European Nations Set To Wipe Out Forests To Cheat On CO2 Emissions

It looks like greenwash.  European nations publicly keen to boost their climate credentials by switching to “green” biomass are accused of working behind the scenes to expunge their carbon emissions from burning wood in power stations from national emissions statistics. Under international climate treaties such as the Paris Agreement, burning biomass like wood is defined as carbon-neutral, even though it emits as least as much carbon as fossil fuels. Mowat says that countries with plans to replace coal and nuclear fuel burning with wood are lobbying for rules that will obscure likely resulting emissions. –Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 23 May 2017

A number of  forecast models have reduced their El Niño bias for the spring. This is primarily due to colder than normal band of subsurface water in the eastern Pacific Ocean remaining a similar size or even growing in recent months, contrary to the normal El Niño trend. —North Queensland Register, 20 May 2017

The latest university prank is embarrassing to academia and hilarious for the rest of us. Philosophy professor Peter Boghossian and mathematician Dr James Lindsay made up a learned paper on the “conceptual penis” as a “gender-performative, highly fluid social construct” that is “the conceptual driver behind much of climate change”, stuffed it full of random jargon and fake references and then got it through peer review into an academic journal. –Matt Ridley, The Times, 23 May 2017

The Trump administration has proposed eliminating nearly $1.6 billion in international programs aimed at promoting green energy and fighting global warming. That includes providing no funding to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund (GCF), which hands out money for programs to adapt or mitigate global warming. —The Daily Caller, 23 May 2017

Oil markets are expecting the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies to extend their supply quotas when they meet in Vienna on Thursday. The current production cuts have failed to drain bloated oil inventories due to a remarkable resurgence in U.S. shale production. Keeping production down will not be easy for the coalition of 24 oil producers, 11 of which are not in OPEC. Even if fully implemented, an extension of the deal will likely just prevent oil prices from falling, while giving more market share to U.S. shale. —World Politics Review, 24 May 2017