A review and commentary on topical matters concerning the science, economics, and governance associated with climate change developments.

By Alan Moran,

2  August, 2016

Politics and economics

Donald Trump is unambiguous in his hostility to the “climate change hoax” and has promised to walk away from agreements that reduce US carbon dioxide emissions as well as getting rid of the economy-busting Environment Protection Agency. The EPA is undeterred by the prospect of a Trump presidency and is moving into a new carbon regulatory theatre, aviation.

The UN would be apoplectic about Trump, as it accuses the UK and Germany of undermining the Paris agreement. But the May Government is giving mixed messages. Having abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change to the chagrin of the green left (“Plain stupid” said former Labour leader Ed Miliband; “deeply worrying” said Greenpeace) subsequently May has deferred the approval of a new Chinese nuclear power station but perhaps on the grounds that its energy supply required too large a subsidy. The renewable lobby remains cautiously optimistic that their subsidies will remain.

Meanwhile Australia has moved in a different direction with the creation, post the July election, of a Department of Energy and the Environment. The new Minister, Josh Frydenberg, was appointed only on condition that he first swore fealty to the climate deities supported by Prime Minister Turnbull (“I accept the science of global warming” he said, having been silent on the issue under the Prime Ministership of sceptic Tony Abbott); Frydenberg confirmed the on-going policy of 23 per cent exotic renewables share by 2020. This means much higher prices, causing on-going de-industrialisation and bigger bills for households, a matter I addressed in the Herald Sun, on Sky News  and in the Australian Financial Review. The debate was energised by the near blackout of South Australia due to wind subsidies inducing closures of fossil plants and this coinciding with a cold snap and loss of a major interconnector with Victoria. The SA state government, having previously trumpeted its wind resources, blamed the federal government for providing subsidies to wind. The renewable lobby remains unconvinced about Frydenberg while Greenpeace thought his lukewarm statements in favour of coal might be yet another destructive epitaph for the Great Barrier Reef, a scare that they have confected in association with grant-pursuing academics.  

A report by the CME consultancy confirmed Australian electricity’s fall from competitiveness under the burden of punitive regulatory measures. Notwithstanding having perhaps the world’s the lowest cost inputs, most places in Australia experience electricity prices 50 per cent greater than in France and the US and above those even in Japan and the UK.

If you cannot win the argument jail them! New Zealand Social Scientist Dr Jarrod Gilbert is calling for the Crime of Climate Change Denial to be adopted. Among early incarcerates would be Viv Forbes who, supported with others (including me) and having the great Vaclav Klaus as a patron, has formed Clexit to combat ratification of the Paris UN accord signed in December of last year. Jumping the gun, the Philippines Government has shown leadership in this by tearing up its predecessor’s undertaking.

Noting that the EU carbon price is at a low of €4.30 a tonne at the end of last week (the equivalent Australian Renewable Energy Target price being €54 per tonne) environmental consultants, Factor, say the “EU will have to get its act together for Europe to have a shot at living up to its Paris commitment to help keep global warming to “well below” 2 degrees (never mind 1.5 degrees).” Factor notes that the EU has “progressively decoupled GDP from emissions …. with an increase in GDP of about 47% (since 1990) accompanied by a decrease in emissions of 24 per cent.” The report sees no irony in the annual GDP growth of the EU having averaged only 1.5 per cent since 1990, less than the growth of population.

Scientific developments

According to research published in Nature, the Antarctic Peninsula, which is sometimes depicted as a “global warming hot spot”, has been cooling for almost 20 years due to natural variability. The research, led by John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey, said while the start of Antarctic Peninsula cooling in 1998 had coincided with the so-called “global warming hiatus”, the two were not connected. Tim Ball reminds us that the climate has been changing for ever. Based on Greenland ice cores it has been in a 5°C range with modern times slightly cooler than average.  Jo Nova has more on this.

He notes

• Current temperatures are proclaimed as the warmest on record. In fact, the world was warmer than today for 97 percent of the last 10,000 years.
• The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) just 1000 years ago was 2°C warmer than today. The public is told that a similar warming will be catastrophic.
• The Minoan warm period approximately 3500 years ago was 4°C warmer than today.

Tony Heller points out the brouhaha about recent heavy precipitation in the US is being used by the White House to convey a climate change narrative with the alarmists pointing to trends since 1958.   He goes back for another 90 years and finds just the normal pattern of change.

He also deflates the alarmist assertions of the University of Chicago Energy Policy Institute which maintains among other gee whiz nostrums that by 2099 Maine will be warmer than Mexico.  With simple graphs he demonstrates that there is no such trend.  Here is the Illinois picture.

And in this erudite piece, Roy Spencer explains why the greenhouse effect from increasing carbon dioxide actually exists but that this can only be a serious problem if its effect is compounded by water vapour.  Such a compounding effect is at the core of climate orthodoxy but is not supported by the failure of temperature trends to increase in line with the predictions of climate models that incorporate such feedback.

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