OPEC rejects IEA’s forecasts about fossil fuels use
Press TV – September 14, 2023
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has rejected projections by the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) suggesting that the global consumption of fossil fuels will peak in 2030 before dropping to record lows because of an increase in the use of the renewables.
OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said in a statement issued on Thursday that the IEA’s recent forecast about the decline in the use of fossil fuels in the next decade would only worsen the situation in international energy markets.
“It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world,” said the statement.
In an article in the Financial Times published on Tuesday, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said estimates by the Agency shows that the age of growth in use of fossil fuels “is set to come to an end this decade.”
“This is the first time that a peak in demand is visible for each fuel this decade — earlier than many people anticipated,” Birol said in the opinion piece, adding that demand for the three fossil fuels, namely coal, oil and natural gas, is set to hit a peak in the coming years.
However, the OPEC statement called the forecasted decline “dangerous”, saying such statements normally lead to calls to stop new oil and gas investments.
“Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly,” said Al Ghais, adding that some 80% of the world’s energy mix still comes from fossil fuels, the same as three decades ago.
The OPEC chief said that IEA’s estimates had failed to consider the technological progress that has taken place in the oil and gas industry to cut emissions.
The inevitable EV implosion
By Ron Ross | American Thinker | September 12, 2023
The electric vehicle honeymoon is over. Don’t expect the marriage itself to last much longer either.
The mass conversion from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs) to electric vehicles was never more than a Democrat/environmentalist hallucination anyway. It was the most ill-conceived government policy objective in modern history.
The transition should have been a non-starter. It’s riddled with numerous deal killers. It’s like having a dozen fatal diseases all at the same time.
Any goal as massive as a total conversion from ICE vehicles to EVs requires careful planning and infrastructure preparation. It would necessitate a rapid doubling of electricity generation and grid expansion. In today’s world that’s impossible.
EV promoters could never deliver on their promises. Their grandiose assurances were nothing more than wishful thinking.
There was no market research. Hmm — I wonder why. There were no feasibility studies. Hmm — I wonder why. Did they actually believe everyone would tolerate spending hours to charge their vehicles rather than the minutes they were accustomed to?
Car dealers are resisting further deliveries of EVs because of swelling inventories. Avis and Hertz can’t even get people to rent EVs! Yet, manufacturers are ramping up production just as consumers are balking. Something will have to give, and soon. EV makers and their shareholders will tire of pouring money down a rathole.
We are spending trillions of dollars on a fabricated dream, all for imaginary payoffs decades in the future.
When the EV house of cards collapses what will the reaction be? Ordinarily, for normal persons, it would be a time for regret, rethinking, and humility.
It would be good if the Democrat/environmentalist true believers learned something from the EV debacle. However, the same utopian blindness that caused this fiasco will prevent any lesson-learning on their part. We are more likely to see them doubling down instead.
Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. He resides in Arcata. California and can be reached at rossecon@aol.com.
His website is rossecon.com.
The Elites Directing The Energy Transition Really Have No Idea What They Are Doing
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | September 06, 2023
We are on our way to Net Zero by 2050. It must be true because everybody says so. The entire $6+ trillion per year federal government is committed to the project, which obviously would not be the case if the whole thing were impossible. Equally fully committed are essentially all of the colleges and universities, where all of the smartest people are to be found. As well as every other elite institution of every kind and sort.
Take the World Economic Forum. If there is a number one elitest among all elite institutions, this has to be it. At their annual confab in Davos, Switzerland, they gather the greatest of geniuses to instruct the very top government and business leaders how to run the world. Would you like to go? It will cost you $52,000 to join the organization, and then an additional $19,000 to attend the conference. Chartering a private jet to get you there will cost thousands more. Once there, you can hear the very smartest people imparting their thoughts on the most important topics of the day, like “The Great Reset,” “Emerging Technologies,” “Diversity and Inclusions,” and, of course, “The Net Zero Transition.”
Is it possible that these people are completely incompetent and have no idea what they are doing?
A reader has sent me the very latest from the WEF on how the world is going to get to Net Zero. The piece has a date of September 5, 2023, and is titled “How battery energy storage can power us to Net Zero.” The authors are three people from the World Bank, with the lead author being one Amit Jain, who is the Bank’s Energy Storage Program Lead. This is the guy on the receiving end of tens of billions of dollars of government money to pass out to make the energy transition happen throughout the developing world.
Now, it so happens that energy storage is something I know a little about, and in particular about the problem of trying to store enough energy to make an electrical grid work without full dispatchable backup. See my energy storage Report, dated December 1, 2022, at this link.
So let’s take a look at Jain, et al.’s, take on how battery storage will “power us to Net Zero.” First, some excited happy talk:
Across the globe, power systems are experiencing a period of unprecedented change. Low-cost renewable electricity is spreading and there is a growing urgency to boost power system resilience and enhance digitalization. This requires stockpiling renewable energy on a massive scale, notably in developing countries, which makes energy storage fundamental. . . .
Making energy storage systems mainstream in the developing world will be a game changer. Deploying battery energy storage systems will provide more comprehensive access to electricity while enabling much greater use of renewable energy, ultimately helping the world meet its Net Zero decarbonization targets. International organizations and development institutions are leading the way forward to enable this decarbonization. . . .
So OK Amit, how much storage are we talking about here?
In 2022, approximately 192GW (gigawatts) of solar and 75GW of wind were installed globally. However, only 16GW/35GWh (gigawatts per hour) of new storage systems were deployed. A recent International Energy Agency analysis finds that although battery energy storage systems have seen strong growth in recent years, grid-scale storage capacity still needs to be scaled up to reach Net Zero Emissions by 2050. . . . To meet our Net Zero ambitions of 2050, annual additions of grid-scale battery energy storage globally must rise to an average of 80 GW annually between now and 2030.
Holy underwear, Batman! Could this guy really not even know what units he’s talking about? Thinking his readers might not understand the abbreviation “GWh” he helpfully defines it as “gigawatts per hour”! Could he really be this clueless? And he had two co-authors to check him!
And then there’s the statement that to meet the 2050 Net Zero ambition, annual deployments of grid-scale batteries “must rise to an average of 80 GW annually.” Of course he is using the wrong units (and undoubtedly does not know that). But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he is talking about the standard batteries available today, which are 4 hour batteries, meaning that 80 GW would provide 320 GWh of storage. If the world would add that much capacity every year from now to 2050, that would come to 8,960 GWh of storage. How have Mr. Jain et al. come to the conclusion that this 8,960 GWh of storage will be enough to “meet our Net Zero ambitions of 2050”? The piece contains no quantitative analysis or backup of any kind to support the proposition that this amount of storage would be sufficient.
My own energy storage Report does contain backup and calculations, although only for certain countries rather than for the whole world. For example, for the United States, the figures cited in my Report are that it would take some 233,000 GWh of battery storage to fully back up the electrical grid, assuming current levels and patterns of usage. Since the U.S. is about 4% of world population, we can multiply that figure by 25 to get the storage requirement for the world (assuming that the world electrifies to the U.S. level by 2050). The total would be 5,825,000 GWh. In other words, Jain, et al., are off by a factor of about 650, give or take maybe a few hundred.
But it’s OK, because Jain and his colleagues have no skin in this game. They just babble some happy talk to get their hands on a few hundred billions of money from rich governments, and pass it out to build impressive-looking battery projects that are actually next to useless to provide reliable grid electricity. They can be very confident that no one in their circles will ever check the math to see if the numbers add up. When 2050 rolls around and the whole thing doesn’t work, they will be long retired on generous pensions.
World is ‘laughing at’ the US – Alaska governor
© AFP / Mandel Ngan
RT | September 9, 2023
The US government’s decision to cancel oil and gas drilling licenses and forbid further drilling will “hobble” the country’s economy and makes no sense except to advance the green agenda, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has declared.
President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday canceled seven ten-year oil and gas drilling licenses granted to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) by former President Donald Trump. Biden’s Department of the Interior followed up this decision by issuing a proposal to forbid future leases on more than 40% of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
Biden said that these two measures “will help preserve our Arctic lands and wildlife,” adding on Saturday that he would “continue to take bold action to meet the urgency of the climate crisis and to protect our lands and waters for generations to come.”
Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Dunleavy said that “this makes absolutely no sense from any perspective unless your goal is to drive up the cost of oil and gas so much that it makes certain renewables cheaper.”
Dunleavy, a Republican, claimed that Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are “laughing” at Biden’s energy policy.
“They’re laughing together at the United States of America,” the governor said. “I can’t find anywhere in, really the history of nation-states or empires, where they worked at hobbling themselves to such a degree that’s happening currently with this administration. So 2024 can’t come soon enough for most of us.”
Gasoline prices have soared under Biden, reaching a record average high of just over $5 per gallon last June, up from around $2 when the president took office.
Prices began to rise when Biden signed an executive order in January 2021 banning new oil and gas licenses on federal land, and spiked as the conflict in Ukraine rocked global energy markets. Ahead of last year’s midterm elections, Biden attempted to stabilize gasoline prices by draining the US’ strategic petroleum reserve, and by unsuccessfully lobbying the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting States to cut production.
The AIDEA argues that Biden has no legal right to rescind existing drilling licenses and told Fox News that it intends to challenge the decision in court.
Energy bill authorises “reasonable force” to install smart meters that allow authorities to turn customers’ energy on and off
BY DAVID CRAIG | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
You probably know that a massive Energy Bill is being rushed through Parliament by our fake ‘Conservative’ Government in the first two days of our parliamentarians’ return from their generous summer break. The Bill is 446 pages long and written in dense, largely-incomprehensible-to-any-normal-person legalise. Moreover, many clauses in the Energy Bill make reference to other pieces of previous legislation. So, to fully understand the Bill, you would have to read at least a thousand pages of dense legalistic gobbledegook. Given that our MPs have just passed the Bill with a mere nine voting against it, one must assume that they have spent their summer holidays diligently reading through the Bill and other relevant legislation in order to fully understand what they were voting for.
Here’s the full title of the Bill:
‘A Bill to make provision about energy production and security and the regulation of the energy market, including provision about the licensing of carbon dioxide transport and storage; about commercial arrangements for industrial carbon capture and storage and for hydrogen production; about new technology, including low-carbon heat schemes and hydrogen grid trials; about the Independent System Operator and Planner; about gas and electricity industry codes; about heat networks; about energy smart appliances and load control; about the energy performance of premises; about the resilience of the core fuel sector; about offshore energy production, including environmental protection, licensing and decommissioning; about the civil nuclear sector, including the Civil Nuclear Constabulary; and for connected purposes’
As you’ll see, this legislative monster covers an awful lot of areas – energy production, regulation of the energy market, CO2 transport and storage, carbon capture, hydrogen production, low-carbon heat schemes, hydrogen grid trials, heat networks, smart appliances, load control, energy performance of industrial and residential premises, offshore energy production and the civil nuclear sector. We must be considered fortunate in Britain to have MPs who have such a strong work ethic and such a deep understanding of all these disparate issues to be able to vote for the new Energy Bill knowing exactly what they are voting for.
Life is too short for any normal person to read and to try to understand this massive abomination of almost impenetrable legalise. But here are some choice titbits which I think I understand.
The Bill explains what a ‘Smart Meter’ is:
“Energy smart appliance” means an appliance which is capable of adjusting the immediate or future flow of electricity into or out of itself or another appliance in response to a load control signal; and includes any software or other systems which enable or facilitate the adjustment to be made in response to the signal.
So it seems that the conspiracy theorists were right yet again – a key purpose of ‘Smart Meters’ is not only to measure power usage but also to allow energy providers to control how much energy we are allowed to consume using “a load control signal”.
Moreover, authorities will be allowed to use “reasonable force” to enter any homes or premises to ensure we have the approved ‘Smart Meters’ installed:
Requiring persons to supply evidence of their compliance to enforcement authorities; conferring powers of entry, including by reasonable force.
All electricity and gas meters have dates by which they should be replaced. From what I have read the Bill gives representatives from energy companies the power to enter any home, with police protection if required, to replace traditional meters at the end of their lives with smart meters. Again, “reasonable force” may be used.
The Bill gives the Government the power to force us to have energy assessments for any premises:
The Secretary of State may make regulations for any of these purposes: (a) enabling or requiring the energy usage or energy efficiency of premises to be assessed, certified and publicised;
We can be fined up to £15,000 or face one year in prison for failing to meet any future energy performance levels any government imposes:
Energy performance regulations may provide for the imposition of civil penalties by enforcement authorities in relation to cases falling within subsection (1)(b), (c) or (d); but the regulations may not provide for a civil penalty that exceeds £15,000.
Under the totally misleading title of ‘Energy Savings Opportunity Schemes’, authorities can force any person or company to make energy savings using the threat of criminalisation for failure to comply:
The Secretary of State may by regulations (“ESOS regulations”) make provision for the establishment and operation of one or more energy savings opportunity schemes. An “energy savings opportunity scheme” is a scheme under which obligations 30 are imposed on undertakings to which the scheme applies for one or more of the ESOS purposes.
I could go on. But I imagine you get the picture by now. This ‘Energy Bill’ creates the means by which some puffed-up public-sector mini-dictator could gain powers to control us in ways most people would find completely unacceptable. Yet our useless MPs passed the Bill with a massive majority and the Lords are set to do the same.
If there really was a ‘climate crisis’ caused by humans burning fossil fuels and threatening the existence of the human race as the BBC and others of its ilk repeatedly claim, then you might be able to argue that some of the measures in the Bill could be justified. But given that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels have little to no influence on the Earth’s temperatures, that Britain only contributes less than 1% of world CO2 output and that developing countries like India and China each increase their CO2 output by more each year than Britain’s total CO2 emissions, we are creating a totalitarian regime which will intrude on people’s lives, restrict people’s freedoms, wreck the British economy and immiserate our country to fix a problem which doesn’t even exist and, if it did, would not be solved by our action anyway.
And if you fear this horror will lead to an intrusive, oppressive police state under the Tories, imagine how this will be used and abused by Ed Miliband and the climate fanatics in the next Labour Government.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
Congratulations To Germany On Achieving More Than 50% Of Its Electricity Production From “Renewables”!
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | August 29, 2023
On the march to Net Zero carbon emissions from usage of energy, the key first step is to eliminate fossil fuels from the generation of electricity, replacing them with the magical “renewables.” Or so we are told. Once electricity generation is fossil fuel-free, then all energy use can be switched to electricity, without any of the evil emissions. Voilà — Net Zero!
But somehow, in the places that have tried to go this route with wind turbines and solar panels, the push to get more electricity generation from “renewables” has seemed to stall out at around 40 – 45%. (Some small countries with lots of hydropower get higher percentages by counting the hydropower as “renewable.”). Countries may build more and more solar panels and wind turbines, but somewhere in the 40s the percentage that those things contribute to electricity generation just doesn’t seem to budge very much any more.
And that’s why it’s so exciting that in the first half of 2023 Germany finally crashed through the 50% barrier, becoming the first significant country with little hydropower to achieve more than half of its electricity generation from “renewables.” With a simple internet search, you can find large numbers of news sources relaying the great news. For a few examples, here are Reuters, June 27 (“Renewable share of German power use climbs to 52.3% in first half”); Fraunhofer, July 3 (“German Net Power Generation in First Half of 2023: Record Renewable Energy Share of 57.7 Percent”); Clean Energy Wire, June 27 (“Renewables covered more than half of German electricity consumption in first half of 2023”); and Solar Quarter, July 5 (“Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share in Net Power Generation for First Half of 2023”). Why the exact percentages vary a little from article to article, I cannot explain; but they are all at least a little in excess of the key 50% figure.
So this is surely Germany continuing to lead the way to the green energy transition. Certainly, Germany has only accelerated its pursuit of the idea that the route to Net Zero is the building of more and yet more solar panels and wind turbines. A site called Renewable-Energy-Industry.com compiles data on additions to Germany’s wind and solar generation capacity just in the first half of 2023: “Record Additions in Germany: 8,000 MW of New Wind And Solar Capacity in The First Half of 2023.”:
[S]olar energy in particular is booming in Germany. From January to June 2023 alone, around 465,000 new solar plants with 6,500 MW capacity . . . went into operation and produce electricity, more than ever before in a six-month period. . . . In the first six months of 2023, just under 350 new wind turbines with a capacity of around 1,750 MW went into operation. . . .
The addition of 8000 MW of generation capacity in just six months is a huge increment in a country where peak electricity usage is less than 85,000 MW (or 85 GW).
So are these large additions to capacity what has succeeded in pushing Germany over the 50% threshold? Unfortunately, if you read deep into the Reuters piece linked above, you will start to get a very different understanding. It turns out that Germany’s percentage of electricity from renewables increased not because the production of electricity from renewables increased, but rather because Germany’s economy is shrinking. After decades of effort and hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and greatly increased consumer electricity prices, the contribution of wind and solar energy in Germany’s economy remains almost insignificant.
Despite all its new solar and wind facilities, Germany’s production of electricity from those sources has lately been going down rather than up. Here is the story for the first half of 2023) (from the Reuters piece linked above:
Renewables, at 137.5 TWh, represented 51.7% of total output, up from 46.4% in first half 2022, even as green power production volumes decreased by 0.6%.
The 137.5 TWh of electricity that Germany’s “renewable” facilities produced in the first half of 2023 is a pitiful percentage of their supposed theoretical capacity. A chart at Clean Energy Wire gives Germany’s generation capacity of solar, plus onshore and offshore wind as 130.8 GW as of 2022. (In a country with only about 85 GW of peak usage!). Add the new 8 GW of capacity added in the first half of 2023, and you would have 138.8 GW of wind and solar capacity, or 602.9 TWh hours of capacity (138.8 x 24 x 181) for the 181 days in January to June 2023. That would mean that the wind and solar facilities combined produced at a rate of only 22.8% of capacity over that period.
So if production of electricity from “renewables” actually decreased, how could the percentage of electricity production from the “renewables” have increased from 46.4% to 51.7% of the total? Easy — the production from all other sources (fossil fuels and nuclear) went down dramatically:
Conventional energy sources – nuclear, coal, natural gas and oil – provided 128.4 TWh of output, down from 160.0 TWh a year earlier.
They ran the conventional generators less because the demand for electricity was not there:
The fall in conventional production reflected the phase-out of nuclear energy by mid-April and operators cutting output to match weak demand.
The change from 160.0 TWh to 128.4 TWh from conventional sources would be a 19.75% decline. That’s rather enormous in one year. Now, how could it be that Germany is experiencing that kind of a huge decline in the demand for electricity? You might check out the big front page article from today’s Wall Street Journal, “Germany’s Shrinking Economy Sparks a Struggle for Solutions.” (different headline online). The world leader in the supposed “green energy transition” turns out also to be in the unique position of having an economy that is shrinking, and not by a little:
Germany will be the world’s only major economy to contract in 2023, with even sanctioned Russia experiencing growth, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The WSJ piece goes into a variety of factors that may be contributing to the shrinking economy. But self-inflicted high energy prices turn up again and again:
Energy costs are posing an existential challenge to sectors such as chemicals. . . . Energy prices in Europe have declined from last year’s peak as EU countries scrambled to replace Russian gas, but German industry still faces higher costs than competitors in the U.S. and Asia.
And meanwhile, with Germany’s massive investments in wind and solar electricity generation, are those sources actually making any major inroads in the overall market for primary energy in the country? Here is an extremely revealing chart, again from Clean Energy Wire, with data from 2022:
In the “renewables” category for all primary energy (not just electricity), we learn that they include “biomass” as a “renewable.” Probably, that’s mostly wood, used for heating homes, and hardly a zero carbon source. The amount of energy produced from the “biomass,” at 1,040 PJ and 8.8% of primary energy, far exceeds the combined total from wind and solar (713 PJ and 6.0% of primary energy).
The whole “more than 50% from renewables” mantra turns out only to apply to electricity (far less than half of primary energy usage). And rather than representing the advance of the mythical wind and solar, the whole thing is just an artifact of a shrinking economy, largely itself caused by the destructive build-out of the wind and solar facilities. They are destroying their economy, and have almost nothing to show for two decades and hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the useless wind and solar farms.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith Says He is “Happy” for ‘Blade Runner’ Ulez Vandals to Destroy Cameras Because They Have Been “Lied To”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 1, 2023
Conservative MP and former party leader and Government minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said he backs the ‘blade runners’ who are disabling Ulez cameras. The Mail has more.
Usually he prides himself on being tough on crime, but the former cabinet minister said today he was ‘happy’ for the residents of his Chingford and Woodford Green constituency to destroy cameras because they have been “lied to”.
Sir Iain said: “A lot of people in my constituency have been cementing up the cameras or putting plastic bags over them.
“I am happy for them to do it because they are facing an imposition that no-one wants and they have been lied to about it.
“The actions you are seeing show how angry people are at what is being imposed on them. Sadiq Khan has gerrymandered all the information – people have had enough.”
Since his comments were first published, Sir Iain told the Evening Standard that “I do understand the frustrations of the people in my constituency who are being hit by these charges and who feel like they are not being listened to by the mayor. These sort of actions show how angry people are. But I don’t condone law breaking of any kind.”
It’s notable that no one besides Khan seems willing to defend the scheme or even state their opposition to the vandalism of the cameras. At this point it feels like it’s Khan versus the whole of London.
Meanwhile, the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, told GB News this morning that he would stop the rollout if he had the power to do so and highlighted his reservations about the true motives behind the expansion.
I don’t have the power to stop it coming into force. That’s a decision for the Mayor of London backed by the Labour leader. I think he should think again.
He says this has to do with air quality, his own impact assessment says this will only have a minor to negligible effect on air pollution.
It’s not about air pollution, it’s about a money-raising exercise and this is absolutely not the time to be putting all those costs on hard-pressed and hard-working Londoners and those in the area outside London.
What Harper didn’t mention, though, is that the reason he doesn’t have the power to stop it is because the Government’s lawyers have said it would be contrary to the Government’s own policies on air pollution. That’s despite the impact assessment showing it will have a negligible impact on air quality! In truth, the Government could challenge it if it wished, either by changing its own policies (perhaps via legislative amendment) or by arguing that the impact is too negligible to contravene its commitments.
Harper also told LBC’s Nick Ferrari programme that the Government will be backing an amendment to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill to make changes to the 1999 law that created the role of Mayor of London. According to the Mail:
Under the amendment, brought forward by Tory peer Lord Moylan, London boroughs would be able to opt out of future Transport for London (TfL) clean air schemes if they are meeting air quality targets.
The Transport Secretary said: “One of the problems here is that a number of London local authorities don’t support this scheme coming into force, so for the future, we are backing an amendment, a backbench amendment to a piece of legislation which will mean in future any road user charging schemes like this would have to be also backed by London boroughs.
“And that’s important because if you look at the Mayor of London’s own website for his Project 2030 scheme, he wants to roll out more road user charging schemes, pay-per-mile schemes across London.”
Sadiq Khan countered on BBC Breakfast this morning that it wasn’t about the money:
This is about helping our air be cleaner. In a couple of years’ time, TfL has predicted there will be no additional money made because the number of non-compliant vehicles (will decrease).
But if it’s not expected to make money and it won’t make the air appreciably cleaner, what’s the real motive for forcing through such an electorally disastrous policy? Could it be because, as highlighted in yesterday’s Daily Sceptic, Khan is Chair of C40 Cities, an organisation committed to “reducing car ownership” and cutting travel by car? Is it, in other words, the latest move in the global war on the motorist and the crazed scramble to ‘cut emissions’ at the expense of humanity?
More Stick, Less Carrot – Prison For Not Complying With Energy Rules?
Climate Change Fanatics Upping Their Game
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | September 2, 2023
In a recent World Economic Forum discussion, it was acknowledged that governments will need to start using more sticks and less carrots.
“We’re going to need to change behaviours of individuals but also how our industries, corporations and also our governments work and practise. We’re going to need to do this through a mixture of carrots and hopefully, errr, perhaps not so many sticks… But we’re likely to see an increasing move towards a more stick-like intervention into the future, as things worsen, if we’re not able to act”.
The UK government seems to be taking the WEF’s advice seriously because, according to the Telegraph, they are looking to introduce new powers allowing new criminal offences to be created. This is in addition to increasing penalties for property owners who don’t comply with new energy rules.
Ministers want to grant themselves powers to create new criminal offences and increase civil penalties as part of efforts to hit net zero targets. Under the proposals, people who fall foul of regulations to reduce their energy consumption could face up to a year in prison and fines of up to £15,000.
The proposals will come before Parliament on Tuesday when MPs return back to work to discuss the Energy Bill.
It provides for “the creation of criminal offences” where there is “non-compliance with a requirement imposed by or under energy performance regulations”. People could also be prosecuted for “provision of false information” about energy efficiency or the “obstruction of… an enforcement authority”.
As seen with the Coronavirus legislation, ministers “are giving themselves broad umbrella powers to redraw and enforce the system before consulting on precisely which changes to make. Tory MPs have expressed alarm that ministers would be able to create new offences with limited parliamentary scrutiny under the update”.
The Bill is festooned with new criminal offences. This is just unholy, frankly, that you could be creating criminal offences… The ones we’ve found most offensive are where a business owner could face a year in prison for not having the right energy performance certificate or type of building certification.
Instead of undergoing scrutiny, criminal offences will be created using statutory instruments. These are still approved by Parliament but “typically nodded through”. There has not been a statutory instrument rejected in the last 35 years.
At the same time, Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ) in London have been causing controversy. The newly expanded scheme means that drivers of certain vehicles (i.e. poor people who can’t afford Teslas) are forced to pay £12.50 ($15.75) every day to drive in any of London’s 32 London boroughs. The fine for not paying on time is £180.
Whilst this might not sound a lot of money to some, an additional £400 per month just to drive to work, will be an absolute killer for a lot of families. Another tax on the poor in the name of climate change.
A vigilante group calling themselves “Blade Runners” are going round London disabling or destroying the new ULEZ cameras. According to some reports, 90% of cameras have already been “retired”.
Sales of angle grinders are through the roof and the usual suspects are all over social media congratulating the Blade Runners but is all that it seems?
Problem, Reaction, Solution.
As a result, London Mayor, Sadiq Khan has deployed fleets of camera vans to catch people on the go. Clearly these camera vans were ready and waiting to go, they just needed an excuse. And how long will it be until some legislation is brought in to deal with these climate change vandals!?
And when Labour wins the election next year, deputy leader Angela Rayner, confirmed that “this is coming to towns and cities across the whole of the United Kingdom”.
It won’t stop there either. Whilst rumours of pay per mile schemes have been branded conspiracy theory nonsense, on Transport for London’s website they confirm that this is planned for 2025/26.
The climate change fanatics will do anything to reach their 2030 goals. The carrots haven’t been as effective as they’d hoped and with only 6.5 years left, get ready for more and more sticks.
Sadiq Khan’s Green Globalist Gang Suggests Daily 44g Meat Allowance and Rations Lower Than Second World War
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 31, 2023
London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ulez punch-down on cars and vans owned by the less affluent is just one example of the attacks planned against town dwellers living in modern industrial societies. Khan is the current chairman of C40, a global network of city mayors backed by numerous hard-Left billionaire foundations. Removing cars from cities is just one of its aims. In a Headline Report published by the group in 2019 and re-emphasised earlier this year, a “progressive” target for 2030 was set of a daily per person allowance of 44g of meat (enough for two small meatballs), a daily limit of 2,500 calories, (less than the ration in the Second World War), one short haul flight every three years, eight new clothing items a year and private cars available for only one in five people. This “pioneering piece of thought leadership” was said to seek a “radical, and rapid, shift in consumption patterns”.
When the report about future urban consumption was first published in 2019, it received little publicity in the media. Some of its proposals looked a bit cranky even for mainstream publications. For instance, under an “ambitious” 2030 target, the mayors looked to ban meat and private vehicles altogether. But groundwork was clearly being laid. Mark Watts, executive director of C40, observed that average consumption-based emissions in the wealthier C40 cities must fall by “two thirds or more” by 2030. It was said that reducing vehicle ownership would lead to significant reclamation of roads and 25,000 kms of cycle lanes. This plan is now well advanced since the Covid lockdowns provided cover for mass street closures. Recent years have also seen large increases in cycle lanes, and of course the Ulez war on those driving older vehicles, not necessarily by choice.
Signatory cities are committed to “high impact accelerators”, which include creating low or zero emissions zones along with “implanting vehicle restrictions or financial incentives/disincentives such as road use or parking charges”. An early sighting here, perhaps of Khan’s suspected wish to implement road pricing after his Ulez infrastructure is in place.
There is also an early sighting of unsourced statistics with a claim that eating less meat and more vegetables and fruit could prevent 160,000 annual deaths associated with diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes and strokes in C40 cities. It is not immediately clear if these deaths actually occur in such precise numbers, or whether they are a Ulez-style ‘statistical construct‘.
Over 100 cities around the world are part of the C40 network and they are required to sign up to “performance-based requirements” based on a number of leadership standards. One of these standards specifies that they must innovate and start taking inclusive and resilient action, “to address emissions beyond the direct control of city government, such as associated with goods and services consumed in their city”. The largely unpublicised C40 operation is backed by finance and support from many well-known green foundations including Climate Works, Hewlett, IKEA, Oak, FR and Clinton. Three “strategic funders” are identified including Christopher Hohn’s Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a major financial contributor to Extinction Rebellion. Another strategic funder is Bloomberg Philanthropies, whose controller Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, is president of the C40 board.
Of course interest is now growing in what all these people have been smoking over the last few years, as the Con/Lab green blob (different countries, different mainstream political combinations) organise to de-industrialise and cut human progress in the name of tackling a supposed ‘climate crisis’. The C40 Headline Report gives clear guidance of the scale of economic and societal change required under a collectivist Net Zero agenda. U.K. Fires is an academic project funded by the British Government, and it also gives a brutal assessment of life under what it terms absolute net zero carbon dioxide emissions. Again it is not discussed much in the public prints, but the Daily Sceptic has reported on its findings. These include no flying and shipping by 2050, drastic cuts in home heating, bans on beef and lamb consumption and a ruthless purge of traditional building materials such as bricks, glass, steel and cement. Such is the admirable honesty on display in their reports that they note these building materials can be replaced with “rammed earth” – mud huts for the lower classes in other words.
Sadiq Khan has been badly shaken by a popular uprising against his hated Ulez scheme. Backing in his own Labour party is wearing thin, not because most senior members are particularly anti-Ulez, but because after the Uxbridge by-election they can see a little more clearly that attacking the cars of the poor is a slam-dunk vote loser. For his part, Khan seems to have become more hysterical attacking those who oppose Ulez as conspiracy theorists. Earlier this year, reports the Daily Mail, Khan said that some of those who opposed the scheme’s growth across all London boroughs were “anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, conspiracy theorists and Nazis”.
The evidence provided by Khan’s own C40 Headline Report, along with the work of U.K. Fires, shows clearly the actual agenda that is now being ruthlessly deployed. The only conspiracy rabbithole in sight would appear to be that occupied by a freaked Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
The Government’s Plan to Install Heat Pumps in Homes They Won’t Work In is Branded “Desperate” and “Unethical”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 31, 2023
A Government plan to relax rules to allow heat pumps to be installed in uninsulated homes they will fail to heat properly has been branded “desperate” and “unethical”.
Faced with a widespread boycott of the pricey technology, ministers are hoping that they can kickstart uptake by removing the requirement that properties be adequately insulated before gas boilers are removed.
Campaign group Net Zero Watch criticised the decision. Director Andrew Montford said:
The insulation requirement was put in place to ensure heat pumps were only installed where they were likely to work. Removing a key consumer protection is hardly going to help the Government’s cause.
Mr. Montford points to a recent study of heat pump economics, which shows that, even in a well-insulated property, most heat pump installations do not give lower bills, let alone justifying the substantial capital costs. This is because electricity is four times the price of gas.
Mr. Montford said:
The contradictions in Government policy are becoming clear. Renewables are incompatible with heat pumps because they make electricity so much more expensive than gas. In their desperation to persuade consumers to switch anyway, ministers are proposing steps that would be foolish, are arguably unethical, and would certainly be counterproductive. This is a brand of fanaticism as dangerous as Mr. Khan’s Ulez obsession.
Yet another green technology being rejected by consumers because it is overpriced and doesn’t do the job.
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From the Archives
Fourteen Incredible Facts About 9/11
By Kevin Ryan | Dig Within | August 8, 2015
… What is known about 9/11 is that there are many incredible facts that continue to be ignored by the government and the mainstream media. Here are fourteen.
- An outline of what was to become the 9/11 Commission Report was produced before the investigation began. The outline was kept secret from the Commission’s staff and appears to have determined the outcome of the investigation.
- The 9/11 Commission claimed sixty-three (63) times in its Report that it could find “no evidence” related to important aspects of the crimes.
- One person, Shayna Steiger, issued 12 visas to the alleged hijackers in Saudi Arabia. Steiger issued some of the visas without interviewing the applicants and fought with another employee at the embassy who tried to prevent her lax approach.
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