What a backflip: The Biggest political party in the EU now wants to drop the ban on petrol and diesel cars

By Jo Nova

The voter backlash begins

How much more would the car lovers and petrol-heads of Europe take? In draconian style, last February, the EU declared all petrol and diesel cars would be banned from 2035. It was their star policy for the Net Zero push. Car makers would have to cut their emissions by a shocking 55% by 2030 and an unthinkable 100% by 2035. It was to be the end of an era.

The idea was so big and embedded in the EU that only one month ago an insurance insider warned that his company was already devising elaborate plans for a world where everyone had an EV and the insurance giants and the government got access to all your data. Police would be issuing your speeding tickets while-you-drove, and insurance companies would be granting drivers a discount if they allowed them to sell all their data to the highest bidder. Indeed, the word was that insurance companies wouldn’t even insure petrol cars. Obviously only the rich were going to be able to afford a petrol car or an EV “with privacy”.

But now, the largest party in the EU is drafting a policy to ditch […]

Australian government throws giant pile of money at renewables — so big, the cost is a secret

By Jo Nova

The Australian Government is building magical weather machines with large amounts of our children’s money, and they won’t even tell us what it will cost. Dear Sir, we’re here to fix the car you didn’t know was broken, give us your wallet? We’ll just help ourselves to your cash and won’t tell you what this costs, OK? (It must cost a fortune, because if it were cheap we’d tell you).

The Labor government promised impossible Net Zero things, and 18 months later everyone knows it is impossible. Renewable investment has ground to a halt, people are not buying EV’s, farmers don’t want the transmission lines, coastal towns don’t want the wind towers, project costs are doubling and tripling, and Florence the borer is still stuck in a very short hole that is meant to be a long one.

Instead of backing away slowly, the Labor Party have gone full Santa-wish-fairy.

Just like that — the plan for 6 gigawatts of unreliable generators will become 7, wait, I mean, 32 gigawatts. Wow.

The Australian grid uses about 30 gigawatts of generation, and already has 65 gigawatts of equipment to generate that. It took three generations to build […]

Snowy 2.0, doomed from the start — after the sinkhole came the poison gas, “worst major project in history”

ABC News

By Jo Nova

It’s just emblematic of your Clean Green Future

Complexity and false hope is eating the crown of Australia’s Net Zero transition — the Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro scheme. Things have gone from “debacle” to Soviet Grade Industrial Fiasco. After Florence-the-tunnel-borer got stuck and created a sinkhole, workers spent seven months trying to shore up the ground, playing God against the mountain — pumping in grout, cement and polyurethane foam. But the foam made a gas so toxic the tunnel had to be evacuated. To make things worse the workers were originally told the gas was water vapor but it turned out to be isocyanate. At every point the Snowy Hydro team hid the bad news and issued propaganda, and it’s only taken the ABC a year to tell us the workers predicted the sinkhole, and three months to investigate the safety breach.

Still, that’s better than the NSW regulator who knows all the other safety breaches but won’t even share them, because it’s so bad ” it may affect the contractor’s reputation.” (Which it surely just did anyway.)

This is your low-carbon future. It was supposed to cost $2 billion but the bill […]

It’s big: The UK does a NetZero u-turn on cars, heaters, and promises no taxes on meat or flights

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

By Jo Nova

Was this the “Peak NetZero” moment for the British Isles?

Perhaps the threat of jailing people for owning the wrong fridge was a step too far?

On Monday the UK government was insisting the ban on petrol cars by 2030 would still go ahead. Today, in a rush, it’s been delayed 5 years, along with slowing down the forced push to get rid of gas boilers. About a fifth of all householders apparently won’t ever have to buy a wildly expensive heat pump they could not afford. (Shame the other four fifths will). People won’t be getting seven different recycling bins, taxes on meat, flying and new rules on car sharing, at least not yet. Here’s hoping they’ll get delayed forever.

Naturally the PM is insisting this is “not a short term decision aimed at winning the next election” — because in a democracy, that would be a terrible thing, right. Imagine trying to appeal to voters. The Sin of it!

Labor immediately promised to undo this travesty of allowing the public to choose whatever kind of car they want for another five years. Which is good news. If Rishi Sunak […]

Rishi Sunak eases up on Climate action and suddenly is a lot more popular

By Jo Nova

It’s like a light has switched on in UK politics

Who would have guessed that voters like their gas guzzling cars? Well everyone would, of course. Which is why it defies explanation that both sides of politics ignored this for so long. But a phase change is underway…

After the Uxbridge by-election surprise, Rishi Sunak suddenly talked about being pragmatic on the road to Net Zero and said he would “Max Out” the North Sea Oil reserves. He vowed to review the “low traffic neighborhoods” (the bossy bollard program) and said he was on the side of the motorists. Since then he’s apparently leapt from -2.7 in net satisfaction polls among Tory members to +20.7, a leap of 23%.

Thanks to NetZeroWatch for keeping us informed:

Rishi Sunak’s popularity surges as he toughens net zero stance

Jack Maidment, The Telegraph

Last month, Mr Sunak’s popularity among the Tory grassroots sunk to its lowest level since he took over at No 10. He received a net satisfaction rating of -2.7 – …But the premier has bounced back in the latest survey of party members, with a score of 20.7 …

A separate […]

The beginning of the end of Net Zero?

By Jo Nova

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

The seismic shift in UK politics that started with the Uxbridge byelection continues apace. It’s the dawning realization that anyone who tries to gift wrap Climate Pain at the election is a sitting duck if their opponents only oppose it. As fast as Rishi Sunak backtracks on Green sacred promises, the Labor Party is working out that their green flank is exposed to election winning missives.

Writers in both The Telegraph and The Financial Times in the UK are suggesting it’s “the end” — the political collapse of the open support for a reckless race to NetZero from both sides of politics. CNN reports that Rishi Sunak is “stoking a culture war on Green policies”. Hallalujuh. Since Uxbridge, “leading Conservatives have gleefully picked up the anti-green baton.” They’re taking a “populist approach to the climate”. Glory be! How dare they, in a democracy, do something that’s popular?

Thanks to NetZeroWatch

Starmer is about to be humiliated by the global retreat from Net Zero

SHERELLE JACOBS, The Telegraph

Tories aren’t just playing politics. The geopolitical ground is shifting beneath the eco fanatics’ feet

This […]

Australians still don’t want to give up steak, cars, gas stoves, or pay much for NetZero

 

Freedom is steak and cars. Picnic at Albert Park Lake, Melbourne 1974 | by Rennie Ellis | NLA

By Jo Nova

How much is The Planet worth?

Polling shows Australians don’t believe there is much of a climate crisis. If they thought the planet would boil, they would surely be willing to spend more than $20 a week.

When it came to other climate-punishments to save the planet, the average person rated giving up meat as the worst option, followed by giving up petrol and diesel cars, and appliances.

The Greens were willing to pay more, but they weren’t so happy about giving up their overseas flights. Doesn’t that say everything? Which will it be, no more polar bears or no more skiing trips to Chamonix?

The truth laid bare in this poll is that Australians have no idea what the real cost of NetZero fantasies are. If they had any idea what the true price was, they’d be livid.

The great success of the green parasites has been to hide the costs of wind and solar schemes

The big message here for the Coalition is that all they had to do to win the last election […]

Absolute Zero plan means no new normal cars, most airports gone, and half the beef by 2030!

By Jo Nova

People are waking up to the dark side of the Absolute Zero plan

The totalitarian wet dreams of a UK government consortium of academics are lighting up the internet. As Benny Peiser and Andrew Montford from NetZeroWatch say — people are starting to pay attention in a big way:

The realities of Net Zero are also hitting home for the general public. The threat that the project represents to livelihoods and liberties is becoming more evident by the day. Recently, the mathematician Norman Fenton tweeted an excerpt from a Government-funded report that set out what Net Zero U.K. might look like: no airports, no shipping, no beef and lamb to eat, and most food imports eliminated. Sounds grim, doesn’t it? Lots of people thought so, and the tweet went viral, garnering over three million views.

The Prof Norman Fenton thread that got 3.4 million views on Twitter is, would you believe, about a 2019 UK Government funded research report. Who knew the masses could get that excited about a 31 page prehistoric report on energy policy, but holy-cajoley: it’s a wake up call of just how savage the Absolute Zero plan aims to be. […]

Global Patsy Australia sacrifices coal, gas, cheap electricity, lifestyle in quest to cool Earth by no degrees

By Jo Nova

Welcome to Futility Island

Shut down Australia and save 0.01 degrees.

Australia’s role as the Global Renewables Crash Test Dummy continues.

Having installed more renewables per capita than anywhere on Earth, our PM declared that the decade of doing nothing was over. It was time to crash faster, or something.

So, the revamped Australian carbon tax called the Safeguard Mechanism does everything it isn’t supposed to. Gas and electricity prices will rise, climate targets will be harder to reach, the grid will get more unstable, and investors will run a mile now that new gas fields have to be “net zero” — meaning presumably they will have to buy carbon credits before they sell their first cubic meter of gas. The field of ineptitude even reaches overseas — with less gas for sale — our trading partners will just buy more coal.

Australia will spend even more billions to win a fashion contest at UN dinner parties and cool the world by 0.0 degrees C.

The Australian Electricity market melted down last winter, and stopped trading, because we didn’t have enough gas for the artificial “transition”. Even the hard-left AEMO — our climate activist electricity […]

Net Zero by 2050? We need about 10,000 years of current Lithium production to get there first

By Jo Nova

So much for Net Zero by 2050

Simon P. Michaux calls it “Minerals Blindness” — the inability to see that there are just not enough metals to get to Net Zero.

He is an Australian working for the Geological Survey of Finland. He’s an Associate Professor of Mineral Processing and Geometallurgy, and has added up the tonnage required to convert the first generation of the fleet needed (theoretically) to get to Net Zero. So that’s just 25 years worth of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries.

And then we need to do it all again?

Michaux estimates that we need 944 million tons of lithium alone to go Net Zero (the first time). But at the moment every year we dig up about 100,000 tons a year, or 0.01% of what we need to reach the Net Zero target. Current total known reserves of lithium throughout the world in 2022 are just 26 million tons. Total known (best guess) resources are 98 million tons).* Obviously as the price of lithium rises, we will find a lot more. We haven’t been looking for lithium very long so we may even find ten times as much. But at our […]

Biden’s huge US Climate goals suddenly pop — leaving Senators shellshocked, and professors sobbing…

The US will not be able to meet the 2030 targets without this legislation (and all those subsidies)

After seven months of negotiations, and the big plan being rejected then shaved and sliced and diced, Senator Manchin has rejected all climate and energy rules. Inflation is to high and too painful…

Manchin pulls plug on Biden’s climate plan The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, pulled the plug on Thursday on negotiations to salvage key pieces of President Biden’s agenda, informing his party’s leaders that he would not support funding for climate or energy programs…

Without action by Congress, it will be impossible to meet Mr. Biden’s goal of cutting U.S. emissions roughly in half by the end of this decade. That target was aimed at keeping the climate stable at about 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to preindustrial levels.

“Political headlines are of no value to the millions of Americans struggling to afford groceries and gas as inflation soars to 9.1 percent,” said Sam Runyon, a spokeswoman for Mr. Manchin….

Because Democrats hold the Senate by a bare 50-50 majority, Mr. […]

Well that explains everything: Bankers bullied Australia into Net Zero

Hands Up: It’s Net Zero now or a 1.5% interest rate hike?

So Australia is adopting Net Zero because the Global Financiers, who only want to save the world, would have refused to lend us money without jacking up our interest rates by 1.5%. The banker punishment would have meant a “17% investor exodus”. Fancy a stock market collapse?

This remarkable admission comes in the modeling released today by the Morrison government. No one is even trying to hide it.

At least we can stop pretending this has anything to do with science or the voters. Just cut out the IPCC and go straight for the BlackRock Temperature Tax, eh?

Note the “penalties” are imposed by global financiers:

Modelling shows real cost of no net-zero carbon emissions

Greg Brown and Geoff Chambers, The Australian

Businesses and households would have faced interest rate hikes of up to 1.5 per cent under expected penalties imposed by global financiers if the government had failed to adopt net zero emissions by 2050, modelling for the Glasgow climate package shows.

The penalty regime would have sparked a 17 per cent investment collapse by the middle of the […]

We’ll spend $120 b because a foreign unaccountable committee says so, but we won’t spend 0.1% of that checking their science

By Joanne Nova

Shut down Australia and save 0.01 degrees.

Scott Morrison will spend $120 billion of our money on technology because it might solve a problem that a foreign unelected, unaudited committee says we need to solve. So we’ll spent $120 billion on a plan to change the weather on Planet Earth. But we won’t spend one thousandth of that to independently check what the committee says. Almost all the climate scientists who support the IPCC decision are ones whose income increases if they find a crisis.

All the people finding flaws are volunteers, or about-to-be volunteers involuntarily.

Scott Morrison’s $120bn new-tech plunge to hit net zero

The Australian

Scott Morrison has unveiled a “middle path” for Australia to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 which promises dramatic carbon reductions across the electricity and transport sectors and a massive investment of up to $120bn for emerging technologies to help achieve the Glasgow target.

The Prime Minister on Tuesday announced the government’s 126-page plan, promising it would not cause massive job losses and disruption to the regions and that Australians would be better off by $2000 on average by 2050 compared to taking […]