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.
As many of you know, the Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) in Hawaii is slated for closure by the Trump Administration. Multiple reports indicate that the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 NOAA budget includes plans to defund the MLO. This would essentially lead to the closure of the observatory.
As many of you know, the Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) in Hawaii is slated for closure by the Trump Administration. Multiple reports indicate that the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 NOAA budget includes plans to defund the MLO. This would essentially lead to the closure of the observatory. The proposal also aims to shut down other atmospheric monitoring stations and eliminate a significant portion of climate research conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In addition to being ground zero for global atmospheric CO2 measurements, it does many other things that are useful.
My friend, Forrest M. Mims III (One of the “50 best brains in science.” Discover magazine.) writes by email:
While I fully understand how the CO2 record begun there has led to the ongoing climate battle, MLO does far, far more than measure CO2. During my many stays at MLO (225 nights) I have never heard the long-time director, Darryl Kuniyuki, say a single word for, against, or about the CO2 record. He has far more responsibilities up there.
From my email to the Hilo Chamber of Commerce, which played a lead role in the establishment of MLO in the early 1950s, and which is stunned by the closure announcement:
Moreover, MLO does far more than measure CO2. For example:
1. MLO is the ultimate site to calibrate a wide range of instruments (including mine since 1993) that measure sunlight, ozone, water vapor, aerosols and various gases. Many organizations calibrate their instruments at MLO, including the Navy Research Lab, PREDE, Solar Light, MRI, NASA, PNNL, etc.
2. MLO data is invaluable for comparison with US, European, Japanese, and Indian satellite data, which drifts over time.
3. MLO’s remote location supports emergency communications during hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and other emergency events. (I know this well, for I was staying overnight at MLO when a hurricane arrived.)
4. MLO supports a wide variety of Federal and State government communications (Army, Navy, Civil Air Patrol, FAA, Hawaii Civil Defense, post office, etc.).
5. MLO provides an important site for seismometers and tiltmeters that monitor potential volcanic activity of Mauna Loa.
6. MLO’s helicopter landing zone is used for a variety of scientific studies and emergencies.
7. MLO is a base of operation to rescue hikers on Mauna Loa.
8. MLO has been used as an overnight rest site for military teams that search for and recover the remains of US military veterans lost in high-altitude airplane crashes. (I was staying there overnight when two such teams arrived.)
9. MLO is an important site for visits by scientists and students studying a wide range of topics from alpine vegetation to rare alpine fauna. (I am among the few persons to see a Hawaiian hoary bat flying upslope while I was staying at MLO.)
10. MLO has become a vitally important site for my ongoing development and calibration of twilight photometers that measure the altitude of aerosols blowing from China to the US, high-altitude water vapor above the height of weather balloons, and both meteor smoke (85-90 km) and cosmic dust (100 km and above). (My twilight research began at MLO in 2013 and was compared with the MLO lidar.)
The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) mandates that Dominion Energy, the state’s big electric utility, rapidly shift its power generation to wind and solar. Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) provides dramatic evidence that this shift does not work, making blackouts inevitable. Making it work would be fantastically expensive, with the average customer paying over $40,000 for batteries by 2030.
The Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) mandates that Dominion Energy, the state’s big electric utility, rapidly shift its power generation to wind and solar. Dominion’s latest Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) provides dramatic evidence that this shift does not work, making blackouts inevitable. Making it work would be fantastically expensive, with the average customer paying over $40,000 for batteries by 2030.
The graphic summarizes Dominion’s VCEA compliance plan. It is a vertical bar showing the installed mix of generating capacity in 2030. The vertical scale is megawatts (MW) and the height of the bar is the projected maximum summer power demand for that year which is about 33,000 MW.
The bar is divided into different colored segments for each generator type such as solar, wind, gas, nuclear, etc. The height of each segment is the amount of installed capacity at that time in MW.
Dominion actually flags solar pointing out that it makes up 23% of the available capacity. They also point out that solar, wind and batteries together make up 34% of capacity. Note that the battery segment is very small and batteries are not generators. The bar also includes a little bit of imported power making installed capacity less than peak demand.
The problem is obvious. Peak summer demand typically occurs after 4 pm when there is no solar generation. Moreover it is often caused by a stagnant high pressure system called a Bermuda high with very low winds so there is no wind power either. Plus these highs are regional in scale so the neighbors may have nothing to sell.
If there is no solar, no wind and no imports then we are over 34% short of the power needed to keep the lights on. Clearly there will be a blackout. No solar alone will do it for that matter. Nor are these inconvenient short term rolling blackouts. Being 20 to 30% short is a prescription for catastrophe.
This is where batteries come in. It is often claimed that batteries can make renewables reliable so let’s now see what that would take in this VCEA case.
Here is a very simple back of the envelope analysis to just give the scale of the batteries required to prevent blackouts.
Peak need is about 33,000 MW in 2030. Dispatchable capacity is around 20,000 MW leaving 13,000 MW. Solar is about 10,000 MW but for simplicity let us generously assume it too is 13,000 as though non-performing wind and import capacities were not there. For one day this leaves 16 hours with no solar and demand at 13,000 that must come from the batteries.
This is a need of 208,000 MWh of batteries. The battery capacity in the graphic is around 10,000 MWh or basically nothing. Note we are assuming 100% battery charge and discharge when reality is more like 60-80%.
At the typical $500,000 or so per MWh the battery facility capital cost is an incredible $104 billion. That is $104,000,000,000. Given Dominion’s 2.6 million customers this averages a nice round $40,000 per customer for batteries. Dominion ignores this simple fact.
But it gets much worse because there is no spare generating capacity to charge the batteries. Given a typical multi-day near peak heatwave several hundred billion dollars worth of batteries would be required to prevent a massive sustained blackout. This is likely physically impossible but it is certainly economically ruinous.
Thus we have the VCEA dilemma. Rapidly switching to solar and wind as proposed in the Dominion IRP for 2030 either leads to catastrophic blackouts or economic ruin. The “clean economy” is no economy.
The obvious solution is to repeal the Virginia Clean Economy Act.
From the Institute for Basic Science and the “we’re all gonna die” department comes Episode #2971 of model madness via press release:
Earth’s future climate at 9 km worldwide resolution
Global Warming does not affect our planet evenly. Some areas such as the Arctic region or high mountain peaks warm faster than the global average, whereas others, including large parts of the tropical oceans, show reduced temperature trends compared to the mean. The heterogeneity of future rainfall patterns is even more pronounced. To adapt to future climate change, policymakers and stakeholders need detailed regional climate information, often on scales much smaller than the typical resolution (~100-200 km) of climate models used in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
A team of scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP), Pusan National University in South Korea and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Bremerhaven, Germany has achieved an important breakthrough in climate modeling, providing unprecedented insights into Earth’s future climate and its variability. Their research was published in the open access journal Earth System Dynamics.
Utilizing the AWI-CM3 earth system model, a novel iterative global modeling protocol, and two of South Korea’s fastest supercomputers (Aleph at the Institute for Basic Science and Guru at the Korea Meteorological Administration), the researchers have simulated climate change at scales of 9 km in the atmosphere and 4-25 km in the ocean. These extensive computer model simulations offer a more accurate representation of future climate conditions, enabling better planning for climate adaptation.
The AWI-CM3 high-resolution model accurately represents global climate, including small-scale phenomena, such as rainfall in mountainous regions, coastal and island climate processes, hurricanes and ocean turbulence(Fig. 1). By resolving more regional details and their interactions with the large-scale atmosphere and ocean circulations, the model demonstrates a superior performance compared to most lower-resolution climate models.
A snapshot of simulated climate conditions. Blue/red shading: sea surface temperature deviations from zonal mean; gray/white shading: low clouds; green/pink shading: 10m wind speed; blue/yellow shading in upper panels: hurricane precipitation. The figure illustrates the ubiquity of mesoscale climate phenomena, such as Tropical Instability Waves in the equatorial Atlantic and Pacific, hurricanes (making landfall in Hawaiʻi in this snapshot), ocean cold wakes generated by hurricanes, stratocumulus cloud decks and patchy day-time convection over the Amazon forest. Credit: Institute for Basic Science
A main product of the simulations is a set of detailed global maps of expected climate change (e.g., temperature, rainfall, winds, ocean currents, etc.) for an anticipated 1oC future global warming.
“It is important to keep in mind that Global Warming is spatially quite heterogenous. For a 1oC global temperature increase, the Siberian and Canadian Arctic will warm by about 2oC, whereas the Arctic Ocean will experience warming of up to 5oC. In high mountain regions, such as the Himalayas, the Andes and the Hindu Kush, the model simulates a 45-60% acceleration relative to the global mean”, says MOON Ja-Yeon from the ICCP, and lead author of the study. To ensure broad access to these high-resolution climate projections, the team has launched an interactive data platform, where users can explore future climate change on regional and global scales (Fig. 2). Normalized climate change data for a 1°C Global Warming level can be downloaded and opened directly in the Google Earth application. These data can provide information on expected future changes in climate variables, such as windspeed and clouds, which are relevant for the future deployment of wind or solar farms, respectively.
“Our study also highlights the regional impacts of major modes of climate variability, such as the Madden Julian Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, as well as their response to greenhouse warming” says Prof. Thomas JUNG from the AWI and co-corresponding author of the study. According to the AWI-CM3 simulations, the amplitude of both, the Madden Julian Oscillation and of the alternating El Niño and La Niña events will increase in the future, which will lead to intensified rainfall impacts in affected regions. The simulations further indicate an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events (>50 mm/day) in areas such as eastern Asia, the Himalayas, the Andes, Amazonia, mountain-tops in Africa and the east coast of North America with significant implications for flooding, erosion, and landslides.
“Most global climate models used in the assessment reports of the IPCC are too coarse to resolve small islands, such as those in the western tropical Pacific. These islands are already threatened by global sea level rise. Our new climate model simulations now provide new regional insights into what these regions can expect in terms of changes in ocean currents, temperatures, rainfall patterns and weather extremes. We hope that our dataset will be used extensively by planners, policy- and decision-makers and the public.”, says Prof. Axel TIMMERMANN, Director of the ICCP and co-corresponding author of the study.
The study’s findings offer critical information for assessing climate risks and implementing adaptation measures on regional scales.
Evidence continues to mount that the UK Met Office is chasing ‘hottest evah’ temperature extremes by deliberately siting new measuring stations in locations likely to be affected by heat spikes and unnaturally warmed ambient air. In the last 10 years to the middle of 2024, 81.5% of new sites were junk Class 4 and 5 operations with potential internationally-recognised errors up to 2°C and 5°C respectively. Incredibly, eight of the 13 newly-opened sites over the last five years were of junk status.
Evidence continues to mount that the UK Met Office is chasing ‘hottest evah’ temperature extremes by deliberately siting new measuring stations in locations likely to be affected by heat spikes and unnaturally warmed ambient air. In the last 10 years to the middle of 2024, 81.5% of new sites were junk Class 4 and 5 operations with potential internationally-recognised errors up to 2°C and 5°C respectively. Incredibly, eight of the 13 newly-opened sites over the last five years were of junk status. Now comes news of a new site recently opened in Wales at Whitesands that in the words of citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders, “appears to be a deliberate attempt to produce artificially elevated readings both now and ever increasingly in the future”.
It’s so bad, it beggars belief that it has been added to the official list of Met Office recording sites. For starters, it is a manual operation suggesting amateur involvement with all the human errors that might entail. Sanders, who is undertaking a scientific study of all 380 plus Met Office sites, notes that from the start date in May 2024, almost half the days had no record until the end of the year. But much worse is to be found in an examination of the actual siting. Its location on sand and sandy soils is hardly ideal since they absorb and release heat more readily than clay, loam or topsoil. This creates a microclimate that can skew temperature in the immediate vicinity.
Whitesands is a camping site on Welsh sand dunes. The Stevenson screen is next to a road with a 5mph speed limit, reports Sanders, meaning that slow moving traffic such as motor homes and camper vans may pass by. According to Met Office guidelines, an undesirable site is one where there is sheltering or shading effects of trees on the measurements. The image above is from November 2024 and the structure behind the screen is a guard designed to protect newly planted saplings from animals. Sanders observes that the hedge is to the northern plus eastern and seaward elevation of the screen, which will shield it from cooling night time breezes but retain warmer onshore breezes. Was this all invisible to the Met Office inspectors – did they not know about the requirements, he asks. Previous photographic evidence shows the structure was there before the screen arrived.
The Met Office is its own worst enemy. It is over a year since the Daily Sceptic revealed that almost 80% of its 380-plus stations across the UK were in the junk classes 4 and 5. It appears to have done nothing to correct the situation and the example of Whitesands can only raise further suspicions about its motives. The science writer Matt Ridley recently wrote in the Telegraph that it has been “embarrassingly duped by activists”. The need for ever higher temperatures to promote the failing Net Zero fantasy is only too evident. The Met Office is a public body so one cannot discount the effects of unaccountable stupidity, idleness and self-important arrogance, but it is worrying sign for a science organisation that more damning conspiratorial theories are rapidly spreading across social media. Past frequent posters on X such as the Head of Climate Impacts Professor Richard Betts rarely make a contribution these days, while Met Office statements are frequently greeted with robust and critical replies.
Sanders challenges any meteorologist to prove that these extremely poor sites deployed now and in the future are not intended to be used to corrupt the ongoing historic climate records. A disinterested party might suggest from impartial evidence presented to him that the “Met Office is using data of dubious accuracy from recently-installed low-grade sites with known artificially elevated readings to produce evidence on temperatures increases over time”.
Again, the Met Office is its own worst enemy. Sanders is engaged in a serious scientific study and is critically examining temperature figures that play a vital role in persuading populations around the world that a so-called climate crisis requires a drastic Net Zero political solution. But of course, not all are on board with such an investigative project – looking at you BBC and the rest of the legacy media. After all, if there’s no climate crisis, there’s no need for the fantasy Net Zero solution. ‘Hottest evah’ outliers may be useful for short-term squawking headlines. But to show the kind of long-term warming that can drive an alarmist political narrative, historical records and climate averages are required. The Met Office seems all too keen to oblige.
As regular readers will know, Sanders recently discovered that the Met Office was still running records from 103 non-existent stations by inventing or estimating data from what were subsequently described as “well-correlated neighbouring stations”. Examination of publicly available Met Office records shows that stations identified as near to the non-existent sites often don’t exist. Alas, a number of Freedom of Information requests from Sanders seeking the identity of some of these “well-correlated neighbouring sites” – a simple matter it might be thought of asking to see the proof behind the Met Office’s claims – were met with the claim that the requests were “vexatious” and the public interest was not served by responding to them.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor. Follow him on X.
Evidence continues to mount that the UK Met Office is chasing ‘hottest evah’ temperature extremes by deliberately siting new measuring stations in locations likely to be affected by heat spikes and unnaturally warmed ambient air. In the last 10 years to the middle of 2024, 81.5% of new sites were junk Class 4 and 5 operations with potential internationally-recognised errors up to 2°C and 5°C respectively. Incredibly, eight of the 13 newly-opened sites over the last five years were of junk status.
Now comes news of a new site recently opened in Wales at Whitesands that in the words of citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders, “appears to be a deliberate attempt to produce artificially elevated readings both now and ever increasingly in the future”.
What may have started simply because of incompetence now has the unmistakeable whiff of corruption. Why else would the Met Office still be deliberately and knowingly opening up junk weather stations? Eight out of the thirteen sites opened in the last five years, for instance.
If the Met Office wants to keep the few remaining shreds of credibility it still holds, it must immediately remove from its network all junk and near junk sites, which are totally unsuitable for climatological purposes. That must include Class 3 sites as well.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), established in 1974 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo, was founded with a clear and vital mission: to ensure energy security for its member nations, with coordinated oil stockpiling and rigorous data and analysis to guide energy planning and investment. For decades, it served as a beacon of pragmatic, evidence-based policymaking. It was also an important source of data and energy best practice for policymakers of non-member states around the world.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), established in 1974 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo, was founded with a clear and vital mission: to ensure energy security for its member nations, with coordinated oil stockpiling and rigorous data and analysis to guide energy planning and investment. For decades, it served as a beacon of pragmatic, evidence-based policymaking. It was also an important source of data and energy best practice for policymakers of non-member states around the world.
However, like other major global institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the IEA has strayed far from its original charter, as I have written about extensively (here, here and here). Over the past decade or so, it has morphed into a mouthpiece for the progressive-Leftist establishment, particularly the Brussels-based European Union elite and the US Democratic Party, peddling climate alarmism and promoting unrealistic ‘Net Zero’ policies aligned with the Paris Agreement. This ideological capture has undermined its credibility.
On Tuesday, the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright expressed his determination to either reform the IEA or withdraw from it — taking with it 18% of the agency’s budget. Mr Wright’s threat is a clarion call for accountability for an institution that should once again be made fit-for-purpose. This move is not an isolated act but part of a broader counter-revolution in energy policy under President Donald Trump’s administration. President Trump and his senior policy team seek to dismantle the politicised narratives that have infiltrated global institutions.
The IEA’s Fall from Grace
The IEA’s original mandate was straightforward: to safeguard energy security for its 31 member countries, primarily by coordinating responses to supply disruptions and providing data-driven insights for energy markets. Yet, over the past decade, the agency has pivoted to become a cheerleader for renewable energy while demonising fossil fuels, which still account for roughly 80% of global energy consumption. Its forecasts, once grounded in empirical analysis, now often reflect wishful thinking, overestimating the adoption rates of renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs) while downplaying the enduring role of oil, gas and coal. This shift mirrors the priorities of the EU’s technocratic elite in Brussels and the US Democratic Party, which have embraced climate alarmism as a central tenet of their political identity.
The IEA’s transformation into a promoter of ‘decarbonisation’ narratives is not merely a departure from its mission but a betrayal of its responsibility to provide objective analysis. This betrayal is not restricted to the objective interests of its own OECD members. By giving credence to the globalist climate agenda and presumptions of an impending climate catastrophe, it has sided with the predilections of an affluent, virtue-signalling elite in the West against the needs of the poorest citizens of developing countries. These countries need access to cheap fossil fuels for their economic growth aspirations above all. There are no examples of countries attaining modern Western standards of living by dependence on intermittent, “thermodynamically incompetent” renewable energy technologies.
The IEA’s rosy scenario for renewable energy growth in its annual World Energy Outlook reports is called the ‘Stated Policies Scenario’ (STEPS), which assumes, unrealistically, that governments will successfully meet their clean energy commitments on schedule. It often ignores or downplays the intermittency of wind and solar and the costs of maintaining dispatchable power plants when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. It adopts unrealistic assumptions of technical progress and lowballs the high costs of grid-scale storage. Land-use conflicts, loss of biodiversity and adverse impacts on fauna inherent in sprawling renewable projects are also ignored.
Its dismissive treatment of fossil fuels disregards their critical role in powering industrial economies and lifting billions out of poverty in developing nations. This bias has real-world consequences: misguided policies based on IEA projections can lead to energy shortages, higher costs and economic disruption, as seen in Europe’s energy crisis following its overreliance on renewables while cutting back on coal and nuclear power. This worsened after Europe banned piped natural gas imports from Russia after the start of the Ukraine war.
Chris Wright, a seasoned energy executive and sceptic of the ‘energy transition’ dogma, has rightly called out the IEA’s unrealistic forecasts. In his Bloomberg interview, he said: “We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw. My strong preference is to reform it.” He warned that the agency’s current trajectory undermines its credibility and risks misleading policymakers and investors.
His ultimatum — reform or face US withdrawal — reflects a growing frustration with the IEA’s alignment with the progressive-Leftist agenda. The US, as the agency’s largest single funder, has significant leverage to demand change. Wright’s stance is not merely a negotiating tactic but a reflection of a broader shift in US energy policy under Trump, which prioritises energy realism over ideological purity.
The Trump Administration’s Energy Counter-Revolution
Wright’s push to reform or exit the IEA is part of a larger movement within the Trump administration to reverse what has been described as the ‘long march through the institutions’ by progressive ideologies. This phenomenon, well-documented by the Manhattan Institute in its statement published on Monday on higher education, refers to the gradual infiltration of academia, media and global institutions by ideas rooted in neo-Marxism, DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) mandates and climate alarmism. These ideologies have reshaped institutions like the IEA, World Bank and IMF, turning them into purveyors of approved narratives rather than objective arbiters of policy.
The Trump administration has taken decisive steps to counter this trend. In 2017, the US withdrew from the Paris Agreement under President Trump’s first term. He rejected the notion that unilateral emissions cuts by Western nations could meaningfully address global climate challenges while China and India continue to expand their coal-fired power capacity. In his second term as President, Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement once again this year after his predecessor, President Biden, re-enrolled the US as a participant in the UN programme in 2021.
Similarly, the US exited the World Health Organisation (WHO) when it became clear that the agency’s priorities no longer aligned with America’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA) ambitions. The WHO was criticised particularly after its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. These moves signal a broader rejection of globalist ‘consensus’ views that prioritise ideological conformity over national interests.
In the energy sector, Trump’s ‘energy dominance’ agenda has revitalised the US fossil fuel industry, rolling back the anti-energy policies of the Obama and Biden administrations. From approving pipelines to easing regulations on drilling, the administration has prioritised affordable, reliable energy over the costly and impractical push for Net Zero. The recent passage of the Big Beautiful Bill Act aims to “rapidly eliminate the market distortions and costs imposed on taxpayers by so-called ‘green’ energy subsidies’” for solar, wind, electric vehicle and other ‘green’ technologies. President Trump’s ‘energy dominance’ agenda has left the global climate juggernaut on the brink of collapse as other nations begin to question the feasibility of rapid decarbonisation in the face of energy security concerns.
Another example of President Trump’s counter-revolution in energy and climate change policies can be seen in the his administration’s efforts to restore scientific integrity at NASA. For years, the agency’s National Climate Assessments were criticised for promoting politicised narratives over rigorous science. These reports, often cited by climate alarmists, relied on speculative models and exaggerated worst-case scenarios to justify aggressive decarbonisation policies. According to Charles Rotter of Watts Up With That?, the National Climate Assessment has “long been a centrepiece in the grand theatre of climate fear, projecting dire futures with a laughable level of pseudo-certainty”.
In a bold move, NASA has begun removing these assessments from its website, signalling a return to the scientific method. Gregory Wrightstone, Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition stated that: “We applaud the brave leaders at NASA who are taking the bold steps needed to begin the process of bringing the scientific method back into government scientific agencies. For far too long, real science has been replaced by political science, consensus science and blatant misinformation.”
Further reinforcing this commitment, Trump signed an executive order on May 23rd, mandating “gold standard” scientific practices across federal agencies. This order aims to ensure that government-funded science is transparent, reproducible and free from political agendas. It requires arms-length peer review processes for accountability in reporting research results. The IEA, though not a US agency, would do well to heed this example. Its forecasts, which increasingly resemble advocacy rather than analysis, fail the test of scientific rigour and undermine its credibility as a global authority on energy.
The Long March and its Discontents
The IEA’s drift is emblematic of a broader trend across global institutions. The World Bank and IMF, originally tasked with fostering economic stability and development, have increasingly embraced climate-centric agendas that prioritise ‘sustainability’ – a weasel word of choice for environmental zealots and ESG enthusiasts – over economic growth. As I have written elsewhere, these institutions often push policies that penalise fossil fuel investments in developing nations, effectively denying them the affordable energy needed to industrialise and alleviate poverty.
This reflects the influence of the progressive-Leftist establishment, which has captured key decision-making bodies in Brussels, various EU capitals and, until recently, Washington, DC. The Trump administration’s pushback against this ideological capture is not limited to energy policy. Its efforts to dismantle DEI initiatives in universities and federal agencies, as well as its rejection of progressive ideology, demonstrate a broader commitment to restoring meritocracy and reason in American institutions. The IEA, as a critical player in global energy markets, cannot be allowed to remain a vehicle for these ideologies. Mr Wright’s demand for reform is a call to return the agency to its roots as a neutral, data-driven institution focused on energy security and economic prosperity.
The Path Forward: Reform or Exit
The stakes for the IEA are high. If it fails to reform, the US withdrawal could trigger a cascade of defections, as other nations sceptical of the Net Zero agenda such as New Zealand reassess their participation. A diminished IEA would struggle to maintain its global influence, leaving a vacuum that could be filled by more pragmatic organisations such as the US Energy Information Administration or the OPEC Secretariat, both of which already collect international energy data and conduct policy analysis.
Alternatively, root-and-branch reform – necessitating the removal of senior management including its Executive Director Fatih Birol – could restore the agency’s credibility, ensuring that its forecasts and policy recommendations reflect the realities of global energy demand, technological feasibility and economic constraints. Reform would require the IEA to abandon its advocacy of renewables at the expense of fossil fuels and focus on providing balanced, transparent analyses. This includes acknowledging the limitations of current renewable technologies, the critical role of fossil fuels for modern industrial prosperity and the importance of energy access for developing nations. It also means engaging with a broader range of stakeholders, including industry experts and policymakers from energy-producing nations, rather than catering to the narrow interests of the EU and progressive activists.
Chris Wright’s ultimatum to the IEA is a pivotal moment in the global energy debate. It reflects a growing recognition that institutions like the IEA, World Bank and IMF have been co-opted by a progressive-Leftist agenda that prioritises ideology over evidence. The Trump administration’s ‘energy dominance’ agenda, coupled with its broader efforts to restore scientific integrity and reject globalist dogmas, offers a blueprint for reclaiming these institutions. The IEA must choose: reform and return to its mission of ensuring energy security, or risk irrelevance as the US and potentially other countries exit the organisation. In an era of energy realism, the world cannot afford institutions that peddle favoured narratives at the expense of facts and rigorous, unbiased analysis.
“A recent survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that only 16% of potential buyers were either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a fully electric vehicle as their next car, … down from 25% in 2022 and was the lowest level of EV interest recorded by AAA surveys since 2019.”
“A recent survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that only 16% of potential buyers were either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a fully electric vehicle as their next car, … down from 25% in 2022 and was the lowest level of EV interest recorded by AAA surveys since 2019.”
The road to adoption of Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs) is growing steeper. For over two decades, states used incentives and mandates to try to force a transition from gasoline vehicles to ZEVs. But softening market demand, shifting federal policies, and poor economics threaten to halt the ZEV revolution in the United States.
Zero Emissions Vehicles are cars and trucks that produce no tailpipe emissions. These are either electric vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen vehicles. California is the only state with a significant number of hydrogen cars, but its hydrogen car population is declining, so ZEVs mean EVs in practice.
Air pollution reached hazardous levels in the 1950s. The expanding population and automobile fleet in Los Angeles generated recurring episodes of smog, reducing visibility, causing nausea, and burning eyes. As a child, I recall having our car windows coated by pollutants from the steel mills of Gary, Indiana during a drive-by, forcing us to stop to clean our windshield.
To combat worsening air pollution, all states enacted legislation by 1970. Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963 and established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Early vehicle pollution regulations were enormously successful eliminating harmful vehicle exhaust. Unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters, and particulate filters dropped volatile organic compound emissions per mile by 98 percent from 1970 to 2023. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor remain the only significant gases exhausted from today’s gasoline vehicles.
With hazardous emissions all but eliminated, the primary purpose of ZEV regulations is to force a transition to electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2. The first Zero Emissions Vehicle regulation was adopted by California in 1990. Today, 22 states have ZEV regulations, many requiring up to 100 percent of new car sales to be EVs by a future date, such as 2050. But the US ZEV transition has stalled due to three factors—weakening demand, changing federal policies, and poor economics.
The US market share of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) in the second quarter of 2025 was only 7 percent of car sales, down from over 8 percent during last November, December, and January. BEV share in the US has been flat since spring 2023.
A recent survey by the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that only 16% of potential buyers were either “likely” or “very likely” to buy a fully electric vehicle as their next car, while 63% were “unlikely/very unlikely.” The “likely/very likely” category was down from 25% in 2022 and was the lowest level of EV interest recorded by AAA surveys since 2019.
Under President Joe Biden, the federal government provided a wide array of tax credits, subsidies, and loans for EVs. President Donald Trump shifted policy efforts to “eliminate the electric vehicle mandate,” including ending subsidies and mandates and rolling back state ZEV regulations.
Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and President Trump signed it this month. The act eliminates tax credits for purchasing a new EV (up to $7,500) and a used EV (up to $4,000), effective September 30 of this year. Loss of tax credits will increase the cost of EVs, likely forcing US EV market share below 7% by the end of this year.
The 1970 Clean Air Act assigned responsibility for air pollution to the EPA but allowed the EPA to grant waivers to states for regulations that were stricter than federal limits. California has received more than 100 waivers under the Clean Air Act. Other states are allowed to adopt California pollution regulations. State ZEV standards require a waiver from the EPA.
But in June, President Trump signed three resolutions that rescinded California’s ZEV mandates. The principal resolution revoked the Clean Air Act waiver to California that was granted during the Biden administration. The waiver had allowed the state’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation, which mandated that all light vehicles sold in California by 2035 must be zero emissions. The waiver also allowed Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and other states to adopt California’s regulations.
Another resolution signed by President Trump rescinded the EPA waiver that authorized California’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, which began January 2024. The ACF forced new heavy-duty trucks registered in California to be zero-emissions. Prior to the Trump rollback, trucking companies wrestled with severe cost, weight, and vehicle range issues of electric trucks mandated by the regulation.
California immediately sued the federal government to restore the EPA waivers and revive ZEV mandates. But without a legal victory, state ZEV mandates are dead in the US, at least until a new federal administration is elected.
Without federal tax credits and state ZEV mandates, vehicle purchasers face the full brunt of the unfavorable economics of EVs. Advantages of EVs include the ability to charge at home and lower cost of operation for small daily travel distances. But their economic disadvantages include higher purchase prices, heavier vehicle weight, shorter driving range, higher maintenance and repair costs, higher insurance costs, and rising licensing fees.
The average US electric car purchase price in May was $57,734, about 17% higher than the average price for a gasoline car. Cancellation of the EV purchase tax credit will push this difference to over 20%. Electric trucks and buses are two to three times as expensive as diesel alternatives.
Thousand-pound EV car batteries are needed for a driving range approaching that of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. As a result, EVs tend to be about 50% heavier than ICE cars. The 2024 Chevy Silverado EV weighs over 8,000 pounds, a four-ton pickup truck! Greater weight means that tires wear out sooner, raising maintenance costs. States receive no gasoline taxes from EVs, so states are now imposing EV license fees for road maintenance. EV road fees should be higher because of their weight.
Hertz Rental purchased 60,000 EVs, but found that maintenance, repair, and insurance costs were higher than ICE rentals, so they sold much of their EV fleet. An EV battery damaged in a collision must be replaced, a $5,000 to $20,000 charge. US insurance rates for EVs may be 70% higher.
Poor market demand, a halt to federal EV tax credits, the rollback of state ZEV regulations, and higher economic costs threaten to halt the ZEV revolution.
——————
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of the bestselling bookGreen Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. His previous posts at MasterResource are here.
Shut down New Mexico’s last remaining coal plant (Four Corners Generating Station), environmentalists say, and replace it with renewable energy. But coal is a practical fuel, affordable and dependable. Being generically against coal is no more useful than being generically against electricity. Electricity demand is rapidly rising. Electric vehicles, new AI data centers, and a growing economy simply mean we need more power. And we need reliable power.
Shut down New Mexico’s last remaining coal plant (Four Corners Generating Station), environmentalists say, and replace it with renewable energy. But coal is a practical fuel, affordable and dependable. Being generically against coal is no more useful than being generically against electricity. Electricity demand is rapidly rising. Electric vehicles, new AI data centers, and a growing economy simply mean we need more power. And we need reliable power.
While new additions of electricity generation remain dominated by intermittent wind and solar power, keeping what we already have on the grid will be critically important to meeting our energy needs and doing so affordably. Across the country, electricity prices have risen faster than the pace of inflation over the past few years. If we tear down our existing sources of reliable power at the very moment electricity demand begins to soar, even higher prices will be an inevitability.
With everyone I’ve encountered who is really immersed in energy issues, the common view is that we need every available energy source, ranging from renewables and nuclear power to coal, just to keep the lights on. Frankly, we all tend to take the on-demand delivery of electricity for granted. We shouldn’t. In just the past month, power demand eclipsed available supply in Louisiana, forcing the grid operator there to institute rolling blackouts (“load shed”) for 100,000 customers on a 90-degree day.
For years, the nation’s grid reliability regulators have been warning of emerging problems. In fact, the nation’s grid reliability watchdog warned that more than half of the nation could face the threat of blackouts over the next decade if we don’t take corrective action to boost our supply of power. This summer, the PJM interconnection grid operator said Maryland is at elevated risk of supply shortages during periods of peak demand. It may be hard to grasp, but we’re staring down a power supply crisis years in the making. Now, the collision of rapidly rising power demand with the loss of the nation’s coal fleet is coming to a head.
We desperately need the coal plants we have left, and the Department of Energy (DOE) has recognized it. In fact, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently issued an emergency order to keep a coal-fired power plant in Michigan running through the summer to bolster the MISO grid, which stretches from Louisiana all the way up through Michigan and Wisconsin. That plant was being forced off the grid 15 years before the end of its life by anti-coal regulatory policy. DOE’s position is a simple one: we can’t afford to lose existing plants with so many states critically short of power. The looming threat of power shortages is altering the national perspective about coal. Instead of a problem to solve, our coal plants are a critically important reliability backstop that we need as a bridge to our energy future.
For the foreseeable future, new sources of power should come on the shoulders of these reliability bulwarks, not in place of them. Rotating blackouts, rising prices and missed economic opportunities for lack of power are wholly avoidable if we simply embrace the full suite of energy resources at our disposal. Recognizing the ongoing importance of our coal plants is just the place to begin.
Dr. Jim Constantopoulos is a Professor of Geology and the Director of the Miles Mineral Museum at Eastern New Mexico University.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
The Paris Agreement requires countries to submit new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years, reflecting progressively higher ambition and taking into account each country’s capacity.
The Paris Agreement requires countries to submit new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years, reflecting progressively higher ambition and taking into account each country’s capacity.
With COP30 just months away, all of the 197 countries that belong to the United Nations were supposed to have submitted updated national climate plans to the UN by February this year. These plans outline how each country will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 in line with the Paris Agreement.
But as the ClimateWatch map shows above, only 27 countries, accounting for only 21% of global emissions have bothered to do so.
Worse still for those bothered about such things, one of the 27 is the US, who submitted its plan before Trump took office and promptly withdrew from Paris! I think we can safely assume their NDC is now in the bin.
Inevitably the UK heads the list of lemmings. And as Climate Action Tracker explain, many of the new NDCs represent lower ambitions, not higher. They comment about Brazil, for instance:
Brazil submitted a target to reduce emissions between 59–67% below 2005 levels by 2035. Assessing the ambition of this target has been difficult due to the lack of transparency on how much the land sector sink will contribute to the target, given the country’s need for urgent reductions in the energy sector.
This results in an extraordinarily wide range of estimated emissions from all other sectors (excl. LULUCF) that are consistent with the NDC target. The lack of transparency is a clear issue for climate integrity – the public and the scientific community need to be able to understand what a government is proposing to do and in the present situation, Brazil’s NDC provides no clarity on this. We conclude that Brazil’s 2035 NDC target is not 1.5°C compatible.
Canada too are fudging their targets:
Canada’s 2035 NDC sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45–50% below 2005 levels by 2035. However, this target is based on a ‘gross-net’ approach, where reductions from the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector are counted towards achievement, even though LULUCF is excluded from the baseline. This approach reduces the pressure to achieve real reductions in fossil fuel emissions and introduces uncertainty into the stringency of the target.
Indeed, according to them, the UK is the only bright spot!
Even the EU, it seems, is haggling over whether to allow the purchase of international carbon credits to offset emissions.
It goes without saying that there are no updated NDCs from China, India or any of the other major emitting developing Asian nations.
Simple narratives are employed to seduce a populace, and none is more seductive today than the promise of “carbon-free” energy. In California, a state often touted as a green pioneer, Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated an “achievement” whose announcement was free of nuance and deficient of truth.
Simple narratives are employed to seduce a populace, and none is more seductive today than the promise of “carbon-free” energy. In California, a state often touted as a green pioneer, Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated an “achievement” whose announcement was free of nuance and deficient of truth.
“Two-thirds of California’s power now comes from renewable and zero-carbon electricity generation,” he said as if announcing an earthshaking milestone. This declaration, however, was a master class in deception.
Newsom glosses over critical distinctions: First, the term should be carbon dioxide-free, not carbon-free because the objective of the climate-obsessed is eliminating emissions of CO2 from human activity. Carbon, which evokes images of black soot, and carbon dioxide, an invisible, beneficial gas, are different molecules with their own chemical properties.
And there is nothing renewable about Earth’s finite stores of metals, minerals and fuels necessary for making “green” energy’s equipment and infrastructure.
Also, wind and solar systems, the darlings of California’s energy policy, may not emit carbon dioxide while generating electricity. However, their production, transportation, installation, maintenance and disposal are energy-intensive and emit copious amounts of carbon dioxide, as does virtually every other industrial enterprise.
Copper for wiring and electricity transmission lines is mined and smelted using fossil fuels. Transport and installation of these systems require diesel-powered trucks and other heavy machinery. Batteries used to back up intermittent wind and solar systems require lithium, cobalt and nickel, all mined with the support of internal combustion engines and often by ethically questionable methods.
The steel of the modern wind turbine and of the massive pillars supporting them are forged in coal-based blast furnaces. The gigantic blades are made of fiberglass and resins with heat and feedstock derived from petroleum. Foundations for these behemoths require vast quantities of cement whose manufacture releases significant quantities of CO2.
China produces over 80% of the world’s polysilicon that make up solar panels. Polysilicon is often made close to coal-fired power plants because the manufacturing process requires so much energy. So, when a Chinese solar panel is installed in a California desert, it arrives with a massive carbon debt. Solar panel users, in effect, export their carbon emissions to China while patting themselves on the back for their green virtue.
Although direct imports from China to U.S. have been reduced to insignificant levels due to U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar modules, Chinese-linked firms have simply moved their operations to Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
These nations – and more than 131 solar producers there – now account for over 80% of all solar modules imported into the U.S. It is likely that four in five solar modules installed in the U.S. come from Chinese-affiliated firms in southeast Asia, which depend on carbon-intensive energy sources.
No honest engineer – or careful speaker – would call wind and solar “carbon-free.”
The cost of this green facade is a burden that California’s politicians refuse to acknowledge. California consistently ranks among the top five U.S. states for highest residential electricity prices. As of 2025, the average Californian pays over 30 cents per kilowatt-hour – nearly double the national average. Other areas served by grids with a significant presence of wind and solar suffer from high prices as well.
Claims that these “green” technologies are cheap are supported by a pricing calculation that does not count the costs of expensive backup power and the technical complexities they introduce to power systems. Consumers pay for the enormous costs of subsidies, infrastructure upgrades, storage systems and alternative generation for windless and sunless periods.
California also has been plagued by power outages and grid emergencies, especially during periods of high demand. Grid operators have had to issue repeated alerts, entreating residents to reduce electricity consumption to avoid rolling blackouts.
The state’s so-called green leadership is supported by the deceptive advertisement of “zero-carbon” and false claims of low costs that ignore life-cycle environmental effects and the billions of dollars paid to compensate for the technical shortcomings of wind and solar.
Every steel beam, copper coil, and polysilicon wafer tell the real story: Fossil fuels are still the backbone of modern electricity – even in so-called renewable systems that cannot perform independently of them.
Announcements about “clean energy” are just smoke and mirrors backlit by the glow of a coal-fired furnace in Asia and paid for by overcharged consumers.
This commentary was first published by California Globe on July 21, 2025.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Fairfax, 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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.