From Dr. Beny Peiser at The GWPF
Industry Warns EU Climate Laws Are Squashing Economic Recovery
Fears are growing in Brussels that climate policy could become a political football in any referendum on EU membership, following British Prime Minister David Cameron’s declaration of intent to hold an in/out poll. Climate change policy could be “one of the victims” of the disruption accompanying a UK withdrawal from Europe. —EurActiv, 24 January 2013
Taken as a whole, Europe’s share of world output is projected to fall by almost a third in the next two decades. This is the competitiveness challenge – and much of our weakness in meeting it is self-inflicted… The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy. In its long history Europe has experience of heretics who turned out to have a point. –David Cameron, London 23 January 2013
Europe’s heavy industries claim to be unfairly hit by rising energy prices caused by the EU’s climate policies. A particular concern of energy-intensive industries like steel and chemicals is that EU policies on climate and energy have seen electricity suppliers passing on price increases to them. Energy prices rose 28% between 2003 and 2011. The European Steel Association, Eurofer, estimates the total cost to the steel industry of the ETS at between €11 billion to €15 billion. –Jeremy Fleming, EurActiv, 22 January 2013
Japan is likely to abandon an ambitious pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter, the top government spokesman said on Thursday. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party ousted the Democratic Party in December elections after pledging to review the emissions cut target in light of the post-Fukushima switch to fossil fuels. —AFP, 24 January 2013
Statistically there has been no change in the average annual temperature of the globe since 1997 meaning that the standstill is now 16 years. The latest five-year average of Hadcrut3 and Hadcrut4 data shows a decline for the first time. Can anyone now have any doubt that the recent warming standstill is a real event of crucial climatic importance? –David Whitehouse, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 24 January 2013
Scientists analysing ancient ice samples say that the Greenland ice sheet withstood temperatures much higher than today’s for many thousands of years during a period of global warming more than 120,000 years ago, losing just a quarter of its mass. The Greenland ice was exposed to much greater heat for many thousands of years and lost only a quarter of its mass, so the models are evidently wrong and another IPCC doom warning has been consigned to the dustbin of history. –Lewis Page, The Register, 24 January 2013
In an unfolding plot that is part “The Sopranos,” part “An Inconvenient Truth,” authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable-energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families. The still-emerging links of the mafia to the once-booming wind and solar sector here are raising fresh questions about the use of government subsidies to fuel a shift toward cleaner energies, with critics claiming that huge state incentives created excessive profits for companies and a market bubble ripe for fraud. –Anthony Faiola, The Washington Post, 23 January 2012
Reports of the extinction of millions of species on Earth have been greatly exaggerated, a team of scientists has said. In the past scientists have warned that up to five per cent of species are at risk of dying-out as a result of climate change, deforestation and development. But a new analysis by the University of New Zealand found that this figure was five times greater than reality because the number of animals living in the wild in the first place had been over estimated. This meant that conservationists assumed that rates of decline were much faster, as they were starting from a higher point. –Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph, 25 January 2013
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In an unfolding plot that is part “The Sopranos,” part “An Inconvenient Truth,” authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable-energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families.
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Somehow that just seems to say it all.
(Now if the UN would only let them extend the sting operations worldwide…..)
Sorry. This is all pie in the sky. It depends on Cameron remaining PM after the next election and only then will the ‘vote’ be offered. Plenty of time for the ‘comrades’ in Brussels to develop a counter plan and work out a weasely worded ‘referendum’ for the sheeple to put their crosses on such that nothing will actually change but all will believe it is for the best. Just like the vote on the ‘Common Market’ way back when.
If the UK votes out, it’s highly likely that the Welsh, Scottish and Irish governments will opt out and decide to stay in. As rapidly evolving separate nations they don’t always vote in the same way as England, despite the continued fantasy that the UK equates to England. None of the devolved countries has ever come anywhere near voting for a Conservative administration.
My understanding of this is its pure propaganda that won’t happen. The referendum as I read somewhere else won’t happen until 2017. Which is after the next election. So basically if the current guy(Cameron) loses the next won’t be held to his(Cameron) promise.
If Cameron wins well he’s won and then can go back on his promise with no problems for him.
It really is beginning to fall apart at the seams. I’m sensing that we are at the beginning of the end – just a few more years to go.
“Mon Jan 21, 2013”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/21/us-spain-protests-idUSBRE90K0JA20130121
“The protests around Spain have almost all been peaceful, in contrast to the escalating political violence in Greece – another hot spot in the euro zone debt crisis.”
The problems with european dibt have not gone away, who knows what the EU will look like in 2017???
It seems that those who enforce bogus and expensive climate policies are punishing themselves and going backwards, whilst those who are not, and steaming ahead and looking to the future. I don’t know why they’re even called climate change policies. They might as well be called trip to Andromeda policies, since human control of the climate is as possible as a starship visit to Andromeda.
even so, people love apocalypse stories, and alien invader stories, since they’ve seen them on TV and they make great films. The climate seems the closest candidate for this science fiction, since it isn’t a million light years away. That’s why they add value to the climatological statistics of recent, and devalue the statistics of the not so distant past
Anyway, purely on the level of politics, France would quite happily see us leave the EU. The foreign minister even said they would roll out the red carpet for our exit
“Europe’s heavy industries claim to be unfairly hit by rising energy prices caused by the EU’s climate policies. A particular concern of energy-intensive industries like steel and chemicals is that EU policies on climate and energy have seen electricity suppliers passing on price increases to them. ”
This is a grossly wrong claim, at least for Germany, where climate policiy has inflated energy prices for the private consumer, but heavy industry is fully and completely exempt.
Jimbo says:
January 25, 2013 at 11:09 am
“It really is beginning to fall apart at the seams. I’m sensing that we are at the beginning of the end – just a few more years to go.
“Germany’s Solar Bloodbath Continues…Bosch Solar Arm Loses More Than $2.5 Billion in 3 Years!””
Bosch has a turnaround equivalent to the GDP of Libya pre-Arab spring. 2.5 billion is chump change for them.
Note to all inmates: the asylum is back in the hands of the authorities. Please return quietly to your rooms and await sedation.
andrewmharding says:
January 25, 2013 at 10:23 am
The EU has stifled competitiveness in UK business, with it’s nanny knows best laws, climate change targets (legally enforceable for member countries, with huge fines for non-compliance) have been particularly brutal on energy costs for both business and domestic uses. We have EU initiated Human Rights legislation which transcends common sense to the extent we have terrorists, murderers and perverts living on benefits with no way of deporting them. We have Working Time directives, Health and Safety laws. The list is endless of these laws which have wrecked our economic recovery.
Are you sure they are not being driven by the UN?
In reply to Gareth Phillips,
Gareth Phillips says:
January 25, 2013 at 10:02 am
I don’t have a problem with a referendum, that’s democracy. But announcing one for 5 years time based on negotiations that have not even started yet is just plain stupidity.
William:
Where will the EU be in five years? There seems to be a political advantage to take a step now outlining one’s intentions. Negotiations will take time.
It seems the EU is on a path that leads to economic ruin and a breakup. One for all, all for one, is fine as long as tax payer dollars from disciplined countries are not sent to bail out spendthrift countries.
The problem is the spendthrift countries have issued bonds in Euros. They cannot inflate their way out of the problem, they cannot print Euros as part of a quantitative easing scheme (quantitative easing also leads to economic ruin, however it enables a country to avoid facing reality for a number of years). The spendthrift countries will therefore argue that the EU as a whole should help bail them out.
Real grow requires structural reform, not increased deficit spending.
Fiscal discipline and structural reform becomes increasing difficult in a democracy as the ‘country’ becomes larger. There are more and more special interests and scams as the number of levels of government increases. Legislated carbon emission targets and forced spending on green scams is a significant example of the structural overhead. Higher and higher unemployment is the resultant.
What the UK requires is free trade and access to the EU market. There are other countries however that the EU can trade with.
If the UK leaves the EU will they keep English as a working language or will France and Germany fight for the metaphorical microphone?
Carl says: “Germany, where climate policy has inflated energy prices for the private consumer, but heavy industry is fully and completely exempt.”
It is a fairly predictable political attempt to fix a problem, and the UK has been considering similar ideas. So the politics turns a blind eye to the “polluter pays principle” and turn to the “least able to protect themselves pays principle”.
If the costs of climate policy is lumbered onto private individuals, it will push up the cost of labour in Germany. Employment will then move abroad to regions who don’t have the same policies.
Imposing financial burdens on voters and sending jobs abroad is not better than chasing industry abroad. It is just a short-term attempt to delay the admission that policy was not in your interests from the outset.
The lesson is simple enough. We have to stop letting well intentioned idiots bestowed with massive government power from screwing everything up. That’s what they do, every time. And the sad thing is, we the people, keep letting them do it. Over and over again.
And when global warming finally attains official dead duck status, they will simply replace it with some other equally apocalyptic cause, for the children etc. Arghhhhh.
To be fair, the predictions of the greenland icesheet melting weren’t really based on models.
They weren’t based on anything, as far as I could tell, except a desire to scare people.
I am shocked, *SHOCKED* I tell you, that anyone in Britain would even consider actually putting membership in the EU to a vote of the people! I mean, what do they think this is, a democracy?
And, of course, we also should not allow the people (uhg!) to decide on questions of ‘climate change’, now should we?
Cameron is just another EUcrat and his father-in-law is a rent seeking windmill crook. The only reason he is talking this way now is because conservative voters are starting to get comfortable with voting UKIP in the next election and the rumblings in the back benches are calling for his head. His days are numbered along with his party.
Delingpole said that Cameron thought it would be within 2 1/2 years of the next election. Let’s see, election in 2015 plus 2 1/2 equals 4 1/2 years from now. Will Britain even have an economy in that time. Here in the US we call it ‘kicking the can down the road’. Is it called punting in the UK?
It’s a damned joke with the world grinding to a financial halt.
Davet
This is not quite on topic, but it does have a political slant.
The Environment Agency here in the UK has suggested that we should all build snowmen to help prevent the floods which are expected as warm rain melts the recent snow this weekend. At first I had an image of the snowmen lining up shoulder to shoulder – Canute-like – imploring the floodwaters to recede. But then I realised that they were hoping that the snow in the snowmen would melt more slowly than the snow on the ground, thus alleviating the severity of the floods.
Before I stepped out with shovel, carrot (for the nose) lumps of coal (eyes and buttons) and an old hat and scarf to keep him warm, I did a few calculations.
The UK has a population density of just over 200 people per square kilometre. A robust snowman – according to a model I developed myself, and verified by meticulous observations in my neighbourhood, needs about half a cubic metre of snow, so for all the 200 people in each square km to make a snowman would use about 100 cu m of snow.
Now let’s assume that there’s 10 cm (4 inches) of snow on the ground so in a square km (1 million square metres) there would be 100,000 cubic metres of snow. So – if we all do our bit (and that includes everyone, high-rise dwellers, young kids, the elderly, etc) only 99,900 of that would contribute to flooding
I have a better plan. If each town co-operates to build a snow version of the Environment Agency’s offices, perhaps they will all report there for work on Monday…..
Those of us with a good memory would not pay any attention to Cameron’s false promises. He campaigned for election the first time offering a “cast iron guarantee” for a referendum on EU membership and he didn’t deliver, saying that he thought “we were better off inside the EU” and that was that. He has no intention of honouring this promise either. He’s playing the electorate for a bunch of fools.
the1pag- you are so right. We are going to follow the european road to ruin. Obama read us the road map. Kerry will try to stop Keystone. If he does there should be rioting in the streets!:]
It will never happen. Cameron will hold the refermdum AFTER the 2015 election, he’s trying to buy votes because a large section of the British public want out of the EU. The Tories to the UK in to the “Common Market” in 1974, the Tries won’t pull out of the EU any time soon.
The EU must be modified, while the Euro must be abolished if Europe is to avoid being flung into crisis after crisis and bubble and bubble.
A system where a country’s thrift and responsible fiscal/monetary policies are punished, while reckless and irresponsible fiscal/monetary policies are rewarded, simply will not last.
The absurdly expensive and inefficient alternative energy Green Elephant Projects have decimated Europe’s economy by destroying the competitiveness of Europe’s industrial sector and forcing manufacturers to move production to more cost efficient countries, such as China.
Moreover, China is now quickly developing Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, which will halve their already dirt-cheap energy costs, while vastly improving air quality, which is currently dismal.
Whether it’s in the aftermath of major crisis or through preemptive rational evaluation, the EU must be substantially restructured and the Euro must eventually be abandoned.