Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
This year, no fewer than 90,000 have abandoned their credibility, boarded their jet planes, and made their way to the bright lights of Dubai for the gabfest that is the annual Conference of the Parties (usually referred to as a ‘COP’) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
When times are tough, there’s nothing like a bit of winter sunshine to cheer you up. And boy, are there a lot of people who need to get away from the rain and sleet back home. This year, no fewer than 90,000 have abandoned their credibility, boarded their jet planes, and made their way to the bright lights of Dubai for the gabfest that is the annual Conference of the Parties (usually referred to as a ‘COP’) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
By all accounts, it has been a lot of fun, tables groaning with gourmet burgers and fine wines, with only slightest seasoning of guilt over the enjoyment of all this excess at a time when most of us are struggling.
As we at Net Zero Watch like to point out, the COPs have long followed an entirely predictable pattern. Each year, hundreds of posturing delegates and thousands of protestors, celebs, and assorted hangers-on fly in from around the world to lecture us all on our carbon footprints. They then start up the negotiations, rapidly reach deadlock, before announcing a last-minute breakthrough. Then, in the cold light of day, everybody accepts nothing has been achieved beyond expanded waistlines and serious hangovers for all the delegates.
Who can now doubt that the climate COPs have become a charade, a meaning-less ritual with a comfortable and familiar liturgy that makes everyone involved feel good about themselves, but in which no- body really has the slightest faith?
Take a look, and see what we mean (click on image below to enjoy the panto).
Welcome to episode #91 of “Climate Change Roundtable,” where we challenge the status quo of climate science narratives. Hosted by Anthony Watts, this episode features expert panelist H. Sterling Burnett and guest Steve Milloy of junkscience.com.
Welcome to episode #91 of “Climate Change Roundtable,” where we challenge the status quo of climate science narratives. Hosted by Anthony Watts, this episode features expert panelist H. Sterling Burnett and guest Steve Milloy of junkscience.com.
This week, we had yet another shocking example of “scientists behaving badly” in the scientific peer review process. This follows on the heels of the postponement of the trial of the baddest actor of them all, Michael Mann.
Today’s episode aims to shed light on how these incidents reflect broader problems in the field.
It seems climate science hasn’t learned anything since ClimateGate in 2009.
Plus, we’ll have Crazy Climate News of the week.
Join us as we navigate through these complex issues, providing a platform for open debate and diverse perspectives. Whether you’re a climate change skeptic, a science enthusiast, or simply someone seeking a different viewpoint, this episode promises to offer a thought-provoking analysis of recent events in climate science.
Today’s episode starts at Noon Central Time (1PM ET). Whether you’re a climate enthusiast, a policy expert, or just someone curious about the different facets of climate change discourse, this episode will enlighten you.
Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments below. Stay informed and engaged with “Climate Change Roundtable.”
The Saudi Arabian energy minister said Wednesday that the new United Nations (UN) green energy transition pledge will not diminish the country’s ability to sell fossil fuels, according to Al Arabiya, a Saudi Arabian news outlet.
An oil processing facility operates beside dunes at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oil field in the Rub’ Al-Khali desert, also known as the ‘Empty Quarter,’ in Shaybah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018. Saudi Arabia is seeking to transform its crude-dependent economy by developing new industries, and is pushing into petrochemicals as a way to earn more from its energy deposits. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
The Saudi Arabian energy minister said Wednesday that the new United Nations (UN) green energy transition pledge will not diminish the country’s ability to sell fossil fuels, according to Al Arabiya, a Saudi Arabian news outlet.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that the landmark international pledge to transition away from fossil fuels will not affect Saudi Arabian crude oil sales, according to Al Arabiya. The UN hailed the agreement as “the beginning of the end” for fossil fuels, but Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, does not seem especially concerned that the pledge spells doom for the country’s economic lifeblood.
Nearly 200 countries, including the U.S., signed onto the energy transition pledge on Wednesday, just before the annual UN climate summit adjourned.
“We were given priority that I don’t think I have ever seen it in any such conference,” bin Salman told Al Arabiya regarding the level of access he and his colleagues received at the summit.
The pledge calls for “developed” countries, such as the U.S. and countries in Western Europe, to lead the way in the transition away from fossil fuels and in pursuit of green energy as “developing” countries follow that lead.
Notably, Saudi Arabia is considered a “developing” country despite its status as the world’s second-largest oil producer in 2022 and ranking as a top-ten emitter of carbon dioxide.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, reacted to the announcement of the new commitment by asserting that fossil fuels “jeopardize our planet and our people,” according to the White House. “The climate crisis is the existential threat of our time. But as America has always done, we will turn crisis into opportunity – creating clean energy jobs, revitalizing communities, and improving quality of life.”
Saudi Arabian representatives, as well as delegates from other major oil-producing countries, reportedly resisted efforts from other officials to orient the commitment around a promise to “phase out” fossil fuels altogether, as opposed to a more broadly-defined energy transition.
Ultimately, it appears that Saudi Arabia, a leading member of OPEC+, got its way. The agreement does not call for a fossil fuel “phase out,” instead advocating for governments to accelerate the deployment of carbon removal technologies that could ostensibly prolong global reliance on fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and storage.
It remains to be seen whether or not the agreement’s signatories will actually follow through with the pledge’s stipulations. Lofty targets have been set at past UN climate conferences, only to be effectively ignored.
For example, at the 2021 summit, global leaders announced commitment to phasing down reliance on coal-fired power plants, but global coal demand is expected to remain at near-record levels in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency.
The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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According to small nations delegates they were busy b̵a̵n̵g̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵h̵o̵o̵k̵e̵r̵s̵ finalising the details of their position, when a deal was struck while they were out of the room.
According to small nations delegates they were busy b̵a̵n̵g̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵h̵o̵o̵k̵e̵r̵s̵ finalising the details of their position, when a deal was struck while they were out of the room.
Pacific Islands lash out at COP28 presidency: ‘We weren’t in the room’ when deal was announced
By Natasha Turak,CNBC • Published December 13, 2023 • Updated 6 hours ago
“We weren’t in the room when this decision was gavelled. And that is shocking to us,” Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, told media on Wednesday.
For Pacific Island nations and many other island and low-lying coastal states vulnerable to rising sea levels, the final COP28 deal falls severely short.
“We see a litany of loopholes,” the AOSIS statement reacting to the deal said. “It does not deliver on a subsidy phaseout, and it does not advance us beyond the status quo.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Representatives of Pacific Island states expressed frustration and disappointment at the final outcome of the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates, saying they were left out of the plenary room when the concluding deal was decided.
“We weren’t in the room when this decision was gavelled. And that is shocking to us,” Tina Stege, the climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, said Wednesday while speaking outside of the plenary.
Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told the COP28 Presidency in a closing statement: “We are a little confused about what just happened.”
You’ve got to hand it to Sultan Al Jaber, he pulled a rabbit out of the hat with this one, if he had anything to do with the absence – lure the noisy shouty people out of the room, so a deal could be struck. Or maybe they just took advantage of their absence?
It’s hilarious that the Alliance of Small Island States couldn’t manage to make one flunky stay in the room while the senior people attended their important meeting. Or maybe they did, and their representative couldn’t get anyone senior on the phone when it all started moving against them.
The new deal of course is pointless and vague, like every other COP deal. As far as I can tell it’s a commitment to transition only energy systems away from fossil fuel, leaving transport alone, with a role for gas as a transition fuel. So I guess Sultan Al Jaber gets to sign his big gas contracts after all.
Still I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of those Pacific Island delegates, when they get back home and explain to the boss they blundered the big payoff. Maybe they would be better off staying in the UAE.
Note I’m just joking about the banging hookers reference, I’m sure the small islands delegates were all attending matters of state which were so important they couldn’t send one member of the team into the conference to keep an eye on things. But anyone who thinks hookers are not a thing in the UAE has never taken a long walk around town at night. To the polite and friendly Dubai doorman who invited me in to the windowless heavy stone construction mens club with the opulently decorated steel reinforced door and lots of single guys continuously coming and going, thanks but no thanks.
The threat of tropical mosquito-borne vector diseases becoming endemic in Britain in the near future made recent headlines in the unquestioning mainstream media, with particular pride-of-place given to the revelation that London could suffer endemic dengue fever transmission by 2060.
The threat of tropical mosquito-borne vector diseases becoming endemic in Britain in the near future made recent headlines in the unquestioning mainstream media, with particular pride-of-place given to the revelation that London could suffer endemic dengue fever transmission by 2060. Of course, like all good sandwich-board climate scare stories, this one has been walked around the park a few times in the past. In 2013, the Guardian reported that “leading health experts” were urging the Government to take action against the growing threat of mosquito-borne diseases, since “climate change could bring malaria to the U.K.”. Back in 2001, the newspaper reported British health officials had warned that malaria could return to southern counties “within 20 years” as the climate warms.
The latest catastrophising report comes from the U.K. Government’s Health Security Agency (UKHSA), led by Dame Jenny Harries. It is highly political in tone with Professor Isabel Oliver, Chief Scientific Officer at UKHSA noting that it “demonstrates the impact that climate change could have on our society if we don’t take decisive action”. It does nothing of the sort of course because, astonishingly, the UKHSA has based many of its headline-grabbing predictions on climate models fed with a presumption that temperatures will rise by 4-5°C in less than 80 years. Since global temperatures have barely moved much more than 0.15°C in the last 25 years, this 4-5°C high emissions pathway, known as RCP8.5, is little more than a highly implausible invention.
“Climate modelling under a high emissions scenario suggests that Aedes albopictus – a mosquito species that can transmit dengue fever, chikungunya virus and zika virus – has the potential to become established in most of England by the 2040s and 2050s, while most of Wales, Northern Ireland and parts of the Scottish Lowlands could also become suitable habitats later in this century,” says the report. Dr. Lea Berrang Ford, Head of Centre for Climate and Health Security at UKHSA, added that “a child born today will be in their working-age years when health impacts may peak or accelerate further, depending on how much we decarbonise now”.
Linking public health in this way using invented future temperature rises is a disgrace. It does a grave disservice to the British public who are entitled to receive timely and realistic advice on current and future health threats, not politically-driven scare stories based on unproven science and garbage-in, garbage-out climate models.
It is particularly disappointing to see the UKHSA, an executive agency of the Department of Health, making such a play of RCP8.5. In its latest assessment report, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “the likelihood of high emissions scenarios such as RCP8.5 or SSP5-8.5 [a later version] is considered low”. The UKHSA is using a ‘low likelihood’ prediction to make fanciful, politically-inspired claims of tropical disease epidemics to scare the young, in particular, to follow a collectivist Net Zero agenda. Regrettably, the RCP8.5 pathway is responsible for much of the ‘clickbait’ science that still dominates the mainstream media headlines, from the Gulf Stream collapsing, to all the coral suddenly dying in the oceans. For its part, the UKHSA describes RCP8.5 as a “plausible” scenario.
The science writer Roger Pielke Jnr. has long been a critic of its widespread misuse, noting that we can view it as one of the “most significant failures of scientific integrity in the 21st century so far”. His short explanation for how such an obvious corruption of the scientific process has been allowed to stand for so long is “groupthink fuelled by a misinformation campaign led by activist climate scientists”.
As I noted earlier, the vector tropical disease climate scare is dusted down at regular intervals. But the facts have refused to cooperate – since the U.K. Department of Health and the Guardian first told us in 2001 it could appear within 20 years, malaria has been keeping its long-term low profile.
In June this year, the UKHSA issued a more sober assessment of malaria in the U.K. It noted that malaria “is not currently transmitted in the U.K.”, but travel-associated cases occur in those who have returned to or arrived in the U.K. from malaria-endemic areas. The above graph shows cases of malaria reported in the U.K. from 2002 to 2021. It shows they have remained fairly constant over the last 20 years, with major drops in the travel-restricted Covid years.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg says we waste money in the fight against climate change.
Governments spends trillions to fight climate change, but Lomborg says many of these policies are “not an efficient way of spending.”
For saying this, Lomborg has been called “the devil.” The Danish government even targeted him for his views on climate change.
“I’m not trying to do something that’s immoral or anything,” he tells me. “I’m simply trying to make sure that we get it right.”
Lomborg says there are better things society should spend money on. He says we should spend on the “best things first,” things like maternal and newborn health and improving education, rather than squandering billions on pointless gestures toward stopping climate changes.
Alan Longhurst died last December 7th in the hospital of Figeac in Occitanie (France), where he had been admitted a few days earlier following a fall in nearby Cajarc, the small town where he lived.
Alan Longhurst died last December 7th in the hospital of Figeac in Occitanie (France), where he had been admitted a few days earlier following a fall in nearby Cajarc, the small town where he lived.
He was born in Plymouth (United Kingdom) on March 5, 1925. He served his country at the end of World War II and was discharged in 1948. On his last assignment in Ethiopia, Alan fell in love with the lush wildlife of the savannah and decided to study zoology and ecology in London.
After completing his Ph.D., Alan returned to Africa in 1955 and began working in fisheries in Sierra Leone, which he continued five years later in Lagos, Nigeria, after a brief stay in New Zealand. A visit three years later from a representative of the U.S. Tuna Boat Owners Association changed his destiny. He told him that the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla, California, was looking for someone like him to join their tuna oceanography group. Three months later, Alan was working in California. His wife, Françoise Bergeret, went with him. She was a graduate of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris and worked as an interpreter for the UN. They had met in Nigeria the previous year (1962) and traveled to La Jolla as newlyweds. Their children, Claire and Nicholas, later joined the family.
Alan found the scientific environment at Scripps very stimulating. His lab neighbor, Walter Munk , was studying the dynamics of tidal motion at the bottom of the ocean. It was in this environment that Alan first considered studying the vertical distribution of plankton in the course of the 1967-68 survey of the entire El Niño region coordinated by his institution, the US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (now NOAA Fisheries), which after numerous cruises resulted in the 11-volume EASTROPAC Atlas. As director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, he coordinated the project. No one had studied the vertical distribution of plankton before, so Alan designed a new instrument to do so, the Longhurst-Hardy Plankton Recorder. This was one of his seminal contributions to marine biology.
When NOAA was formed in 1970, he was director of the La Jolla Laboratory of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, which was integrated with other West Coast laboratories and separated from Scripps. He was promoted to head NOAA operations from the California coast to Hawaii, an administrative position that took him away from the research he loved. So in 1971 he accepted a research position in his hometown of Plymouth, where the Longhurst family spent a few happy years in an old farmhouse on Dartmoor.
In 1977, Alan was recruited to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada, as Director of the Marine Ecology Laboratory. It was there that his career would culminate, as he became Director-General of the Institute from 1980-86 and continued to work there until his retirement in 1995. His other seminal contribution to oceanography came during these years. Alan had observed the importance of phytoplankton cycles and the conditions that drive them in ocean ecosystems. As a pioneer in the use of satellites to observe changes in plankton, he was able to demonstrate the existence of biogeochemical provinces in oceanic regions. His 1995 paper, the most cited in the Journal of Plankton Research, gave rise to the concept of the ecological geography of the sea, which led to a successful book of the same name in 1998 and a second edition in 2007. This book remains an essential study for understanding marine ecology.
Alan retired in 1995 and went to live with Françoise in Cajarc, where she opened a non-profit art gallery, Galerie l’Acadie, which exhibited works by local artists until it closed in early 2022. On December 22, 2022, Françoise died unexpectedly, leaving Alan completely devastated. It was the beginning of a phase in Alan’s life that he had not wished for. At the age of 98, he contemplated the end of his life without anxiety, waiting peacefully while looking at the sky of the South of France (le Midi) and occupying himself with everyday things, without forgetting the scientific questions that had always occupied him.
Alan Longhurst, the climate sceptic
His Wikipedia page, compiled by his friends at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, barely mentions his climate scepticism, which is understandable given the scientific disrepute it currently carries. But Alan’s skepticism has been central to the last 26 years of his life, ever since his wife Françoise, trying to keep him from getting bored with the simple life in the French countryside, told him in 1997 that maybe he should start taking an interest in the climate issues that were making so many headlines.
Like me, Alan started from a position of confidence in the work of climate scientists. But he had the experience of virtually every year of oceanographic cruises that had taken him all over the world’s seas and oceans, and he had a deep understanding of the clear response of marine species to climate changes. In addition, Alan had a vast knowledge of the literature and studies of decades and centuries of ocean biology and conditions, including those conducted by the British Navy. One of his main complaints was that all this knowledge, obtained with great scientific rigor, was being completely ignored in the study of climate change, and that everything prior to the significant increase in our emissions was no longer ignored, but unknown to current scientists. He commented on how some of his published observations on the effects of nitrogen upwelling off the California coast on tuna populations had been republished as if they were new by a group in Northern California. He jokingly noted that a few months of research can often save a few hours at the library.
Such oceanographic and climate knowledge led him to a deep skepticism of the consensus proposed by the IPCC, which crystallized in several climate articles published on the Climate Etc. blog and in the writing of the book “Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science,” which took him several years to complete. Kip Hansen masterfully defined it in his review of the book as follows:
“Longhurst’s comprehension and recall of the details of hundreds of scientific papers from related and adjacent fields enter into this brilliant synopsis of the state of Climate Science – what doubts we still have and what, if any, certainty we can claim.”
However, the publishers of his oceanography books refused to publish a book that went against the prevailing climate dogma. This saddened Alan. If you have dedicated your life to science with honesty and integrity, it is not easy to deal with such rejection. It is an experience I share.
My first contact with Alan was in October, 2017. Not to be discouraged, Alan was working on a second edition of the book and wanted to use some figures I had made. It wasn’t until 2022 that he finally accepted that his book was unpublishable. I was in the process of publishing my first book, “Climate of the Past, Present and Future,” and offered to help him publish his. Alan enthusiastically accepted.
I began working on his book, helping him with text and figures, in early December, just weeks before Françoise’s unexpected death. Through our constant communication, I witnessed his most difficult months, when only the publication of his book and its positive reception brought him any joy. Gradually, Alan came to terms with what had happened, but it had hit him hard, and he complained about the immense task of dealing with the deceased’s unfinished business, legal and tax matters, and disposing of the large art collection that Françoise had accumulated, including a magnificent collection of African folk art that had been donated to a museum in Paris. He shared his home with a cat named “Cat” and still drove his little 40-year-old Peugeot, which he parked next to the cemetery wall, as if anticipating the end that is coming for us all. In one of his last messages in September, he said to me: “Javier, end of story – I am very lucky to be endig my life in this village… falcons nest on the cliff above the cemetery while our 40 year old car awaits its next passenger…”
His main scientific concern these days was the change he had noticed in the skies above Cajarc.
“Why, for instance, in southwest France for about two years now has the lower atmosphere suddenly become smog-particle free and the upper atmosphere devoid of water vapour? Why for more than a year now have the Sun and Moon risen and set in milk white brilliance every cloudless day or night? Why, in the same period, have I observed no towering cumulus clouds? And although air traffic overhead is near normal, where are the habitual N-S and E-W contrail grids of yesteryear?”
He was an old-fashioned scientist, based on observation and experimentation, from which hypotheses should emerge, not the other way around as happens in climate science. Therefore, his climate skepticism was intrinsic and not due to any conviction, but due to the lack of evidence to support the climate dogma and the abundant evidence of cyclical climate changes of natural origin, which by no means can stop working.
The last time I heard from him was in early November when I sent him a copy of my latest book, “Solving the Climate Puzzle.” His son told me he had it with him in the hospital. I will miss my friend Alan Longhurst and wish to join his children Claire, Nicholas and Maria and his grandchildren Liam, Olli, Bea and Emma in mourning his loss. Rest in peace.
JC note: I am very appreciative of this obituary written by Javier
The UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai shows how far Germany has moved away from the real energy policy of other countries. Chancellor Scholz did not achieve much resonance with his appearance, because the others know the German tune that wind power and photovoltaics save the world.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, As usual, you will receive my monitor on global temperature rise. After that, I will deal with the role of the German government at the climate conference in Dubai.
In November 2023, the deviation of global temperature from the 30-year average of satellite measurements from the University of Alabama (UAH) remained the same compared to October. The value is 0.91 degrees Celsius. The El Niño is expected to last until April-June 2024. However, the peak seems to have been passed. The average temperature increase per decade since 1979 has been 0.14 degrees Celsius.
The UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai
The UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai shows how far Germany has moved away from the real energy policy of other countries. Chancellor Scholz did not achieve much resonance with his appearance, because the others know the German tune that wind power and photovoltaics save the world.
They know the fatal consequences of German energy policy on economic development and know that this naïve, unrealistic German energy policy has led the country to the highest electricity prices in the world. Scholz: “The technologies are there: wind power, photovoltaics, electric drives and green hydrogen.” In other words, he is reducing the energy future to two energy sources, because electric drives and green hydrogen are not primary energy sources.
In 2022, 5% of the primary energy generated globally came from solar and wind energy. Therefore, his call for a tripling of wind and solar energy by 2030 is at best suitable for meeting the world’s growing hunger for energy rather than replacing the coal, oil and gas base in any relevant form. And he forgets, as he always does in this country, two technological paths that the whole world will take – except for the green-ideological barricaded Germany: the expansion of nuclear energy and CO2 capture in the use of coal, oil and gas. The 250 German delegates had to take note of the fact that 22 countries were calling for the tripling of nuclear energy capacity in Dubai. Nuclear energy – Olaf Scholz’s dead horse – has thus left its wallflower existence at world climate conferences behind and has become part of the final document.
The resolution, adopted on 13 December, calls on states to make a just, orderly and fair transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. In addition, the draft calls for greater reliance on other emission-free or low-emission technologies. In addition to renewables, nuclear power, hydrogen and technologies for capturing and storing CO₂ (CCS) are also mentioned. The final document does not provide for a binding phase-out of coal, oil and gas. Germany only attracts attention when it puts on its spending pants, as it did on the first day, when Minister Schulze put 100 million on the table in Dubai for distribution to other countries. In the end, Minister Baerbock added another €60 million. This ignores the fact that Germany has been distributing the largest chunk of taxpayers’ money of any country in the world for years: €10 billion per year for climate protection projects in other countries. Mr. Lindner is still looking for spending cuts to avoid further debt in order not to have to abandon the debt brake. This would be a large fund, the deletion of which would not result in any loss of prosperity in Germany.
In their fight against coal, oil and gas, Chancellor Scholz and the German delegation conceal the fact that CO2 emissions in this country, which have been falling for decades, have only risen again as a result of the traffic light government as a result of the decommissioning of the last six nuclear power plants. In the following figure, we can see the CO2 pollution of the German electricity supply. Since 2021, it has been increasing again. In 2023, CO2 intensity did not increase further because energy-intensive industry collapsed by 20% in 2023 and therefore the demand for coal-fired electricity did not increase further. At the time of the Dubai conference, Germany had a CO2 intensity of 597g CO2/kWh – one of the highest in the last 6 years.
In addition to the additional CO2 emissions, the German government is also responsible for a doubling of electricity prices on the stock exchange. In one year alone, this amounts to €25 billion in additional costs for citizens and businesses (500 TWh times €5 cents/kWh). In addition, there is a €10.6 billion EEG levy for 2024 for wind and solar energy, which is now to be paid by taxpayers through the federal budget. Not to mention the increased grid costs and costs for parked wind power (1 billion in 2022).
The German government’s green coal phase-out plan does not lead to any reduction in greenhouse gases
According to the coalition agreement of the federal government, the coal phase-out should “ideally” be brought forward to 2030. When the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, 50 new gas-fired power plants (25,000 MW) are to be built (construction period approx. 6 years), which will be mainly supplied by additional liquefied natural gas. That’s not wise. First, imported liquefied natural gas is more expensive than pipeline gas. But based on a calculation by the US scientist Robert Howarth of Cornell University, this path leads to extremely high greenhouse gas emissions.
Howarth convincingly calculates that the greenhouse gas emissions of a gas-fired power plant powered by liquefied natural gas from the USA are as high as those of a coal-fired power plant in Germany. Natural gas has a greenhouse effect 30 times higher than CO2. So much gas is lost on the way from production to liquefaction, transport and regasification in Germany that the gas-fired power plant operated by it has no less of a greenhouse effect than a coal-fired power plant.
Liquefied natural gas instead of coal – this green path of the German government makes Germany’s electricity generation more expensive and increases greenhouse gas emissions. It would be better, as Howarth writes, to keep the coal-fired power plants in Germany on the grid and not replace them with liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plants. If the existing coal-fired power plants were then equipped with CO2 capture, one would even contribute to CO2 reduction. The production of its own shale gas in northern Germany would also bring great ecological and economic advantages over LNG imports. As a rule, however, the green-red-yellow federal government too often decides on the solution that is the worst for Germany out of ignorance or ideology.
Ms. Baerbock and the Paris Agreement
In her press conference in Dubai, the German Foreign Minister declared: “We are here to save the world for all humanity.” Again and again, she refers to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, which aims to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times – preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius. At this point, we do not want to deal with the fact that the period around 1860 with the end of the Little Ice Age was one of the coldest periods of the last 2000 years. To take this time, which was dangerously cold for humanity, as a starting point for a temperature target may well be questioned. The average temperature of the last 2000 years is more likely to be around the year 1950. However, it is more important to deal with the wording of the Paris Agreement. Article 4, paragraph 1 of the agreement sets out the emission targets for this century.
“In order to achieve the long-term temperature target referred to in Article 2, the Parties shall aim to reach the global peak of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, recognising that the timeframe for reaching the peak will be longer for the Parties that are developing countries, and thereafter rapid reductions in line with the best available scientific data. evidence to achieve a balance in the second half of this century between anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases from sources and removals of such gases by sinks … to produce.”
In the second half of this century, therefore, a balance should be achieved between CO2 emissions and CO2 sinks, i.e. oceans and plants that absorb CO2. As the CO2 balances of the Global carbon project published a few days ago show, 57% of CO2 emissions are now absorbed by oceans and plants.
The historical development shown below shows that the uptake of plants and the oceans has increased with the increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Reducing emissions to the level of ocean and plant uptake in the second half of the century, as required by the Paris Agreement, would stop further increases in CO2 in the atmosphere. In this respect, net zero is achieved when CO2 emissions are halved. This is because the uptake of oceans and plants depends solely on the CO2 concentration achieved in the air and not on the emissions from the chimneys. So if the uptake of oceans and plants remains constant and emissions are halved, the CO2 problem will be solved.
I wish you all a blessed Christmas season and a Happy New Year 2024 Yours sincerely , Fritz Vahrenholt
The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST4 starting in 2015 through November 2023. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016.
The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:
The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
Major El Ninos have been the dominant climate feature in recent years.
HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source. Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated. HadSST4 is the same as v.3, except that the older data from ship water intake was re-estimated to be generally lower temperatures than shown in v.3. The effect is that v.4 has lower average anomalies for the baseline period 1961-1990, thereby showing higher current anomalies than v.3. This analysis concerns more recent time periods and depends on very similar differentials as those from v.3 despite higher absolute anomaly values in v.4. More on what distinguishes HadSST3 and 4 from other SST products at the end. The user guide for HadSST4 is here.
The Current Context
The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST4 starting in 2015 through November 2023. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016.
Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes. That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period. In 2021 the summer NH summer spike was joined by warming in the Tropics but offset by a drop in SH SSTs, which raised the Global anomaly slightly over the mean.
Then in 2022, another strong NH summer spike peaked in August, but this time both the Tropic and SH were countervailing, resulting in only slight Global warming, later receding to the mean. Oct./Nov. temps dropped in NH and the Tropics took the Global anomaly below the average for this period. After an uptick in December, temps in January 2023 dropped everywhere, strongest in NH, with the Global anomaly further below the mean since 2015.
Now comes El Nino as shown by the upward spike in the Tropics since January, the anomaly nearly tripling from 0.38C to 1.07C. In August 2023, all regions rose, especially NH up from 0.70C to 1.37C, pulling up the global anomaly to a new high for this period. September showed a new peak for NH at 1.41, but then in October anomalies in all regions have dropped down 0.1C bringing down the Global anomaly. In November, NH added cooling, offset by slight warming in SH. Tropical ocean temps rose to nearly match 2015 in November, but the Global anomaly changed little and remained lower than the September peak.
Comment:
The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof of their Zero Carbon agenda, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures. It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around. Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:
El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years. Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on. Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds. As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century It is well understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.
Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world. We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example. So for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.
It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well. One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.
A longer view of SSTs
The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations. Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015. This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since. The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies. Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.
The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 is dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.
SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8, a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12. Again SSTs are average 2013-14.
Now a different pattern appears. The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off. But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average. In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16. NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.
The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.) Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021. In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.
Now in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH has produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year. In fact, October and now November are showing that this number is likely the crest, despite El Nino driving the Tropics anomaly close to 1998 and 2015 peaks.
What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH. The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before. After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.
Contemporary AMO Observations
Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future. So I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has data through October. It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic. “ERSST5 AMO follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.” So the values represent sst anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global ocean.
The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed. As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its varibility, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin. Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Now in 2023 the peak is holding at 1.4C. An annual chart below is informative:
Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years. 2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September. 1998 and 2007 were mildly warm. 2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average. 2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an extraordinary peak in July. August to October were only slightly lower, but now November cooled by ~0.3C.
The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.
The purple line is the average anomaly 1980-1996 inclusive, value 0.18. The orange line the average 1980-202306, value 0.38, also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2013-202306, value 0.64. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.
The oceans are driving the warming this century. SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.” The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect. The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?
Space weather impacts the ionosphere in this animation. Credits: NASA/GSFC/CIL/Krystofer Kim
Footnote: Why Rely on HadSST4
HadSST is distinguished from other SST products because HadCRU (Hadley Climatic Research Unit) does not engage in SST interpolation, i.e. infilling estimated anomalies into grid cells lacking sufficient sampling in a given month. From reading the documentation and from queries to Met Office, this is their procedure.
HadSST4 imports data from gridcells containing ocean, excluding land cells. From past records, they have calculated daily and monthly average readings for each grid cell for the period 1961 to 1990. Those temperatures form the baseline from which anomalies are calculated.
In a given month, each gridcell with sufficient sampling is averaged for the month and then the baseline value for that cell and that month is subtracted, resulting in the monthly anomaly for that cell. All cells with monthly anomalies are averaged to produce global, hemispheric and tropical anomalies for the month, based on the cells in those locations. For example, Tropics averages include ocean grid cells lying between latitudes 20N and 20S.
Gridcells lacking sufficient sampling that month are left out of the averaging, and the uncertainty from such missing data is estimated. IMO that is more reasonable than inventing data to infill. And it seems that the Global Drifter Array displayed in the top image is providing more uniform coverage of the oceans than in the past.
USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean
The German government has resolved its internal disagreements on how to deal with a €60 billion hole left in the government’s finances after a ruling by the country’s constitutional court, announcing a mix of expenditure cuts and additional sources of income.
The German government has resolved its internal disagreements on how to deal with a €60 billion hole left in the government’s finances after a ruling by the country’s constitutional court, announcing a mix of expenditure cuts and additional sources of income.
“In light of the ruling, we have reprioritised the budget within the Federal Government in recent weeks,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD/S&D) told journalists on Wednesday (13 December). [EPA-EFE/CLEMENS BILAN]
The constitutional court in November strengthened the ‘debt brake’ set in the German constitution, by limiting the additional debt that can be justified with an “emergency situation” for spending in that year that is directly linked to the emergency. The Euractiv.com has the story.
As a result, it cut €60 billion off a “climate and transformation fund”, which is meant to finance investments into climate protection as well as industrial subsidies, such as for chip production.
“In light of the ruling, we have reprioritised the budget within the Federal Government in recent weeks,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD/S&D) told journalists on Wednesday (13 December).
“My most important message at the outset: The government is sticking to its goals,” Scholz said, referring to the transition towards climate neutrality and social spending as well as support for Ukraine. “But one thing is clear: we have to make do with significantly less money in order to achieve these goals,” he added.
“Prioritising therefore means clarifying together what we can and cannot afford. It is also about cuts and savings,” Scholz said.
In total, a hole of €17 billion was closed in the regular 2024 budget, using a mix of spending cuts by several ministries and additional sources of income.
In the “climate and transformation fund” (KTF), which is not part of the regular budget, €12 billion of spending will be cut in 2024, and a total of €45 in the years up to 2027. The remaining volume of the fund would be €160 billion for the years from 2024 to 2027, and thus still “very high”, Scholz said.
Among other things, this will be reached by reducing planned subsidies for the solar industry, as well as phasing out a bonus for consumers who buy an electric car earlier than planned, Economy Robert Habeck (Greens) said.
“That pains me,” Habeck said, “but that is the price for maintaining the central components, the pillars of the KTF, the development of the hydrogen economy, the decarbonisation of industry, but also the citizens’ [support] programmes.”
The cuts will also affect a €5.5 billion support planned to relieve consumers from grid fees for electricity, which will no longer be paid in 2024. As a result, electricity prices for consumers will increase by an average 3 cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh), grid operators said.
New sources of revenue
Alongside the cuts, the government also wants to generate more revenue, by increasing carbon prices on heating and transport fuels higher than initially agreed between government partners. In 2024, the price will rise to €45 per tonne of CO2, from currently €30.
The package also includes a new levy on plastics, which goes back to a deal in Brussels which foresees a payment by member states to the EU based on the amount of not-recycled plastics.
“This is an EU own resource, €1.4 billion, which we are currently paying to Brussels from general tax revenues,” Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP/Renew) said.
“We now want to re-finance this and, as provided for in the coalition agreement, we want to use the distributors of plastic to finance this own resource,” he added.
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