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via Real Climate Science
March 8, 2024 at 03:25PM
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
I can only assume the Tories have a death wish!
Plans to impose targets for electric heat pump sales on gas boiler manufacturers could be confirmed as early as next week, after fierce debate within government and intense lobbying from industry to abandon the policy.
Sky News understands energy secretary Claire Coutinho had intended to ditch the policy, known as the Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM), but will now proceed following objections from ministerial colleagues, who argued that it is crucial to decarbonising home heating and meeting wider net zero policy.
Manufacturers have warned the policy will increase the cost of boilers.
In a concession to the industry, fines for missing electric heat pump targets will be pushed back by 12 months to April 2025.
Ms Coutinho is also expected to refer several major gas boiler manufacturers to the Competition and Markets Authority for potentially colluding over price increases of up to £120 on gas boilers, imposed to cover potential fines that they described as a "boiler tax".
The long-awaited announcement comes after weeks of tension in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
Ms Coutinho’s intention to bow to gas industry pressure met opposition from ministers Lord Callanan, the minister for energy efficiency, and Graham Stuart, the minister for energy security and net zero, who were both reported to have considered resigning.
Net Zero extremists such as Callanan and Stuart should have been told they have no place in the party, if they are prepared to put their zealotry above the interests of the public at large.
The Tories already face electoral oblivion. Their one hope is to face down these green nutters, and stand up for the interest of the public.
It appears that they have thrown away their last chance.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 8, 2024 at 03:12PM
By Paul Homewood
Following the new budget announced this week, the OBR have published the full detail underlying it.
As usual they include the cost of Environmental Levies, which are in essence subsidies paid to renewable energy suppliers via our energy bills:
https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2024/
The cost for 2024/25 will rise to a record high of £11.5 billion , equivalent to over £400 per household. In addition the cost of the RHI scheme, which is funded from general taxation, adds an extra £1.2 billion.
Not all of the extra costs incurred because of policy are included. For instance, there is no mention of the costs of grid upgrades, system balancing costs and constraint payments – all the direct result of increased renewable generation.
One more thing worth pointing out is the projection that CfD costs will decline in 2027/28. There is no logic for this – no generators are likely to drop out of the scheme then, as their 15-year contracts won’t start to expire until will into the next decade. Moreover, subsidies will rise once Hinkley Point starts up.
The OBR may be assuming that some of the offshore wind farms which agreed lower rates will honour their contracts, but this is extremely unlikely.
The only logical explanation is that they expect wholesale power prices to substantially rise in 2027, thus reducing the amount of subsidies paid. This in turn suggests that they expect Carbon Prices to resume their upward march.
Either way, energy consumers will end up being much worse off.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 8, 2024 at 03:12PM
By Paul Homewood
h/t Patsy Lacey
HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!
Hundreds of sites across most of the Great Barrier Reef are turning white from heat stress in the fifth mass coral bleaching event in eight years.
Aerial surveys over two-thirds of the reef have confirmed ‘widespread’ bleaching, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said on Friday.
Climate change is the biggest threat to tropical reefs worldwide, and coral bleaching is caused by heat stress.
It’s not always fatal but corals are likely to die if temperatures remain higher than normal for too long.
Reef Authority chief scientist Roger Beeden said bleaching had been recorded at 300 sites from Cape Melville north of Cooktown to just north of Bundaberg.
‘The results are consistent with what we have seen with above average sea surface temperatures across the marine park for an extended period of time,’ Dr Beeden said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13171743/Great-Barrier-Reef-coral-bleaching.html#newcomment
It was only a year ago that Australia’s leading reef expert, Dr Peter Ridd, reported that coral cover was at record highs:
London, 8 February – A new paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation refutes alarmist claims about the state of the world’s coral reefs.
According to the author, eminent reef scientist Peter Ridd, the official data show no signs of any long-term trends in reef health. Indeed, the best records – for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – suggest that coral cover is at record highs.
Dr Ridd said:
"The public are constantly told that reefs are being irreparably damaged by global warming, but bleaching events, about which there is so much doom-mongering, are simply corals’ natural response to changes in the environment. They are an extraordinarily adaptable lifeform, and bleaching events are almost always followed by rapid recovery."
Dr Ridd suggests that rather than being seen as under threat from climate change, corals should actually be recognised as one of the organisms least likely to suffer harm in a warming world.
"Corals get energy from a symbiotic relationship with various species of algae. When environmental conditions change, they can rapidly switch to a different species that is better suited to the new conditions. This shapeshifting means that most setbacks they suffer will be short-lived."
Dr Ridd says that the real risks to reefs come from overfishing and pollution.
The GWPF invited responses to this paper from authors likely to dissent from its conclusions. None of the authors who were contacted accepted this invitation.
Peter Ridd: Coral in a Warming World: Causes for Optimism (pdf)
As Peter Ridd’s report noted, it only in the last two or three decades that the GBR has really been systematically surveyed. Yet there is plenty of evidence that similar bleaching events have frequently occurred in the past, particularly during El Nino events. They were just never observed.
Whereas it was natural to assume that coral reefs would die off after bleaching, Ridd shows that they actually recover very quickly. Bleaching, far from being fatal, is actually a remarkable
adaptive response to changing temperature, because having expelled the microscopic algae, which gives it its colour as well as energy, it reabsorbs another strain of algae which thrives in warmer water. The opposite happens when the seas cool.
Ridd concluded:
The Mail report includes this comment, which exposes the thing as a scam:
Australia’s emissions of CO2 are just 1% of the world’s, so calling on the Federal Government to reduce emissions will make no difference whatsoever to the reef. Instead they are using the reef as an excuse to force through their left wing political agenda.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 8, 2024 at 03:12PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 