From ClimateNews

By KlimaNachrichten Editor

Monthly newsletter from Fritz Vahrenholt

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the chart shows, the global mean temperature in March rose slightly compared to the previous month. The deviation from the long-term average of satellite measurements is now 0.58 degrees Celsius. It is to be expected that temperatures will continue to decline in the course of the year. Neutral conditions currently prevail in the Pacific. However, the American Oceanographic Agency NOAA predicts a cooling and a renewed La Nina phase by August of this year.

Germany: What policy change does the coalition agreement bring with regard to energy and climate policy?
 

No. The coalition agreement essentially contains the formulations of the exploratory paper, which I presented and criticized in detail in the last newsletter. In energy policy, the motto of “business as usual” or “traffic light in black” applies. If, after the working group papers, there was still hope that the CDU/CSU could prevail at least in terms of nuclear energy, there is now no indication : the word nuclear energy no longer appears anywhere in the coalition paper. In the working group, the CDU/CSU position was still soft, but at least waxy: “Especially with regard to climate goals and security of supply, nuclear energy can play an important role. In the European context, we rely on research on the latest generation of nuclear energy, small modular reactors and fusion power plants. At the same time, we are striving for a technical review as soon as possible to determine whether, in view of the respective stage of dismantling, it is still possible to resume operation of the nuclear power plants that were recently shut down at a reasonable technical and financial cost.”
That is now a zero position. The CDU has caved in.

The only new relevant change in the climate section compared to the position paper is an insertion according to which CO2 sinks are to be taken into account when achieving climate neutrality. Therefore, I will deal with the question “What is climate neutrality?” below. But first: “Who else besides Germany and Europe is actually involved in climate neutrality?”
 

Which countries will participate in climate neutrality or net zero CO2 in 2045?
 

In its last report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was very sure that 100% of warming is due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is an increasing number of scientific publications that the warming of the last 25 years is mainly due to a worldwide decline in clouds, which leads to an increase in direct solar radiation. The climate models that explain the warming with the increasing heat reflection due to the greenhouse effect of CO2 prove to be flawed. The cause of the decline in the clouds has not yet been clarified. It can be due to the decrease in cloud-forming dust particles in the air, it can be due to the cyclical natural warming of the oceans, it can also be due to a feedback from the warming caused by the reflection of CO2. Science cannot give a reliable answer to this question.

But even if the CO2 would contribute significantly to the reduction of clouds through feedback, the models on which political decisions are based can be described as inadequate. In such a situation of scientific ambiguity, writing a policy of net-zero CO2 into the constitution that will change society is unique in the world. I know of no other country in the world that has made such a stipulation in its constitution. Anyone who is at least familiar with the energetic and material foundations of a developed industrial society will come to the conclusion that achieving such a goal in 20 years is completely utopian. It will only be possible to achieve it if the society of the country that has set itself the goal of zero CO2 will lose its prosperity and will regress into a 2nd world country.

I have pointed out often enough that zero emissions by 2045 in Germany will not change CO2 emissions. Quite the opposite: if the products manufactured in Germany are manufactured in other countries, such as e.g. China, the global CO2 balance will be significantly worsened. China produces its goods with a CO2 footprint four times as much as Germany. Germany – with a 1.5% share of the world’s CO2 balance – is taking this path at a time when the USA (13% of the world’s CO2 emissions) are withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, as are Argentina, China (32%) want to continue to grow CO2 emissions by 2030, Russia (8%) and the oil-producing countries are not participating in CO2 reduction. Together, these countries account for 60% of CO2 emissions. If we add up the developing countries that are exempt from reduction for the time being under the Paris Agreement, we are talking about 90% of the world that does nothing or do nothing for the time being. The Paris Agreement states that “developing countries … will be encouraged to move over time to macroeconomic emission reduction or limitation targets in view of different national circumstances.” China and many oil-producing countries are developing countries under UN rules.

The 50 oil-producing countries, most of which are considered developing countries, had declared at the climate conference in Dubai in 2023 that they would continue to produce oil and gas beyond 2050, but wanted to bring CO2 emissions from production to zero, nothing more.

What does climate neutrality or net zero CO2 mean? 

We have to assume that in the foreseeable future there will no longer be a constitutional majority that will delete the goal of climate neutrality for 2045 from the constitution. The SPD, the Left Party and the Greens will always have a blocking minority of one third of the deputies.

It is therefore of particular importance to develop a scientifically consistent description of climate neutrality. because Chancellor Merkel already knew in her speech to the World Eonomic Forum 2020 that net zero is not zero. She said that net zero would correspond to a reduction in CO2 of about 95%. Was Merkel smarter than Merz? In any case, she was not smart enough, because even at that time it was already known that plants and oceans absorb more than half of CO2 emissions, and this has been proven for 60 years with an upward trend.

And indeed, Article 4 of the Paris Agreement stipulates that reductions must be achieved “in order to achieve a balance in the second half of this century between anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases from sources and the removal of such gases by sinks … “.

So we have to deal with the sinks of CO2. On the one hand, there are the oceans, which absorb more and more CO2 as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases. As the next graph shows, the oceans now absorb 26% of the CO2 emitted by humans. The plants, which grow more strongly and produce more fruit due to increasing concentrations of CO2 in the surrounding air, absorb 29% of the anthropogenic CO2. (The graph is from the recently published report of the IPCC-affiliated Global carbon project)

CO2 degrades much faster than the IPCC claims 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims that about 20% of the CO2 we put into the air remains there for thousands of years because the oceans and plants cannot absorb it fast enough. The IPCC derives this from mathematical modelling (BERN model), which, however, has nothing to do with reality. Measurements from the last 60 years show that CO2 is completely absorbed by oceans and plants in a few decades. Only by assuming the IPCC, according to which CO2 remains in the air in the long term, can the narrative of the climate catastrophe be maintained. A large-scale experiment showed the opposite. After atomic bomb tests in the 50s and 60s flooded the air with CO2 with a special carbon (C14), it disappeared in a few decades, not after millennia.

C14 is a radioactive carbon isotope and is normally produced in minute quantities by cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere of the Earth. The content of C14 in carbon is usually one billionth of a percent. It has a fixed proportion of carbon in every living organism. If an organism dies, the C14 content decreases from this point on with a half-life of 5730 years. (Radiocarbon method for age determination). Atomic bomb tests after the 2nd World War produced a considerable amount of CO2 containing C14. As you can see from the next graphic, after 12-15 years after the end of the atomic bomb tests, half of the C14 CO2 had been absorbed by oceans and plants, so that today we have almost returned to the level before the atomic bomb tests. The half-life is in reality a little longer than 12-15 years, namely 30-40 years (as calculated in other ways), because the combustion of coal and oil, which have very little C14-CO2, has additionally diluted the C14 concentration in the atmosphere.

What does this mean for Germany and its 2045 target? 

In its 2021 decision on the Climate Protection Act, the Federal Constitutional Court determined that a total of only 6.7 billion tons of CO2 could be emitted until zero emissions in 2050. This figure was derived from an estimate by the IPCC, according to which a total of only 800 billion tons of CO2 should be emitted. 800 multiplied by Germany’s share of the population of 0.84% equals 6.7 billion tons. By comparison, Germany’s current annual emissions are about 0.6 billion tons. According to the court, this quantity limit until 2050 would be necessary to limit the temperature increase to 1.75 °C. In this calculation, the court makes serious scientific errors. It claims: “Only small parts of anthropogenic emissions are absorbed by the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere… In contrast to other greenhouse gases, CO2 no longer leaves the Earth’s atmosphere naturally in a period of time relevant to humanity. Each additional amount of CO2 entering the Earth’s atmosphere thus permanently increases the CO2 concentration and leads accordingly to a further rise in temperature” (para. 32, p.31 of the decision (see also Lüning/Vahrenholt, Unanstreitbar). Anyone who reads the above graphic of the IPCC-affiliated Global Carbon Project is shocked how a Federal Constitutional Court could make such an existentially important decision for Germany without knowledge of the scientific basis of sources and sinks of CO2.

And politics overtook the court and decided in the last grand coalition to bring forward the reduction to zero to 2045. However, the Climate Protection Act speaks more cautiously of net greenhouse gas neutrality: “By 2045, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to such an extent that net greenhouse gas neutrality is achieved. After 2050, negative greenhouse gas emissions are to be achieved.” And these net-zero emissions are also defined as “net greenhouse gas neutrality: the balance between anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases from sources and the removal of such gases by sinks“. In the explanatory memorandum, however, the sinks are only given as 5% of 2020 emissions, i.e. 40 million tonnes of CO2, which brings us back to Merkel’s 95% reduction in CO2.

But this is a completely inadequate way of looking at things. As we can see from the Global Carbon Project, the sink by oceans is 10.4 billion tons and the sink by plants is 11.7 billion tons, i.e. a total of 22.1 billion tons of CO2. This would roughly correspond to today’s CO2 emissions from households and transport, the sectors in which CO2 avoidance is most difficult. The energy industry is the most important with 200 million tons of CO2; but it would be most likely to be brought to zero.

If this is to succeed in an economic way, it is necessary to re-enter nuclear energy and use CO2 capture (CCS) in coal-fired power plants in addition to the renewable energies that are already available. The new federal government has just ruled out both in its coalition agreement. In any case, I have not read the word nuclear energy in a single place. At the same time, the coalition has determined to achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2045. However, it also states – and this is new – that permanent and sustainable negative emissions must also be taken into account to a limited extent. (p.28 of the coalition agreement) So a small glimmer of hope remains that the door to reason has been opened a little bit here. However, a change of policy would have meant: reintroduction of nuclear energy, CO2 capture in coal-fired power plants, shale gas production possible, abolition of the heating law and abandonment of the ban on internal combustion engines. It is to be feared that net zero will become zero for the future of German industrial jobs and our prosperity.

Sincerely,

Fritz Vahrenholt