Chinese researchers from Tongji University led by Prof. Shen and Dr. Wang found that Antarctic ice masses have increased significantly since 2021. The data evaluated by NASA’s GRACE satellite showed an annual loss of 74 billion tons per year from 2002 to 2010. From 2011 to 2020, the amount even doubled. Now the ice has increased by around 108 billion tons year on year.
Antarctic Ice Is Increasing…Climate Models “No Longer Reflect Reality”
via climate science
May 21, 2025 at 01:30AM
“The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!”
The rating of “critically insufficient‘ by Climate Action Tracker makes Argentina an international climate leader in 2025. President Javier Milei is putting people and greenery ahead of the Climate Industrial Complex in his country, offering a sound example of economic and environmental policy for other countries in the region.
Here is the good news (described as bad) by Climate Action Tracker (CAT):
Under Argentina’s new government, progress in developing and implementing climate policies has taken a step backwards. Among the restructuring and budget cuts in the national public administration, Argentina’s former Ministry of Environment has been demoted to the sub-secretary level, and the continuity of its previous climate policies remains in doubt. Meanwhile, the government continues to invest heavily in fossil fuels, notably a USD 30 billion LNG terminal to export fossil gas out of Vaca Muerta. Overall, CAT rates Argentina’s climate targets and policies as “Critically insufficient”.
Details follow:
Under President Milei’s administration which assumed office in December 2023, Argentina’s national government has been substantially restructured, with a focus on reducing the size of the public administration and cutting expenditure. In this process, the former Ministry of Environment has been reduced to the sub-secretary level, under the Secretary of Sport, Tourism and Environment (EcoNews Global, 2023).
During his presidential campaign, President Milei had stated he does not believe in man-made climate change and that his government will not support climate policies, including threats to leave the Paris Agreement (Colombo, 2023). While his administration later stated that Argentina will not be leaving the Paris Agreement, during COP29, Argentina recalled its delegation only a few days into the negotiations. Overall the outlook is bleak on Argentine increasing climate ambition for the next four years (Larena, 2024; Spring, 2023).
Energy projects for the masses have the green light!
The new government plans to continue developing the Vaca Muerta fossil gas fields, as well as a fossil gas pipeline and the LNG terminal planned by the previous administration. To support these large investments, the government set out an incentive package called RIGI or Incentive Regime for Large Investments (KPMG, 2024).
CO2 emissions are on the go also, doing its part to green the Planet and trash Net Zero.
In 2022, emissions in Argentina rebounded above 2019 levels after a sharp drop in 2020 due to COVID-19. This puts Argentina’s 2030 emissions projections under current policies at approximately 15% above its already unambitious 2030 target. Based on a study by UNICEN exploring energy scenarios (Blanco & Keesler, 2022), if Argentina were to implement additional policies to scale-up low carbon energy sources and reduce energy demand, it could get close to its NDC target. However, to be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, Argentina would need to develop more ambitious policies, especially to stop deforestation and reduce livestock-related emissions.
The past administration put Argentina on a continued-poverty course.
Argentina submitted an updated NDC in December 2021 that sets an unconditional target that is only a marginal improvement on the previous iteration. Argentina’s latest target only achieves a “Highly insufficient” rating when compared to required domestic efforts, and to Argentina’s fair share contribution to global climate change mitigation. With emissions (excl. LULUCF) projected to grow significantly after 2022, Argentina is set to miss its NDC target.
“In the last few months, climate policy has been significantly deprioritised in Argentina,” Climate Action Tracker continued. “However, there have been some positive developments:”
Argentina can follow the U.S. lead and skip COP 30 and further demote the international effort to help defeat it. But Climate Action Tracker dreams otherwise:
There is much that Argentina could do to increase its climate ambition to CAT, including:
Explicit subsidies for upstream oil and fossil gas development should be eliminated, but more than this, the opportunity for production incentives and wealth democratization should incite subsoil privatization, an idea born by another great Argentinian, Guillermo Yeatts ( (1937–2018). As I have written elsewhere:
The case of Guillermo Yeatts for subsoil privatization should eclipse ‘climate change’ as the number one policy initiative of the 21st century. This friend of private property, free markets, the rule of law, and civil society, a successful entrepreneur in his own right, a thinker and doer, has set up an excellent opportunity for a new political era in his beloved Argentina.
The grand opportunity is not only to leave climate alarmism and forced energy transformation in the dust. It is also to elevate the private and public wealth of Argentina with expanded private property rights and free markets. Let’s go!
The post Argentina: New Climate Leader! appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
May 21, 2025 at 01:12AM
Steve Milloy
Contributor
Who runs the Senate? The democratically elected Majority Leader, Sen. John Thune? Or leftover partisan Harry Reid-appointee, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough?
The answer to that question may very well determine whether the Republican-controlled Senate will able to vote this week on whether to repeal the Biden EPA decision to allow California to establish a national mandate for electric vehicles (EVs).
The Clean Air Act allows EPA to grant waivers to the state of California in order for the state to set more stringent air pollution regulations than EPA sets for other states. The basic rational for this rule is that California has special environmental conditions. The populous Los Angeles region, for example, is located essentially in a bowl that traps and concentrates air pollution when the wind isn’t blowing. (RELATED: STEVE MILLOY: ‘All Of the Above’ Is DEI For Energy)
In December 2024, the Biden EPA granted California a Clean Air Act waiver to mandate that only EVs can be sold in the state by 2035. Although California’s mandate technically only applies to the state, it is really a national problem.
California is a large part of the US new car market. Car makers don’t make one type of car for California and another type of car for the other 49 states. They make one type of car for all 50 states. There is genuine concern that California’s EV mandate would become a de facto national mandate.
Because the Biden EPA was late to issue the December 2024 waiver, it is now subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Under the 1996 law, Congress may repeal regulations by a simple majority vote, no filibuster permitted, within 60 legislative days of a regulation’s issuance. The House voted on May 1 to repeal the California waiver and now it is the Senate’s turn to do so. The Senate has until the first week of June to do the same.
But there’s a problem.
Ahead of the House vote, the General Accounting Office tried to derail the CRA rule by characterizing the waiver as a permit versus a regulation, where permits are not eligible to be repealed by the filibuster-proof CRA. But while the EPA granted permission to California to regulate more stringently, the end result is more stringent regulation. The waiver, therefore, is a clearly a regulation and not some sort of permit.
Speaker Johnson rightly chose to ignore the weird General Accounting Office interpretation of the waiver. The House subsequently passed the repeal, 246 to 164, with 35 Democrats joining all 211 Republicans present.
But opponents of the CRA action still have hope because the Senate Parliamentarian, appointed to her post by Democrat and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2012, thinks the GAO was correct. She has some Republicans uncertain of their position.
According to Politico, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said has “some procedural issues” with the waiver. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is “discussing the issue with colleagues and not yet ready to make a decision.” “There is obviously apprehension if we go sideways on our own rules and so I’m having a lot of good conversations,” Murkowski said.
Even West Virginia’s Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told Politico, she wasn’t “100 percent decided” yet. This holdout behavior is outrageous and Leader Thune should not stand for it.
First, the Parliamentarian is plainly wrong. The waiver is a regulation not a mere permit.
Second, the Parliamentarian is plainly partisan. Beyond her Harry Reid-era provenance, she conveniently decided all the climate provisions and spending in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act were budget- versus policy-related and so could be voted on under the non-filibusterable reconciliation process. But for her decision, the IRA would never have been enacted and President Trump and congressional Republicans wouldn’t be burdened with repealing a trillion-plus dollars worth of Green New Scam spending.
Finally, the Parliamentarian’s opinion is just like the GAO’s – i.e., merely advisory in nature. Leader Thune is not bound by Senate rules or any law to accept it. It would be absurd for a Republican-controlled Senate to allow a leftover Democrat administrative appointee to dictate the measures upon which Senate Republicans may vote.
President Trump campaigned on ending the EV mandate. Leader Thune should bring the California waiver up for vote next week and have Vice President JD Vance on-hand, if necessary, for a tie-breaking vote. Then, after winning the vote, appoint a new Parliamentarian.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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via Watts Up With That?
May 21, 2025 at 12:03AM
The Trump administration has rescinded a stop-work order that had temporarily halted construction of the Empire Wind 1 offshore wind project near New York. The decision clears the way for Equinor, the project’s developer, to resume building the $5 billion installation intended to generate electricity for the state.
According to a report by Just the News, the project had been paused for a month after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued the order, citing concerns that the previous administration under President Biden had “rushed” the federal environmental review process. The pause sparked political and economic concerns, particularly due to the scale of the project and its associated job numbers.
Governor Kathy Hochul announced the federal government’s decision to lift the halt following discussions with the White House. She stated:
“I want to thank President Trump for his willingness to work with me to save the 1,500 good paying union jobs that were on the line and helping get this essential project back on track”.
Empire Wind 1, which is being developed by the Norway-based energy company Equinor, is projected to deliver 810 megawatts of electricity—reportedly enough to power about 500,000 homes. The company said it welcomed the administration’s decision to allow construction to continue.
“We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,” said Anders Opedal, President and CEO of Equinor ASA.
Equinor had previously warned that it might abandon the project if the stop-work order was not lifted, citing construction delays that were costing the company up to $50 million per week. The company has already invested more than $2.5 billion in the development, which is approximately one-third complete.
The resumption of the project also follows legal and political tensions. New York and other northeastern states had filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, contesting its authority to indefinitely halt federal wind-energy approvals under an executive order issued on January 20. The legal challenges reflect broader disputes over the federal government’s role in regulating offshore wind development and its alignment with state-level clean energy goals.
Former President Biden’s administration had aimed to develop 35 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, starting with projects such as Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts. The Empire Wind 1 project is one of several large-scale efforts along the U.S. East Coast that form part of state and federal clean energy targets.
For now, the lifting of the stop-work order represents a significant step toward the project’s completion and a continuation of New York’s attempt at an energy transition, though broader debates over offshore wind’s environmental and economic implications remain active.
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via Watts Up With That?
May 20, 2025 at 08:02PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 