From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Cutting emissions is proving harder than committing to cut emissions
Climate progress at big companies is hitting a wall.
The world’s largest companies have committed to slashing their emissions to address climate change. Many of them have overpromised and underdelivered because of higher costs, slow advances in technology and political pressure.
One big factor is a lack of trust in voluntary carbon markets. Many companies had intended to use carbon credits to offset emissions that are hard to reduce, such as the burning of jet fuel by airlines.
Those credits were supposed to cover short-term commitments. Companies are now backing off of these goals while maintaining they are committed to long-term targets. It is a sobering conclusion two years after the 2021 United Nations climate summit in Glasgow jump-started several climate initiatives.
Mining giant Rio Tinto can’t hit a near-term emissions target without using carbon offsets. Delta Air Lines and other carriers are under similar pressure. Shell and BP dialled back green-investment plans under pressure from investors. Amazon.com recently shelved a target to slash delivery emissions by 2030.
“Many companies are learning that the beginning of decarbonization is easy,” said Günther Thallinger, a board member at insurer Allianz who chairs a U.N. climate-focused investor group. “The moment you really need to go into true transformation, the work becomes quite difficult.”
This was always highly predictable!
Companies jumped on the bandwagon at the outset, partly out of the desire to virtue signal and partly due to pressure from environmentalist shareholders. But it was always obvious that there was little they could do to substantially cut emissions, without massively expense and disruption. Even then they would still remain stuck with the energy supplied to them by the State.
Rio Tinto, for example, still needs mining equipment, earth movers and shipping, which all run on fossil fuels.
Carbon offsets were an easy, relatively inexpensive way to show immediate “emission savings”. But increasingly it is evident that most offsets actually do not cut emissions at all.
I suspect that many companies and investors are growing tired of spending money for no good reason at all.
Story Tip:
From American Thinker:
Not just birds and whales: Windmills threatening extinction for jaguars and pumas in Brazil
The Wall Street Journal:
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/brazils-big-cats-under-threat-from-wind-farms-1e7494f3
From the WSJ article:
“Jaguars and pumas are facing extinction in the Caatinga, Brazil’s northeastern shrublands, as Europe and China pour investment into wind farms, puncturing the land with vast turbines that are scaring the animals away from the region’s scant water sources.
Particularly sensitive to changes to their habitat, the jaguars and pumas abandon their lairs as soon as construction work on the wind farms begins, said Claudia Bueno de Campos, a biologist who helped found the group Friends of the Jaguars and has tracked the region’s vanishing feline population. They then roam vast distances across the dusty plains in search of new streams and rivers.“
That’s the kind of insanity that saddens me so greatly.
We would be far better off if company CEOs would simply go outside, wave a machete around in the air a few times and call it “cutting emissions.”
Be careful, nhasys, Clyde Spencer doesn’t like people submitting first comments which are off-topic. If he sees this he’ll be gunning for you.
Things are not going well in Germany’s bid to reach net zero by 2045, five years earlier even than Britain’s own unrealistic target. For months, the German government has been trying to devise a way to save its heavy industry from high energy prices which are sending production fleeing to Asia.
Just last year, chemicals giant BASF announced that it would invest in a new £10 billion plant in China rather than Europe, thanks to the cost of energy.
Now, the government seems to have found a way. It is going to raid its £200 billion climate transition fund, which was supposed to invest in green technology. The fund was also meant to compensate householders who have been groaning under the expense of policies such as next year’s proposed ban on new gas boilers.
How did Europe’s most ambitious nation on net zero turn into a laggard? Reality, that’s what…
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Ross Clark – Spectator
Will Germany be the first to ditch its net zero commitments? | The Spectator Australia
oh dear: “BASF”
Maybe just as well they leave but what did the Chinese do to deserve their imposition?
Hopefully you see the picture in the link – any and all farmland you see around you is gonna look like that pretty soon unless we really work out how Climate works.
UK just announced that the proposed ban on diesels will be postponed to 2045.
Could it be an outbreak of quasi-common-sense?
Everybody knows what China and India are doing – and some will even cover for them – but now it seems to be the new pandemic on the horizon
“World’s largest companies stall climate action despite promises”
“The EU’s ambitious climate agenda is beginning to unravel after a last-minute decision by Germany to block a ban on new combustion engines “
“UK interior minister: We won’t save the planet by bankrupting British people”
Certainly in the case of the UK, Uxbridge and South Ruislip has thrown the cat among the pigeons. The Tories sniff a way of distinguishing themselves from their parliamentary colleagues. Easing up on what Cameron called ‘the green crap’.
“beginning of decarbonization is easy”
I put that at the ‘lets set a target…’ stage.
As the famous philosopher Mike Tyson put it: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. “
I think that reality is starting to hit optimistic plans for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The first 10% cut in emissions is the easiest and cheapest to do. It looks as if some naive people simply multiplied the cost of reducing emissions by 10% by ten and assumed that this would be the total cost. In reality, each 10% reduction in emissions is much harder than the previous reduction and exponentially more expensive. Eventually, the cost becomes so high that any further reduction is impractical and unaffordable. Even some politicians are starting to notice.
You could be right, but Labour as ever has the fenced wedged up its anal area
“Labour said our revelations illustrated “farce” within government – but the party, pointedly, has not committed to restoring any targets Mr Sunak may choose to dilute or ditch.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66862498
Same as with Covid or any other policy area you care to mention. They want the same only harder
That is Tyson’s best and most famous quote as far as I know. I like this one, “I ain’t the same person I was when I bit that guy’s ear off.”
Great photo of solar panels. The sun isn’t shining on them. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Whoops.
Gee, which way is south?
Unless that photo is from Australia it’s pretty easy to tell that the morning sun wasn’t producing any power when the photo was taken probably in June.
Yes, the shadows that the panels are casting show that the sun is behind them. Not a good engineering solution. What were they thinking?
They were thinking, So how much is the subsidy?
Well, unless the panels can move with the sun or are double-sided, then this is going to happen once every day. It is what it is.
You can see the far panels are at a different angle, and the near ones you can see the tilt mechanism.
May only just be completed and are not commissioned or hooked-up-fully yet, so tilted away from the Sun.
See my post above. Early morning in the summer, the sun rises north of due east. Unless the panels track the sun, they will never get more than 12 hours per day in the summer.
Um.. sorry guys.
Looks like they are tiltable ones, probably not set up properly yet.
See my post above. “Looks” like isn’t the same as “are”.
It all very similar to the recent urge for transport companies to introduce their first Electric Bus or Electric Truck or even Electric Tug. That first one is relatively easy to finance and to introduce despite the technical problems involved. But those transport companies will progressively find that the introduction of even more of their wonderful new ideas will become progressively more difficult – especially as they realise eventually that there is no reason for their effort in the first place!
“…Electric Bus…easy to finance…”
Because they sell them to government agencies that have no problem wasting taxpayer money.
And can be a lot of money.
Around here Fedgov basically gave them away to the locals. Of course Proterra now has filed for bankruptcy reorganization, lol.
“The moment the UK turned its back on the world and future generations”
“It’s a sign that the public pushback against greenism, especially since the shock Tory victory in the Uxbridge by-election, is starting to make itself felt in the corridors of power. Sunak’s new proposals represent the strongest attack on the green agenda from any UK political leader so far. And yet they still do not go nearly far enough.
…
The problem with Sunak’s plan is that he only wants to postpone the pain of eco-austerity, not to avoid it entirely.
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All too often, Net Zero tends to be presented as just a matter of building more wind farms and switching to electric cars.
…
According to the Climate Change Committee, which sets the UK’s carbon budgets, the majority of cuts to CO2 emissions are not expected to come from technological adaptation, but from changes in individuals’ choices and behaviour. These ‘choices’ include using less electricity, travelling less, heating our homes sparingly and eating less meat. In other words, by reducing our consumption and our quality of life.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/20/has-the-penny-finally-dropped-about-net-zero/
Well, there’s a little movement…
This is what the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee wrote re the Climate Change Committee in its ‘Achieving Net Zero:Follow UP’ report in April 2022
“HM Treasury witnesses were reluctant to be drawn on future costs of achieving net zero cautioning that the Climate Change Committee estimates contain ‘heroic assumptions’ with errors potentially compounding over very long periods”
Chris Stark is of the Miliband mode and Deben was only in it for the money and is now thankfully gone. But the CCC madness unfortunately remains.
In the UK Rishi Sunak is widely expected to announce that the Government’s absurd green energy policies are going to be cut back to more ‘pragmatic’ levels later today, which will put clear water between the Conservatives and Labour on crazy net zero targets.
Nobody should be remotely surprised by any of this. It was blatantly obvious to anyone with an ounce of brain and common sense that the economic reality of net zero would hit hard, with the most vulnerable in society hit the hardest.
It’s astonishing just how naive and stupid politicians can be, accepting all the stuff thrown at them by activists while the man in the street can see through it all. Let’s just hope that more common sense prevails before every democracy turns into the basket case that Germany has become.
I think many politicians accept all the stuff because they’re also activists- that’s how they got elected. More people who don’t agree need to get out and vote.
The problem with getting out and voting is who is there to vote for who will be of any use?
Right, which is why I think the presidential election should be between 2 middle aged white guys. DeSantis and…. anybody.
Certainly in the UK that is a significant problem.
Many – I was one – thought Boris [remember that serial waffler?] would, very possibly, be a serious anti-woke-green-nonsense PM. But he’d been captured by his smaller brain, and his good lady [an innumerate green], and projected chutzpah, if not competence.
Now it looks as if Little Rishi is going to try the same schtick – ‘I’m a pragmatic planet-saver’ …
As Oldseadog, I don’t much fancy that, but nor do I see a real alternative.
And the Blob WILL be out to get Rishi for even considering practicalities; they want the lights to go off, and a return to the Eighteenth Century.
The Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition [Kier Starmer, yoooman-rites lawyer and sea-going non-entity] wants electricity generation to be zero-carbon by 2030. Seriously. We just need to discover a massive resource of Unobtainium 4711 by then, it seems; and ‘Shazzam!’. His hangers-on appear to be worse, if that is possible.
The Dim-Lebs started most of this tosh in 2010-2015, when they were actually in charge of a few things . . . in David Cameron’s Coalition. They had a tenuous grasp on reality then; that grasp slipped a long time ago.
And the various Nats shouldn’t be allowed even to speak to anyone who is in charge of a clockwork mouse, let alone an economy.
Depressing.
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If people keep voting for this party because it is the only one that can beat that party there is no solution. The solution is to vote for no party. I.e independents. Outcome = better representatives and democracy that works. Yes, it would require a lot from individuals but you get according to what you give. That’s life.
I now consider myself a libertarian. Unfortunately, the party in Wokeachusetts is microscopic. I emailed the state party and asked their climate policies. All I got back was “we believe in minimum government”. OK, I already knew that. I also emailed the state’s Republican party and asked the same question. They didn’t bother to reply, probably because the party is extinct here. I’m now a big fan of John Stossel. Love his YouTube channel.
It’s happened and boy has he received criticism for it! I did like a line from a commentator – “We (UK) were creating net zero targets like we were a far richer country than we actually are.” Hopefully this will begin the public rollback of the Net Zero insanity.
“Hopefully”
British Breath-holding strongly dis-advised ……
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Truly cutting emissions means cutting economic activity, and that hits the bottom line a bit harder than purchasing a few offset credits. The shareholders won’t like that.
Now I’m going to let an expert explain it just one more time for the slowpokes out there why renewables are cheaper but less developed countries are installing more expensive fossil fuel power-
Renewables are cheaper than ever yet fossil fuel use is still growing – here’s why | RenewEconomy
From that link:
“A Bloomberg NEF investigation found that batteries alone are already cheaper than gas power plants during these times.”
hmmmmm…..
brought to you by the wind/solar/battery industry promotion web site: https://reneweconomy.com.au/
Except the battery will only provide power for a relatively short period of time before it needs to be recharged whilst the gas plant can operate as long as necessary.In a period of dunkelflaute batteries will be useless.
Of course they are – grid-scale batteries are nonexistent, which is far cheaper than real ones!
Just curious- I know nothing about any kind of batteries, never mind grid-scale- but, will grid-scale batteries get hot if periodically being used by the grid, then recharging? I realize they’re a fire hazzrd- but won’t the building they’re in be running hot? And if the building is running hot, won’t it need to be cooled? Or is that not a concern for the dependability of the batteries?
In exactly what way are PV, wind, battery, and increased transmission lines “renewable”.
Exactly how much extra CO2 will be emitted developing these systems before they reach “carbon breakeven”, if ever. My money is on never.
In what way are wind, battery and PV “renewable”?
They don’t last long so you have to keep renewing them.
Heh. This is hilarious! And true.
Propaganda with the same scientific/financial sophistication as astrology is not evidence, but it may serve the need for those who want to reinforce thier fixed beliefs no matter what reality brings their way.
You’re right, Andy, but I would prefer a world where the Believers don’t get to return the rest of us to an age before steam engines [and electronics, and modern medicine – and a reasonable amount of leisure for the working folk]!
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What’s the actual mechanism of the “carbon offset” scam? Who administrates it and where? What’s their take in this fairy tale? Can I buy or sell some? If I promise not to buy a Cat D-9 bulldozer can I get a carbon offset that can then be sold to Rio Tinto? Is there a futures market for carbon offsets? I suppose if the carbon offsets market fails its objectives there will be no future.
Buy some land. If it’s clear then promise to plant oodles of trees. If it’s wooded then promise never to cut them down. You then have ‘carbon credits’ which can be sold to carbon emitters to offset those emissions. The good news is that you can sell the same credits over and over, even if you never plant a single tree!
it’s expensive for a forest owner to go this route- you have to have the property studied in great detail. I know it’s very expensive but I don’t pay attention to it despite being a semi-retired forester because I think it’s a bad idea- one more level of bureaucracy. You have to continue to prove you haven’t broken the contract. You really don’t get paid much in carbon markets for trees. It might work for big industrial forest owners but not a farmer with 50 acres. My 50 years as a forester is a story of one bureaucratic bullshit idea after another. They have to keep coming up with such stuff to justify their jobs.
Verra are the experts in gaming the carbon credits or offsets scam, just look it up.
Has anyone produced a definitive scientific study with actual proof that climate is being affected by “fossil fuel” usage? Don’t think so. Most that I have seen have been debunked. Of course, those who pay for the research into this nonsense get to call the shots on the results made known to the public.
I suspect that it will sort itself out in the near future. When folks start waking up to the scam.
Yeah, well. I hope the wake up occurs before we become Venezuela.
Dispatches from Venezuela: –
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-66873494
Tocorón prison: Venezuela regains control of gang-run jail with pool and zoo
In case anyone thinks Venezuela is still a tropical paradise …
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Talk is cheap but if it comes to lowering the stock value no CEO is going to put their job on the line.
The Rio Tinto copper mine at Bingham Canyon, Utah uses huge trucks that can carry 400 tons of ore per trip from the bottom of the pit up a gently sloping road to the entrance to a slurry pipeline tunnel several hundred feet higher in elevation. It is impossible to run such powerful engines on anything except “fossil fuel” (diesel fuel). Does anyone seriously think that a battery could store enough energy to drive such a truck for even one trip up the hill? Would the battery weigh more than the ore that the truck carried?
Of course, all those promoting off-shore wind farms realize that they will need lots of copper for the undersea wires to transmit electric power from the wind turbines to shore. Then, lots of diesel fuel needs to be burned to mine the copper.
Has anyone done an overall energy balance to determine whether the energy generated by offshore wind farms reduces CO2 emissions enough to offset the emissions from the copper ore trucks?
SteveZ56
“Has anyone done an overall energy balance to determine whether the energy generated by offshore wind farms reduces CO2 emissions enough to offset the emissions from the copper ore trucks?”
The fact that none seems to be trumpeted by – say – the BBC, suggests to me that either: –
AAA No such study has been done
or
BBB Some have been done; they show the bird-choppers cause more CO2 than they save.
Now, I – and most here – know that CO2 is plant food, and a Good Thing.
Not the BBC [other media outlets are available, if no better!].
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It’s time for a worldwide accounting of the temperature effects so far on CO2 emission reduction. I’ve read that in the last 40 years CO2 emissions in America have been reduced 25%. I’m certain similar reductions have been made in the EU and Australia. We should have seen some results since man made emissions are the only identified culprit here.
What makes anyone believe that achieving “Net Zero” is the level of success if we don’t have measurement benchmarks that show improvement along the way?
Most of them knew that so called “carbon offsets” were a scam, but they went along with it because buying them allowed companies to claim they were reducing their “carbon footprint”. All along planning on feigning ignorance when it finally becomes clear to everyone that carbon offsets were nothing of the sort, and didn’t actually reduce anything except the amount of money in consumer’s and taxpayer’s pockets.
Dare I hope that maybe, just maybe these companies are waking to the fact that green energy isn’t cheap, that sustainable is an empty buzzword and Net-Zero is a threat to the bottom line?
Before you say “but all companies must follow the same rules,” think again.
Welcome to the age of mass movement mass insanity. 100 s of millions of people have outsourced their thinking to a few radical nut jobs they have deemed “the experts or visionarys” And the populations of most nations have very poor critical thinking skills even in the best of times.
I still have not been seeing many of these politicians coming out and just admitting it- they got it wrong! Wrong on energy, wrong on covid, wrong on freaking “Wokeness” flushing our rights and autonomy down the toilet while making our communities (and our world) a much less secure place. I think most of us know what we would really like to do and say to these “ leaders” but can’t anymore because -we’ll see above.
Climate alarmists need to be told to take a hike. The sooner the better.
The Earth is only about 1 degree Celsius warmer than the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, it is still quite cold. 20% of the land is covered by glaciers and permafrost and the Earth is still in a 2.56 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation.
4.6 million people die each year from cold-related causes, mainly from increased heart attacks and strokes caused by blood vessels constricting when cold or cool air is inhaled, compared to 500,000 dying from heat-related causes.
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
I’m so sick of this nonsense. Why does anyone want to “cut” CO2 emissions at all as they are a positive benefit to the ecology? Let’s cut the climate lying cultists and their fraudulent hand waving they call science. The Wall Street Journal under the wives of the Murdoch leftist sons have really become part of the press spokesmen for the Democrat Party and the left.
Pretending it is hot while the Earth is in a 2.56 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation(fourth ice age) and spending $US 200 trillion or about $100,000 per family trying to keep it from warming back up is plain folly. 90% of the families on the Earth can’t afford that so the others are going to have to spend $1 million over 30 years or about $30,000 per year. That is an awful big chunk of most families income. The average family income in the US is about $70,000. Taking $30,000 out of that to keep the planet from warming by a degree or two Celsius is probably not going to be as important as families keeping a decent lifestyle. story tip
The Earth may be in a warmer interglacial period but it is still quite cold. About 4.6 million people die each year from cold or cool weather, mainly from increased strokes and heart attacks caused by blood vessels constricting due to the cold or cool air that is inhaled when it is not summer. About 500,000 people die from hot or warm weather each year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext