The US opposes net zero mania while China, Saudi Arabia and Russia didn’t even attend. The article doesn’t mention the climate but waffles about ‘clean’ (lots of mining?) energy and ‘security’ (undersea cables, offshore wind turbines?). Renewables are as expensive to deploy and as part-time as ever, but advocates always try to sidestep that. Hydrogen and biofuels will never scale up to replace traditional fuels due to high cost and energy intensity of production, and other factors.
– – –
An international summit on the future of energy security opened in London on Thursday with stark opposition from Washington, which called policies to phase out fossil fuels “harmful and dangerous”, says Phys.org.
Profound differences emerged at the two-day International Energy Agency (IEA) meeting over the role of renewables in satisfying the world’s thirst for energy.
The meeting takes place amid global economic turmoil sparked by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and uncertainty surrounding US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“Some want to regulate every form of energy besides the so-called renewables, completely out of existence… We oppose these harmful and dangerous policies. This is not energy security,” Tommy Joyce, US Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs, told the conference.
That contrasted to a more moderate message from IEA executive director Fatih Birol in opening remarks at the summit, co-hosted by the UK.
“Every economy has its own pathway for energy. We should understand and respect it,” he said.
Birol added also that “oil and gas are key parts of our energy mix, and they will remain as part of the energy mix in years to come.”
The IEA said in its own forecast in 2023 that fossil fuel demand would peak before 2030.
Meanwhile, British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband welcomed “low carbon energy” as playing “a critical role in delivering energy security”.
“As long as energy can be weaponized against us, our countries and our citizens are vulnerable and exposed,” he added. [Talkshop comment – how does importing renewables and batteries from China fit into that concept?]
Several energy ministers from European countries attended the gathering, including 120 senior government officials, business leaders, and experts.
The United States was only represented by acting deputy secretaries of state, while China, Saudi Arabia and Russia skipped the event altogether.
. . .
OPEC, whose membership is dominated by oil-producing Gulf states, believes that energy security must be achieved by adding renewable energy sources to existing fossil fuels, not by replacing them.
Editor’s Note: Due to other pressing work for Heartland, this week’s CCW is a bit short. Thanks for your understanding.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Earth Is Greening: Thank Climate Change
Defense Department Scraps Unjustified Climate Programs
Earth Is Greening: Thank Climate Change
New research published in the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment confirms, yet again, what regular readers of Climate Change Weekly and Heartland’s other climate change products have long known: the Earth is greening in general, and increased carbon dioxide levels and better moisture conditions are responsible.
The study, from a team of 17 researchers at various universities and research facilities in the United States and China, reports that in 2020 the Earth’s “greenness”—its vegetation coverage and mass—reached its highest levels since the early 2000s and probably longer.
Using remote sensing devices and indicators supplemented by machine learning, the researchers determined the greening was “largely linked to continuous growth in boreal and temperate vegetation” and “[c]omplemented by a transient tropical vegetation boost due to increased rainfall.”
Although the study has been largely ignored by the mainstream media (surprise, surprise—NOT!), the Daily Sceptic covered it, reporting,
The work helps confirm other recent scientific work that points to massive global plant growth directly related to recent increases in natural and human-caused carbon dioxide. Plants have evolved to grow in an atmosphere much richer in CO2 than current near-denuded levels, and the recent growth and its myriad benefits for humankind should not be surprising. . . .
This is not the first time that an acceleration in global greening over the last two decades has been observed. Last year a group of Chinese scientists found that about 55% of global land mass had shown an “accelerated rate” of vegetation growth. The Chinese team that included the Eco-Climatologist Professor Tiexi Chen stated that “global greening is an indisputable fact.”
Aside from the greening of existing temperate and tropical forests and vegetation, there has also been marked de-desertification as desert edges are shrinking, being reclaimed by vegetation, and oases are expanding.
Various studies show that the CO2 fertilization effect is helping pollinators and is responsible for a large decline in global hunger in recent decades as the higher CO2 bears a large portion of the credit for increasing crop yields.
The authors conclude that their results suggest “a robust resilience and adaptability of global vegetation in the face of changing environmental [conditions].”
As I mentioned above, the beneficial CO2-induced greening of the Earth, with longer growing seasons and improved rainfall and plant efficiency, is not news to my readers. Climate Realism has published nearly 60 stories citing different research papers and studies that document CO2-induced greening, and hundreds more examining how greening has improved crop yields and production and reduced starvation, hunger, and malnutrition.
In addition, Heartland discussed global greening with award-winning physicist Will Happer during the 78th episode of the Climate Realism show, and we have discussed global greening and its continuing agricultural boost on a number of panels at Heartland’s series of 15 International Conferences on Climate Change.
Various analyses of the so-called “Social Cost of Carbon” calculations indicate global greening and its effects on agriculture alone may mean that the metric would be better labeled the Social Net Benefit of Carbon.
Global greening is an established fact, and this study is just one more data point of proof.
Defense Department Scraps Unjustified Climate Programs
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Defense Department (DOD) and the branches of the military it manages are shutting down their costly, inane climate change efforts, which tended to undermine military preparedness without affecting climate change.
Efforts were already underway to shutter DOD climate justice and other climate-related programs unrelated to military readiness when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X in early March, “The @DeptofDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting,” in response to a reporter’s question about the programs.
Across its various service branches, the DOD is probably the largest user of fossil fuels in the world, with one estimate being that the department uses 4.6 billion gallons of fuel each year. A breakdown of greenhouse gas emissions of the various service branches in 2021 estimated 56 percent were by the U.S. Air Force, Naval operations accounted for 31 percent, and the Army and Marine Corps emitted 9 percent and 5 percent, respectively. At that time, emissions from the U.S. Space Force were not calculated or included in the total.
In truth, Zero Emissions for DOD operations was an insane pipedream. In practical terms, it was and is dangerous to military readiness and function, and if operationalized it would leave U.S. national security to the machinations of any enemy military still using equipment reliant on fossil fuels.
President Donald Trump, Secretary Hegseth, and the current joint chiefs recognize that and have begun to remedy the security vulnerabilities Biden, and Obama before him, created through their climate obsession.
On April 22, Earth Day no less, the Navy officially announced it was scrapping the Biden-era “climate action plan.” Navy Secretary John Phelan announced in a video, “Today, I’m focusing on the warfighters first, and I’m rescinding the Biden administration’s climate action program. Our focus needs to be on lethality and our warfighters.”
Biden set climate-oriented performance goals for the U.S. Navy to reduce the services’ greenhouse gas emissions and remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere to make the Navy’s operations net-zero or below by 2050.
The Navy began implementing initiatives to meet that overall goal, committing to purchase only 100 percent zero-emission vehicles by 2035, with a midterm goal of 100 percent zero-emission light-duty vehicles by 2027, and cutting emissions at its installations by 50 percent by 2032.
Concerning sailing vessels, the Navy under President Obama wasted more than $57 billion by 2017 on making the “Great Green Fleet,” an effort to produce enough biofuels to power its ships and boats. The biofuel portion of the fleets’ fuel cost about $14 per gallon, seven times the cost of diesel.
“The program also faced logistical challenges, as biofuels were not widely available in overseas ports, necessitating the continued use of traditional diesel fuel,” reported Willow Tohi for Natural News. At the time of Biden VP Kamala Harris’s election loss, 99 percent of the Navy’s fleet still ran on fossil fuels, despite this huge investment.
The Air Force had a similarly wasteful and unsuccessful “Sustainable Aviation Fuel” program to produce jet fuels from biofuels and develop hydrogen-powered aircraft. In 2023 the Air Force contracted with startup company Jet Zero, providing it with $235 million to produce jets that use 50 percent less fuel per passenger mile by 2027 than current jets do. The long-term goal was for the Air Force to purchase 100 to 200 such jets, once the technology was proven, to reduce operational emissions. Under Trump, the future of this program and other Air Force green fuel and technology programs is in doubt.
While the Air Force certified some of its jets to run on a mix of traditional jet fuels and biofuels in 2021, at present Air Force flight operations are almost entirely fueled by traditional jet fuel, kerosene-based Jet Propellant-8, despite billions of dollars in contracts and investments.
As for efforts to build electric-powered aircraft, the battery weight and limited range make it infeasible with any technologies likely to become available in the near term.
Concerning the Army’s efforts to go net zero, energy and climate analyst and author Steve Gorham writes in a Master Resource post,
The “Army Climate Strategy” plan of February 2022 called for the near-term use of microgrids and renewable electricity at military bases. It called for a 100% transition of the “non-tactical vehicle fleet” to electric vehicles (EVs) by FY 2027. Spending would amount to about $2 billion per year from 2023 to 2027.
The plan also proposed to begin a transition of light, medium, and even heavy battlefield tactical vehicles to electric drive by 2027, and the development of “battlefield chargers” for these vehicles. Charging electric tanks on the battlefield is another example of “climate change crap” with no military value.
The Army’s plan to electrify tactical vehicles by 2027 was impractical for domestic operations and training, much less for international battlefield conditions. No milestones toward the Army’s goals have been met so far.
The DOD’s new management is installing policies that make efficient, effective operational capabilities in defense of the nation priorities one, two, and three. Any other goals—such as nation building or humanitarian missions—are being deemphasized. Others, such as fighting climate change, are seemingly being jettisoned entirely, and rightly so.
“While adaptation measures such as building sea walls and erecting flood barriers are sensible for building resilience to weather events, they are not tied to measurable climate change mitigation,” Tohi writes. “These efforts are pragmatic but do not align with the broader, often ideological, climate change agenda.
“Secretary Hegseth’s decision to redirect these funds to strengthening the U.S. military marks a new era of realistic policy,” concludes Tohi.
I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. Climate change and any problems stemming from it do not threaten military readiness or effectiveness, but efforts to fight climate change do.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Central Europe has been experiencing a bout of dry weather since February. Germany’s DWD national weather service reported in a recent press release that just 19 liters per square meter (l/m²) fell in March compared to the approx. 60 liters that normally fall in the month. This made last March one of the driest since measurements began in 1881.
“The pronounced drought, which had already lasted in some regions since the beginning or middle of February, was caused by high-pressure areas that repeatedly settled over Central Europe or in the surrounding area,” reports the DWD.
Not surprisingly, the media are making alarmist claims of unprecedented drought, and all hinting it’s due to climate sins by mankind.
Driest years overwhelmingly before 1980
So is drought in rainy Germany something new that we have only begun to experience, like the media and pols suggest?
The historical data show that the answer is clearly NO.
Four of the 5 driest years on record in Germany occurred before 1960. Eight of the top 9 occurred before man-made climate change was ever an issue (before 1980).
Annual precipitation of the 9 driest years since 1881. Hat-tip: Stefan Homburg
And when we look at Germany’s long-term precipitation trend since data began to be recorded, we see the trend is in fact becoming wetter:
Yet, green politicians in Germany have begun calling for a “masterplan” for water-saving and, not surprisingly, more restrictions on how we use water.
Dr. Stefan Homburg summarizes at the end of his video: “I just can’t get my head around it, ladies and gentlemen. I personally don’t understand as a final evaluation why we allow politicians to really ignore real, existing problems and instead invent problems that don’t exist at all in order to derive restrictions on our lives and, above all, to make life more and more expensive through CO2 taxes certificates and so on.”
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
