L A Times Article Reveals California Changed Designation of “Clean Energy” to Enhance its Political Influence at COP28

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

The L A Times published an article revealing that the Government of California had changed its designation of “clean energy” apparently to bolster its political influence at the U.N. climate conference (COP28 cabal) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which is now underway.

California Energy Commission (CEC) Chairman David Hochschild is noted in the Times article as saying “About 60% of the state’s power now comes from clean energy sources.” 

The state’s “clean energy” designation change is demonstrated by comparing the CEC Year 2021 Total System Electric Generation chart shown below (note the year 2021 chart with the line item midway down labelled “Total Thermal and Non- Renewables” and the bottom-line item labeled “Total Renewables”) with this changed chart format provided below for Year 2022 Total System Electric Generation.

The Year 2021 chart percentages of “Total Thermal and Non-Renewables” and “Total Renewables” line-item entries for the Total California Power Mix column are 66.4% and 33.6% respectively.

Therefore, California Year 2021 Total System Electric Generation is composed of about 2/3rds Thermal and Non-Renewables and 1/3rd Renewables.

The CEC Chairman tells the L A Times that “clean energy” is “about 60%” of the state’s power now. How did this miraculous change take place to go from 33.6% “Total Renewables” to “60% clean energy” powering the state since 2021?    

Now look at the Year 2022 Total System Electric Generation chart for what happens to the Year 2021-line entry designations of “Total Thermal and Non-Renewables” and “Total Renewables”.

In the Year 2022 chart the Year 2021 prior line-item designations discussed above now become “Total Thermal and Unspecified” and “Total Non-GHG and Renewables” with the Total California Power Mix column totals now being 45.77% (Year 2021 percentage was 66.4%) and 54.23% (Year 2021 percentage was 33.6%) respectively for these newly invented categories.  

This change is accomplished by moving the Nuclear and Large Hydro generation resources from the “Thermal” bucket into a newly designated “clean energy” group by labelling these resources “Non-GHG” (GHG – Greenhouse Gases) generation and then plopping them into the “Renewables” bucket.

Without the addition of Nuclear and Large Hydro being grouped with “Renewables” the Year 2022 percentage of “Renewables” would have been 35.8% compared to 33.6% in Year 2021 Total System Electric Generation chart. 

Remember that California environmentalists have for decades been trying to close nuclear generation across the state as well as trying to remove dams all over the state that are associated with large hydro facilities. 

Now these nuclear and large hydro generation resources that were demonized in the past by climate alarmists and environmentalists are, without fanfare or discussion, grouped with other Renewable generation resources to pump up the state’s “clean energy” claims clearly for purposes associated with the state’s COP28 political ambitions.                    

Even with this politically contrived “clean energy” changed scheme CEC Chairman Hochschild further exaggerates the state’s new “clean energy” claims by bumping the 54.23% value to “about 60%”. California politicians just can’t seem to bring themselves to deal in energy and emissions reality. 

The state’s energy shenanigans as presented in the Times article have only begun to be exposed. The L A Times article fails completely to address the fact that electricity only represents about 22% of California’s total energy use as documented by the Energy Information Administration  (EIA).

The L A Times article touts as significant the role that California can play in this global U.N. climate conference by noting the following hype:

“World leaders are gearing up for COP28, an annual U.N. climate conference that will begin this week in Dubai, and California is expected to play a sizable role in the proceedings.”

“Representatives from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration will attend and speak on the Golden State’s progress toward clean energy goals, zero-emission vehicles and nature-based solutions, officials said. California will also engage in continued diplomacy at the subnational level after Newsom’s recent trip to China, where he engaged in climate talks with local leaders.”

“Indeed, California officials were emphatic that the state can get work done in Dubai. As one of the world’s largest economies, California is already a global leader in climate policy and has made great strides toward decarbonization, with the current goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.”

The L A Times article completely fails to make any effort to address the critical and controlling issues of global energy use and growth, global emissions outcomes and growth and reams of climate science measured data that clearly demonstrate that there is no climate emergency.

The article completely fails to even attempt to address the critically important issues of how California fits into the global energy and climate picture and completely ignores and conceals the fact that assessing global energy use and emissions data is mandatory for effectively establishing energy policy determinations versus the articles ridiculous use of political hype for determining California’s energy and climate policy actions and decisions.

The Energy Institute recently released its statistical assessment of global energy use and emissions in June 2023 updating global energy and emissions statistical data through year 2022 as shown below.

Table 1 presented below shows the World’s CO2 emissions increase (measured in million metric tons) that occurred between year 2021 and the new reports year 2022 updated data as well as the increase in the World’s energy use (measured in exajoules) that occurred in 2022.

Table 1 clearly shows that as the world’s global energy use grew in 2022 so did the worlds resulting CO2 emissions. Table 1 establishes that the non-OECD developing nations led by China and India dominate all global energy use and emissions as they have done for nearly two decades.

Table 1 indicates that in 2022 global CO2 emissions climbed by 321.9 MMT with the Non-OECD nations contributing 87.54% of that increase because of these nations consuming 61.16% of all global energy use in year 2022 while the rest of the world’s nations accounted for only 12.46% of the year 2022 CO2 global emissions increase. 

The OECD developed nations led by the U.S. and the EU have been completely overwhelmed by the non-OECD nations in energy use and resulting emissions since 2005 as noted in Table 1A shown below. The non-OECD nations completely dominate and control global energy use and CO2 emissions with these nations now accounting for 66.95% of all global CO2 emissions in year 2022.

While the U.S, EU and other OECD nations reduced CO2 emissions by over 2 billion metric tons between 2005 and 2022 the non-OECD nations hugely increased CO2 emissions by over 8.2 billion metric tons during this period resulting in the world’s emissions climbing by over 6.1 billion metric tons between 2005 and 2022. 

The L A Times article incompetently conceals and doesn’t even attempt to identify that global energy use and resulting emissions are completely dominated and controlled by the world’s non-OECD developing nations that are committed to continued use fossil fuels with priority on use of more coal as noted in the data below for India and China.

California’s CO2 emissions are trivially insignificant compared to the global non-OECD nations emissions levels with their huge growth completely concealed in the Time’s article political hype.

California’s total CO2 equivalent emissions are shown below from the state website. The states CO2 emissions represent about 80.2% of the total CO2 equivalent emissions as noted here with the states total CO2 emissions therefore being only about 296 MMT.

State emissions data shows that in the period since 2005 California reduced its CO2 emissions by about 87 million metric tons while the world’s developing nations were increasing global emissions by over 8.2 billion metric tons (shown in Table 1A) with the state’s politicians and climate alarmist media idiotically and loudly proclaiming the state is “fighting climate change”.  

California’s phony claim of “fighting climate change” is totally absurd as clearly demonstrated by the non-OECD nations increased CO2 emissions since 2005 being nearly 95 times greater than the states puny CO2 reduction since 2005. The stupidity of the states “fighting climate change” hoax is clear for all to see.      

Additionally, the state has committed to even more energy and climate policy global folly by proceeding with a completely irrelevant and massively wasteful net zero politically contrived initiative to reduce its emissions by 85% no later than year 2045 as shown below. 

As Table 1 above clearly shows the non-OECD nations increased CO2 emissions between year 2021 in year 2022 by 281.8 MMT which in a single year exceeded the entire present California CO2 emissions total inventory of 269 MMT with the state committed to spending many hundreds of billions of dollars to reduce these emissions by 85% by no later than year 2045. 

The state’s proposed net zero initiative is ridiculous because the states goals of reducing CO2 emissions by a completely insignificant few hundred million metric tons by 2045 are completely overwhelmed by the non-OECD nations present, dominate and growing 22.78 billion metric tons per year of CO2 emissions that will continue to grow at yearly rates that exceed California’s entire existing CO2 emissions inventory.  

Furthermore, Table 1A clearly establishes that the worlds non-OECD nations took complete control of future global energy use and emissions growth nearly two decades ago with the OECD nations becoming nothing but irrelevant spectators in future energy use and emissions outcomes.      

The L A Times article is deficient in addressing relevant energy and science climate related data and completely ignores the absurdity of the state’s massively expensive, trivial, and completely meaningless role in having any consequential outcome on global energy use and emissions. This unescapable climate and energy reality is further addressed in additional data discussed below. 

Table 2 exposes the ineptness of the Times article by establishing that global energy use and emissions reality is driven by fossil fuels which continue to hugely dominate global energy use while climate alarmists incompetently hype net zero schemes costing globally trillions of dollars that have resulted in only small amounts of global energy use from unreliable, costly, and politically mandated solar and wind.

Higher emissions and lower efficiency coal fuel is the primary fuel used by both China, India, and the Non-OECD nations to meet their 2022 energy needs with China further increasing its use and share of global coal to 54.75% while the non-OECD nations were further increasing their use and share of global coal to 82.1%.

China increased coal fuel use by 59.4% between 2005 and 2022 while the non-OECD nations increased coal fuel use by 61.81% during this same period. 

China and the non-OECD nations have told the Democrat’s climate alarmist gadfly John Kerry to “take a hike” regarding fossil fuel emission reductions at his most recent failed mission as noted in the article below. 

U.S. use of coal fuel declined to only 6.1% of global coal use in 2022 (a reduction of 56.8% from 2005 to 2022) while increasing use of higher efficiency, lower cost, and lower emissions natural gas by over 48% between 2005 and 2022 despite incompetent efforts by Democrat politicians to cripple use of U.S. natural gas while mandating use of unreliable and high-cost wind and solar.       

Table 3 provides year 2021 total energy use and CO2 emissions data for California exposing and demonstrating how ridiculously insignificant the state’s role is on the global stage and how incredibly over-hyped California politicians propaganda is regarding the states politically contrived net zero campaign and their completely incompetent claims of the state “fighting climate change”.

Table 4 provides data clearly demonstrating that California like the rest of the world, even after decades of incompetent politically mandated use of wind and solar, relies heavily upon the use of fossil fuels to meet its energy needs and that the climate alarmist contrived “net zero wind and solar contribution” remains extremely modest. The Times article fails to address that California uses fossil fuels (natural gas, petroleum, and coal) for nearly 74% of its total energy needs. 

The L A Times article fails to provide any data or analysis that present the insignificant role of California’s energy and emissions on the global stage or the fact that California heavily depends and relies upon fossil fuels for the great majority of its energy despite the states massively expensive and over-hyped emissions reduction and net zero Democratic Party-political propaganda of the past two decades. 

The L A Times article also completely fails to address the massive cost increases, particularly in retail electricity prices, that California’s absurd energy and climate policies have created for California electricity prices which are now the highest in the continental U.S. and more than twice as costly as the other western U.S. states as clearly described in the article shown below that exposes the state’s energy policy failures and incompetence.

California’s ill-conceived energy and climate Democrat driven legislative schemes have resulted in California’s 2021 average retail electricity price now becoming, for the first time ever, the highest in the continental United States at 19.65 cents per kilowatt hour having grown by a factor of 2.246 (124.6%) since the 1999 average price of 8.75 cents per kilowatt hour.

During the 1999 to 2021 period EIA data shows that the average retail electricity price for the U.S. grew by 4.46 cents per kilowatt hour (from 6.64 cents per kilowatt hour in 1999 to 11.10 cents per kilowatt hour in 2021) while California’s average retail electricity price climbed by 10.9 cents per kilowatt hour (19.65 versus 8.75) more than twice the U.S. price increase.

The 10 other states that make up the continental western U.S. region have a year 2021 average retail electricity price of only 9.19 cents per kilowatt hour verses California’s 2021 record high average retail electricity price of 19.65 cents per kilowatt hour. 

Incredibly, California’s year 2021 average retail electricity price is now a factor of 2.14 (114%) greater than the average of the other 10 western continental U.S. states. 

In year 1999 California’s average retail electricity price was only about 72% greater (8.75 cents per kilowatt hour versus 5.08 cents per kilowatt hour for the other 10 western states) than the average of the other western region states.   

The huge change with California’s average retail electricity price now more than double that of the other 10 western states average retail electricity price has negatively impacted and been economically damaging to California with this outcome occurring because of the Democrats incompetently crafted energy and climate policy legislation.     

The L A Times article reiterates the meaningless climate alarmist propaganda campaign slogan addressing the global average temperature anomaly outcome in the 2023 El Niño year as being the “hottest ever recorded” (shown below) without ever specially providing what that “hottest ever recorded” temperature is and while falsely blaming nebulous “climate change” as being responsible for the 2023 global average temperature anomaly spike.

“In a year expected to yes be the hottest ever recorded due to climate change, holding the conference in the Dubai sends mixed signals, said Cara Horowitz, executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA, who will be attending the proceedings.”

The 2023 EL Nino global event represents a naturally occurring climate outcome (prior global El Nino’s occurred in 1998 and 2016) a climate science fact that the Times conceals even though these events always produce significant temperature spikes that abate after the El Niño event subsides.

Global and regional temperature anomaly trends do not constitute a “climate emergency” as falsely claimed by climate alarmists and their media advocates.

While the global average temperature anomaly represents a calculated global average value that is not applicable to any specific location on earth there is considerable specific and applicable temperature and climate data available for the U.S. (as well as many global regions) and its states through NOAA data measurements – measured data that is never addressed by the Times because it contradicts the Times climate alarmist propaganda claims.    

NOAA’s measurement of the maximum temperature anomaly trend across the Contiguous U.S.using its most reliable and updated measurement system (the USCRN system that began operating in 2005) shows no increasing maximum temperature anomaly trend across the U.S. through October 2023 as shown below despite all the recent climate alarmist media flawed and phony hype to the contrary and the ongoing El Nino global climate event.

Looking at NOAA’s maximum absolute temperatures across the contiguous U.S. through October 2023 we see that the October 2023 temperature is far below the highest ever which occurred in 1963.

Looking at NOAA’s maximum summer absolute temperatures across the contiguous U.S. again we see that the summer of 2023 was far from the highest ever which occurred in the “dust bowl era” of the 1930s long before the origins of the climate alarmist propaganda campaigns.

Looking at NOAA’s maximum year to date absolute temperatures across the contiguous U.S. again we see that the year to date temperatures of 2023 are far from the highest which occurred over ten years ago.  

The L A Times article is full of hand waving climate alarmist politically contrived propaganda claims and assertions that are unsupported by well establish and extensively available energy and climate science measured data.