Day: March 18, 2025

Why Are Electricity Bills Going Up?

Ofgem recently announced an increase in the energy price cap for the period April-June 2025. Overall bills went up 6.4% from £1,738 to £1,849 including VAT for dual fuel users paying by direct debit.

The Daily Sceptic

By David Turver

Ofgem recently announced an increase in the energy price cap for the period April-June 2025. Overall bills went up 6.4% from £1,738 to £1,849 including VAT for dual fuel users paying by direct debit.

Various commentators were quick to blame rising gas prices for the increase. They were right to do so, because about £79 of the £111 increase in total energy bills can be attributed to the direct fuel component of our bills which is mainly gas. The increase in electricity bills was £33, of which £27 came from increases in direct fuel costs which is mostly gas.

Some of you may have seen my appearance on the Jacob Rees Mogg show on GB News debating this with Bob Ward. In that discussion, I urged viewers to zoom out and consider the longer-term drivers of higher bills, reeling off some statistics on the cost of renewables subsidies. That exchange prompted me to dig a little deeper into the changes in the Ofgem price cap since its introduction in 2019 and to peer into the crystal ball to see where electricity prices are heading.

Electricity Bill Components

Ofgem splits our bills into components, which we can further break down into smaller elements to determine how much of the increase in bills is due to gas and how much to renewables.

Direct Fuel Costs

Direct fuel costs are the largest component of electricity bills, and most of these costs are attributable to gas. The name is something of a misnomer because this component includes the cost of Contracts for Difference (CfD) subsidies. For the purposes of the analysis below, CfD costs have been stripped out of the direct fuel figure and attributed to the cost of renewables.

Capacity Market

The Capacity Market is primarily required to provide backup for intermittent renewables. Before we had renewables on the grid, we did not have a capacity market to speak of. For this analysis, the increase in capacity market costs has been solely attributed to renewables.

Adjustment Allowance

The Ofgem explanation for this cost is somewhat vague. It appears to be an allowance for suppliers to cover bad debts run up by customers struggling to pay their bills. This cost has been attributed to “Other Costs” in the analysis below.

Policy Costs

Policy costs comprise a myriad of elements, including the cost of the Renewables Obligation (RO) and Feed-in Tariff (FiT) subsidies. Other elements include the Warm Home Discount (WHD), which helps low-income households with their bills, and the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), which requires suppliers to deliver energy efficiency measures to homes. The total cost of this element is approximately £500 million per year for electricity and £217.5 million for gas bills (see Annex 4 Tab 3e ECO). There are additional components, such as assistance for those in areas with high electricity distribution costs, the Green Gas Levy and, new this period, Network Charging Compensation to offset the high electricity charges of energy-intensive users. For the purposes of this analysis, RO and FiT costs have been excluded from policy costs and attributed to renewables.

Network Costs

Network costs refer to the total expenses associated with operating the transmission system, the distribution network and grid balancing services. For the purposes of this analysis, the increase in network costs has been attributed to renewables, as the majority of the rise is due to additional balancing costs caused by the increase in intermittent Contracts for Difference (CfD) and the connection of remote wind and solar farms to the grid.

Operating Costs

These are an allowance for the operating costs of electricity suppliers and, for this analysis, have been classified as other costs.

Other Costs

There are several other cost elements that make up only a small proportion of the overall bills. These include an allowance for Smart Meters, an adjustment for paying by different payment methods (PAAC), another adjustment for those paying by prepayment meters (PAP) and Headroom for uncertain costs (HAP), which is supposed to act as an incentive for suppliers to compete in the marketplace.

Profit and VAT

There is another element called EBIT, which is supposed to represent a fair profit margin for suppliers. For electricity, this has increased from 1.88% in 2019 to 2.53% of the pre-VAT total as of April 2025.

The VAT rate has remained constant at 5% since 2019, but, of course, because bills have risen, the total amount of VAT paid has increased as well.

Change in Electricity Bills

Now we have the definitions out of the way, we can look at which parts of our electricity bill have changed the most since April 2019. All data is from Ofgem Annexes 2, 4 and 9, using Tab 1c, where the figures are for constant consumption of 2,700kWh per year (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Change in Electricity Bills April 19 to April 25 (£)

Overall, electricity bills have gone up by £339, from £587 to £894 including VAT. The biggest component increase is in renewables-related items, which have risen by £128. Of this, network costs are up £75, the Capacity Market by £12 and the three subsidies have increased by £40, split into a £25 rise for RO’s, £11 for CfDs and £4 for FiTs.

Direct fuel costs are up £113, largely reflecting the 50% increase in wholesale electricity prices, from £61.90/MWh to £93.07/MWh. In the same period, gas prices have risen more steeply, by 77%, from £21.75/MWh to £41.45/MWh. The gas price they have used equates to about 121p/therm, which was the gas price in mid-January. It rose to a peak of over 140p in mid-February but has since fallen to around 100p/therm. Gas futures prices have also fallen as global tensions have eased, with the ceasefire in the Israel/Gaza conflict and the prospect of peace in Ukraine. Of course, gas prices would fall further and faster if we lifted the ban on onshore and offshore drilling, increasing our own domestic supply of gas. We might hope that both gas and electricity bills will fall below the price cap if suppliers can take advantage of the latest lower prices. Of course, the renewables-related costs will not fall with gas prices – in fact, CfD subsidies will rise – so we will not feel the full effect of falling gas prices in our bills.

Other costs are up £49 since 2019, with operating costs (£20), the Adjustment Allowance (£14) and Smart Meters (£6) making up the bulk of the change. Policy costs (excluding ROCs and FiTs) are up £21, with ECO (£14) and WHD (£4) making up the bulk of the change. The increase in overall bills has pushed up VAT by £16. Increased bills, coupled with a bigger margin, have pushed up the profit element of bills by £12.

Where are Electricity Bills Going?

We should now look into our crystal ball and make some informed judgements about where electricity bills are going.

Cost of Subsidies

If we start with the biggest scheme, ROs, we can see from the OBR Outlook that the RO scheme cost £7.6 billion in 2023-24, and the cost is forecast to rise to £8.5 billion in 2026-27. This element of our bills will continue to increase.

The second scheme is Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT), and we can see from Ofgem’s latest report that it cost nearly £1.9 billion in 2023-24, or around £221/MWh. FiT contracts are index-linked, so we can expect the cost of the FiT scheme to continue to rise in line with inflation, meaning this element of our bills will also continue to increase.

Finally, we have the Contract for Difference (CfD) scheme, where data from the Low Carbon Contract Company shows the CfD scheme cost a record £2.4 billion in subsidies during the calendar year 2024. CfD contracts are index-linked as well, so we might expect the cost of subsidies to rise as the indexation of existing contracts outweighs the lower prices of some new developments.

We can expect the total cost of subsidies, about £12 billion – or the equivalent of £420 per household – to continue increasing over the next few years.

Grid Balancing and Backup

If we turn now to balancing and backup costs, the NESO report for 2023/24 shows grid balancing cost £2.54 billion. As the grid takes on more intermittent sources, we might expect the volume of grid balancing to increase, but the cost will largely depend on the price of gas.

According to the OBR, backup from the Capacity Market cost £1 billion in 2023/24, and they forecast these costs to rise to £4 billion per year in 2027/28. Even if balancing costs remain constant, we can expect the total costs of balancing and backup to rise by £3 billion by 2027/28, or the equivalent of over £100 per household.

Clean Power 2030

NESO estimated the Clean Power 2030 Plan (CP2030) would cost £44-48 billion per year to the end of 2030, or a total of £264-290 billion over the six-year period. Assuming a cost of capital of 8% and operations and maintenance costs of 2% for CP2030, this would result in an ongoing cost of £26-29 billion per year, or £900-1,000 per household. This could be offset to some extent by using less gas, with the maximum gas saving estimated at about £7 billion per year if gas prices remain at 120p/therm for the foreseeable future.

Taxes on Gas-Fired Electricity

Energy bills are also increased by the taxes placed on gas-fired electricity generation, which is subject to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The UK ETS Authority has set the carbon price for 2025 at £41.84 per tonne of carbon dioxide. Actual carbon prices vary somewhat, but this price can be used to estimate the extra costs of gas-fired generation. Modern gas turbines emit around 350kg CO2/MWh of generation, so gas-fired generation attracts a carbon tax of about £14.60/MWh. NESO’s CP2030 plan anticipates carbon prices rising substantially to around £147 per tonne, so even though the amount of gas-fired generation on the grid will fall, the cost of this generation per MWh will increase, with higher carbon taxes adding further upward pressure to energy bills.

Conclusions

We can see that the direct and indirect costs of renewables have been the biggest drivers of increased electricity bills since 2019. Increased gas prices have also played a part in this rise, but there is reason to believe gas prices will fall with easing global tensions, and even more reason if we were to lift the damaging bans on new gas drilling.

However, looking forward we can see that electricity bills are going to keep on rising because of increased subsidies and backup costs. The extra spending on new renewables and grid infrastructure contained in CP2030 plan means prices will continue to go up from their already high levels.

It is time to change course and abandon Net Zero, declare an energy emergency and go all out for cheap and abundant energy.

David Turver writes the Eigen Values Substack, where this article first appeared. 

No, Smithsonian Magazine, Climate Change Is Not the Main Driver of Satellite Collision Risk—The Sun Is

A recent article from Smithsonian Magazine (SM) titled “Climate Change Might Increase Satellite Collisions, Limiting How Many Can Safely Orbit Earth, Study Finds” claims that human-induced climate change is causing the upper atmosphere to contract, reducing drag on satellites and space debris, which could lead to more collisions. This is misleading if not outright false. Multiple studies show the dominant factor influencing the density and temperature of the upper atmosphere—where some satellites orbit—is solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

A recent article from Smithsonian Magazine (SM) titled “Climate Change Might Increase Satellite Collisions, Limiting How Many Can Safely Orbit Earth, Study Finds” claims that human-induced climate change is causing the upper atmosphere to contract, reducing drag on satellites and space debris, which could lead to more collisions. This is misleading if not outright false. Multiple studies show the dominant factor influencing the density and temperature of the upper atmosphere—where some satellites orbit—is solar activity, not carbon dioxide emissions. Data from decades of space research confirm that variations in solar radiation, particularly changes in ultraviolet (UV) output and solar wind, have far greater impacts on atmospheric density than any CO₂-driven effects.

The study, referenced by the SM article, is summarized as: “The thermosphere, which begins around 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, is contracting. This is because as greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane accumulate in the lower atmosphere, they radiate heat into space and cause the upper atmosphere to cool and shrink.” This claim exaggerates the role of human greenhouse gas emissions while ignoring the well-documented influence of solar variability.

The thermosphere, seen in the graphic from The Canadian Space Agency below, is primarily heated by the Sun’s intense ultraviolet radiation, and its temperature and density fluctuate significantly in response to the 11-year solar cycle. When solar activity is high, the thermosphere expands, increasing drag on satellites and space debris. Conversely, during solar minima, the thermosphere contracts. These natural solar-driven variations completely overshadow any potential effect from anthropogenic CO₂.

The Earth’s atmosphere has five primary layers: the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and the exosphere. Image: Canadian Space Agency

A study in the Journal of Space Research confirms that thermospheric temperature fluctuations are overwhelmingly linked to solar output, not greenhouse gases. Similarly, research in Space Weather Science demonstrates that solar activity is the primary driver of upper atmospheric density changes, affecting satellite drag far more than any CO₂-related cooling. In addition, a report in EOS shows that during a weaker-than-normal solar cycle, the thermosphere cooled and contracted more than expected. This aligns with long-term observations that solar variability dictates thermospheric behavior. NASA also credits the sun as driving the changes in the thermosphere.

While many satellites orbit Earth in the thermosphere, most Earth-orbiting satellites reside in the exosphere, such as geostationary satellites with orbits at 22,500 miles even higher than the exosphere, the outermost layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, where the atmosphere thins out and merges with outer space. So, the concerns about the thermosphere in the SM article are mostly moot, especially since many satellites that orbit in the thermosphere can boost with thrusters to a higher orbit if needed. Engineers plan for this.

The SM  article also fails to consider historical data. If CO₂ were truly the primary driver of thermospheric contraction, we would expect to see a steady, predictable decline in atmospheric density as CO2 emissions have increased. Instead, we observe clear cyclical patterns that correspond with the 11 year solar cycle, not industrial CO₂ emissions. During past solar minima, such as the Dalton Minimum (1790–1830) and the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), similar thermospheric contractions occurred—long before human activity significantly increased CO₂ levels.

By pushing a climate change-driven explanation while ignoring the Sun’s dominant role, and ignoring where most satellites orbit Earth, Smithsonian Magazine is misrepresenting what science tells us about the atmosphere and what drives change in it. Space debris is a real issue that requires attention, but CO2 neither creates space debris nor is making collision with such debris more likely. Blaming CO₂ emissions for upper-atmospheric changes is a false narrative and distracts attention from the real problem of how to handle space debris.

Could Fed Exit from the Climate Group Trigger an Exodus?

For many across the world, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to exit the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) is a sign that central banks can refocus on their primary mandates: stabilizing economies, controlling inflation and fostering growth.

From Watts Up With That?

By Vijay Jayaraj

For many across the world, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to exit the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) is a sign that central banks can refocus on their primary mandates: stabilizing economies, controlling inflation and fostering growth.

Developing nations that need financial backing for the development of fossil fuel projects to advance economic development hopefully can look forward to a reversal of the vacuous injection of a climate change agenda into monetary policy. This corruption of the financial system has burdened the impoverished of the Third World with “green” mandates that impede the eradication of poverty and the ills that accompany it.

Currently, NGFS membership includes central banks and financial institutions from 22 countries in Africa, 32 in Asia-Pacific and 20 in the Americas, which may now be emboldened to reevaluate – and abandon – whatever priority they have assigned to climate initiatives.

Banks and asset managers often look to central banks for guidance on regulatory priorities. The Fed’s departure may prompt others to scale back useless climate commitments, putting an end to the unnecessary diversion of resources from immediate socioeconomic challenges.

Time for Global Central Banks to Begin the Exodus

For instance, Canada’s federal government has implemented a plethora of climate policies, leading to higher carbon taxes, more volatility in the energy sector, lower export income and an overall disastrous state of the economy. Aspiring to drive Canada towards more climate idiocy is Mark Carney, recently elected Canada’s prime minister by the ruling Liberal Party.

However, other Canadians have different thoughts. “Major banks across North America are leaving Mark Carney’s international net-zero banking scheme, but some Canadian banks remain members, says Rebecca Schulz, Alberta Minister of Environment and Protected Areas. “The remaining Canadian banks must abandon Carney’s net-zero banking alliance and invest in safe, affordable, reliable Canadian energy again.”

Global South has No Time to Waste

Even global entities that act as a financial bridge for development projects – like the World Bank, African Development Bank and Asian Development Bank – are deeply entrenched in the climate politics that deny billions of people potential access to affordable fossil fuels.
NGFS membership comes with expectations to adopt costly climate-related financial regulations. In the Global South, where millions still lack access to electricity or clean water, such priorities are utterly disconnected from reality.

More than 40% of the African populations – 600 million people – lack access to electricity. That translates to 20% of households with extreme food shortages and 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition. Every day, 2 in 10,000 succumb to famine.

Nearly 4 million across the world – roughly the population of Los Angeles – die prematurely each year due to a lack of clean cooking fuels like natural gas. Many could be saved if financial institutions removed the red tape smothering investments in production of fossil fuels.

Hyperinflation, currency instability and unemployment are immediate threats that demand urgent attention in developing nations. Redirecting resources toward these issues would go much further in improving living standards than the obsession with wind turbines and solar panels to prevent a fabricated climate crisis.

When even the Federal Reserve of the U.S. – the biggest funder of the United Nations and World Bank – is opting out of a woke climate cabal, then the central banks of poorer countries have no business participating in NGFS’s wasting of time and money.

The developing world must seize this opportunity to advocate for their financial autonomy. Central banks in poorer nations should choose to prioritize the well-being of their populations and ensure that global financial governance reflects economic realities that demand an end to coercive climate policies.

This commentary was first published at RealClearMarkets on March 12, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.

New Study Finds the Post-1980s Warming Trend Has Improved European Life Expectancy

Throughout Europe, exposure to harsh winters in colder climates is a greater mortality threat than living in warm climates with very hot summers. Succinctly put, warmer, milder winters save lives, whereas cold weather and harsh winters shorten lives.

From NoTrickZone

By Kenneth Richard 

“The last four decades of global warming have led to a net gain in life expectancy.” – Piotr Walkowiak et al., 2025

Throughout Europe, exposure to harsh winters in colder climates is a greater mortality threat than living in warm climates with very hot summers. Succinctly put, warmer, milder winters save lives, whereas cold weather and harsh winters shorten lives.

The authors of a new study insist modern emphasis on limiting global warming so as to reduce heat-related mortality is misplaced, as it neglects the much more dangerous threat posed by cold weather.

“The primary climate threat that reduces life expectancy in Europe continues to be low temperatures.”

“…the dominant threat remains low-temperature mortality, which should no longer be neglected in the analysis of climate risk.”

Living in cold weather regions can reduce life expectancy by up to two years, whereas living in climates with hotter-than-optimal summers has almost no effect on reduced life expectancy.

“Colder-than-optimal temperatures had a greater effect on mortality than warmer ones. In Europe’s coldest regions, harsh winters reduced life expectancy by up to 24 months, while warmer areas like the Azores saw reductions of just 2 months.”

“…the most favorable regions for life was those with warm winters, yet moderated summer temperatures due to proximity to the sea…”

As the climate continues warming over the coming decades, this will have a net health benefit for humans.

“In broad terms, the climate in Europe is likely to become marginally less hazardous for humans…”

“…even after controlling for economic growth, a modest warming trend appears to offer a moderate benefit from the perspective of life expectancy.”

Due to the health benefits and improved life expectancy in warmer climates, older people should be migrating away from cold regions and into warmer ones.

“…there is a potential benefit in encouraging retirees to migrate to warmer islands or coastal areas as a thoughtful policy.”

“Opting for retirement migration to warmer locations should be encouraged as a health-conscious decision – a finding that mirrors the behavioral choices observed in previous studies.”

Image Source: Piotr Walkowiak et al., 2025

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How a Heat Pump Destroyed One Consumer’s Perfect Energy Rating

The Telegraph has been running a number of repent-at-leisure heat pump stories, and this latest one is no exception.

From The Daily Sceptic

by Sallust

The Telegraph has been running a number of repent-at-leisure heat pump stories, and this latest one is no exception.

Enter Colin Ferguson of Perthshire in Scotland who seems to be the embodiment of a Net Zero politician’s dream. He’s done it all with a ground-up rebuild of his detached house, incidentally just the sort of project that 99% of the British population couldn’t possibly afford:

The renovation, for which Mr Ferguson, now 74, was involved in the labour, was completed in 2013. An energy assessor assigned a perfect efficiency score of 100, placing it in a band typically reserved for new builds. On the certificate, seen by the Telegraph, under suggested “cost-effective improvements” it simply read: “not applicable”.

Then Mr Ferguson installed a heat pump – and his perfect energy rating went up in smoke.

It seems Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) have a nasty habit of going out of date:

The retired insurance claims manager and his wife, Sue, had wanted to replace their oil-fired boiler with a heat pump, using £9,500 worth of Government funding. This would require obtaining a new energy performance certificate (EPC) after the heat pump was installed, as their previous one was due to expire.

Not only that, the new one can downgrade the house:

The certificates have been criticised in the past for their inconsistency. Assessors often rely on guesswork to work out a property’s efficiency level, and some have been known to wrongly estimate a property’s floor area by tens of square metres. Heat pumps, while greener, can often incur households higher bills. In some cases, they have hurt rather than help a home’s EPC score, as the certificates currently reward lower bills over carbon emissions.

“What really annoyed me was the little man who came in an Audi A8 to do the assessment,” Mr Ferguson recalls. “In he waltzed. I had all the documentation from the original build – reams of stuff – and he took one look at it and said, ‘I don’t need any of that’. Had it not been for the fact we’d applied for a grant to put a heat pump in he’d have been out the door.”

Incredulously [the Telegraph probably means ‘Incredibly’ here], Mr Ferguson’s new EPC assessment had fallen to 74, placing it in the C band. The total floor area of the house also appeared to shrink between assessments – from 331 square metres to 279, the equivalent of three large bedrooms.

This can have a drastic impact on the house’s value, regardless of the house’s efficiency.

It’s not that Mr Ferguson’s home has become less efficient, or less green, in the 10 years between assessments – far from it. The property makes use of solar feed-in tariffs, and as a result Mr Ferguson’s home generates more energy than it consumes, turning his bill into a profit. Mr Ferguson’s bills show the retiree spends about £1,300 a year on electricity for his home and electric car, which is entirely offset by the £2,000 he makes selling surplus power back to the grid at times of high demand.

It appears that the way EPCs are assessed is fluctuating. Two different companies carried out Mr Ferguson’s EPCs. Elmhurst Energy carried out the latest one and suggested only one possible improvement – a wind turbine costing £15,000–25,000 – which would save £1,100 per annum (supposedly). The real point is that – guess what? – it seems the goalposts are being constantly moved:

Elmhurst Energy said the methodology of energy assessments had changed “many times” since 2013, and now accounts for more up-to-date fuel prices, carbon emissions and other technologies used in modern homes such as battery storage and heating controls. The company added that since EPCs still reward low bills over carbon emissions, the green taxes applied to electricity mean switching to a heat pump disadvantages homes “despite the fact they are better for the environment”.

To add insult to injury, the heat pump that Mr Ferguson had wanted in the first place does not work as well as he had hoped it would. The installers, Mr Ferguson says, were flummoxed by his unique home. Now, like several other heat pump owners, Mr Ferguson and his wife rely on a wood stove in the winter months to keep warm.

“To be fair to the chap, all these EPC companies use a particular system,” says Mr Ferguson. “All they do is pump the information into some algorithm and it comes up with the certificate. The assessor just gets prompted with questions and puts in an answer, like a primary school kid ticking boxes.”

So, there you have it – a Mickey Mouse system on the level of a small child’s school exercise lying behind a policy being used to coerce the whole population into vastly expensive changes to their homes. A spokesperson for the company tried to soften the blow:

“EPCs do change over time as the methodologies improve. Since 2013, they now account for new fuel prices, carbon emissions and low carbon technologies. The home’s score is actually a good score for what is now a 12-year-old property, even though it may have been built above the minimum regulations at the time.”

If it wasn’t for the drastic consequences of the Net Zero policy for industry and the nation’s economy, the story would be an amusing one. As it stands, it’s painfully easy to see why fewer and fewer people are going to risk the huge cost and disruption of installing a heat pump if it means risking their properties becoming less saleable and still requiring other forms of heating to make them habitable, while funding the EPC assessor job creation scheme.

Worth reading in full.

Email signatures are harming the planet and could cost people their lives — it’s time to stop using them

Sending emails is an everyday activity, but it comes with an environmental cost. Emails use energy, and that energy often comes from burning fossil fuels, which in turn, contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

From Watts Up With That?

By Charles Rotter

[editor’s note: Russell Cook emailed this article to Marc Morano and myself asking:

Marc & Charles,

Poe’s Law says that without a satire indicator, deep satire is increasingly difficult to distinguish from wacko sincere writings. I truly cannot tell if this writer is being serious or is taking one heckuva deep jab at zealot far-left nutcases:

To which I responded:

I think the publishers think it’s serious, but it appears planted as in the Sokal hoax.

The primary reference to pronouns and land acknowledgements, two leftist shibboleths, and not addresses, company information, although it does talk about disclaimers, leads me me to think it’s planted.

What do you guys think?

/editor’s note]

A recent study has shown that the environmental and human mortality impacts of modern information technology — especially email infrastructure — are significant.

Joshua M. Pearce, Western University

The use of information technology (IT) has significant environmental and social impacts, including human mortality from climate change. One striking example is the carbon emissions and impacts associated with digital communication.

To quantify the human cost of carbon-emitting technology, researchers use the 1,000-ton rule that estimates that for every 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, one person dies prematurely.

This rule is derived from the following calculation: burning one trillion ton of fossil carbon is likely to cause 2 C of anthropogenic global warming, which in turn is likely to cause about one billion premature deaths spread over the next century.

This theory can be used as a decision-making framework for policymakers to compare the value of an activity to the cost of that activity in human lives.

It’s also what I used in my recent study that analyzed how additional information in email signatures contributes to climate-related deaths in Canada.

Email signatures causing emissions

Sending emails is an everyday activity, but it comes with an environmental cost. Emails use energy, and that energy often comes from burning fossil fuels, which in turn, contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity is destabilizing the climate and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the global environment and humanity.

My recent study explored the environmental impact of lengthening email signatures, focusing specifically on two types of information: gender pronouns and land acknowledgements because both are relatively new additions to email signatures.

In both cases, the extra carbon emissions for each email for the extra characters is estimated and aggregated over the population that uses them.

The environmental consequences of minor digital habits are often overlooked.

The results showed that in Canada, where about 15 per cent of people include gender pronouns in emails, the resulting carbon emissions from this small change (three extra words) may contribute to the premature deaths of one person a year, according to the 1,000-ton rule.

The environmental harm and human mortality caused by this seemingly minor digital habit is evident. Large blocks of text like legal disclaimers and land acknowledgements cause even more harm. Images and logos, which contain even larger amounts of data, cause more emissions and deaths still.

Doing away with email signatures

Most of the content in email signatures is redundant, as we tend to email the same people repeatedly. The environmental and human cost of using email signatures clearly outweighs the benefits. One solution to this issue is to replace email signatures with a hyperlinked name to additional information.

Another simple way to increase efficiency and reduce emissions is by eliminating email signatures entirely, since emails already identify senders in the header. After all, we don’t sign our texts, so why do we feel the need to sign our emails?

If you receive an email with a long signature, you might consider asking the sender to switch to a hyperlink instead, or eliminate their signature all together.

Additionally, you can encourage others to use free, open-source ad blockers to reduce unnecessary data from ads while browsing or emailing. Ads, especially on websites, generate an enormous amount of unnecessary data and energy consumption.

While these steps may seem small on their own, collectively, they can make a significant difference in reducing digital waste and unnecessary emissions.

The hidden cost of spam emails

The results of my recent study make it clear that Canada’s current IT and energy infrastructure are unsustainable. The study should serve as a wake-up call for the need to eliminate the use of fossil fuels from our energy systems entirely, particularly because it is already possible to displace fossil fuels with renewable energy with lower costs.

It also gives pause for the far more damaging impacts of other forms of digital communications, particularly email spam.

Already more than half of all emails are spam.

Spam accounts for over half of all emails and, despite having lower carbon emissions per email (since many are deleted without being opened), spam accounts for far more emissions-producing data. Beyond its environmental toll, spam also wastes the time of every email user.

In response, several proposals and laws have been put forward to reduce this digital waste, from including taxes on emails, opt-in or opt-out systems to even outlawing spam entirely. While these efforts are a step in the right direction, we all still suffer through an enormous amount of spam.

The environmental impact of our online habits is far larger than most realize, and as digital communication continues to evolve, we must consider its long-term consequences on the environment and human life. We should take the easy steps of cutting wasteful energy use in our communications and it can start with eliminating email signatures.

Joshua M. Pearce, John M. Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation and Professor, Western University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Green Councils After Your Life Savings!

Green-led Bristol appeals to taxpayers as it struggles with a £52m funding shortfall.

Cash-strapped councils are asking taxpayers to invest their savings in projects to help them meet their net zero targets.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

A real bit of journalism from The Telegraph for a change!

Green-led Bristol appeals to taxpayers as it struggles with a £52m funding shortfall.

Cash-strapped councils are asking taxpayers to invest their savings in projects to help them meet their net zero targets.

Bristol and Hackney, which have both warned of severe funding shortfalls, have become the latest councils to launch investment schemes to help fund their environmental initiatives. The schemes invite taxpayers to invest in exchange for 4.2pc annual interest across a five-year term.

But experts said the deals risked “clear trade-offs” in terms of returns and protection for investors.

So far, 238 taxpayers have collectively saved £175,750 in the Bristol Climate Action Investment. Green-led Bristol, which has warned of a £52m funding gap, said the money raised would help fund heat pump installations, solar panels and energy improvements in its own offices.

Meanwhile, 103 have invested £128,345 in Hackney Council’s green projects, including funding energy efficiency improvements at a local school. Hackney councillor Robert Chapman, said the scheme provided a “cost-efficient way for councils to finance climate action”.

In total, 15 councils have launched the investment products, according to Abundance Investment, the financial provider.

Read the full story here.

As the Telegraph notes, the investment is not as safe as it sounds. Apparently, as it is peer-to-peer lending, it is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which can protect up to £85,000 of your deposit if the provider goes under. It is also unlikely that they would easily be tradeable on the bond markets, if investors wanted their money out.

And if councils went broke as Thurrock did last year, it is not guaranteed investors would get their money back.

The interest rate of 4.2% is frankly pathetic for such a risky investment. Councils like Bristol would have to pay much higher rates in the market and are gambling on the naivety of people who believe in their climate emergency nonsense.

BEWARE GREEN COUNCILS ASKING FOR MONEY!!

02/2025 Update–Temperature Changes, CO2 Follows

The answer is yes: that temperature spike resulted
in a corresponding CO2 spike as expected.
And lower CO2 levels followed the temperature decline.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Previously I have demonstrated that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels follow changes in Global Mean Temperatures (GMT) as shown by satellite measurements from University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). That background post is reprinted later below.

My curiosity was piqued by the remarkable GMT spike starting in January 2023 and rising to a peak in April 2024 and then declining afterward.  I also became aware that UAH has recalibrated their dataset due to a satellite drift that can no longer be corrected. The values since 2020 have shifted slightly in version 6.1, as shown in my recent report Oceans Rapidly Cooling UAH January 2025.

In this post, I test the premise that temperature changes are predictive of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.  The chart above shows the two monthly datasets: CO2 levels in blue reported at Mauna Loa, and Global temperature anomalies in purple reported by UAHv6.1, both through February 2025. Would such a sharp increase in temperature be reflected in rising CO2 levels, according to the successful mathematical forecasting model? Would CO2 levels decline as temperatures dropped following the peak?

The answer is yes: that temperature spike resulted
in a corresponding CO2 spike as expected.
And lower CO2 levels followed the temperature decline.

Above are UAH temperature anomalies compared to CO2 monthly changes year over year.

Changes in monthly CO2 synchronize with temperature fluctuations, which for UAH are anomalies now referenced to the 1991-2020 period. CO2 differentials are calculated for the present month by subtracting the value for the same month in the previous year (for example February 2025 minus February 2024).  Temp anomalies are calculated by comparing the present month with the baseline month. Note the recent CO2 upward spike and drop following the temperature spike and drop.

The final proof that CO2 follows temperature due to stimulation of natural CO2 reservoirs is demonstrated by the ability to calculate CO2 levels since 1979 with a simple mathematical formula:

For each subsequent year, the CO2 level for each month was generated

CO2  this month this year = a + b × Temp this month this year  + CO2 this month last year

The values for a and b are constants applied to all monthly temps and are chosen to scale the forecasted CO2 level for comparison with the observed value. Here is the result of those calculations.

In the chart calculated CO2 levels correlate with observed CO2 levels at 0.9987 out of 1.0000.  This mathematical generation of CO2 atmospheric levels is only possible if they are driven by temperature-dependent natural sources, and not by human emissions which are small in comparison, rise steadily and monotonically.  For a more detailed look at the recent fluxes, here are the results since 2015, an ENSO neutral year.

For this recent period, the calculated CO2 values match the annual lows, while some annual generated values of CO2 are slightly higher or lower than observed at other months of the year. Still the correlation for this period is 0.9932.

Key Point

Changes in CO2 follow changes in global temperatures on all time scales, from last month’s observations to ice core datasets spanning millennia. Since CO2 is the lagging variable, it cannot logically be the cause of temperature, the leading variable. It is folly to imagine that by reducing human emissions of CO2, we can change global temperatures, which are obviously driven by other factors.

Background Post Temperature Changes Cause CO2 Changes, Not the Reverse

This post is about proving that CO2 changes in response to temperature changes, not the other way around, as is often claimed.  In order to do  that we need two datasets: one for measurements of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over time and one for estimates of Global Mean Temperature changes over time.

Climate science is unsettling because past data are not fixed, but change later on.  I ran into this previously and now again in 2021 and 2022 when I set out to update an analysis done in 2014 by Jeremy Shiers (discussed in a previous post reprinted at the end).  Jeremy provided a spreadsheet in his essay Murray Salby Showed CO2 Follows Temperature Now You Can Too posted in January 2014. I downloaded his spreadsheet intending to bring the analysis up to the present to see if the results hold up.  The two sources of data were:

Temperature anomalies from RSS here:  http://www.remss.com/missions/amsu

CO2 monthly levels from NOAA (Mauna Loa): https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/data.html

Changes in CO2 (ΔCO2)

Uploading the CO2 dataset showed that many numbers had changed (why?).

The blue line shows annual observed differences in monthly values year over year, e.g. June 2020 minus June 2019 etc.  The first 12 months (1979) provide the observed starting values from which differentials are calculated.  The orange line shows those CO2 values changed slightly in the 2020 dataset vs. the 2014 dataset, on average +0.035 ppm.  But there is no pattern or trend added, and deviations vary randomly between + and -.  So last year I took the 2020 dataset to replace the older one for updating the analysis.

Now I find the NOAA dataset starting in 2021 has almost completely new values due to a method shift in February 2021, requiring a recalibration of all previous measurements.  The new picture of ΔCO2 is graphed below.

The method shift is reported at a NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory webpage, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) WMO Scale, with a justification for the difference between X2007 results and the new results from X2019 now in force.  The orange line shows that the shift has resulted in higher values, especially early on and a general slightly increasing trend over time.  However, these are small variations at the decimal level on values 340 and above.  Further, the graph shows that yearly differentials month by month are virtually the same as before.  Thus, I redid the analysis with the new values.

Global Temperature Anomalies (ΔTemp)

The other time series was the record of global temperature anomalies according to RSS. The current RSS dataset is not at all the same as the past.

Here we see some seriously unsettling science at work.  The purple line is RSS in 2014, and the blue is RSS as of 2020.  Some further increases appear in the gold 2022 rss dataset. The red line shows alterations from the old to the new.  There is a slight cooling of the data in the beginning years, then the three versions mostly match until 1997, when systematic warming enters the record.  From 1997/5 to 2003/12 the average anomaly increases by 0.04C.  After 2004/1 to 2012/8 the average increase is 0.15C.  At the end from 2012/9 to 2013/12, the average anomaly was higher by 0.21. The 2022 version added slight warming over 2020 values.

RSS continues that accelerated warming to the present, but it cannot be trusted.  And who knows what the numbers will be a few years down the line?  As Dr. Ole Humlum said some years ago (regarding Gistemp): “It should however be noted that a temperature record which keeps on changing the past hardly can qualify as being correct.”

Given the above manipulations, I went instead to the other satellite dataset UAH version 6. UAH has also made a shift by changing its baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020.  This resulted in systematically reducing the anomaly values, but did not alter the pattern of variation over time.  For comparison, here are the two records with measurements through December 2023.

Comparing UAH temperature anomalies to NOAA CO2 changes.

Here are UAH temperature anomalies compared to CO2 monthly changes year over year.

Changes in monthly CO2 synchronize with temperature fluctuations, which for UAH are anomalies now referenced to the 1991-2020 period.  As stated above, CO2 differentials are calculated for the present month by subtracting the value for the same month in the previous year (for example June 2022 minus June 2021).   Temp anomalies are calculated by comparing the present month with the baseline month.

The final proof that CO2 follows temperature due to stimulation of natural CO2 reservoirs is demonstrated by the ability to calculate CO2 levels since 1979 with a simple mathematical formula:

For each subsequent year, the CO2 level for each month was generated

CO2  this month this year = a + b × Temp this month this year  + CO2 this month last year

Jeremy used Python to estimate a and b, but I used his spreadsheet to guess values that place for comparison the observed and calculated CO2 levels on top of each other.

In the chart calculated CO2 levels correlate with observed CO2 levels at 0.9986 out of 1.0000.  This mathematical generation of CO2 atmospheric levels is only possible if they are driven by temperature-dependent natural sources, and not by human emissions which are small in comparison, rise steadily and monotonically.

Comment:  UAH dataset reported a sharp warming spike starting mid-year, with causes speculated but not proven.  In any case, that surprising peak has not yet driven CO2 higher, though it might, but only if it persists despite the likely cooling already under way.

Previous Post:  What Causes Rising Atmospheric CO2?

This post is prompted by a recent exchange with those reasserting the “consensus” view attributing all additional atmospheric CO2 to humans burning fossil fuels.

The IPCC doctrine which has long been promoted goes as follows. We have a number over here for monthly fossil fuel CO2 emissions, and a number over there for monthly atmospheric CO2. We don’t have good numbers for the rest of it-oceans, soils, biosphere–though rough estimates are orders of magnitude higher, dwarfing human CO2.  So, we ignore nature and assume it is always a sink, explaining the difference between the two numbers we do have. Easy peasy, science settled.

What about the fact that nature continues to absorb about half of human emissions, even while FF CO2 increased by 60% over the last 2 decades? What about the fact that in 2020 FF CO2 declined significantly with no discernable impact on rising atmospheric CO2?

These and other issues are raised by Murray Salby and others who conclude that it is not that simple, and the science is not settled. And so these dissenters must be cancelled lest the narrative be weakened.

The non-IPCC paradigm is that atmospheric CO2 levels are a function of two very different fluxes. FF CO2 changes rapidly and increases steadily, while Natural CO2 changes slowly over time, and fluctuates up and down from temperature changes. The implications are that human CO2 is a simple addition, while natural CO2 comes from the integral of previous fluctuations.  Jeremy Shiers has a series of posts at his blog clarifying this paradigm. See Increasing CO2 Raises Global Temperature Or Does Increasing Temperature Raise CO2 Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The following graph which shows the change in CO2 levels (rather than the levels directly) makes this much clearer.

Note the vertical scale refers to the first differential of the CO2 level not the level itself. The graph depicts that change rate in ppm per year.

There are big swings in the amount of CO2 emitted. Taking the mean as 1.6 ppmv/year (at a guess) there are +/- swings of around 1.2 nearly +/- 100%.

And, surprise surprise, the change in net emissions of CO2 is very strongly correlated with changes in global temperature.

This clearly indicates the net amount of CO2 emitted in any one year is directly linked to global mean temperature in that year.

For any given year the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be the sum of

  • all the net annual emissions of CO2
  • in all previous years.

For each year the net annual emission of CO2 is proportional to the annual global mean temperature.

This means the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will be related to the sum of temperatures in previous years.

So, CO2 levels are not directly related to the current temperature but the integral of temperature over previous years.

The following graph again shows observed levels of CO2 and global temperatures but also has calculated levels of CO2 based on sum of previous years temperatures (dotted blue line).

Summary:

The massive fluxes from natural sources dominate the flow of CO2 through the atmosphere.  Human CO2 from burning fossil fuels is around 4% of the annual addition from all sources. Even if rising CO2 could cause rising temperatures (no evidence, only claims), reducing our emissions would have little impact.

Atmospheric CO2 Math

Ins: 4% human, 96% natural
Outs: 0% human, 98% natural.
Atmospheric storage difference: +2%
(so that: Ins = Outs + Atmospheric storage difference)

Balance = Atmospheric storage difference: 2%, of which,
Humans: 2% X 4% = 0.08%
Nature: 2% X 96 % = 1.92%

Ratio Natural : Human =1.92% : 0.08% = 24 : 1

Resources
For a possible explanation of natural warming and CO2 emissions see Little Ice Age Warming Recovery May be Over
Resources:

CO2 Fluxes, Sources and Sinks

Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

Fearless Physics from Dr. Salby

Climate Scientists “Failure to Tell the Truth” Is why Net Zero was Abandoned?

“… they worry that if the true nightmare was revealed, … everybody … would … just give up …”

Alan Kohler. Source The New Daily

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… they worry that if the true nightmare was revealed, … everybody … would … just give up …”

Trump’s America is abandoning climate action and the fight just got harder

By Alan Kohler

…

Bulldozing the Amazon rainforest is a fitting way to mark 30 years of failure of annual gabfests that have released colossal amounts of carbon dioxide from the mouths of the well-meaning and burned tonnes of aviation fuel to get them there, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions not one bit.

…

Energy scientist, Vaclav Smil puts the total cost of achieving net zero by 2050 at $US444 trillion, or $US17 trillion a year for 25 years, “requiring affluent economies to spend 20 to 25 per cent of their annual GDP on the transition”. 

…

So net zero by 2050 won’t happen and the increase in global temperature will not be limited to the 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels that was agreed as preferred at Paris in 2015 – nowhere near it.

…

There has been systemic reticence on the part of scientists to spell out what’s actually going on, first because science is inherently uncertain, so they are always reluctant to be definitive, and second because they worry that if the true nightmare was revealed, politicians and everybody else would either refuse to believe it or just give up.

…Read more: 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-17/climate-change-religion-trump-zeldin-epa-wind-back-rules/105057538

The average temperature difference between the Aussie state capitals Melbourne and Brisbane is around 4ºC, so why isn’t everyone in Brisbane dying from climate change? How could global warming of 4ºC make Melbourne uninhabitable?

Cairns is about as much warmer than Brisbane as Brisbane is warmer than Melbourne. 4ºC warming wouldn’t even make Brisbane uninhabitable.

And of course you have prosperous and high population tropical cities like Jakarta and Singapore even closer to the equator than Cairns.

If all this isn’t enough, we have evidence from the distant past that warming is not a problem.

Our monkey ancestors also did well in a much hotter world. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 5-8C hotter than today, was the age of monkeys. Our monkey ancestors thrived on the abundance of the hothouse PETM, and colonised much of the world, only retreating when the encroaching cold drove them from their new homes.

Fish also did pretty well during the PETM.

Study: Ancient Fish Thrived During PETM Extreme Global Warming

As for climate scientists failing to tell the truth to prevent Net Zero being abandoned, surely the time has come to stop hiding the truth and let it all out, and tell it how it is?

Net Zero is being abandoned anyway, so what do you have to lose? Please entertain us, don’t hold back – let’s hear your nightmare, let’s hear and read the predictions of your dying climate doomsday cult in all their glorious detail. Go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Northvolt File for Bankruptcy

Go woke, go broke!
Following an exhaustive effort to explore all available means to secure a viable financial and operational future for the company, the Board of Directors of Northvolt AB today announced that it has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Go woke, go broke!

From Northvolt:

Stockholm, Sweden, 12 March 2025 – Following an exhaustive effort to explore all available means to secure a viable financial and operational future for the company, the Board of Directors of Northvolt AB today announced that it has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden.

Like many companies in the battery sector, Northvolt has experienced a series of compounding challenges in recent months that eroded its financial position, including rising capital costs, geopolitical instability, subsequent supply chain disruptions, and shifts in market demand. Further to this backdrop, the company has faced significant internal challenges in its ramp-up of production, both in ways that were expected by engagement in what is a highly complex industry, and others which were unforeseen.

Despite pursuing all available options to negotiate and implement a financial restructuring, including a Chapter 11 restructuring process in the United States, and despite liquidity support from our lenders and key counterparties, the company was unable to secure the necessary financial conditions to continue in its current form. The Board therefore determined that this is the only available solution while the company pursues all realistic options to obtain financing to continue operating during the Swedish bankruptcy process.

It should be underscored that in engaging in this process, the company found significant traction with potential partners and interest from investors — something which illustrates the strong underlying value and future potential of Northvolt and is testament to its accomplishments. Ultimately, however, with limited time and financial resources available, the company was unable to conclude the necessary agreements to secure its future.

Following the filing, a Swedish court-appointed trustee will now oversee the process, including the sale of the business and its assets and settlement of outstanding obligations. The process will be conducted in accordance with Swedish insolvency law, with a focus on ensuring an orderly transition for employees, partners, and creditors. Northvolt has nominated Mikael Kubu as Trustee.

The entities Northvolt AB, Northvolt Ett AB, Northvolt Labs AB, Northvolt Revolt AB and Northvolt Systems AB filed with the Swedish court. Northvolt Germany and Northvolt North America are not filing for bankruptcy in their respective jurisdictions. As wholly owned subsidiaries of Northvolt AB, any decisions regarding these entities will be made by the court-appointed trustee of Northvolt AB in consultation with the Group’s lenders at the appropriate time.

Northvolt recognizes the significant impact of this outcome on its employees, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. The company is working closely with relevant authorities, trade unions, and partners to ensure that employees receive the support and information they need during this transition.

https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/northvolt/pressreleases/northvolt-files-for-bankruptcy-in-sweden-3374738

Obviously two major factors lie behind this bankruptcy:

  1. The lack of demand for EVs in Europe
  2. The impossibility of competing profitably with batteries made in China

There is no prospect of either of these two challenges being resolved soon.