From the GWPF:
Europe’s New Anti-Green Majority Scores Huge Victory EU Parliament Refuses To Save Its Dying Carbon Market
The European Union’s climate change policy is on the brink of collapse today after MEPs torpedoed Europe’s flagship CO2 emissions trading scheme by voting against a measure to support the price of carbon permits. The price of carbon crashed up to 45 per cent to a record-low €2.63 a metric ton (and later to €2.46 – Anthony), after the European Parliament rejected a proposal to change the EU emissions-trading laws to delay the sale of 900m CO2 permits on the world’s biggest carbon markets. –Bruno Waterfields, The Daily Telegraph, 16 April 2013
Given the manifest reluctance of the world’s big emitters to accept any legally binding carbon targets and in face of our deepening economic crisis, Europe should undertake a comprehensive review of its economically damaging carbon targets and — in the absence of an international agreement — should consider the suspension of all unilateral climate policies that threaten Europe’s economic recovery. –Benny Peiser, National Post, 25 November 2011
“The decision means the end of a European approach to climate policy.” –Felix Matthes, Spiegel Online, 17 April 2013
A vote against backloading will in effect be interpreted as a vote in favour of delay and inaction and be leapt on as supporting evidence by the climate sceptics who oppose any action on climate change on ideological grounds. –-Bryony Worthington, The Guardian, 16 April 2013
The European Union’s flagship program to fight global warming suffered a major blow Tuesday when lawmakers rejected a proposal aimed at shoring up the region’s carbon-emissions trading system, putting its survival in doubt. Germany’s Minister of Economic and Technology Philipp Rösler welcomed the rejection of the backloading plans as an “excellent signal” for an continuing economic recovery. –Sean Carney, The Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2013
The EU has been the global laboratory testing the green agenda to see how it works. Yesterday’s story means that the guinea pig died; the most important piece of green intervention in world history has become an expensive and embarrassing flop. It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of this for environmentalists everywhere; if the EU can’t make the green agenda work, it’s unlikely that anybody else will give it a try. –Walter Russell Mead, Via Meadia, 16 April 2013
EUROPE’S flagship environmental policy has just been holed below the water line. On April 16th the European Parliament voted by 334 to 315 to reject proposals which (its supporters claimed) were needed to save the emissions-trading system (ETS) from collapse. Carbon prices promptly fell 40%. Some environmentalists fear that the whole edifice of European climate policy could start to crumble. The real question now is whether the scuppering of the ETS will lead to the dismantling of the EU’s climate policies more generally. –The Economist, 16 April 2013
Tory MEPs are planning to defy David Cameron in a tense vote at noon on one of Europe’s flagship climate policies, the emissions trading scheme(ETS). Former Tory environment ministers Tim Yeo and John Gummer intervened on Tuesday, calling for the MEPs to vote in favour of the reforms. Yeo told Guardian partner EurActiv that Margaret Thatcher, who died last week, would have been in favour of the reform because she “favoured market mechanisms” as a way of addressing environmental problems. –Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, 16 April 2013
SWISS banking giant UBS says the European Union’s emissions trading scheme has cost the continent’s consumers $287 billion for “almost zero impact” on cutting carbon emissions, and has warned that the EU’s carbon pricing market is on the verge of a crash next year. –-The Australian, 23 November 2011
The unresolved question is policy on climate change. The Prime Minister has not spoken on climate issues since the election. Many Tory MPs share the scepticism of Lord Lawson about the science of global warming. Even more believe that the UK, which accounts for less than 2 per cent of global emissions is already doing enough – at a considerable short term cost to business and voters – while other countries are doing very little. For the moment the UK is sticking to its commitments within the EU, but resisting the idea of even higher target reductions. A open debate about climate change would be divisive (not least within the coalition ) and there is genuine uncertainty about public reactions. The denial of climate change did nothing to help the Republicans in the US. The conclusion for the moment therefore seems to be to let a sleeping dog lie. –Nick Butler, Financial Times, 15 April 2013
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Again, as I frequently point out when one of these markets dies, a 20lb bag of charcoal briquettes is worth more than a ton of EU carbon:
Readers may recall this from WUWT in 2009, still valid today:
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Trading hot air on the basis of pseudo science? What could possibly go wrong?
Friends:
I have often said it before, but nobody has said it in this thread, so will repeat it here.
Carbon trading is the only market where both the buyer and the seller are payed to lie, so corruption is built in. Therefore, organised crime will take over the market if the market does not collapse first. And – as the resurrected EU carbon trading scheme shows – the only reason it does not collapse first is because politicians refuse to allow it to collapse.
In the medium to long term the only possible beneficiaries of carbon trading are organised crime. If the mafia had been asked to suggest a system for their benefit then they would probably have suggested carbon trading.
Richard
Neil says:
April 17, 2013 at 3:42 pm
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Agreed.
I consider the rating an unnecessary distraction. It adds nothing to the merits of a comment. If a comment is worthy of note, or raises interesting discussion, then someone will inevitable respond to the comment thereby furthering debate.
Perry says:
April 17, 2013 at 2:20 pm
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Why are British companies being penalised in this way when they could buy Carbon credits on the European market for a fraction of the floor price set by the UK government?
This additional cost imposed on industry will inevitably be passed onto the consumer hitting them in their pockety, or cause businesses to become uncompetitive forcing them out of business or to relocate abroad to the detriment of the employment market and causing a loss in tax revenues and an increase in the welfare budget. Sheer madness.
The entire carbon credit/trading scheme is just a con and should be scrapped forthwith.
Merkel must be seething. The Germans known for their methodical thinking and research, allowed a few buffoons, ExcelPhil, TamperHansen and Mannless to sell them some dire catastophe snake oil.
Now they and the rest of the EU are royally screwed with their alternative energy medicine.
Thanks, Mike! Major corporations (GE in the USA, Siemens in Germany etc.) were co-conspirators of this push for “green energy.” They thought that, since they controlled key patents & technologies (smart grids, biomass conversion etc.), they would clean up and own the markets when cap & trade schemes became the law of the land.
Well, I guess that didn’t work out so well for them. Wind is a flop, biomass is so difficult to operate that most are giving up, and the “smart grid” comes off as an exercise in Big Brother industrial control with few tangible benefits.
I’m old enough to have lived through many of these cycles….”gasahol” in the 1970’s, “hydrogen economy” and fuel cells in the early 2000’s (don’t hear much about that these days, do we?), electric cars, etc. It’s got to make economic sense first, unless the science is overwhelming, and it ain’t. Cheers, Charles the DrPH (p.s. I still miss REP!)
It’s hard to say Charles, maybe history is repeating itself as you say, but I think GE and Siemens would never have got involved without genuinely buying into the climate trinity’s snake oil science.
There was/is a lot of money to be made in real energy, like nuclear, traditional fossil fuel, elec gen etc. These big companies have spent a lot on R&D into alternative junk energy, that will most likely be now written off, money that could have been spent on bettering research into real energies we have today. Anyway hard lessons are being learned.
Is it perhaps fitting that the Carbon emissions trading scheme should receive a fatal blow on the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral? She helped stir up the scare that spawned this monster, not foreseeing the catastrophic consequences of her strategy, and it’s a neat synchronicity that both should effectively be laid to rest on the same day. I’m sure Baroness Thatcher would be pleased. R.I.P.
Scant Gains Made on CO2 Emissions, IEA Says…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324493704578428591203150334.html?mod=fox_australian
mike,
Your conspiracy theory about GE and Siemens is preposterous. Both GE andS iemens have non green generating business of a vast scale. The moment Gree/nenergy/phantsy dies they will simply make money on their normal energy generating businesses.
I don’t like the rating system.
This “thumbs down” system is equivalent to someone sticking out their tongue and making a rude noise. You can’t learn from that.
Previously if you disliked a comment you had to explain why — or let it slide. Though you may never convince the author of a comment that he is wrong — these comments are read by others who come to learn. The commentary is vital to their learning process (I know it is vital to my learning process!) and this rating system discourages that.
In a real sense you are dumbing down the system here. You don’t get your PhD by answering a series of true or false question — instead you write a thesis. You can’t refute someone’s argument just by giving them a “thumbs down”.
Eugene WR Gallun
I dont like name-calling. And especially I think it has no place in science. I would be funny though, if the “denier” could be transferred so that it from now on will refer to people who deny the “Pause”. That would be hillarious.
Sorry, don’t blame Mike, blame me!
I know these companies….they are clients & competitors of mine. Of course, they have vast non-green businesses, but many of these lie fallow. Not many GE nuclear plants being built lately!
These companies performed very advanced trend analysis early on (as did I, before the Russians ratified Kyoto). They saw vast new markets unfolding, whether the science was correct or not. They straddle both sides of the issue, producing many products for fossil fuel extraction/combustion as well as wind, solar, biomass etc. However, they speak loudly when they speak to politicians, and you can be sure that they were whispering loudly into ears on both sides of the Atlantic.
This Superbowl ad is one of my all-time favorites, please watch!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41mGkBTK6PM&w=560&h=315%5D
Bryony Worthington employs the Green/Left’s characteristic irregular verb:
“I follow the pure science
You are driven by ideology
He is a filthy evil denier.”
The self-awareness of these people = 0.
mike says:
April 17, 2013 at 5:11 pm
“Merkel must be seething. The Germans known for their methodical thinking and research, allowed a few buffoons, ExcelPhil, TamperHansen and Mannless to sell them some dire catastophe snake oil.”
No; Kyoto was a German-designed treaty specifically designed to squash the competition. CO2AGW was used by German Realpolitik as a power vehicle.
Look – the UK must now close down coal fired power plants or switch them over to imported wood chips, how ridiculous is that? No German even ever heard of that – we’re so awash in EU carbon credits we give them away when we need to buy allies. (we gave some to France and to Poland)
Someone upthread asked how the carbon dioxide market crash is playing out in Australia (our stupid government has a policy that ties us to the EU market in 2014/5).
The answer is twofold. Firstly, our internal price of $23 per tonne and rising has been exposed as absurd. What’s more, the proposed integration of the two markets will cost the Budget at least $4bn in the first year, a simple export of taxpayer dollars to Europe for no gain whatsoever. The following years, the costs would be even higher.
The good news is that there has to be an election this year – currently scheduled for September 15 – and the governing party is polling at around 30%. With Greens and other hangers-on, total support for its policies is around 45% and falling.
The Opposition has said it will dismantle the scheme. So it is unlikely indeed that the EU will be getting any support for its “market” from us.
BTW – a vote against the thumbs buttons. They add no value, and make threads longer and slower to navigate. Could we please have numbered posts instead?
Classic certificate, Anthony. Borrowing it.
I don’t know how many times it was claimed the EU’s carbon trading scheme was working well. Well, if that’s true, there is no need for any special measure to support the price of carbon permits. The European Parliament made the right decision. Markets cannot be manipulated by government. The scheme must be allowed to be subjected to market forces alone. Live and let die!
Anthony:
This thread seems to be where the ‘thumbs buttons’ are being discussed. So, although off-topic, I provide my opinion.
I, too, want to be rid of them. In addition to all the reasons others have stated for removing them, I point out that they slow down and corrupt links to comments. This affect on the technical performance of WUWT is a nuisance.
Richard
In defense/explanation of GE/Siemens; they were correct in forseeing a major crisis coming, but the crisis wasn’t a physical or environmental one, it was a regulatory crisis about to be created by government. As we have seen with wind power, Governments across the world were vowing to massively distort energy markets with various “green schemes”, carbon trading being just one of them. The purpose of that R&D and “green” development was intended to prepare for the new regulatory climate which was possible at the time, and admittedly, the fact that it has fallen apart so quickly has been a surprise even to those of us who opposed it.
Now they are going to write off the cost of that R&D against the taxes that were going to be due to the governments which were responsible, so what goes around is coming around again.
Mervyn says:
April 18, 2013 at 4:08 am
“Markets cannot be manipulated by government. The scheme must be allowed to be subjected to market forces alone. Live and let die!”
It is not a free market to start with. In a free market, the supply is price sensitive. In this political construct, the supply is price insensitive, therefore the demand alone dictates the price, and as demand is smaller than (fixed) supply, the marginal price is zero, and that’s where it’s going.
Don’t dance on the grave of the carbon market just yet – Connie Hedagaard, the EU’s Environment minister, intends to return the proposal to the environment committee for ‘further consideration’..
That’s EUspeak for: ‘We’ll keep sticking this proposal under your noses until you vote the right way, you B*ST*RDS…!’
Much along the lines of the way the Irish were blackmailed into voting for the Lisbon ‘Treaty’…
mike said:
April 17, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Somehow I suspect the companies spent very little of their own money on green initiatives – they know where the grants and the tax credits are.
Well said! However, don’t discount the “forcing” (pun intended) that they knowingly exerted upon decision-makers. Their core competency is the production, delivery and management of energy…regardless of its form. I think they saw a vast new market for wind, biogas and other renewables and helped the market along with savvy lobbying and marketing.
I don’t think much of these mega-corporations….they are not often good corporate citizens, and like banks, have become “too big to fail.” I also find them very stupid, slow-moving and selfish, like the dinosaurs they’ve become. However, like dinosaurs, they make the earth tremble when they walk, and the politicians quake with fear. These guys sucked all the air out of the room for government subsidies & financing.
One of the problems of a democracy & a civilized society is that malfeasance by political types carries indemnity. They are allowed to make mistakes. They and their friends can keep the money. An uncritical media may still lionize them and assist in not only rehabilitation but sequential fleecing of a gullible and distant taxpaying public. We need to bring back tar and feathers: there is a difference between bad judgement and bad faith.