AEF Climate News - March 2025 |
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Alan Moran 1 March 2025 A review and commentary on topical matters concerning the science, economics, and politics associated with climate issues. |
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National politics of climate change
Over the past month the Trump administration dominated news on climate and energy – and just about everything else. Trump is demolishing USAID the vehicle for funding “clean energy”. Tom Shepstone identifies the waste costing billions of dollars. The more bizarre of which include: Elon Musk said, "The whole 'NGO' thing is a nightmare, and it's a misnomer because if you have a government-funded non-governmental organization, you're simply a government-funded organization. It's an oxymoron." As well as pursuing an aggressive deregulatory agenda, EPA head Lee Zeldin has identified a $20 billion pot of money from the Inflation Reduction Act to dole out to climate groups. This included $2 billion to Power Forward Communities, an entity having just $100, and controlled by activists and politicians including Stacy Abrams. EPA’s renewable energy spending includes $7 billion by the Democrat machine-run Climate United Fund. Zeldin wants to terminate all expenditures that are “part of the unholy alliance between government and NGOs” and claw back funds that he can. Congress has disapproved requirements on oil and gas drillers to identify and protect marine archaeological resources. Also repealed is a rule under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that created a new tax on natural gas production. This foreshadows the repeal of the IRA's entire Methane Emissions Reduction Program. Goldman Sachs put the cost of the IRA at $1.2 trillion 2023-32 but the costs, which include 8 separate tax credit programs, continue for 30 years and are far in excess of this, even excluding regulatory measures. Trump has ended US support for Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) for Indonesia, South Africa and potentially Vietnam. The decision by the US to end its role as co-lead of the Indonesian JETP is said to leave Germany in control! The Department of Homeland Security head has required the elimination of “all climate change activities and the use of climate change terminology in DHS policies and programs, to the maximum extent permitted by the law”, while a climate office at the Department of Health and Human Services has been shuttered and its staff placed on administrative leave. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has abandoned requirements on companies to disclose the threats their businesses face from risks related to the climate and environment. The US has taken abrogation of all climate treaties a stage further in pulling its government scientists from IPCC meetings, the first being in Hangzhou, China, next week. Trump has rescinded a Biden-era allocation of $4 billion to a UN-managed “climate fund.” But alarmists Gavin Schmidt and Zeke Hausfather seek increased funding to support their claim that “the climate is changing faster than we can adapt”! Tony Heller concludes, “President Trump has already fixed global warming. All that was required was cutting off funding to people whose income is based on lying about climate and energy.” He would include in this, that Marble Bar, West Australia, having set the world record of 160 consecutive days over 100F (38C) during the summer of 1923-1924 has since been deleted from the BOM website thereby amplifying recorded (human induced) global warming. In the German election, the anti-renewables AfD got 20 per cent support but other parties blackball it. A weak Green Party result enables the “winner”, the CDU, to reject it as a coalition partner, reducing the next government’s strong focus on climate action and the energy transition even though the CDU's energy and climate policies were somewhat similar to those of the Coalition it will replace; however, its leader, Friedrich Merz, talks about “green and leftwing nutcases”. Elisabeth Dampier writes, he “faces a difficult choice: either persuade a coalition with the left to deliver reforms they don’t want. Or make an alliance with the AfD and face a meltdown by the entire political elite, including his own party.” German industry association, BDI, recognises Europe's unduly high energy prices but claims to believe, “The Clean Industrial Deal marks an important first step toward restoring Europe’s competitiveness”. Nigel Farage's Reform party, now leading in UK polls, proposes a windfall tax on renewables to undo Net Zero. David Turver estimates the UK spends £11b/yr in renewables subsidies, £2.5bn for grid balancing and a further £1bn for the capacity market. In addition, National Grid is to spend £11b/yr on (mainly renewables supportive) grid expansion by 2035. Energy Minister Ed Miliband wants to spend £260-290bn by 2030 on “Clean Power” to save £7bn/yr on gas-fired generation. The UK domestic energy price cap has been set at £1849, nearly £300 above its level when Labour was elected with a pledge to reduce the cap by a similar amount. Miliband blamed gas prices but the increase is mostly due to renewables. |
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Commercial development and climate change policies Notwithstanding the risks of “clean energy” policy changes under a Trump Presidency, 2024 saw a record amount of new renewables installations. This is unlikely to be repeated without the federal subsidies wind and solar receive, and, as the Wall Street Journal reported, "Trump Paralyzes the US Wind Power Industry" by pausing (with no review foreshadowed) federal permits and leasing for such projects. The industry lobby noted a December 2024 quarter slowdown, while courting Republican support by advising that most projects are in Republican areas. |
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Australia also saw a strong recovery in “clean energy” installations as the federal Labor government’s Capacity Investment Scheme, begins to accelerate work in accordance with Labor’s 2023 promise that taxpayers would underwrite 32GW of "clean energy" capacity. |
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For the third straight year, Ford Motor Company has lost money on its electric vehicles. In 2024 it lost $5.5 billion selling 97,865 EV units, a net loss of more than $56,000 per EV sold. Electric truck maker Nikola, once having had a higher market value than Ford, filed for bankruptcy. Nikola received over $45 million in taxpayer grants from 2019. Ross McKitrick finds it impossible for Canada to achieve net zero and estimates that even forcing a 70 per cent emission reduction lowers real GDP by seven percent. With a $400 per tonne carbon tax, emissions decrease by 68 percent, but tripling the tax to $1,200 per tonne achieves only an additional 6 percent reduction while shrinking GDP by 18 percent. Even Reuters, a long-time supporter of climate action, has concluded that the pursuit of net zero has been a costly failure. Australian food firms have discovered that the push to net zero is bringing them disastrous fuel price increases. But Green leader Adam Bandt has lashed food distributors for questioning Labor’s renewable energy strategy which is driving them out of business) and claimed they are “putting Australian lives at threat by backing more coal and gas”. Teal MP Zoe Daniel argues that concerned businesses should put (presumably subsidised) solar panels on their roofs as a solution to dealing with skyrocketing energy costs, BP has “put on ice” a planned $650 million Perth clean fuel refinery, partly due to “lack of government incentives to drive the demand for sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel”. BP's global strategy scraps its planned 20-fold by 2030 increase in renewable generation, returning the firm’s focus to fossil fuels. Fortescue cancelled a 2030 target for producing green hydrogen, while Origin Energy walked away from a proposed project in Newcastle. Woodsideis “delaying” a hydrogen venture in the US, and ditched hydrogen plans in Tasmania and New Zealand. Green journalists, however claim, “Green hydrogen ventures in Western Australia and Tasmania are defiantly pushing ahead.” To prevent its collapse, Sanjeev Gupta’s Whyalla steel mill, which he claimed was to be converted to be fuelled with hydrogen, has been taken over by the South Australian government. That government, together with the Commonwealth says it will inject capital of $2.4 billion ($2.4 million per job saved) to pursue the green steel mirage. Gupta’s executives are resigning. Lopez et al measure the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) history of forecasts against outcomes. Among these is the scenario below showing increasingly more unrealistic coal forecasts. Prior to 2015, when the climate alarmist Fatih Birol became the Executive Director, IEA expected coal use to rise rapidly. After 2015 an equally rapid (unrealised) decline was expected. |
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Most countries, EU, China, India among them, will miss the UN deadline for new climate targets. Australia's climate advisers are assessing the impact of Trump’s win. China began construction on 94,500 megwatts (MW) of new coal capacity in 2024 and resumed building 3300 MW of suspended projects. This is despite President Xi Jinping’s commitment to “strictly” limit the growth of coal consumption in the five years to 2026. The retirement of old coal capacity declined to just 2500 MW. |
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Scientists from the University of Southern California have confected data to show people experiencing more extreme heat days, defined as temperatures above 32.2C, tend to age faster. What took this finding so long to emerge, and is there a creme to prevent it? |
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It is rare for Desmog blog to provide incisive information but they have a point in saying, UK Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, backed Boris Johnson’s net zero agenda as a government minister, criticised it when running for leader in 2022, supported Rishi Sunak’s diluted net zero plans when serving in his cabinet, then attacked net zero when running again in 2024. |
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Illustrating how potential climate alarmist-worthy grant outlays are fast being exhausted, University of Leeds research claims the reintroduction of wolves could help stop climate change by keeping down the red deer population. This population feasts on tree samplings, preventing the natural regrowth of trees and woodlands. |
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