Global Carbon Markets peaked in 2011 at €96bn euro. Over the next two years they plummeted to €36bn* euro collapsing by 60%. Though the press didn’t seem in a hurry to convey that, and if I search, no government funded agency has done a graph like this below (perhaps I missed it?)
The decline was looking pretty terminal, but the EU government has now voted to backload (which means hold off the permits and cut the supply). This is a desperate measure involving over half the new permits to keep the “free” market alive.
Instead, the news agencies with greener leanings have underplayed the fall, and the 60% decline is now invisibly massaged in places like BusinessGreen into a “market set to soar”. This is not just media-spin but a news-through-a-centrifuge.
The value of the world’s carbon markets is set to soar to €64bn (£53bn) this year, up from €39bn in 2013, as the European Union launches a temporary fix to revive its ailing emissions trading system.
Peak carbon came and went. Those 2014 figures are speculation. Otherwise the trend was terminal.
A breathless journalist at Thompson Reuters describes the possible revival of the market back to 30% below the peak as “astounding”:
Emil Dimantchev, analyst at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, anticipates that such significant growth will be driven by “expectations that after imminent backloading is implemented early in 2014, EUA prices could rise to €7.5/t, increasing over-the-counter and exchange traded liquidity. This would lead to an astounding increase in value, up by more than two thirds to €61bn ($US84bn) from €36bn ($US49bn) in 2013”. –BusinessSpectator
Let’s not forget this soaring revival is only due to Government decree. The EU voted to simply hold back some promised carbon credits. They cornered the market from the start. There is nothing “free” about this fixed market, and the people who will pay (consumers and taxpayers, us) don’t get a choice. The Australian carbon market is still tied to the EU one. Ask Bill Shorten (the opposition leader) why a group of EU bureaucrats are setting the price.
The long-awaited “backloading” of European Union carbon allowance auctions will start on 12 March, marking the first time that governments will sell fewer permits than required by power producers
London — The European Union’s Emissions Trading System has been widely criticised for failing to provide sufficient incentive to stop the region’s generators burning coal rather than gas or other cleaner fuels. However, from next Wednesday, the EU ETS is set to change radically, according to research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
On 12 March, the EU will start to “backload”, or delay, many of its auctions of carbon permits, restricting by more than 50% the number of allowances coming onto the market and presenting both utilities and industrial companies with a radically different emissions trading environment compared to the one that has prevailed in recent years. — Bloomberg
These are not small changes. Effectively the government has just taken half the new permits off the market.
As a result of the backloading plan approved by EU member states this month, and due to come into effect from next week:
• Governments will cut the supply of new carbon permits by 53% in an effort to bring it closer to balance with demand, and to ensure higher prices. These plummeted from a high of EUR 29/tCO2e in 2008 to an average of EUR 4.46 in 2013 as a result of the economic downturn that followed the financial crisis. The auctions that are delayed from 2014 to 2016 will be rescheduled for later in the decade.
• The price of permits has gained 40% to EUR 7 per tonne since the beginning of this year in anticipation of the backloading measure. — Bloomberg
The EU market pretty much is the global market:
“The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has operated since 2005 and represented 94% of the value and 88% of the traded volume of global carbon markets in 2013, the analysts said.”
The market fell so badly in 2012 that after a decade of glossy releases, the World Bank completely canceled the State of The Carbon Market report about 2012. Presumably they won’t bring it back after the even worse figures of 2013. It’s not like the figures mattered to the market then — it was all about the PR.
Where is the accountability for these distant bureaucratic enclaves funded with tax money? They don’t even try to appear impartial any more.
—————————
*I’ve seen €36bn, €38bn, and even a rounded €40bn for the 2013 global market value. The latest figure from 28th Feb is 36 from Point Carbon.
“• Governments will cut the supply of new carbon permits by 53% in an effort to bring it closer to balance with demand, and to ensure higher prices.”
The demand is only there for carbon credits because it is FORCED DEMAND. In absence of force, there would be no demand. The cut in supply is merely there to raise prices, which was clearly admitted in the above quote as well.
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I would love to know which Eurocrats bought carbon credits before the announcement.
The EU is famously dodgy – the accounts of the European Union have not been signed off by accountants for almost 20 years, because it is not possible to tell how their enormous budget is actually spent – who ends up with the cash.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487670/Auditors-refuse-EU-accounts-clean-health-19th-year-row.html
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Wow, such a rise!
The UK DECC values carbon based on forecasts of this market. In the most recent forecast of September 2013, they had 2013 a central estimate of £3.49 (low 0.00, high 15.57) and for 2014 £3.59 (low 0.00, high 15.57). The 60% reduction in 1990 emissions by 2030 is justified by the estimate for 2030 £76.23 (low 38.12, high 114.35).
From the DECC’s Carbon Valuation page you get this comment.
From the 128 page paper to justify this change it says
(Italics mine)
That is HM Government will spend whatever it takes to reduce emissions. Climate Science does not come into it; nor any notion of making sure policy is of net benefit; nor the financial burden placed on the British people. If you believe in the coming climate apocalypse it is even worse. The UK is the only country actively pursuing this policy. So even if we in the UK reduce our emissions by 80%, future generations will still have 99% of the costs of climate change.
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I live in California. We too have carbon credits, marvelous! I am wondering if I can participate in the Carbon “market” with Bitcoin. Is there a virtual place to get the rate of exchange? To me the values are equal, but thats just my opinion.
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Some want to cancel these permits so they are never released (but that means even more market fixing, not “canceling” the market). You can see who to thank here…
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2014/3/5/carbon-markets/deeper-faster-carbon-market-reform
“
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So Ed Davey gets panicky when the cost a certificate representing a tonne of CO2 threatens to get to the dizzy heights of €7. But he loves offshore wind turbines, which per megawatt get £84 in subsidies. Using the renewables industry definition, that equates to €230 per tonne of CO2 “saved“. Though if you add in the total costs including transmission costs and backup power it is much more than that.
This lack of perspective can only be explained by listening to climate scientists and reading The Guardian.
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The only Free Market Ed Davey understands is the one that kicks him out at the next election.
While he can anticipate that coming he’s desperate to position himself for a Party grandee position. One which might secure him a plum EU appointment for when after his electable future is over.
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The real power is indeed in the EC, with many European Commissioners, being appointed from the ranks of the variously failed, disgraced and politicians that have been rejected by their electorates. That is purpose that many of our currently elected politicians are serving.
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Jo
When you deal in intangible markets, the laws of supply and demand apply, just as they do in ral markets.
If the police arrested, say 30-40% of the hookers in Sydney, New York, or London, the price of using this intangible asset would rise similarly to that which recently happened in European carbon markets.
The principal difference is that buying a hooker’s services is voluntary, while buying carbon credits is compulsory. In terms of intangible assets that makes hookers much more honourable than governments, but I guess we all knew that already.
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While the green reporters get their jollies by reporting this huge bounce in the price of carbon do they consider that such a rise will kill off a few more companies and the jobs they create. Chinese manufacturers will be rubbing their hands and the Germans will just make more overseas. Wow. These EU bureaucrats are smart. The reporters are even smarter. Hope they are proud of the big fail coming their way.
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>> the 13 ministers, who call themselves the Green Growth Group
More clarification required.
Just checking, the Green Growth Group is a collection of economically-challenged politicians and not a cluster of disfiguring medical conditions?
If there is a statistically improbable cluster of cases of Green Growths appearing on people then the cause of this cluster ought to be investigated by doctors.
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So much for a free market mechanism. And at the artificially contrived €7/tonne, or about A$10.70, that is still only 42% of Australia’s current $25.40 per tonne.
I don’t know how Labor and the Greens can justify supporting a tax on CO2 emissions, but it is a nonsense to have a tax higher than anywhere else in the world.
Our Labor Government appointed Climate Change Authority includes Professor Clive Hamilton, who is known for suggesting “climate deniers are less immoral than Holocaust deniers, although they are undoubtedly more dangerous,”. He and his buddies recently recommended that Australia increase our greenhouse gas emission reduction target from 5% of 1990 levels to 19% by 2020 and 40-60% by 2030. Imagine how much that will cost even at a lower price!
Australian companies are already laying off staff and even going out of business under cost pressures including the ‘carbon tax’. And it is only going to get worse. Yet the Labor party, which promised to abolish the carbon tax before the election, have refused to vote for the Coalition Governments Bill to repeal the Carbon Tax in the Senate.
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Jaymez
You ask
Why don’t you look it up in the detailed cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the late but unlamented Gillard/Rudd/Brown “government”?
Can’t find such a document? I don’t believe you – no government would embark on such a drastic and risky change to the economy without some “programmatic specificity”.
Would they?
Cheers,
Speedy
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That’s the problem then… they lacked “detailed programmtic specificity.”
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Bulldust
I stand corrected – thankyou. Back of a fag packet wasn’t enough, was it?
Cheers,
Speedy
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OT.
I see John Kerry arriving in the Ukriane with US1B, apparently to help them pay their energy bill…..and they’re considering joing the EU?
How the wheel turns, with the progressive left on the other side of the wall this time around?
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Also OT but in view of a recent discourse on nuclear fusion, the Skunk works and ITER, this recent development is interesting.
inertial electrostatic confinement
Meanwhile, I was thinking about the theoretical downward pressure exerted on CO2 emissions by the imposition of carbon taxes and credits, were this actually effective and emissions drastically, massively reduced, alternate forms of dense energy harnessed and a Green Dystopia prevailed, wouldn’t the carbon exchange have traded itself out of existance? I mean, it’s designed to promote it’s own demise isn’t it….it’s completely unsustainable.
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[…] […]
00
So does this mean those big guys, who were potentially “down the gurgler” with their carbon bets, have succeeded with their lobbying and now have a chance to get out with a smaller loss ??
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Does this mean that these big guys are socialists now?
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Standard Big Money socialism. Private enterprise and free markets for when the big guys are making a profit. When they look as though they might lose something, then the principle is “from each ordinary citizen according to how much can be squeezed out, to each fat cat according to his need to maintain his huge salary and enormous bonuses”.
And it’s fair, isn’t it? These guys work so hard at doing whatever it is they do, and contribute so much to society (I’m not sure what that is, but it must be something really worthwhile) that they deserved to be rewarded for their efforts.
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The big guys might include WWF , Greenpeace and the BBC pension fund !!
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Ross, yes, the big money took a bet on politics. They bet in 2008 that politicians would keep sending cash their way. It used to be about production, demand, but today markets rise and fall according to what a politician or bureaucrat decides (see how they hung on every phrase The Bernanke made).
As I mentioned in The Ben Factor. One man drives a market. The world pretends it is “free”.
The EU price of carbon credits has been rising over the last three months due to speculation about what the EU bureaucrats would choose.
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Except it is Janet Yellen now, and from all accounts she is even more crazy than helicopter Ben. I bet she would like to make nominal interest rates negative if she could.
I think we need a whole new branch of economics to describe that kind of crazy, probably based around the imaginary number ‘i’ and other wild concepts.
Keynes would be scratching his head at the economic policy atrocities attributed to his name…
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Complex numbers may be needed. If she has her way the economy will be in negative territory and completely rooted.
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I’ll pay that 😀
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Hmmmmm so the EU have cut supply of an item that has zero value in order to double the price.
Two tmes zero is… still zero… and people buy these things.
Nigerian call centres must be having a field day.
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Spin? My head is spinning right now!
At some point the EU headquarters in Brussels is going to collapse, implode, when no one can pay the taxes anymore that it takes to run the place. Printed money can’t buy stuff that isn’t there to buy. Of course the top dogs will always dig themselves some escape hole under the fence, won’t they?
What a shame. 🙁
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“EU government has now voted to backload (which means hold off the permits and cut the supply). This is a desperate measure involving over half the new permits to keep the “free” market alive.”
By the way, this – cutting supply so as to jack up the price – is the alleged economic crime of monopolists that supposedly justifies anti-trust laws. But no prosecutions for this mob.
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Straight up, blatant racketeering.
A non product, legislated demand and non market, thats gonna work for the many who have been robbed for the benefit of these few.
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Are not ethics and morality, not to mention legality, a matter of situation? You can’t expect the rule makers to follow their own rules. It’s totally unfair. 🙁
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What? government trying to entice speculation in this market? Could be chance to make some very quick money so there could be a bit of a run up, but a very short lived bubble I’m sure.
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A tax is a tax is a cost by whatever name!
This is a 2-concept cost on folks in the EU.
First, if you make something but need fuel then this is just a cost. If you can invest in another country and prosper that is the thing to do. Move.
Second, say you are a local power supplier and moving isn’t an option. Then allow your physical plant to deteriorate along with your overall value. Shareholders will disinvest and reallocate to something more promising. Executives and managers will migrate to better situations. Eventually, only the government sponsored (owned) activities will remain. The peoples of the continent will be back to serfdom. The people work and pay. The Lords of the Manor spend and enjoy. This won’t end well.
As for global warming – climate change: The word global is key – moving industrial activities around to other places is more likely to increase fuel use rather than decrease it. There are good reasons to operate a business efficiently but CO2 reduction to prevent warming isn’t one of them.
Any effect on Earth’s atmospheric temperature will, to the nearest whole number, be Zero.
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This needs some more rigorous analysis.
I see that there are two extremes of those who have to use the carbon market. First there are those who can pass on the costs to their. The best example are the large supermarkets. They use large amounts of power for heating lighting and refrigeration. British consumers do not have the option of hopping over the pond to New York for their weekly grocery shop.
The other extreme is bulk chemicals. Sulphuric Acid and Chlorine, for instance require huge quantities of electricity. They same is true of aluminium production. They can pass on the costs to speciality chemical companies to a certain extent, but if the cost of electricity rises too far above the world price and both the bulk chemicals and the speciality chemicals go abroad. In between there are manufacturing businesses who can cut production when the profits from selling their carbon “savings” becomes greater than the profits from producing.
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I pointed to the example of bulk chemicals as an example of an industry that could be driven away from any carbon pricing area. Jim Ratcliffe, the majority owner of chemicals giant Ineos, agrees with me. He warns that the European chemicals industry will be wiped out in a decade, with the loss of 6m jobs on current policies.
http://www.thegwpf.org/europes-green-suicide-chemicals-industry-wiped-decade-ineos-boss-warns/
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Carbon traders remind me of televangelists in the sense that they are both marketing a faith based product. The difference between the two is that some televangelists actually believe in their product.
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OT congrats on bloogies Jo
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I assume that ALL regular visitors to the site will be voting for her. 🙂
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Bully.
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Watch it buddy, “or I’ll rip ya b****y arms off”
signed .. Aunty Jack. 🙂
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whoops.. I hope you’re Australian, otherwise you might not know what I’m talking about.
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I have an Aussie grandson and am familiar with some of your national peculiarities after several visits to your great country. If you can’t be an Englishman, being an Aussie is the next best thing. I’ve split my votes between Jo and Donna, aka Minx the Merciless, because Donna’s unstinting efforts to expose the corruption in the IPCC deserves wider recognition.
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10
🙂
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“Farewell Aunty Jack” Vintage 1974, I remember it well.
http://aso.gov.au/titles/tv/aunty-jack-series-two/clip2/
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BHP are first & last for Finkel in this latest attempt to keep the scam going – with a brand-new twist:
6 Mar: Australian: Alan Finkel: Carbon usage must be taxed
(Alan Finkel is president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and chancellor of Monash University)
WHEN BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie calls for the inclusion of carbon pricing mechanisms to help control carbon dioxide emissions, the world listens. But a fresh approach is needed to address the fundamental flaws of the existing schemes.
Take the European emissions trading scheme, where the effective tax per tonne is set via a market mechanism. Commenced in 2005, it is now in its third implementation phase, but each time it has woefully failed to establish a price sufficient to meaningfully reduce carbon emissions. It has been rorted domestically and internationally; it is subject to price gyrations because of deindustrialisation or external events, such as the Fukushima nuclear meltdown; and worst of all it puts money into the hands of traders instead of innovators.
While it is appealing to say that an emissions trading scheme is a “market solution” because the market sets the price, in reality these schemes ultimately fail because the market price responds to the emissions caps set by regulators, and getting this right is a near impossible task….
There is a better way. The ideal carbon tax would tax consumption rather than production.
Take Britain…
The revenue raised could support technology development, general revenue or welfare. How the revenue is used is not critically important, with the one proviso being that it must not be used to undermine the tax itself by directly compensating consumers.
Practically speaking, it would be like the GST, but calculated on the emissions embodied in a product instead of its price. Consistently applied, it would conform to the requirements of the World Trade Organisation…
BHP Billiton’s Mackenzie has called for appropriate carbon pricing as part of a constructive policy for controlling emissions. A carbon consumption tax must be strongly considered.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/carbon-usage-must-be-taxed/story-e6frgd0x-1226846373004#
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If emission reduction is desirable, then this actually does make a little more sense than the preposterous idea of taxing CO2s in some countries but not others. A tax that encourages shutting down smelters next to the alumina and coal mines, while opening new ones in China, is absurd.
However, if the CST is the “ideal” tax structure, why the flying sexact did the carbonistas legislate for the stupid, pointless version they did??
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3 Mar: UK Daily Mail: Revealed: The figures that show just how badly rising energy bills have ravaged household budgets over the last decade
Household energy use dropped by 17% over the same period
By Rachel Rickard Straus
A spokesperson from the Department for Energy and Climate Change said: ‘The Government is doing everything within its power to help hard-pressed families keep their energy bills down.
‘We’ve already announced plans that will save customers around £50 on their energy bills. This year 230,000 low income and vulnerable households are estimated to receive long term assistance with their energy bills through the Energy Company Obligation scheme.
‘There is also direct help for people with their bills this winter through the Warm Home Discount, Winter Fuel Payments and Cold Weather Payments.’…
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2571969/ONS-data-shows-true-impact-rising-bills-household-budgets.html
*** so fitting that East Anglia tops the list:
6 Feb: YourMoneyUK: Tahmina Mannan: Five million households now in fuel poverty
Some 523,000 more households were plunged into fuel poverty this January compared to the same time last year, meaning one in four (24%) homes in Britain now struggle with their heating bills, a Legal & General MoneyMood Survey found.
In some regions of the UK the percentage of households in fuel poverty was even higher.
***East Anglia (39%), the South West (31%), the West Midlands (31%), Yorkshire and Humberside (28%) and the North East (29%) all have more homes in fuel poverty than the national average (24%).
In the worst hit region – East Anglia – the number of homes in fuel poverty has doubled since January last year…
According to the comparison site, the average household energy bill will have rocketed by £792 or 168% in a decade, from £472 a year in 2004 to £1,264 a year by this March.
This is despite an apparent reduction in energy bills following the Government’s decision to roll back green levies last year.
http://www.yourmoney.com/your-money/news/2327438/five-million-households-now-in-fuel-poverty
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3 Mar: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Osborne accused of double taxation on energy bills
Fuel poverty charity National Energy Action calculates the Treasury reaped £27m in VAT on carbon levies in 2013 alone
The Chancellor has been accused of making tens of millions of pounds in double taxation on energy bills – by charging VAT on top of “green” taxes.
In a report on Monday, fuel poverty charity National Energy Action calculates the Treasury reaped £27m in VAT on carbon levies in 2013 alone and that this will rise to £113m by 2020 unless the carbon tax is frozen. Several green measures are now funded through consumer bills and the NEA says it is unfair that consumers should face the sales tax on such levies.
It calls for reform of the carbon tax and for all VAT revenue on consumer-funded levies to be cut or reused to help the fuel-poor…
Treasury sources insisted the carbon tax – which the Department of Energy calculates will add £50 to consumer bills by 2020 – was a tax on suppliers.
A Treasury spokesman said: “VAT on energy is charged at 5pc, which is the lowest it can be under EU law.”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10672093/Osborne-accused-of-double-taxation-on-energy-bills.html
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This is incorrect and an understatement. In 2012, the 6 big energy companies (who probably have over 90% of the domestic market) charged domestic customers £28,000m, of which about 9% was in green levies (according to Government figures). That is £2,520m. VAT is 5% on domestic supply, so that is currently £126m. The dash for renewables has also has an impact on the grid costs (the “standing charges”), so this is probably an understatement.
Last year I looked at the summary accounts for the six large energy companies, for the years 2009-2012, and summarised here.
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Thanks to the new report from the RS and the NAS we know that mitigation of so called CAGW is a total fraud and con. BIG SURPRISE.
So what is the sense of co2 markets if we can’t make a scrap of difference to AGW for thousands of years? This is just a waste of billions $ every year for a guaranteed ZERO return on our investment.
But if you’re as thick as a brick just keep voting for Labor and the Greens.
Meanwhile just posted this at Marohasy blog.
More stupid idiocy about SLR from the Nat geo mag. Anthony easily refutes their nonsense using facts and proper measurement.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/05/the-statute-of-liberty-is-threatened-by-global-warming-again/#more-104438
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I hear that the Carbon Credits will be renamed. Bitcon suggests itself.
20
Government taxation set by legislated demand for a non existent commodity and bureaucrats reduce supply below demand to drive up the taxation to be passed onto consumers. What part of this is a free market? It redefines farce. However bureaucrats might get a rude surprise as the consumers twist this situation and refuse to pay higher prices, claiming lack of supply. Still the warming has stopped, so it looks like the carbon price is working and we have economists to thank once again for saving the world. Too bad about the GFC though.
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Titans of EU Industry: Green Follies Are Killing Us
“EU leaders must address rising energy prices and climate policies which are crippling the bloc’s manufacturing sector, according to a manifesto signed by more than 100 industry bosses.
One hundred and thirty seven chief executives, including the heads of Tata Steel, Arcelor Mittal, and Rio Tinto, signed up to a paper published by the International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC) Europe on Thursday (27 February).”
. . .
Wait a second … Tata Steel. Sounds familiar.
“A Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman since 2002 of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC
In 1974, the TATA Group provided the financial resources to found the Tata Energy Research Institute, or TERI, a policy organization headquartered in New Dehli, India, of which Pachauri has been chairman since the group was formed.
The Tata Group headquartered in Mumbai anticipates anticipates receiving windfall profits of up to nearly $2 billion from closing the Corus Redcar steelmaking plant in Britain, with about half of the savings expected to result from cashing in on carbon credits granted the steelmaker by the European Union under the EU’s emissions trading scheme, or ETS.“
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This is yet another sign of the desperation of the Warmists, as they see temperatures fail to rise, disasters fail to occur and people lose interest in their scam. They now have to turn to Fascist repression to marshall people into buying worthless paper that reduces their standard of living and does not affect the climate at all.
The demand is only there for carbon (dioxide) credits because it is mandatory in the EU, California and Australia. In absence this there would be no demand. The cut in supply is simply there to raise prices and impoverish the population to feed the quasi-religious cult.
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Polish utilities risk missing April EU ETS deadline: PGE emissions head
AMSTERDAM, March 5 (Reuters) – There is a “high risk” that Polish utilities will not receive their quota of free EU carbon permits before an April deadline, the head of emissions trading at energy firm PGE said, a delay that could cost the sector more than 580 million euros($796.9 million).
https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4402820
5 Mar: Aljazeera: John Psaropoulos: Greece blows smoke at the EU
The cash-strapped country suggests looser rules on greenhouse gas emissions in order to boost economic growth
Athens, Greece – Officials here are raising the prospect of softer greenhouse gas emissions rules for European Union members that are in an economic recession. The economically stricken country floated the idea two days after the European Commission launched an ambitious new plan to curb emissions. It was an apparent bid to pit the EU Council of Ministers, which Greece is presiding over until June, against the European Commission.
Europe has set itself a goal of largely decarbonising its energy industry by 2050…
Beginning this year, European industry must pay for every tonne of carbon dioxide it emits (or any other greenhouse gas it emits in CO2-equivalent terms), because the ETS will stop handing out almost a billion euros’ ($1.37b) worth of free offsets after eight years of operation…
Greek Environment and Energy Minister Yiannis Maniatis has proposed that strict adherence to these rules could cost Greece 1.1 percent of its economy and 32,700 jobs. “The obligation of European companies to buy all or part of their CO2 emissions rights leads to increased energy costs and adversely affects their competitiveness,” a statement [Gr] from the ministry said.
For Greece, the rules mean an annual bill of about 540m euros ($700m) at current low carbon prices, a sum it can hardly afford to pay. The country’s economy has shrunk by almost one-third in recent years, and is still in recession today…
In February, two of Greece’s biggest iron and steel manufacturers said they were laying off or suspending about 320 workers, partly because of stagnant manufacturing and construction sectors, but mostly because of the high cost of electricity. Late last year Viohalko, a steel producer responsible for about 12 percent of Greece’s exports, relocated its head office to Brussels, purportedly for similar reasons…
The Greek steel market has fallen from 1.8m tonnes before the crisis to about 350,000 tonnes, according to Halyvourgiki, so exports are the industry’s only hope of survival here. “No industry in the world can survive with these energy rates,” said Skindilias.
Greece already suffers from an unemployment rate of 28 percent, the highest in the EU, and the government appears to be galvanised by the prospect of further mass layoffs. It announced measures that could reduce energy costs by 150m euros ($200m), such as the so-called “interruptibility” measure, whereby power utilities can ask large consumers to interrupt their operations at short notice, to enable them to divert power to rising household demand…
Greece may think that its proposal to soften emissions rules will fall on sympathetic ears, because it is emblematic of a broader European concern. The continent suffers from high energy costs when compared with the United States, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based think-tank…
The WWF has called on Greece to place greater emphasis on energy conservation, and to place a higher target than the EU-mandated 27 percent on energy from renewable sources…
Lignite fuelled Greece’s post-war recovery, and many people in the power industry argue that if Greece hopes to preserve its heavy industry, lignite must continue to form a part of its energy mix for the foreseeable future…
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/greece-blows-smoke-at-eu-201432121223982991.html
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6 Mar: Bloomberg: Frigid U.S. Weather Means Highest Power Prices Since ’08: Energy
By Naureen S. Malik, Christine Harvey and Mario Parker
Supplies of natural gas and coal will decline to six-year lows by the end of this month, government data show. The fuels are used to generate 67 percent of the country’s electricity. Wholesale power for use from April…
Natural gas is up 32 percent compared with a year ago, adding to costs for home heating and power generation. Maintenance planned for a third of U.S. nuclear reactors in the next three months, the most for the season in at least 14 years, will further boost reliance on fossil fuels…
Central Appalachian coal, the benchmark U.S. grade, jumped 14 percent since Nov. 1 to $62.63 a ton yesterday on the Nymex after reaching a two-year high of $63.75 on Feb. 26.
Appalachian coal stands to benefit the most from higher natural gas prices, because it’s in the region where the two fuels compete the most, Michael Hsueh, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in London, wrote in a Feb. 28 report.
Power producers will choose to rely on coal-fired units before turning to gas over the next 12 months “unless they run into problems replenishing their already-depleted coal stockpiles,” Angie Storozynski, a New York-based utility analyst with Macquarie Capital USA Inc., wrote in a Feb. 25 report…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-05/frigid-u-s-weather-means-highest-power-prices-since-08-energy.html
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“London — The European Union’s Emissions Trading System has been widely criticised for failing to provide sufficient incentive to stop the region’s generators burning coal rather than gas or other cleaner fuels.”
If Russia decided to restrict gas supplies to Europe as a payback for the sanctions on them over their Ukraine actions – I would think that Europe would need to burn coal big time, not cut it back.
100
Amen. Europe’s decadence may come crashing down soon. Just getting some fuel, any fuel, may become a problem.
60
Tim
I think I read somewhere the other day that the UK gets a large percentage of it’s coal from Russia , so Gamecock’s is very apt.
20
Carbon trading is the brainchild of Maurice Strong, scam artist, stock fraudster, and fugitive hold up in Bejing. Carbon trading deals with the swapping of worthless pieces of paper attesting to the ownership of a mythological quantity. It initially gives value to this commodity, because of government edict. Prices are run up, because utilities and industries are required to purchase these carbon credits. The fraudsters bail out at the top, and the utilities and industry ride the commodity down to extinction. All costs are eventually paid by the electric bill payers and consumers. Maurice makes money. His accomplices make money. The common man, as usual, is left holding the bag.
Corn is a commodity. Oil is a commodity. Silver is a commodity. There are 17 soft and 13 hard commodities, all of which have intrinsic value at all times. Carbon trading credits, allowing people to engage in the act of polluting, is not a commodity. Carbon trading will eventually flatline.
140
Are you new here Charles? If so, welcome.
I hail from the same place as Strong, so I know a bit about this.
He was born into a family that had a huge input into the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.
Given the extent to which International Communism infiltrated the West, it would not surprise me in the least if these people had direct ties with Lenin and later Stalin.
Born in 1929, Strong has wreaked havoc on the world. He has been involved in scams and shady dealings in Canada including Power Corp and PetroCanada.
He is in self-exile in Beijing because he was caught out trying to scam a million from a small African nation.
30
The pause continues
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/03/uah-global-temperature-update-for-february-2014-0-17-deg-c/#comments
60
A man-made lash up to fix a man-made tax debacle which was the result of man-made science that created a supposed man-made disaster out of the production of a man-made gas that has all turned out to be a man made f*** up of epic proportions un-paralleled in the history of previous man made f*** ups with a resulting man-made social catastrophe in the nations that have fallen for this man-made climate science catastrophe cult.
60
ROM, I think you made some spelling mistakes. I believe the correct term is “Mann-made” not “man-made”.
40
Hansen, Mann, Jones, Briffa, Santer, Annan, Trenberth, Shellnhuber & etc & etc. Add to this Tom Karl of the NCDC plus a whole gamut of second and third rate going down so called “scientists” intent on getting onto the climate warming / climate catastrophe bandwagon to both elevate to the maximum their public profiles plus turn a nice little tax payer funded lurk into a personal wealth building exercise with the tax payer funded travel and accommodation for the conferences in far away exotic localities thrown in.
No mention of the CO2 greenhouse gases expelled in these activities, a classic case of gross hypocrisy by the perpetrators who firmly believed that due to their own assumptions of their personal elevated status in the public eye as “scientists” and their immense influence and their undoubted hold over the politicals, they would never ever have to answer to anybody for their actions, excesses and hypocrisy or their gross and quite deliberate corruption of the scientific process.
Getting off that ever accelerating climate catastrophe band wagon as the wheels start to come off without suffering some seriously nasty and permanent damage to reputation and status and a possibility / probability of some very revealing and very reputation destroying legal actions from the innocent but deeply affected and damaged parties is proving to be a lot more difficult than it ever was to get on that climate catastrophe band wagon only those few short years ago.
“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.”
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
40
The term toxic debt comes to mind.
50
UN-IPCC admit they make it up as they go.
“Figueres later agreed that the $100m proposed in 2009 as compensation for poor countries would not be enough for them to build defences and adapt their economies. “It was a figure plucked from a hat … $100bn is not enough …”
2°
A group of German scientists, yielding to political pressure, invented an easily digestible message in the mid-1990s: the two-degree target.
German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen announced ahead of the failed Copenhagen summit, “life on our planet, as we know it today, would no longer be possible.”
But this is scientific nonsense.
“Two degrees is not a magical limit — it’s clearly a political goal,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
“The world will not come to an end right away in the event of stronger warming, nor are we definitely saved if warming is not as significant. The reality, of course, is much more complicated.”
Schellnhuber ought to know. He is the father of the two-degree target.
50
Climate sensitivity to more co2 seems to be much lower than the IPCC estimates. Big surprise.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/05/the-lewis-and-crok-exposition-climate-less-sensitive-to-carbon-dioxide-than-most-models-suggest/#more-104458
20
So much for the market setting the price and the market regulating itself.
They may as well decree a simple direct tax if they are going to game the market to acheive the desired price.
This stinks so badly anyone would think it was dead, but it just seems to keep twitching.
The twitching may indicate the presence of life, but I suspect it is life in the form of maggots.
20
more detail at the link:
6 Mar: News Ltd: Queensland Government to axe 8c-per-kWh solar feed-in tariff to cut electricity costs
THOUSANDS of southeast Queensland solar households will lose their guaranteed 8c feed-in tariff and will have to negotiate directly with retailers over a price for the energy they produce.
Energy Minister Mark McArdle will today unveil a significant overhaul of feed-in tariffs, saving other energy users millions of dollars on power bills…
Solar advocates have today slammed the decision to scrap the 8c feed-in tariff.
Lindsay Soutar, the national director of Solar Citizens, said it would be difficult for households with solar to negotiate fair deals with retailers.
“There are 40,000 homes that are about to lose the already too small financial return they receive from providing clean energy back into the grid,” she said…
The 284,090 households that receive the 44c tariff will not be affected, with the State Government keeping its commitment to continue paying the more generous amount to those who adopted solar before the scheme was closed…
http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/queensland-government-to-axe-8cperkwh-solar-feedin-tariff-to-cut-electricity-costs/story-fnagkbpv-1226846455254#
30
This is FANTASTIC NEWS !
Less well off Australians should not be forced to subsidize the rich ones who have installed solar panels on their homes !
Very UNAUSTRALIAN !
30
6 Mar: Brisbane Times: Amy Remeikis: About 50,000 southeast households affected by solar energy bonus changes
The Electrical Trades Union has accused the government of “pulling the rug” from under the feet of Queensland solar users…
But ETU state organiser Stuart Traill said with 285,000 solar customers receiving 44 cents/KwH until 2028, the minister’s announcement was “as ridiculous as it is ineffectual”.
“The LNP has made it clear since taking office that they have a pathological hatred against renewable energy and this is the latest step in their mindless pursuit of free market ideology in the Queensland energy sector,” he said in a statement.
“Abandoning those customers on 8c to deal directly with retailers is impractical and unfair. Does the government seriously expect householders to negotiate with large energy corporations?…
Solar Citizens national director Lindsay Soutar condemned the decision.
“This is incredibly unfair,’’ she said.
‘‘It is obvious that it will be difficult for individual households to get a good deal from their power company. They simply don’t have the negotiating power. When retailers set the rules, solar owners lose.
“Families have made the move to solar to take back control of their power bills. But now that the Newman Government is capitulating to big energy companies, it’s going to be that much harder.”…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/about-50000-southeast-households-affected-by-solar-energy-bonus-changes-20140306-348ha.html
00
I have no problems with a 1 for 1 cost balance. Eg if over the billing period you take 200kwh from the grid at night and feed back 250kwh to the grid during the day, you get paid what 50kwh would have cost, minus line rental.
I know that means the electricity companies are still having to buy feed-in at more than they would have to at wholesale price, but I think it is reasonably fair way to do things.
10
Doh, I should have looked at a bill first.
Sensible values to use in that example would be around one tenth of those.
10
I mean 5 to 10 times those values.. arghh … glanced at daily values.
10
Amy came over the other week to enjoy one of our famous fire pit lit suppers.
I made polar bear/whale kebabs, served on the finest reconstituted ivory plates. Oh, how the vodka flowed!
40
My response to these “individuals” who think that it is fair to rip off other Australians to pay for their electricity is……
BAD LUCK !
20
Australia’s carbon(sic) price – if it survives the new Senate- is to be tied to the European market price. Oh goody, electricity prices will go up again.
20
Speaking of the Senate … the politics is starting to get nasty with the preferences not yet set for the WA election re-run:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/21858277/greens-at-risk-in-poll-payback/
10
carbon DIOXIDE (PLANT FOOD TAX)…..
Call it for what it really is.
A STUPIDITY TAX ON LIFE ITSELF !
20
Seems to me , after reading all the above comments, that Carbon (sic) trading is all about insider-trading – the leftist rich get richer and the “closet” right wing also get rich.
10
Only by raping the poor who have no money to buy political representation, no way to stop buying energy from govt monopolies .
Robbing the many to enrich the well connected few.
We used to call this slavery.
30
handjive –
speak of the devil! ***love the last line.
6 Mar: UK Daily Mail: Floods had a ‘silver lining’, says climate chief: UN sparks fury by making political point out of storms that battered Britain
‘They remind us solving climate change is not a partisan issue, she said
And Miss (Christiana) Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, added there was also an upside to the blast of Arctic air that blanketed America and Canada in snow, and the Australian bushfires, because they have forced climate change back on to the political agenda.
‘There’s no doubt that these events, that I call experiential evidence of climate change, does raise the issue to the highest political levels,’ she told the Guardian.
‘It’s unfortunate that we have to have these weather events, but there is a silver lining if you wish, that they remind us [that] solving climate change, addressing climate change in a timely way, is not a partisan issue.’…
Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger, whose Bridgwater constituency in Somerset has borne the brunt of the flooding, said last night: ‘It is a complete insult to have this unelected, overpaid UN bureaucrat making glib comments at the expense of my constituents.
‘She hasn’t visited us here in Somerset, she knows nothing about what has happened here. She is taking advantage of this situation for political capital.
Apart from anything else, what she says is absolute rubbish. There is no evidence this is anything to do with climate change.’…
***Miss Figueres was speaking before an event in London, where she was due to meet major businesses including Unilever, Lafarge and Royal Dutch Shell.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2574345/UNs-Christiana-Figueres-says-floods-silver-lining.html
21
O/T: Through a youtube subscription, I receive links to popular videos on a regular basis. At the top of the list today comes Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, speaking to, on his own admission ” a nearly empty senate”.
How do these people have any creditability, while his tone is calm and his delivery measured he invites Prime Minister Tony Abbott to visit the beautiful state of Western Australia, Attacking Tony Abbott and the coalitions policies, espousing the greens vision for a future Australia, he condemns the population to a life in servitude.
Edited excerpts here,
Fossil fuel combustion costing jobs, property and lives, I suggest Mr Ludlam, you uproot yourself from WA and move to North Korea if you prefer a life without fossil fuelled energy.
Unlike many here I don’t support the sale of the ABC, I do however believe that if they do not adhere to their charter, senior managers need to be shown the door. SBS I rarely watch and wouldn’t miss if it disappeared completely. When it comes to renewable energy if it can’t stand on it’s own without subsidies the sooner it becomes bankrupt the more money all Australians will have to meet the cost of living. AS a paid up union member I support any action that rids Australian workers of the likes of Williams and Thomson and lawyers that don’t question their motives when setting up slush funds.
.
As a much younger man I supported many green initiatives, but with hind-site I believe My country would have enjoyed an enhanced past and a more prosperous future if your party had never existed and there was no record of you or the greens to become a greasy layer in the core sample of future political scientists.
video link here.
Transcript here.
30
Meanwhile in the Land of Oz the top 500 Carbon Dioxide Polluters, being mainly energy producers and heavy industry, had to pay a Carbon Tax which in turn was compensated for by generous handouts to consumers which in turn was taken away by higher energy and commodity costs by businesses which in turn was compensated for by less consumption from consumers which in turn was compensated for by even higher prices from businesses to maintain cash flow and profit margins which in turn led to… consumers running out of money and business going broke, but stockholders and CEO’s cashing in.
While we only have to put up with living in the stone age for about another thousand years according to Tim Flannery, until Sea Level Rise/Global Warming/Climate Change subsides so that we can all live in the ice-age.
Apparently the Great Barrier Reef now only has 16 years before it is devastated… again – this time by Climate Change. How many times is this since the beginning of time or at least the Crown of Thorns in the 60’s (which was dealt with very deftly by the experts at then who advocated cutting the star fish into pieces and throwing them back into the ocean with the effect that each piece became a whole as starfish do) along with the perfunctory warning of economic loss to the tourist industry… again.
10
Truly, it is amazing that there are people gullible enough, ill-informed enough, and indoctrinated enough that they listen to people such as Milne, SHY, and this wanker.
However, the more they display their ignorance as in this case, the more people with catch on (I hope).
10
Heya Bob, I’ve been responding to this guys tripe on the usual social media and am surprised (not really) by how many have been taken in by him. I would love to access a more astute point by point response to his
allergations…waffle. Have you or anyone else come across anything useful?10
More astute than me that is 🙂
10
I know what you mean about the many that have been taken in, here are the first three comments on the youtube link.
10
What does this COMMUNIST “Ludlam” think is keeping the US citizens warm at the moment ?
Coal & Nuclear.
NOT stupid bloody bird munching wind mills and solar panels covered in snow !
What an [snip] moron he is !
20
What a lovely way to keep your profits up,withhold supply to create the price you want.Kinda sounds like gold,diamonds and oil,no manipulation at all[honest].The banks will have to rehire all the carbon traders they laid off.
10
Dept of Defense: 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review
p12) The impacts ofclimate change may increase the frequency, scale, and complexity of future missions, including
defense support to civil authorities, while at the same time undermining the capacity of our domestic installations to support training activities. Our actions to increase energy and water security, including investments in energy efficiency, new technologies, and renewable energy
sources, will increase the resiliency of our installations and help mitigate these effects…
p30) Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large…
The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world.
These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf
00
I wonder how much Al Gore is paying him to hype it. Maybe they are just on commission?
10
A leap in the dark …
right
off
the
cliff.
10
The CSIRO.
2014
“The CSIRO has cast doubt on a key aspect of the Federal Government’s climate change plan, saying storing carbon in soil is only likely to result in a “low level” cut to greenhouse gas emissions.”
. . .
Considering in 2011 the CSIRO advocated for carbon(sic) taxes to cut emissions, would the CSIRO like to offer a comparison after 2.5 years of carbon (sic) taxes?
20
Confused alarmist?
(Victorian) Environment commissioner Kate Auty quits, drops bucket
Professor Kate Auty, the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability since 2008, said the government’s lack of leadership on the issue was illustrated by the phrase ”climate variability” often being used when climate change was meant.
Climate change refers to warming of the planet by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.
”Climate variability” commonly describes natural fluctuations.
Professor Auty said during a meeting with Mr Smith in February 2012 to discuss a climate change paper she was preparing, the minister asked ”what can I do if I don’t like it”
She told him there was nothing he could do – and the report would be scientifically accurate.
. . .
Scientifically accurate?
Quote: “Climate change refers to warming of the planet by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Warming of the planet by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases” is called Anthropogenic Global Warming
Climate change is generic and can be used as the description of change of seasons i.e. from summer to autumn.
Not very accurate so far.
20
Garnaut loves that “muscular” fracking/nuclear obama, then drifts off to Mars. what a tsunami of CAGW insanity we are to endure today:
7 Mar: SMH: Ross Garnaut slams Abbott government’s direct action policy as like a ‘Martian beauty contest’
by Peter Hannam, Jonathan Swan
But Professor Garnaut, who is a strong supporter of having a price on carbon, believes the ultimate cost to the budget of the Abbott government’s climate policy could be much greater than $4 billion a year, given many countries are committing to more ambitious emissions reduction targets…
At the Senate hearing on Friday, Professor Garnaut, who dialed in on a speaker phone, told the senators that it was misleading to compare the Abbott government’s ”Direct Action” program to the Obama administration’s ”muscular direct action”, which was ”highly interventionist”…
In his submission, he also described the direct action plan as part of a Martian beauty contest…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ross-garnaut-slams-abbott-governments-direct-action-policy-as-like-a-martian-beauty-contest-20140307-34atj.html
00
We all remember ross GUANO who was responsive for the massive pollution from his mine in papua new guinea.
Yet the mongrel dares to rear his ugly head to criticize others !
What a HYPOCRITE !
Mining Garnaut
by John Izzard
September 12, 2010
An inconvenient truth
Australia’s climate-warming guru, Professor Ross Garnaut, joined the ranks of the celebrity-discredited, such as America’s Al Gore, India’s Dr Pachauri and Britain’s Professor Phil Jones when a hockey stick came out of nowhere this week and whacked him in his money-purse. His credibility also got a hit.
A dirty little story, exposed by Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, revealed that the good professor, instead of helping to save the planet, was in fact busy with his company, Lihir Gold, creating a nasty big environmental catastrophe all of its own. And that was helping to destroy the planet.
Professor Garnaut spent much of 2008 beavering away at the behest of the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, and the Minister of Climate Change Senator Penny Wong, to produce The Garnaut Report, the Labor government’s show-pony document on climate-change. His task was to lock-in to the theory of climate-change, then on the back of that theory, come up with a carbon-pricing/carbon trading scheme…or something! Anything!
What the Australian Prime Minister desperately needed at the time was a “scheme”, adopted by the Australian parliament, that could be then taken to the Copenhagen Global Summit as a game-changer. Garnaut’s scheme didn’t make it to Cabinet, let alone the parliament, but his report and his standing has been used to enhance whatever process was under general consideration at any given moment. It formed the ethical basis for the Labor Party’s climate actions.
It was treated as Holy Writ.
Particularly the bits about the danger to Australia’s environment in general and the Great Barrier Reef, the Murray River system, Ningaloo Reef and Kakadu National Park, in particular—all Australian natural icons. Professor Garnaut took every opportunity to stress that these treasures of the nation were under threat from our rapacious greed, made possible by our creation of CO2.
While the good and gilt-edged professor was highlighting the impending loss of the Great Barrier Reef, a few thousand kilometres to the north, Lihir Gold, a mining company of which Professor Garnaut is chairman, was dumping millions of tonnes of toxic-sludge into the ocean near its mine site on Lihir Island, north of the Papua New Guinea mainland.
While the good professor has making us all feel guilty every time we turn on our leaf-blower or toaster, up in Papua New Guinea, his mine was destroying about 60 square kilometres of ocean floor, and it is just getting started. The mine has a life expectancy of 20 years so by the time it stops, toxic-waste will have destroyed coral reef and ocean life over a vast area of the Pacific. It is creating a dead-zone.
While the good professor was telling us about the threat of rising sea-levels, he and his company were doing their bit (to make them rise) by dumping millions of tonnes of mine-processing residue into the Pacific Ocean. While he was telling this nation about the environmental dangers to Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, his own Company, Lihir Gold, was destroying the reefs of the Bismarck Archipelago, on Papua New Guinea’s north-eastern approaches.
The mine sludge contains cyanide and heavy metals and the practice of dumping toxic mine-waste, submarine tailings, into the sea, is banned in China, Canada and the United States. It is banned by the UN. But in his webcast to Lihir shareholders last month, Professor Garnaut made the extraordinary statement that “The LGL Board, [Lihir Gold] has always adopted responsible environmental management. Our environmental track record of Lihir is exemplary.” Really, Ross?
In his CV, which is available on the internet, Ross Garnaut describes himself as a “Distinguished Professor” and Chairman of PNG’s Sustainable Development Program Limited. Apart from his $300,000 a year job as chairman of Lihir Gold, Ross Garnaut is also listed as a director of Ok Tedi Mining Limited of Papua New Guinea. Ok Tedi, is in the Star Mountains of western Papua New Guinea and is home to one of the world’s really awesome, and very impressive, environmental disasters.
In fact, the Ok Tedi mess is considered the worst environmental disaster in the Southern Hemisphere, where over 20 years, 80,000 tonnes of mine waste has been dumped into the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers, every day. BHP, the then co-owner of the mine, sought legal indemnity from the PNG government for the pollution and environmental damage it caused in exchange for billions of dollars in compensation and restoration. Ok Tedi affects 50,000 people and 120 villages and will take an estimated half a century to clean up.
So while we were all being lectured about our failure to protect the Murray River from the environmental consequences of global warming, by our overuse of fossil fuels, up north, across the border at Ok Tedi, a Ross Garnaut company has been up the mighty Fly River. Talk about hypocrisy.
When BHP bailed out, the Ok Tedi mine was taken over by Ok Tedi Mining Limited. Its major shareholder is apparently, guess who? The PNG Sustainable Development Limited (Singapore), the company of which Ross Garnaut, according to his CV, is the chairman.
Climate rationalists (sceptics) can only wonder and lament at the credibility of people like Al Gore, Dr Pachauri, Professor Phil Jones and the “Distinguished Professor”, and mining entrepreneur, Ross Garnaut.
Ross Garnaut’s great line “ The failure of our generation will haunt humanity until the end of time” in regards to climate change begins to look a little thin when we are told by Greg Hoy on the ABC’s 7.30 Report:
Professor Garnaut also serves as a director of the infamous Ok Tedi gold and copper mine in western PNG, which continues to discharge 56 million tonnes of metalliferous waste into nearby river systems each year.
On the 19 August 2008 Professor Garnaut said of the Ok Tedi mine:
It’s the most thorough and careful management of the environment that’s ever been undertaken by a mining company.
PNG lawyer Tiffany Nonggorr claimed on the 7.30 Report that it will take 300 years for the effects of the pollution from the mud-slurry that is pumped into the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers, to dissipate. Copper levels 800 meters from the mine are 3,000 times the safe level.
Ok Tedi is now only producing 16 kilos of gold while the Lihir mine is expected to be producing 28,500 kilos of gold in the near future. Ross Garnaut has recommended a merger with Newcrest Mining, in a deal worth about $10 billion. Who says pollution doesn’t pay?
Labor Party/Greens/Independent policy about both the mining tax and the carbon tax will further drive Australian mining companies into countries that have neither. Countries where practices like dumping toxic waste into the sea won’t be an issue. Apparently the Chinese/Australian Ramu Nickel and WA Based Merengo are interested in the Lihir method — but in mines well away from Australian law.
Thank goodness we have concerned citizens like Al Gore, Dr Pachauri and Ross Garnaut as guardians of the “Inconvenient Truth”, and our environment, who can guide us on moral issues – “like the greatest moral issue of our time.”
Gee, aren’t climate-change and global-warming issues interesting?
51
Angry
Truth be told, there’s very few of us who don’t have a tint of hypocracy in them. But the alarmist guys seem to be full of it…
Cheers,
Speedy
00
“Garnaut’s scheme …….. the ethical basis for the Labor Party’s climate actions.”
That sounds about right.
Poor ALP, where Glieke when you need him.
00
Ross Garnaut and his Lihir Gold mine pollution
http://climatereview.net/ChewTheFat/?attachment_id=210
00
7 Mar: ABC Breakfast: Good news on the Amazon, bad news on warming: Lovejoy
But on climate change, US conservation biologist Thomas Lovejoy warns that the world may be deluding itself thinking that two degrees of global warming in the future will be ‘safe.’
Guest: Dr Thomas Lovejoy
Professor in Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University
Producer: Gregg Borschmann, environment editor
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/good-news-on-the-amazon-bad-news-on-warming-lovejoy/5305038
Lovejoy is such a perfect guest for “our” abc:
5 Mar: Mongabay: Rhett Butler: Scientists blast Australian leader’s proposed ban on parks
(Disclosure: Author Rhett Butler is on the advisory board of ALERT but had no role in this statement)
A group of prominent scientists have blasted Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s pledge to oppose the creation of any new protected areas in Australia.
The Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers or ALERT, a coalition of conservation scientists, said Abbott is sending the wrong message to the world in promoting industrial logging over protection of the country’s native forests…
“It really is worrying,” said Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist and former environmental advisor to three U.S. presidents. “I hope the Prime Minister gets better advice in the future because the world really needs Australia’s leadership on the environment.”
ALERT says that Abbott is hurting Australia’s environmental leadership ahead of two major conservation conferences this year.
“If a relatively wealthy country like Australia won’t protect its environment, what kind of message does that send globally?” asked (William) Laurance (professor at James Cook University and director of ALERT)…
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0305-abbott-ban-on-parks-alert.html
00
what’s another 100 billion pounds!
6 Mar: Reuters: Nina Chestney: UPDATE 1-UK needs 100 bln pounds more to meet 2020 carbon targets
Stock markets over-value fossil fuel firms (Adds UK government comment in paras 7 and 8)
Britain set up the Green Investment Bank (GIB) in 2012 with 3.8 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) of initial capital to help spur investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency and stipulated it could turn to the debt markets for funding next year depending on the government debt burden.
GIB has estimated that at least 200 billion pounds must be invested in low-carbon infrastructure over the next 10 years, including around 110 billion to replace old nuclear and coal power plants and upgrade the grid…
The Department of Energy and Climate Change expects investment in renewable energy generation projects to total around 40 billion pounds by 2020, which will help support up to 110 billion pounds of investment across the electricity sector, a spokeswoman said.
“We have set the conditions to attract investment into our energy sector which will keep the lights on for years to come,” she added…
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, banks have been less enthusiastic about providing long-term debt financing, on which many renewable energy projects depend…
The report also said stock markets could be over-valuing companies that use and produce fossil fuels, which has the potential to threaten financial stability in Britain.
As much as 60 to 80 percent of coal, oil and gas reserves of publicly listed firms should not be burnt if the world wants to limit global warming, according to a study last year by the Grantham Research Institute and Carbon Tracker.
“The UK government and Bank of England must not be complacent about the risks of carbon exposure in the world economy,” said Joan Walley, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee…
“Financial stability could be threatened if shares in fossil fuel companies turn out to be over-valued because the bulk of their oil, coal and gas reserves cannot be burnt without further destabilising the climate,” she added. (Editing by Keiron Henderson and Jane Baird)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/green-investment-britain-idUSL6N0M323R20140306
00
6 Mar: Reuters: Ernest Scheyder: EPA chief says new U.S. energy rules won’t hobble business
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Terry Wade, Chris Reese, David Gregorio and Marguerita Choy)
Carbon regulations can be crafted to help offset climate change without “shutting down business in its tracks,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said at a major energy conference on Thursday…
“We don’t have to choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy,” McCarthy, who has run the EPA for nearly a year, said about new rules she said would be proposed by this summer.
“We know conventional fuels like coal and natural gas are going to continue to play a critical role in a diverse U.S. energy mix.”…
The Houston visit came about a week after McCarthy toured North Dakota, trying to convince the state’s coal, oil and ethanol producers that her agency was not trying to burden their industries with onerous regulations.
The fuels, McCarthy said in North Dakota, should be part of an “all-of-the-above strategy” that runs from solar to coal…
“The real, scary cost we need to worry about is the cost of climate inaction,” she said. McCarthy said right now she is focused on power plant regulation and is unsure if she will have time in her term to focus on refiner regulation…
Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy Corp, the largest American utility, said she is “encouraged” by McCarthy’s new approach but has already decided building new coal plants are not worth the regulatory risk.
“I don’t see new coal in the mix for Duke,” Lynn said…
***Opponents of EPA regulations have often been wrong when they cry “the sky is falling” when new rules are enacted, McCarthy said, trying to ward off any fresh attacks following her speech.
“We’ve heard this tired argument again and again before,” she said. “And every single time, it’s fallen flat on its face.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/us-ceraweek-mccarthy-idUSBREA2528V20140306
***EPA regulators & CAGW zealots have often been wrong when they cried “the sky is falling…” “tired argument again and again”… fell “flat on its face”.
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Carbon markets. Shrug.
You can’t dig your way off a planet, but it seems somebody still thinks they can make a profit trying. Meanwhile, industry will vote with its feet.
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The now retired Mr Rudd delivered a lecture titled “On Politics” at Oxford University on Saturday night.
Among other things, he asked them to take seriously the “gargantuan challenge” of climate change.
(Pushing the UN barrow to brown-nose his way into a seat at the table?)
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Now this IMBECILE ove”Ove Hoegh-Guldberg” rears his stupid head again……..
Trying to tell us all AGAIN that the Barrier Reef is going to die for the umpteenth time !
Will Ove Hoegh-Guldberg’s latest reef scare turn out better than his last?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/will_ove_hoegh_guldbergs_latest_reef_scare_turn_out_better_than_his_last/
His credibility is ZERO !
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More about this fool “Ove Hoegh-Guldberg”…..
Complaints against Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/15/formal-complaints-against-professor-ove-hoegh-guldberg/
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Rudd doesn’t even believe his own BS about global warming !
Warmist Rudd doesn’t fear sea level rises, after all:-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmist_rudd_doesnt_fear_sea_level_rises_after_all
What a hypocrite !
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has your caps lock key BROKEN?
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Well spotted Mattb,Angry should have krudd’s description as HYPOCRITE not hypocrite.
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the level of the debate in Britain continues to slide down, down, down…
6 Mar: UK Daily Mail: Matt Chorley: Tory climate change sceptics told to ‘shut it’ by Lib Dem Ed Davey who insists the science is overwhelming
Energy Secretary launches fresh attack on coalition partners
Singles out Lord Lawson and Peter Lilley for criticism
Coalition increasingly split on the need to tackle global warming
Conservative climate change sceptics have been ordered to ‘shut it’, by the Lib Dems.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey said there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ of the need to cut carbon emissions…
Mr Davey told EurActiv, a Brussels-based news website: ;My recommendation to most politicians who want to talk about the climate is to listen to the scientists and listen to the evidence.
‘Of course you can question it, but when there is overwhelming evidence you should tend to shut it.’
Mr Lilley responded: ‘People who try to silence their critics are revealing their own inability to respond to the arguments that people like I and Nigel Lawson put…
(following earlier stoush) But Michael Fallon, the senior Tory minister in Mr Davey’s energy department, hit back at his boss, insisting: ‘Unthinking climate change worship has damaged British industry and put up consumer bills.’…
One Cabinet minister told MailOnline: ‘He just isn’t very bright. Most of the people around the Cabinet table are bright, even if I disagree with them, but not Owen. He isn’t climate sceptic, he’s climate stupid.’
Today Mr Paterson told BBC Radio 4: ‘The climate is changing and there is clearly a human element.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2574801/Tory-climate-change-sceptics-told-shut-Lib-Dem-Ed-Davey-insists-science-overwhelming.html
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from abc’s headline, you would think it was farmers who farm “carbon” (?) making this call, but nothing of the kind. Kiely & husband are “carbon” (dioxide emissions) traders:
7 Mar: ABC Rural: Sarina Locke: Carbon Farmers call for urgent climate action
The CSIRO has played down the role of soil carbon sequestration in reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…
However, Environment Minister Greg Hunt is backing the emphasis on soil carbon in the Direct Action plan, saying the government remains extremely confident of achieving its emission reduction targets easily.
But the group Carbon Farmers is developing a method to get farmers payments for soil carbon through the Carbon Farming Initiative.
Founder of the group Louisa Kiely says farmers manage 65 per cent of the land mass, and many want to address climate change.
“If large numbers of farmers got together, figured out this had a cheque at the end of it, the amount of innovation and forward movement, would easily provide large amounts of abatement.”
Regarding climate change, Ms Kiely says “everybody knows it’s happening now, what they don’t understand is that we’re on the flippin’ Titanic and once you hit the iceberg it’s really hard to get off again”.
“There’s nowhere near the amount of urgency that we feel is important, and nowhere near the support for the largest carbon sink over which we have control.”…
Founder Louisa Kiely says some farmers have taken up seven tonnes per hectare of carbon dioxide a year. She hopes they can get paid, through the Carbon Farming initiative CFI.
“The CFI has rigorous rules and regulations behind it, they measure the soils, do activities, measure the gases that are released when you do such activities.
“If they have increases in soil carbon then they have potential to trade those.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-07/soil-carbon-submissions/5305924
at least this headline is more honest:
AUDIO: ABC Rural: Louisa Kiely calling for urgent focus on climate change, and carbon farming
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-07/soil-carbon-farmers-louisa-kiely/5305972
CarbonFarmersOfAustralia: About Us
The Principals of Carbon Farmers of Australia have been pioneers in the farm-based offsets industry. Experience counts.
The Principals of Carbon Farmers of Australia helped establish the farm-based carbon offsets industry:…
•Campaigned since 2005 for farmers’ rights to sell carbon they grow in soils
•Conducted the first study tour of the USA soil carbon industry in 2006
•Secured first order for Australian soil carbon from Chicago Climate Exchange 2006
•Made first sales of Australian soil carbon credits in March 2007
•Organised the first “Soil Science Summits” between scientists and farmers 2007
•Staged the world’s first Carbon Farming Conference, Mudgee 2007
Michael Kiely BA (Hons), A. Dip. A., Dip DM
Prior to moving to the country, Michael forged a creative career in Marketing for 30 years.
He holds both the Certificate and Diploma of Direct Marketing from the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA)…
He is now an Agriculture Climate Change Consultant and educator.
In this role Michael & Louisa are woolgrowers from the Wellington district of NSW and Convenors of the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming, a farmers’ and citizens’ movement which aims to have soil carbon recognised as a major solution to Climate Change. They are also principals of Carbon Farmers of Australia a company that will aggregate and sell soil carbon credits…
Louisa Kiely, Woolgrower, Wellington District
Louisa obtained her Bachelor of Agricultural Economics from the University of New England. She worked in the market research industry as a field supervisor while bringing up her 3 children…
She is co-founder of Carbon Farmers of Australia – a not-for –profit trading arm of the Carbon Coalition…
As director of Carbon farmers of Australia, she is part of a consortium of 3 companies which are developing methodologies to submit to the Carbon farming Initiative process.
http://www.carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au/About/about-us
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Made first sales of Australian soil carbon credits in March 2007
Pat,I wonder if these carbon credit sales had any levy added for CO2 and methane gas produced by the sheep.
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You can’t make this up?
OceanLinx the little favourite of ARENA funding to the tune of more than a chocolate factory at $20 million plus, has struck problems with its MARK 4 wave energy machine.
3,000 tonnes of concrete and machine looks like an anchor.
Mark blooody 4, the first three either sank, washed up or simply disappeared.
This has got to stop. Oceanlinx is either incompetent & stupid or cunning & greedy. Either way they should just sink this latest heap of stuff and save the $3 million salvage bill that will be required to make it operational. OPERATIONAL, it’ll be lucky to last longer than OceanLinx’s last record of 3 months.
I have emailed Abbott, Shorten & Milne asking where the accountability is of our money.
I didn’t email Clive Palmer, because apparently he’s not attending to parliamentary duties or anything at the moment.
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Sorry,
Here’s the link for the tilting, floating nightmare occurring in SA and VIC oceans just this week.
The Mark 4 is farked, same as the rest of 1,2 and 3.
OceanLINX should be OceanJinx
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Really, you just need to say “European Union” and the rest of the story flows: distrust, loathing, waste, trough-swilling, manipulation…
Meanwhile, a real union, old style, led by a charismatic thug who’d carbonise his own babushka, moves in on the Crimea.
European Union. Yeah, right.
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