power projects unless they can compete with coal power plants strictly on the basis of price. The government is cancelling that subsidy for new projects immediately.
-India’s greenhouse gas emissions grew 4.7% between 2015 and 2016, a faster rate than between 2014 and 2015, and by an amount far more than other large greenhouse gas emitting countries. India’s government failed to meet its greenhouse gas emissions commitments made in the Paris climate agreement. Emissions in the US, which withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, declined by 2%.
-While China signed the Paris Climate Agreement China's greenhouse gas emissions grew at the fastest rate in the past 7 years—it seems Chinese companies are also broke international law, in particular the 1987 Montreal Protocol banning the production and continued use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC)—a class of nontoxic, inflammable chemical compounds used as refrigerants and insulation and in aerosol sprays—to protect the ozone layer. A report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found 18 Chinese companies in 10 provinces are using CFC-11 to manufacture foam insulation used around the world. EIA called China’s continued use of CFC-11 “an environmental crime on a massive scale...What we’ve uncovered is a systemic problem, not isolated incidents.”
- China has increased coal, oil and gas use. China emits about 30% of global emissions. Cutting carbon dioxide emissions won’t solve China’s air pollution problems. Abating air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide using proven, relatively inexpensive, technologies will mean China’s continued use of fossil fuels.
-More than 190 nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. These nations pledged to cut or cap their greenhouse gas emissions—primarily CO2 from burning of fossil fuels—to prevent global average temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. In truth, the agreement was a fraud from the start—all style, no substance. To stop temperatures from rising by the required amount would necessitate reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2050. Furthermore, countries would have to become fully carbon-neutral by 2100. Yet, according to their theory, the plans submitted by the nearly 200 countries would result in less than half the greenhouse gas cuts required to prevent the 2-degree temperature rise—and the government negotiators knew this all along. For instance, China’s CO2 emissions rose at the fastest rate in 7 years. China is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter. The International Energy Agency (IEA) claims energy-related emissions climbed 1.4% in 2017. Worldwide demand for energy increased 2.1%, with fossil fuels accounting for approximately 72% of the increased use. Developing countries in Asia accounted for 66% of the global emissions increase, the European Union, which pushed the hardest for steep emissions reduction commitments in Paris, saw its emissions grow as well: by 1.5%. C02 emissions increased in several African countries, too, as well as in Brazil, India, Qatar, and Russia. Turkey’s emissions soared by a whopping 13%. Yet despite pulling out and robust economic growth, America experienced the largest year-over-year reduction in carbon emissions of any advanced nation. US emissions without government restrictions on fossil fuel use. Climate treaties are mostly about delivering power over the world’s economy to international bureaucrats, not preventing global warming. No one should be surprised by this. Christiana Figueres, then the executive secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted in 2015: “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally … to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
-A UN Environment Program (UNEP) report finds even if every country abides by its Paris commitments to cut or cap greenhouse gases between now and 2030, dubious at best, temperatures will still rise by 3 degrees C by 2100, essentially dooming the planet if we are to believe the claims made by the negotiators in 2015. The Paris climate agreement was a feel-good virtue-signaling agreement with no point. All the donor nations of the world have given less than $15 billion to the Green Climate Fund since it was established in 2014, far less than the $1 trillion UNEP says is needed. Fortunately, the dire predictions of climate apocalypse are every bit as fictional as the Paris climate salvation fantasy. Data show the Earth is much less sensitive to carbon dioxide increases than climate models assume. The catastrophic climate changes alarmists like those running UNEP say should be occurring due to human-caused climate change have, prediction after prediction, failed to materialize. Poverty is falling, life spans are increasing, global health is improving, and crop yields are growing, all during the purported period of dangerous climate change.
-Numerous studies show meeting the CO2 targets imposed on the United States under the Paris agreement would force the premature closure of many of the least expensive power plants nationwide. For instance, a study by NERA Economic Consulting estimated that if the US met its carbon emission reduction obligations under the Paris climate agreement, it would cost the U.S. economy nearly $3 trillion, and the US would lose 6.5 million industrial jobs by 2040, including 3.1 million in the manufacturing sector. The Paris agreement allowed major economic or geopolitical competitors like China, India, and Russia, among the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, to continue growing their emissions, making their economies comparatively better than the United States. In contrast, the US, which has already used technical innovation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 12% since 2006, more than any other country, would have to continue cutting emissions. A MIT study showing if all member nations met their obligations, it would reduce global temperature rise by less than .2 degrees Celsius in 2100. The U.N. Environment Programme also found the treaty would have a negligible impact on climate change, with a report by it showing, even if all the parties to the agreement meet their promised emissions targets, the Paris agreement will result in less than half the greenhouse gas cuts required to halt temperatures at an upper limit of 2°C.
-Energy Matters shows the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has known for some time that developing countries account for the 59% of greenhouse gas emissions. A little-publicized 2007 analysis, the Modelling and Assessment of Contributions to Climate Change (MATCH) study, conducted at the behest of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, concluded greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries were 41% of the gases since 1890. BP’s 2016 Statistical Review shows emissions from developed countries declined between 2000 and 2015 while developing countries’ CO2 emissions, driven largely by China, increased by 80%.
-Free market economies have become far less carbon intensive over time. Data from the United Nations show that the US emitted 62% less carbon for each dollar of GDP produced in 2014 than it did in 1990. In Hong Kong, which is ranked as having the most free economy, its carbon intensity dropped by 58% over those years. Worldwide, carbon intensity has steadily dropped since 1990. Those were years when free market capitalism was spreading, and the trend started long before the world was taking climate change seriously. Why? Because even without any government oversight, free markets reward efficiency. And one of the biggest sources of waste is energy use. Trying to increase profits, therefore, invariably means less energy use, and less pollution, including CO2. Free markets are also inherently "sustainable" because businesses want to stay in business. That means making sure resources are carefully managed for the long term. Socialism, in contrast, is dirty business. The USSR was a horrendous polluter, as were other Eastern Bloc countries. The socialist world suffers from the worst pollution on Earth. Communist China emits 86% more CO2 per dollar of GDP than does the U.S.; Russia emits 50% more. Here at home, the federal government is the biggest energy consumer and polluter — being free of any profit motive. The simple truth is that, as long as there are people on the planet, they're going to need and want things. The best, most sustainable, most earth-friendly way to deliver those things is through free market capitalism.
-A number of countries are planning large hydropower projects to meet their emission reduction commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Hydropower currently provides 76% of electricity generated from renewable sources worldwide. While advocates argue any resettlement should ensure displaced communities are left no worse off than before a dam is built, this goal is rarely met, especially in countries where authoritarian governments do not have to answer to voters. While hydropower plants can displace the need for coal-fired power plants, thus reducing or preventing CO2 emissions, the potential methane emissions arising from the reservoirs created behind hydropower dams, especially in tropical regions, can be considerable and are not well accounted for in countries’ greenhouse gas emission inventories.
The Tradesman
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