Newsbytes: Green Energy Policy Threatening Europe’s Industrial Base

From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF

Europe’s ability to compete against the US as a manufacturing centre is being damaged by rising energy costs as North America benefits from cheap natural shale gas, Germany’s biggest companies have warned. The energy cost advantage for US companies is rising and is expected to persist until at least 2020, according to the BDI, the German industry lobby group. German industrial companies such as Bayer and BASF are among the those alarmed over the gap. Some executives fear a growing divide between European and US energy costs could see energy-intensive manufacturers divert investments that might have gone into Europe to the US instead. –Gerrit Wiesman, Financial Times, 8 November 2012

While Obama will continue with a series of environmental regulations that would curb the production and use of coal, his policies promise to boost demand for natural gas in vehicles and power plants and facilitate domestic oil and gas output to levels not seen in more than two decades. The re-election of Obama and continuation of Republican control of the House of Representatives opens the possibility for legislation to boost demand for gas, including incentives for natural-gas vehicles, Hanger said. Republicans may also limit actions the administration could take to regulate hydraulic fracturing or curb production on federal lands. Mark Drajem and Bradley Olson, Bloomberg, 8 November 2012

Leading European companies announced job losses totalling more than 10,000 on Wednesday, underlining the scale of problems facing the continent’s manufacturers. Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, said 2,000 jobs would be cut after it posted an almost doubling of pre-tax losses in the face of falling prices and fierce competition from China. The Vestas cuts underline the crisis in the renewable energy sector and will reduce its workforce to 16,000 by the end of 2013 from nearly 23,000 just a year ago. —The Guardian, 8 November 2012

Britain will need to invest 330 billion pounds in its energy sector, excluding networks, by 2030 and return its economy to growth to meet carbon emissions reduction targets, the London School of Economics said in a report on Thursday. The investments are needed to build new power plants, retrofit existing ones with carbon-reduction technology and to limit energy demand. —Reuters, 8 November 2012

Soon after his election, Obama recognised that championing climate change would only cost him political support. This is not going to change in his second term. Despite Sandy, global warming is a fringe issue in the US. Before Europeans express too much outrage over the Americans, they should look at what’s going on at their own doorstep instead. Here too interest in climate protection has gone lame. Euro-crisis, recession, unemployment – with such a terrible economic situation, no one is protesting on behalf of the environment. Climate protection has no lobby. Even the greens no longer consider it a core issue. Thus the upcoming climate conference in Qatar will achieve no progress. –Eric Frey, Der Standard, 2 November 2012

Regrettably for the global warming religion, its predictions have started to appear shaky, and the converts, many of whom have lost their jobs and much of their wealth, are losing faith. Worse, heretic scientists have been giving the lie to many of the prophecies described in the IPCC bible. They could not be silenced. Believers in man-made global warming are declining. It will require an extraordinary crusade presaging even direr climate consequences for defying the warmist faith, before defectors even contemplate rejoining the religion. If that fails it may be time to burn sceptics at the stake. But then that would increase CO2 emissions. A dilemma, to be sure. –Maurice Newman, The Australian, 5 November 2012

The majority of the sample in our UK survey accepted that the world’s climate is changing. However, over the past five years, levels of concern among the public and expressed willingness to change behaviour in order to limit climate change have both decreased. In addition, almost half of the public believed that the seriousness of climate change has been exaggerated. Just over one-third of respondents agreed that ‘climate scientists can be trusted to tell us the truth about climate change’ — Climate Science, the Public and the News Media, September 2012