Two weeks of climate talks organized by the United Nations finished with developing countries demanding more clarity from their richer counterparts on when a promised package of $100 billion in aid will materialize. The holdup threatens to unravel three years of work to complete the Paris Agreement, a landmark deal reached in 2015 that set out an ambition to limit fossil-fuel pollution in all nations for the first time. —National Post, 11 May 2018
A rising tide of industries moving operations from China and India to less-developed Asian countries undermines global targets to reduce climate-changing emissions, researchers said. The shifts in production and trade will make it harder to meet the Paris Agreement goal of cutting emissions enough to keep the rise in global average temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times, Guan said. —Reuters, 14 May 2018
New academic research on whether to repower or extend the lifetime of an obsolescent wind farm in Europe reveals that without new subsidies for repowered sites, low-cost lifetime extensions focused on maximizing return before decommissioning are more probable, with a potential to affect about half the wind turbine fleet in Germany, Spain, and Denmark. In the absence of new subsidies, we could be looking at the beginning of the end for the wind industry in Europe. —GWPF Energy, 13 May 2018
A statement to the effect that there is a ‘consensus among scientists’ on AGW is more or less equivalent to saying that ‘the science is settled’. While there is certainly a consensus among scientists that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase the average surface temperature of the world above what it would have been otherwise, there is far from a consensus that the rise in temperature will be large enough to be significant.
Bear in mind also that ‘what the temperature would have been otherwise’ is also subject to natural variability and is therefore very uncertain. There is even less of a consensus among scientists, environmentalists, and economists that any rise of temperature would necessarily be detrimental. —Full essay
Planned coal-fired capacity additions from a number of countries in and around the Middle East will add 41 gigawatts (GW) of new electric generating capacity over the next decade, based on announced projects and projects currently in the permitting process. Another 3 GW of coal-fired capacity is currently under construction in these countries. About 12 GW of coal-fired generating capacity—or about half of the region’s coal-fired generating fleet—has come online since 2006. —U.S. Energy Information Administration, 11 May 2018
This article was dead wrong when it said that there was a consensus that carbon dioxide would increase earth’s surface temperature. Looking at history over geological time, carbon dioxide levels always followed the temperature changes, not the other way around. This shows CO2 is not controlling the temperature and strongly implies temperature is controlling CO2.
As I have said before the primary interest of developing nations in the climate change movement is to get a lot of money for free. The developed nations are not going to come close to providing the money promised in the Paris Treaty. That is why the clarity on when a promised package of $100 billion in aid will materialize is not happening. The article is right in that it threatens the Paris Treaty, but I also believe it threatens the whole UN climate change effort.
Wild Turbines No Birds and Bats Yes we dont need wacky alternative energy we need to use reliable power
Re: obsolete wind turbines.
Wouldn’t they have been built where wind was the most dependable? Wouldn’t those locations be ideal for the latest behemoths? Not without subsidies.
The obsolesce of wind turbines was a mystery to me as well. My best guess is like all mechanical devices they wear out. Re-powering them might mean replacing worn out bearings.
Imagine the melt down when reality settles in . Humans are not in control of the earth’s temperature and guess what … any warming we get is generally far more positive than cooling and we all know climate does indeed change . Now politicians , “scientists ” and rent seekers quit killing the poor and elderly through pursuit of your vain self interest .
Tax payers should not be paying for Conferences encouraging furtherance of the earth has a fever scam .