Day: November 24, 2025

Climate Policy Turning Point

While former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for a fight against climate-driven global apocalypse at COP30, Brussels is being forced into political restraint by pressure from the U.S. and Qatar. On the horizon, the end of the EU’s grand climate machinations is becoming visible.

A dramatic image depicting contrasting elements of natural disasters: on the left, ice and water accompanied by lightning, and on the right, a tornado against a backdrop of fire and smoke.

From American Thinker

By Thomas Kolbe

While former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for a fight against climate-driven global apocalypse at COP30, Brussels is being forced into political restraint by pressure from the U.S. and Qatar. On the horizon, the end of the EU’s grand climate machinations is becoming visible.

November 13, 2025, could mark a turning point in European Union history. We may have witnessed the beginning of the end of European climate socialism. Media coverage of the day in Parliament downplayed its significance, focusing instead on the reform of the supply chain law, while fundamental changes unfolded at a different level.

Politically, the event cannot be overstated; perhaps it should even be called a singularity in recent EU policy: The European Parliament paved the way for a dramatic dilution of corporate reporting obligations under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the so-called due diligence rules (CSDDD). The unstoppable march toward a climate dictatorship has been abruptly halted.

The End of the ESG Machine

Advocates of the ESG doctrine — under which private industry is forced by lawmakers to integrate party-circulated environmental and social standards into corporate governance — suffered their first major setback. Reporting and due diligence obligations for companies have been so weakened that previously required climate-aligned transition plans at the corporate level are now eliminated. Responsibility for violations of the remaining rules now rests with national authorities, not Brussels, freeing multinational supply chains from massive oversight. The economy can, to some extent, escape the regulators’ grip — good news.

For companies in the fossil energy sector, new market incentives emerge: exports to Europe can be conducted more easily, as regulatory hurdles are lowered and bureaucratic reporting requirements drastically reduced. Overall, the adjustment allows companies greater flexibility in supply chains, reduces the compulsion to invest in renewable or CO2-neutral projects, and makes European markets more attractive to fossil energy exporters.

Reality Check

The EU Commission has recently faced mounting pressure from both Washington and the key LNG supplier, Qatar. U.S. trade secretary Howard Lutnick had months earlier called on U.S. companies to simply ignore Europe’s ESG framework if it significantly impeded operations — a direct affront to Ursula von der Leyen, who likes to portray herself as the morally superior, untouchable guardian of EU trade.

Together, these forces launched an offensive to bring Brussels’ climate defense to its knees, where cognitive dissonance had taken hold and the undeniable drift of geopolitical power was being ignored.

A view of a crowded conference room at COP30, where delegates are engaged in discussions about climate policy

We have clearly entered the era of resource dominance. Europe imports roughly 60% of its required energy. Its irrational war on baseload energy sources such as nuclear and coal has only deepened dependence.

In Brussels and EU branch capitals, the lesson is now unavoidable: being a resource-poor trading partner in negotiations reveals how Europe’s capital base has been massively weakened by EU policy. Europe has lost its historic dominant position. President Trump, during negotiations with the EU, merely displayed what behind closed doors was already clear to everyone.

Fear Wins in the End

Ultimately, Brussels’ capitulation to Washington was a logical consequence of this dependence. The post-colonial extraction era — when France accessed uranium cheaply or Europe leveraged its Middle East dominance — is definitively over. Resource-rich regions now set the rules. Europe must comply, seek alliances, and become economically more robust if it wants a role in the future. Its path into eco-socialism was an illusion that has now burst. Germany’s crisis, its accelerated deindustrialization, is only the beginning — a snapshot of the global economic realignment.

In the end, political fear of street unrest prevailed. A Europe facing regular blackouts would simply be ungovernable, with chaos in the streets, lawlessness, and near-civil war conditions, reminiscent of recurring riots in French banlieues.

Baerbock Plays Climate Theater

While reality has long arrived in Brussels and officials are forced to make initial concessions, former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock — now UN General Assembly President — continues to play the unshakable lead role in the disillusioned climate theater.

On Saturday in Belém, Brazil, at COP30, Baerbock performed with maximum emphasis, trying to give legs to a footsore, limp climate club. She proclaimed that “the climate crisis is the greatest threat of our time,” and that “3.6 billion people — almost half of the global population — are currently highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.” Droughts, floods, extreme heat, and resulting supply insecurity deepen the “vicious cycle of hunger, poverty, displacement, instability, and conflict.”

A bit of Thunberg-style climate apocalypse, performed for a select audience — climate profiteers among themselves. The theater now smells of a support group, struggling to maintain mutual rhetoric reinforcement. Of the purported 3.6 billion sufferers, few are likely interested in the climate club unless they are tied to its subsidy mechanism.

No one doubts that drastic climate changes throughout history caused massive upheavals — migrations, famine, misery. Yet it is high time to end the current CO2 circus, a carousel revolving around an artificially constructed world with vanishing relevance to everyday life.

The climate business was designed as a classic insider-outsider model. Profiteers of the climate subsidy machine tolerate the occasionally bizarre, childlike savior attitude of Baerbock and other symbolic figures — or even actively side with them. In this sense, Baerbock could indeed be considered a UN ambassador — of those shaping the global climate extraction economy. They pursue policies knowingly destabilizing societies.

The Double Standard of Green Extraction Politics

Perhaps Baerbock can explain to indigenous participants at COP30, protesting deforestation, why Europe’s green lobby cuts entire forests to install uneconomic wind turbines.

She could also offer an economic seminar on how systematic taxation of productive society members — leading only to poverty and relocation of production — supposedly lowers global temperatures. Historical indulgences offer a handy argumentative analogy.

Baerbock’s moral punch has likely suffered due to Brussels’ gradual retreat from climate orthodoxy. No coercion for Qatar, none for Washington — but the small corner bakery is milked with climate levies until closure.

Internally, pressure; externally, bowing. That is the new EU strategy. For those still not seeing it: this fight is not about saving the world’s climate. It is about legislatively sanctioned, corporately executed extraction of wealth — and the U.S. has repeatedly shown the red card.

In Baerbock’s words: the U.S. forces the EU into a 360-degree climate volte-face.

Did CA Park Official of Limit Firefighting Efforts to Contain Palisades Blaze to Protect Native Plants?

Additionally, new LAFD whistleblower testimony alleges Palisades fire wasn’t fully out before it roared back and incinerated the city.

A scenic view of a winding dirt path surrounded by vibrant green hills and blooming wildflowers, with the ocean visible in the distance under a clear blue sky.

From Watts Up With That?

From Legal Insurrection

Additionally, new LAFD whistleblower testimony alleges Palisades fire wasn’t fully out before it roared back and incinerated the city.

Posted by Leslie Eastman

We are rapidly approaching the first anniversary of the Los Angeles area wildfires that destroyed Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

As I reported recently, it appears that three-quarters of Pacific Palisades and two-thirds of Altadena residents remain in temporary housing. Court cases for compensation and identifying the causes and contributing factors are also continuing.

Now, attorneys for Palisades fire victims are moving to question Los Angeles firefighters under oath to explore claims that a California State Parks official limited how the department responded to an earlier blaze, which later reignited into the catastrophic firestorm that destroyed thousands of homes. This is in response to accusations that the official was concerned about…” native plant species “.

Alexander “Trey” Robertson, one of the attorneys who filed the complaint against the state, told The Times that a fire official up on the Lachman burn scar Jan. 1 alleged that a California State Parks representative told them “they couldn’t bring a bulldozer in to cut a line around the fire and they could not do mop-up with their hand tools, dig up around any native plant species.”

“They basically put plants over people and wouldn’t let the firefighters attempt to fully mop up this fire.”

…The attorneys are highlighting information they received from a Palisades fire victim, reality television personality Spencer Pratt, who says a fire battalion chief told him earlier this month that a representative of California State Parks showed firefighters maps of native species and prohibited firefighters from using a bulldozer to cut a line around the fire. Pratt confirmed the claim in an interview with The Times, and the battalion chief did not respond to a request for comment.

Robertson said his legal team also interviewed an L.A. firefighter who was on the burn scar on the morning of Jan. 2, who said a battalion chief told him to roll up hoses and leave. The firefighter said he saw a state park representative on scene, though he did not speak to the person and had no information about whether the person influenced mop-up operations.

The state park in question is Topanga State Park. If the name seems familiar to Legal Insurrection readers in the context of the Palisades fire, it’s because I previously noted the issue the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) faced when it began replacing nearly 100-year-old power line poles and fire-hardening the region that includes Topanga State Park.

As I reported shortly after the wildfire broke out this January, the project was halted within days by conservationists outraged that federally endangered Braunton’s milkvetch plants.

[A]fter an amateur botanist hiking through the park during the work saw the harm done to some of the park’s Braunton’s milkvetch — a flowering shrub with only a few thousand specimens remaining in the wild — and complained, the project was completely halted, Courthouse News Service reported.

Instead of fire-hardening the park, the city — which the state said had undertaken the work without proper permitting — ended up paying $2 million in fines and was ordered by the California Coastal Commission to reverse the whole project and replant the rare herb.

That work saved about 200 Braunton’s milkvetch plants — almost all of which have now likely been torched in the wildfires that consumed Topanga Canyon, along with nearly 24,000 acres (37 square miles) of some of LA’s most sought-after real estate.

Furthermore, new whistleblower accounts and internal firefighter text messages indicate the deadly Palisades fire may never have been fully extinguished, and that warnings about lingering hot spots detected on January 2 were disregarded by Los Angeles Fire Department leadership.

Investigations by the LA Times and whistleblower intimidation claims have led to a federal grand jury issuing subpoenas to the LAFD seeking communications, text messages, and operational logs from Jan. 1–7, focusing on decisions made in the field and the accuracy of the department’s later reporting.

…Timeline: Firefighter Texts, LAFD Actions and Statements

(Firefighter texts in italics)

…January 3–6: Smoldering period, no crews at site despite shifting wind forecasts.

“Hope that hillside stays quiet.”

“That spot was not cold.”

“Wind forecast looks nasty.”

LAFD:  No public statements; earlier fire considered resolved.

Jan 7: Fire Reignites, Becomes Palisades Fire

Event: Strong winds; fire erupts in same burn area.

“It’s the same area—it re-lit.”

“Told them it wasn’t cold.”

“How did this get past the supervisors?”

“We left it hot. Now look.”

UN climate summit ends in failure at every level

Climate campaigners are flying home from Brazil in deep dejection following one of their worst failures ever to exploit a UN climate summit to advance their agendas.

A crowded gathering at the COP30 climate summit, featuring palm trees and a blue sky, with attendees engaged in discussions outside a modern building.

From CFACT

By Craig Rucker

A man with gray hair and a beard speaks at a conference, seated behind a podium labeled 'COP PRESIDENT.'

Climate campaigners are flying home from Brazil in deep dejection following one of their worst failures ever to exploit a UN climate summit to advance their agendas.

Not only did climate radicals fail to get COP30 to agree to eliminate fossil fuels, every mention of fossil fuels and 1.5-degree climate targets was stricken from the COP’s “Global Mutirão” outcome document.

All the fig leaf campaigners came away with was a call to triple funding for climate “adaptation” and increase funding for “loss and damage.” Adaptation is UN-speak for a nation’s ability to cope with the impacts of the impending disasters projected by climate computer simulations (that have failed to materialize in reality). Loss and damage is UN-speak for compensation for bad weather experienced by poor nations (that is not caused by you).

However, even the inclusion of these funding calls represents failure. The COP30 outcome contains no concrete mechanisms to raise and distribute adaptation and loss and damage funds, nor does it contain enforcement mechanisms, revealing these as empty gestures. Similarly the promised “roadmap” for combating deforestation failed to materialize.

Read the COP30 outcome text at CFACT.org.

Members of team climate are wringing their hand and gnashing their teeth in anguish.

  • “This outcome is a failure,” said Marlene Achoki of CARE International, “At COP30, billed as the ‘COP of Truth,’ outcomes fall far short. There is no clarity on how much money is channeled to adaptation, where it will come from, its quality, or how progress will be measured.”
  • “About eighty countries have put the red line on any mention of fossil fuels in the outcome from this meeting, this UN process, this COP.  Any mention is a red line for them,” said Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu.
  • “COP30’s outcome fails to even acknowledge the stark and devastating neglect of rich, historically-high polluting states to deliver on their loss and damage finance obligations. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage remains critically underfunded, resulting in a denial of basic human rights,” said Sinéad Loughran of the Irish NGO, Trócaire.
  • “COP30 does not deliver a plan on how countries will concretely work towards more climate action, socially just and funded climate action,” said David Knecht of Fastenaktion Switzerland.
  • “The end of COP30 in Belém feels like a ship sailing into a storm and throwing away its compass. No mention of the long-discussed roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels and no progress toward a fair, fully financed phase-out—a bitterly disappointing result,” said Susann Scherbarth of Friends of the Earth Germany.
  • “COP30 was presented as the COP of implementation, yet its outcome falls short of 1.5°C science and states’ legal obligations under the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion… It failed to deliver a time-bound fossil fuel phase-out roadmap and increased grant-based public finance,” said Erica Martinelli of Generation Climate Europe.
  • “COP30 has been one of the most opaque summits in history. The Brazilian presidency has been incapable of moving towards a final, fair decision that would allow progress on climate justice,” said Javier Andaluz Prieto, of Spain’s Ecologistas en Acción.

Climate activists are showing signs of actually giving up on the UN climate process!

After failing to accomplish anything meaningful after two weeks of negotiations, André Corrêa do Lago tried to save face by concluding COP30 by promising, “I as President of COP 30, will therefore create two road maps, one on halting and diverting deforestation, and another to transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”

The COP presidency’s twin “road maps” would take place outside the UN climate regime and would only include willing nations with no mechanisms for implementation or enforcement!

How’s that for toothless?

Colombia announced it would co-host a voluntary conference with the Netherlands on April 28–29, 2026, in Santa Marta, Colombia in which nations can discuss fossil fuel phaseouts and climate finance without the UN.

Operationally, the summit was a shambles. The host city of Belém was overwhelmed: unfinished highways carved through the rainforest, submerged power cables when it rained, a fire in the UN Blue Zone caused by dodgy wiring, last-minute diesel generators for air-conditioning, and catering that ran out of proper food and resorted to ice cream and mysterious “yellow juice” for dignitaries. 

Brazilian lawyer André Marsiglia reports that, “the event was horrible, a total failure… contracts were left to the last minute and became emergency contracts to try and circumvent the bidding process.”

What would a Socialist government or a UN COP be without incompetence and corruption?

Perhaps the biggest shadow over the entire event was the empty U.S. seat. With President Trump keeping the American delegation home, the traditional whipping boy—and primary ATM—of the climate movement was absent. More importantly, without U.S. diplomatic muscle, there was no one left with enough leverage to pressure holdouts like Saudi Arabia into going along and accepting fossil-fuel phaseout language.

For those who believe sound science and affordable energy should prevail over ideological crusades, COP30’s collapse is not a tragedy—it’s a hard-won victory.

___

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What is a “climate crisis?”

In a new paper by Gianluca Alimonti and Luigi Mariani, they argue that the public needs a proper definition of precisely what a climate crisis is to make rational decisions about how to address potential climate change threats (Alimonti & Mariani, 2025). They propose a set of measurable “Response Indicators” (RINDs) based on the IPCC AR6 Climate Impact drivers (IPCC, 2021, pp. 1851-1856).

An elderly man in a cloak stands in a dry, cracked landscape, holding a wooden staff and a bucket, with dark storm clouds and lightning in the background.

From Watts Up With That?

By Andy May

By Andy May

In a new paper by Gianluca Alimonti and Luigi Mariani, they argue that the public needs a proper definition of precisely what a climate crisis is to make rational decisions about how to address potential climate change threats (Alimonti & Mariani, 2025). They propose a set of measurable “Response Indicators” (RINDs) based on the IPCC AR6 Climate Impact drivers (IPCC, 2021, pp. 1851-1856).

Their intent is to switch from subjective perceptions of possible dangers to quantifiable metrics. Potentially this could put climate change debates on track and ensure that both sides are arguing about the same thing as opposed to talking past each other due to each of the debaters arguing from different definitions. It might also lead to real solutions to real problems, rather than flights of ideologically-based fancy.

The IPCC defines climate impact drivers (CIDs) as climate events that affect society. The impact on any affected society can be detrimental, beneficial, or neutral (IPCC, 2021, p. 1770). They define 33 categories of CIDs and have found that most of them have not emerged from the expected range of natural variability.

Alimonti and Mariani examined the EM-DAT disaster database, managed by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters from the year 2000 to the present. In this period, they detected no trend in deaths due to weather-related disasters. Just as important, there were clear improvements in global health over the period, once the growth in population was accounted for.

Temperature-related mortality accounts for 8% of the total weather-related deaths, of these 91% were due to cold and 9% to excess heat. From 2000-03 to 2016-19 cold related deaths decreased by 0.5% and heat related deaths increased by 0.2%, very small changes.

As Alimonti and Mariani’s Table 1 indicates, most measures of their climate change response indicators show no change, including cyclones, drought, floods, and wildfires. They show global GDP is improving, as is food availability.

The paper emphasizes that the reduction in climate-related deaths can be partially attributed to improvements in civil protection systems (levees, seawalls, forest management, etc.) which demonstrates that adaptation to climate change often proves more effective than mitigation. Most objective measures of the human-welfare impact of climate changes show no change, and most of the rest show improvement or an ambiguous impact, rather than detrimental effects.

The paper is worth the time to read; it is time for less subjectivity and more harder objective measures of the impact of climate change.

We remember that Alimonti and Mariani were the first two authors of the shamefully retracted but excellent article (Alimonti, Mariani, Prodi, & Ricci, 2022). My assessment of that article was that it was excellent and no less an authority than Roger Pielke Jr. called the retraction “one of the most egregious failures of scientific publishing.” This retraction is the posterchild of the extreme bias in SpringerNature.

Works Cited

Alimonti, G., & Mariani, L. (2025). Quantifying the climate crisis: a data-driven framework using response indicators for evidence-based adaptation policies. Environmental Hazards. doi:10.1080/17477891.2025.2571708

Alimonti, G., Mariani, L., Prodi, F., & Ricci, R. A. (2022). A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming. The European Physical Journal Plus, 137(112). doi:10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02243-9

IPCC. (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. In V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, . . . B. Zhou (Ed.)., WG1. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

The climate scaremongers: Flooding is par for the course in Monmouth

MONMOUTH suffered some bad flooding last weekend as Storm Claudia passed through. Elsewhere only minor flooding seems to have occurred.

Aerial view of Monmouth showing flooded fields and residential areas after a storm, with the confluence of rivers visible in the landscape.

From The Conservative Woman

By Paul Homewood

MONMOUTH suffered some bad flooding last weekend as Storm Claudia passed through. Elsewhere only minor flooding seems to have occurred.

Rainfall storm totals over a day and a half were no higher than about 70mm in the region, which is not unusually high. Across the whole region of SW England and South Wales, where heavy rain was widespread, Met Office data shows 22mm for Friday, the day of the storm. But as the figures below show, days with 20mm or more happen regularly, about four times a year on average. It is abundantly clear that this sort of extreme rainfall is not on the increase, despite regular claims to the contrary.

Graph showing daily rainfall greater than 20mm in SW England and South Wales from 1931 to November 2025, with data points represented by blue dots and an arrow indicating Storm Claudia.

One storm which particularly stands out took place in November 1931 when more than 50mm fell across the region. The Met Office Monthly Report at the time revealed just how serious the flooding was, not just in one locality but across much of the west of the country, including Cumbria:

An old weather report detailing heavy rainfall and flooding in various regions of England during November 1931, highlighting specific rainfall amounts at different locations.

Totals of 244mm at Trecastle make Claudia appear just another run-of-the-mill storm, which of course it was.

Rainfall was almost as bad in December 1960:

Historical weather report detailing the weather conditions in December 1960, including heavy rains and flooding in South Wales and southern England.

Seven inches is 178mm and 5.5 inches in the Rhondda in just 20 hours works out at 140mm.

Floods were widespread and serious in Glamorgan.

So why was flooding so bad in Monmouth this week in spite of much lower rainfall?

Grok has the answer:

***

History of Flooding in Monmouth, Wales

Monmouth, located at the confluence of the Rivers Wye, Monnow, and Trothy in Monmouthshire, Wales, has a long history of flooding dating back centuries. The town’s position in a river valley makes it particularly vulnerable to riverine flooding from heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, and storms, often exacerbated by rapid snowmelt or overflow from tributaries like the Norton Brook. Historical records show events ranging from flash floods causing localised damage to widespread inundations affecting homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Below is a chronological summary of key flooding incidents in Monmouth before 2025, drawn from official reports and historical archives. This focuses on major events impacting the town itself, though Monmouthshire-wide context is noted where relevant.

9 June 1754

Severe hailstorm with stones up to six inches in diameter caused the River Monnow to overflow rapidly within an hour, depositing fish on streets. Damage to crops, windows, and homes in Monmouth and nearby Colford; widespread property destruction.

21 November 1766

Violent thunderstorm led to the River Wye rising several feet higher than previously recorded near Monmouth. Loss of lives and large quantities of goods; meadows and low-lying areas submerged.

20 June 1839


Intense thunderstorm caused the Rivers Wye and Monnow to overflow. Premises near Wye Bridge inundated; Monnow Street flooded to several feet deep.

2 April 1848

Prolonged thunderstorm with heavy hail and rain (over one hour 20 minutes) overwhelmed drainage. Many houses in central Monmouth flooded; streets turned into torrents.

31 May 1859

Heavy rains swelled the River Trothy, leading to overflow into Monmouth meadows. Walls washed away in nearby Skenfrith; houses drenched and stones carried downstream in Rockfield.

22 July 1907

Thunderstorm with marble-sized hail turned streets into rushing rivers. Significant flash flooding in town center; damage to gardens and minor structures (also severe in nearby Cwmyoy on River Monnow).

10 June 1912

Lightning storm during heavy rain implied widespread waterlogging. One man killed by lightning; roads and low areas flooded.

27 May 1931

Rapid rise of the River Monnow due to thunderstorms across Monmouthshire.
Floodwaters reached bedrooms in houses; Drybridge Street submerged to several feet (boats used for rescues); cattle and sheep washed away in The Forge district; worst flood in living memory at nearby Skenfrith; racecourse and military huts affected.

April 1947

Nationwide flooding event triggered by heavy snowfall followed by rapid thaw; Rivers Trothy and Monnow overflowed into Monmouth. Severe inundation in Drybridge Street (water to upper bedrooms, evacuations); widespread damage across town and upstream villages.

December 1979

Rivers Wye, Monnow, and Usk burst banks after prolonged heavy rain. Significant property flooding in lower Monmouth and Mayhill areas; multiple locations affected along riverbanks.

October 1998

Storm-driven rise in River Wye levels. Peak level of 17.19m AOD; homes and roads in low-lying areas flooded.

October 2000

Autumn storms caused River Wye overflow. Peak level of 17.59m AOD; internal flooding in several properties.

December 2000

Two separate events from winter storms. River Wye peaks at 17.58m and 17.61m AOD; over 50 residential properties reported flooded in Monmouth (including Blake Street and Wyesham).

February 2002

Multiple storms led to two floods.River Wye peaks at 17.59m and 17.6 m AOD (latter was previous record); extensive evacuations and damage in Mayhill and town centre.

July 2005

Summer deluge overwhelmed rivers. River Wye at 16.37 m AOD; localised flooding in meadows and streets.

January 2008
Winter storms caused moderate overflow. River Wye at 16.42 m AOD; some properties affected in lower town.

***

As Grok points out, Monmouth has always been particularly vulnerable to flooding because it sits at the confluence of three rivers, the Wye, Monnow and Trothy. Its history is littered with floods every bit as bad as this week’s.

It might seem a daft place to build a town, but the Normans built the castle and town specifically because of those three rivers as the site allowed them to exert control over the river crossings. Since then Monmouth has continued to thrive because of its communication links.

Unsurprisingly the media tried to turn the storm into some sort of climate change-fuelled monster storm, with headlines of ‘a month’s worth of rainfall’. As we have seen though, such events are commonplace and have always occurred.

None of them bothered to actually check the facts and present the true story.

Paul Homewood

Paul Homewood is a former accountant who blogs about climate change at Not a Lot of People Know That

The Hertz-Tesla EV Disaster… What Happened?

The plan was simple. Load up on Teslas and other EVs, save money on gas and repairs, and ride the hype.

Hertz rental car location with electric vehicles in front, featuring a dramatic background and the text 'WE GIVE UP' overlay.

Logically Answered

Hertz went from a comeback story to a mess all over again.

They got out of bankruptcy in 2021, tried to rebrand themselves as the cool electric future of rental cars, and then dropped almost three billion dollars in losses.

The plan was simple. Load up on Teslas and other EVs, save money on gas and repairs, and ride the hype.

The reality was brutal. Repairs were higher than expected, renters kept crashing the cars because they were way faster than the usual airport Corolla, and people on vacation did not want to sit around hunting for chargers.

Then the market turned on them. EV prices fell, Tesla cut prices, used EV values tanked, and Hertz was stuck with a massive fleet worth way less than they paid.

They started unloading cars by the tens of thousands, sometimes selling barely used models for half of what they cost.

The whole thing turned into a giant reminder that being early only works if the economics back you up, and for Hertz, none of it did.

Timestamps:

0:00 – The State Of Hertz

0:23 – The Big Pivot

3:58 – Bumps In The Road

7:54 – The Fall

DEFR Technoeconomic Assessment

Readers may recall my articles (DEFR Concerns Update November 2024 and Compendium of DEFR analyses July 2024) last year about New York’s magical new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies. New York agencies all agree that new resources are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  This article describes a recent report about DEFR technologies prepared for New York.

A conceptual image of the Statue of Liberty amidst a backdrop of a modern cityscape, surrounded by floating dollar bills, symbolizing themes of freedom and economy.

From Watts Up With That?

Roger Caiazza

A humorous depiction of Noah's Ark, featuring a variety of animals boarding the ark with text overlay questioning the necessity of building it in relation to climate change.

Readers may recall my articles (DEFR Concerns Update November 2024 and Compendium of DEFR analyses July 2024) last year about New York’s magical new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies. New York agencies all agree that new resources are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  This article describes a recent report about DEFR technologies prepared for New York.

A New York Public Service Commission (PSC) May 2023 Order notes that the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) directs the PSC to establish a program to ensure that the electric sector targets are achieved and explains that “there is a gap between the capabilities of existing renewable energy technology and expected future system reliability requirements.”  It concludes: “This Order initiates a process to identify technologies that can close the gap between the capabilities of existing renewable energy technologies and future system reliability needs, and more broadly identify the actions needed to pursue attainment of the Zero Emission by 2040 Target.” 

All credible projections for New York electric resources include a substantial estimate for DEFR.  The New York Independent System Operator 2023-2042 System & Resource Outlook establishes a baseline requirement of 20 GW of DEFR capacity by 2040 to replace the current 25.3 GW of fossil generation.  There are other projections calling for much more.

The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) recently announced the completion of its Zero by 40 Technoeconomic Assessment (Zero by 40 Report).  The study was prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) under contract to NYSERDA.  It evaluates potential DEFR technologies needed for New York’s goal of a zero-emissions electric grid by 2040. ​

Technologies Evaluated in the Zero by 40 Technoeconomic Assessment

Section 1.4 in the Zero by 40 Report describes the technologies evaluated:

This report evaluates potential resources that can provide firm energy and capacity in a zero-emissions power sector. The study examines seven technology categories that could serve as DEFRs. These technologies are grouped into three resource groups based on their expected operational characteristics. While some resources can be configured to serve different roles, these groupings reflect constraints on costs, emissions, and availability in New York State, which are discussed later in the report.

Low-capacity factor resources can be deployed during periods of high demand and low renewable generation, offering reliability, fast-ramping capabilities, and no duration limitations, assuming fuel availability, but are not operated as baseload units due to plant economics. Low-capacity factor Resources include:

  • Hydrogen (H2)
  • Renewable natural gas (RNG) and renewable diesel (RD)

High-capacity factor resources operate the majority of the year and can provide reliable baseload power, including power during challenging events, but are less suitable for fast ramping or frequent starts and stops. High-capacity factor resources include:

  • Advanced nuclear including three types:
    • Large light water reactors (LLWRs) that are large reactors (>600 megawatts electric [MWe], pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors, using low-enriched uranium fuel and water as the coolant and moderator. Advanced LLWRs incorporate evolutionary safety features and improved performance compared to earlier generations.
    • Light water small modular reactors (lwSMRs) that are small reactors (50–300 MWe) derived from LLWR designs, often with an integrated reactor and steam generator in a single containment vessel.
    • Non-water-cooled reactors: Reactors, both small and large, using a coolant and moderator other than water and often a high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel.
  • Carbon capture and storage (CCS) on thermal plants
  • Geothermal including four types:
    • Conventional geothermal or Hydrothermal
    • Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) generates electricity from hot dry rock,
    • Closed-Loop Geothermal Systems (CLGS) refers to a new generation of systems in which no fluids are introduced to or extracted from the earth.
    • Superhot rock geothermal (SHR) targets deeper formations with temperatures exceeding 450⁰C,

Gap-rightsizing resources can help balance supply and demand to adjust the capacity gap. While they do not generate electricity directly, they enhance the utilization of other clean resources. Gap-rightsizing resources include:

  • Long duration energy storage (LDES) Note that this refers to interday storage (10-36 hours)
  • Virtual power plants (VPP)

Technology Assessment Summary

I am not going to include descriptions of the resources considered because of time and space considerations.  Instead, I will summarize the Chapter 9 explanations of the results for the three functional DEFR categories. The report uses the following comparison criteria: performance attributes, readiness by 2040, infrastructure and supply chain readiness dynamics, project lead times, emissions and other considerations, cost, and scalability for 2040.

The Low-Capacity resource summary of the evaluation of these resources states:

Low-capacity factor resources are expected to be critical in any future zero-emission grid, offering reliability and fast-ramping capabilities on days with the most extreme system needs. Each technology evaluated has advantages and challenges. Infrastructure constraints and high costs may limit the widespread availability of H2 in 2040, but low GHG emissions, especially for green H2, will likely provide value across various industries in 2040 and beyond, making investments in pilot projects and eventual strategic infrastructure deployment important from an economywide perspective.

RNG and RD may be the most viable low-capacity factor resources for 2040 deployment given their technology readiness, existing fuel transport infrastructure, and ability to serve as drop-in fuels in existing plants. However, the combination of feedstock limitations, competition for fuels from other sectors and states, and GHG considerations necessitates limiting their use to low-capacity factor applications.

The High-Capacity resource evaluation summary states:

High-capacity factor resources are valuable for meeting existing load and expected load growth. While renewables are projected to supply most of the energy demand in 2040, high-capacity factor resources can provide firm power and grid services that support reliability in a predominantly renewable grid. Their high energy density also helps mitigate potential land-use challenges associated with large-scale renewable deployment. High-capacity factor resources could also reduce the need for low-capacity factor resources, which are expensive and mostly idle. However, high-capacity factor resource technologies require long lead times, often 10 years or more. To ensure they are operational by 2040, stakeholders must take early action.

Each technology offers unique advantages and faces specific challenges. From a deployment-readiness perspective, LLWRs and CCS are the most prepared for near-term implementation. However, lwSMRs and non-water-cooled reactors could also become commercially viable by 2040. Geothermal, while promising, has lower readiness and limited scalability in New York State.

The Zero by 40 report does not summarize gap-rightsizing resources.  Both gap-rightsizing resources LDES and VPP are largely ready for deployment.  Costs for VPP are lower than other technologies but depend on costumer participation which makes availability uncertain.  Furthermore, there are limits to the energy potential of this technology.  LDES batteries will be more expensive, but “has the potential for longer discharge durations and higher operational certainty, but it is also a net load on the grid due to the need to recharge and round-trip efficiency losses.”

Implications

The Zero by 40 Report modifies the services provided by DEFR. The original DEFR concern focused only on low-resource episodes that would be served by the low-capacity DEFR category.  The report adds high-capacity factor DEFR which is best suited to operate most of the year providing reliable baseload power but can also provide power during challenging events, albeit these resources are “less suitable for fast ramping or frequent starts and stops.”  The gap-rightsizing resource category “help balance supply and demand to adjust the capacity gap”.  This is not the rare peak-load gap associated with low wind resource availability.  Instead, this gap is the more common inter-day gap when there is not enough short-term storage to adequately support load.

In my opinion, these changes reflect the need to address inconvenient issues.  The most promising DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But there are two nuclear issues regarding the Climate Act mandate to use renewables.  It is not suitable as only backup for the short-term peak because it is best used as a high-capacity resource.   That means that logically it should be used as the primary electric resource instead of wind and solar if only because it eliminates the need for massive redundant DEFR backup. 

Another takeaway from these expanded DEFR categories is that it recognizes that New York is not well-suited for wind and solar resource availability.  As a result, there is the need for more kinds of DEFR.  The Zero by 40 Report also notes that there are even more required resources to support renewables including  “short-duration storage and grid-forming inverters” and “Other technologies, such as regional and in-state transmission and dynamic line ratings” that resolve transmission issues.

I admit that I was not familiar with the term “technoeconomic”.  When I looked it up, I found that there is another similar term “techno-economic analysis”.   The difference is relevant.  Technoeconomic assessment is an adjective that describes an analysis that includes both technical and economic factors.  A techno-economic analysis is a formal process that compares technical and economic performance that informs decision making.  This report is a technoeconomic assessment but what New York needs is a techno-economic analysis.

The Zero by 40 Report is like other New York energy policy documents because they all address technical and economic factors but do not include a feasibility analysis supporting a particular proposed pathway.  No state report provides comprehensive, technology-specific cost estimates that would allow direct comparison of technologies to each other and to conventional alternatives.  Technological considerations are noted but not resolved.  A techno-economic analysis would provide the details necessary to determine feasibility of a future system meeting the legal mandates of New York law.

Francis Menton recently described the New York Supreme Court decision that required the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to issue final regulations establishing economy-wide greenhouse gas emission (GHG) limits on or before Feb. 6, 2026 or modify the Climate Act schedule.  Although the authors of the Zero by 40 Report did not explicitly say that the DEFR technologies needed to meet the 2040 Climate Act zero emissions target would not be available, they certainly did not say it would be ready either.   In my opinion, it is time for the Legislature to reconsider not only the schedule but the aspiration of the Climate Act because of the findings of this report.

Conclusion

This report provides multiple reasons that New York State needs to pause Climate Act implementation.  Future action should only proceed if reliability requirements are ensured and this report identifies issues that may make that impossible.

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.

A Sobering Reality: Global Fossil Fuel Demand Continues to Rise

Blackout News here reports that despite ambitious international climate targets and the promise of a rapid energy transition; we are witnessing a paradoxical development: Global demand for fossil fuels has not fallen but continues to increase.

An offshore oil platform silhouetted against a colorful sunset over the ocean, showcasing industrial equipment and a serene sky.

From No Trick Zone

By P Gosselin

Blackout News here reports that despite ambitious international climate targets and the promise of a rapid energy transition; we are witnessing a paradoxical development: Global demand for fossil fuels has not fallen but continues to increase.

Oil pumps operating in the background with rows of oil barrels in the foreground under a clear blue sky.
Image generated by Grok

The world economy’s growing hunger for energy directly clashes with political expectations, and the so-called “Peak Demand” for oil and gas, once predicted by experts, is currently not in sight.

Just a few years ago, there was optimism when the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced an impending peak in fossil fuel demand. This confidence supported many climate strategies. However, rising economic risks and political headwinds led many governments to revise their strategies. The consequence: The energy transition lost momentum while real demand increased.

Earlier forecasts thus have become obsolete, and the expected rapid electrification of the economy is progressing more slowly than planned.

Fossil fuels are not being replaced

A central problem is that renewable energies are currently not replacing conventional sources, but merely supplementing them. We are in a Phase of Addition. Although solar and wind power are being expanded massively, this is not enough to meet the strongly growing global energy demand.

This development is intensified by several factors:

  • Electrification of mobility: Although cars without internal combustion engines are increasing, the expansion of charging infrastructure is lagging behind.
  • Heating transition: Replacing gas heating systems with electric alternatives leads to enormous peak loads in the power grid in many regions.
  • Growing demand: Additional demands for cooling, seawater desalination, and digital services are intensifying the global energy hunger.

As a result, oil remains in strong demand, and gas retains its role as a flexible reserve, blocking a rapid departure from fossil sources.

Steady at least until 2040

Even in less dynamic models like the CPS scenario, the quantities of oil and gas remain stable well past 2040. Global oil consumption remains at around 100 million barrels per day.

This finding shows how deeply the market is permeated by fossil fuels, which remain the cornerstone of supply.

If renewables were really as good as many claim they are, then why have they failed to curb fossil fuel use? Obviously, they are nothing what their proponents claim them to be.