Michael Mann predicted thirty-three named storms, and now that there have been nine he says he was correct. Weather Street: 2024 Atlantic Hurricanes and Tropical Storms
via Real Climate Science
September 26, 2024 at 09:13AM
Month: September 2024
It’s Climate Week here in New York, and you can feel the excitement. The UN General Assembly is in town, and simultaneously something called the “Climate Group” (“Our mission is to drive climate action. Fast.”) is holding some 600 (!) events to promote policies that they somehow believe will “save the planet.”
At one of these events yesterday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul showed up to deliver what she probably thought was a significant policy speech. The Governor’s web page describes the speech this way:
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced New York’s participation in the U.S. Climate Alliance’s Governors’ Climate-Ready Workforce Initiative to grow career pathways in climate and clean energy fields, strengthen workforce diversity, and jointly train 1 million new registered apprentices across the Alliance’s states and territories by 2035. Governor Hochul made the announcement today at a Climate Week NYC event, which also featured her Alliance Co-Chair New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, founding Alliance member Washington Governor Jay Inslee, and White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi.
In the speech the Gov went on and on about how in New York the energy transition is really happening and is going to create zillions of “green jobs”:
We’re not talking about some transition happening in the future, we’re talking about it unfolding right now, and that’s what we’re so excited about. And we’re opening the doors to underrepresented communities. And I go to these job sites all the time and I want to see more women and people of color and the unions recognize this. That’s where they’re doing their recruiting, because these industries had been previously closed off to them.
She may be “so excited,” but while our airhead governor isn’t looking the world is passing her by. A few data points from the past few days:
- The Wall Street Journal has a front-page article today, with headline and sub-headline “America’s Ambitious Climate Plan Is Faltering. Global emissions are at records, while shift away from fossil fuels slows amid high costs, surging power demand.” There are obligatory nods to the supposed climate crisis (this is the Journal’s news pages, not the opinion section), but there is no avoiding the reality. Examples from the article: “Climate optimism is fading. Higher costs, pushback from businesses and consumers, and the slow rollout of technology are delaying the transition from fossil fuels. . . . Investment in improving the efficiency of buildings—a major driver of emissions—fell last year, the International Energy Agency says. Spending decisions happening now can lock in emissions for decades. Multibillion-dollar liquefied-natural-gas terminals being built in Texas and Louisiana could serve a projected demand boom in places such as Southeast Asia.”
- How’s that EV roll-out going? From Reuters, September 19: “[A]uto industry . . . data [released] on Thursday . . . showed the fourth consecutive monthly drop in EV sales, prompting the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) to demand “urgent action” to prevent further decline. . . . Sales of fully electric cars slumped 43.9% in August, as the bloc’s biggest EV markets Germany and France recorded drops of 68.8% and 33.1% respectively, ACEA said.” Those are rather dramatic drops. In the usual European way, the manufacturers’ trade association took consumer resistance to buying EVs as an opportunity to demand more government subsidies and mandates: “[The ACEA said that] EU institutions [need] to come forward with urgent relief measures before new CO2 targets for cars and vans come into effect in 2025.”
- This one is from a few weeks ago, but another so-called “green hydrogen” project has failed. It was only two months ago that I had a post on the failure of a big green hydrogen project in Australia. The latest such failure, last month, comes from Germany. From Hydrogen Insight, August 14: “The refusal of potential green hydrogen customers to sign binding sales agreements, as well as uncertainty over the price of the product, contributed to the collapse of a plan to build a renewable H2 project in the German city of Hannover. . . . [Officials originally] estimat[ed] that it would cost around €25m. However, by the time the project was cancelled in March this year, costs had ballooned five-fold to around €136m.” This was for just a 17 MW facility.
Maybe some day those “underreprestented communities” that Governor Hochul talks about will figure out that what’s holding them back is reliance on government planning and handouts as the route to economic betterment.
via Watts Up With That?
September 26, 2024 at 08:05AM
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
Britain’s switch to green energy will spark a jobs catastrophe if it is built on imports from China, one of Labour’s biggest union backers has warned.
Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, said the UK’s progress in cutting carbon emissions so far was largely based on the “decimation” of manufacturing industries such as steelmaking, creating “huge social and economic scars”.
He accused successive governments of failing to deliver tens of thousands of jobs that were promised from the expansion of wind and solar. He argued that goods needed to support new green industries should not be purchased cheaply from China.
In a stark wake-up call for Labour, Mr Smith also warned that Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, risked making the situation worse with a crackdown on North Sea oil and his plans to decarbonise UK power by 2030.
His comments come just weeks after massive job losses were confirmed at the Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales, where owner Tata Steel is transitioning from ageing blast furnaces to cleaner electric arc furnaces.
Mr Smith, who has led the GMB since 2021, said: “Climate change is a huge problem, we accept that. But the UK has essentially reduced its carbon emissions by putting people out of manufacturing jobs and moving the work to countries like China.
“Our renewables infrastructure is being built in state-owned or oil and gas wealth fund-backed yards in China and the Middle East, and China obviously burns a huge amount of coal to produce the steel required for that.
“It is not morally defensible. And so for British politicians to go around the world talking about climate change and the threat it poses, well – we’ve simply embarked on a policy of exporting jobs and importing virtue.
“So I doubt many people in other advanced economies think that approach to decarbonisation has been a sensible one. It has hollowed out our communities, it’s decimated our industrial base and it’s left huge social and economic scars across the UK.”
China as a ‘huge, non-market actor’
Labour ministers are grappling with concerns that the rush towards green energy risks unintentionally damaging British industry.
Since 1990, manufacturing’s share of the economy – which is dominated by services – has decreased from 17pc to 9pc, according to research by the House of Commons library.
And there are fears that the decline could continue. Many companies already complain that UK electricity prices are much higher than in Europe and the US, and they face being clobbered by higher carbon taxes and green levies on power.
This is a particular problem for businesses that rely on gas for most of their energy, as they will soon have to shift to electricity which is far more expensive. In 2019, the cost of industrial electricity was roughly six times that of gas, according to government data, with almost half of the total made up of network charges and taxes.
Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, has repeatedly insisted that “decarbonisation must never mean de-industrialisation”.
But in an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Smith said Labour’s own policies risked accelerating industrial decline.
“This Labour Government has inherited an absolute hospital pass from the Tories, [when] a lot of difficult decisions were kicked down the line,” he said.
“But the problem is Labour’s policy positions are in danger of compounding what is already a very problematic position – they’re going to make things worse if they’re not careful.”
He added: “We’ve got this world view that’s all about clean electricity and the charge towards that. But the truth is, it’s not going to happen in the way that people think it is.
“In areas like wind power, we have been promised tens of thousands of jobs repeatedly by successive governments. Now we hear the same from the Labour Government.
“But these jobs have never materialised because it’s simply a lot cheaper for people to produce the infrastructure in places like China.”
Chinese wind turbine manufacturers still account for a relatively small slice of the European market, which remains dominated by giants such as Denmark’s Vestas and Germany’s Enercon, Nordex and Siemens Gamesa – the latter of which has a factory in Hull.
But amid booming production at home – supported by state aid from Beijing – Chinese companies are seeking to win more projects abroad with ultra-cheap prices. Zhongshan-based Mingyang Smart Energy Group is among the suppliers chosen for a host of wind projects in the North Sea, recently pledging to open a factory in Scotland.
Meanwhile, wind farm developers have privately argued that to hit the Government’s 2030 clean power target, ministers may have to relax – rather than strengthen – rules designed to ensure that turbines are made with “local content” from the UK.
Mr Smith said the GMB did not support tackling Chinese exports through “protectionist” measures such as trade tariffs, such as those applied by Joe Biden, the US president.
But he called for the Government to introduce a carbon border tax which would penalise imports of steel or other products shipped from China that had been produced using carbon-intensive processes.
Mr Smith warned: “Protectionism is not in the interest of workers or our economy. We’re a trading nation. But this is not fair trade and we need to stop pretending it is.
“There is just a fundamental challenge with not having a level playing field and competing against a huge, non-market actor like China.
“There needs to be a debate over a carbon border tax and as a new world order starts to take shape, there has to be a debate about the national security implications of having no industrial base.”
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
September 26, 2024 at 07:23AM
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
It did not take a genius to work out that EU tariffs on Chinese EVs would quickly turn into a full scale trade war
.
Few industries are as susceptible to the shifting sands of international policy on trade and protectionism as the automotive sector. And never more so than now with the transition to electric vehicles (EVs).
In leading from the front in their determination to phase out the internal combustion engine (ICE), policymakers in both Britain and Europe have got themselves into the most terrible mess.
Home-grown manufacturers have been left woefully uncompetitive against rampant Chinese competition, with hundreds of thousands of relatively well-paid jobs in Europe’s industrial heartlands now at high risk of redundancy.
Across the sector, vehicle manufacturers are warning of plunging profits, factory closures and job losses; a perfect storm of negatives is about to break, and one which with their lofty net-zero ambitions is almost entirely of the politicians’ own making.
For the Government, two related issues have come racing into view. Ministers might even find time to address them if they could for just a moment stop running around like headless chickens spouting platitudes on how terrible their economic inheritance is.
One is whether to follow the US and Europe into imposing swingeing tariffs on Chinese EV manufacturers before they entirely wipe out the Continent’s own legacy automotive companies.
And second, whether to persist with punishing mandates that the industry hasn’t a prayer of meeting for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles and replacing them with shiny new all-electric alternatives.
Both on price and quality, European car manufacturers are streets behind their upstart Chinese competitors on EVs, yet the EU plans to go all electric by 2035 and is committed to heavy fines against companies that don’t meet thresholds for phasing out ICE models in the meantime.
Imposing tariffs might theoretically give Volkswagen, Stellantis and their like time to play catch up. That they ever will is obviously open to question, but regardless the European Commission has moved ahead with protections including provisional additional tariffs on Chinese producers ranging from 17pc for BYD to 36.4pc for SAIC.
Exquisitely, the level of punishment is linked to the degree of cooperation shown in the EU’s preceding nine-month anti-dumping investigation.
As on virtually everything of importance, Europe is furiously divided over the matter. Retaliatory action against EU member countries with big export markets in China is a certainty. A full-scale trade war, with damaging consequences for industries completely unrelated to autos, is threatened.
Things were due to come to a head this week, when EU member states were scheduled to decide, using qualified majority voting, on whether to make the new tariffs permanent.
At the time of writing, it didn’t look as if those opposed to the tariffs – which included Germany, Hungary and Spain – had sufficient support to be able to block them. Attempts to reach a negotiated settlement with China involving voluntary quotas also seemed to have stalled.
Barring a last-minute deal – or alternatively one of Europe’s major economies changing its mind – it seems likely that the tariffs will take formal effect, leaving the UK with the awkward choice of whether to follow suit.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/25/should-be-welcoming-chinas-ev-manufacturers
via Watts Up With That?
September 26, 2024 at 04:08AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 