Germany’s green energy policies will likely lead to disaster, according a major environmentalist in the country. Germany estimates that it will spend over $1.1 trillion on its “Energiewende” plan to boost green energy production and fight global warming. But the plan hasn’t achieved the government’s goal of significantly reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. “Policymakers might try to continue on their current course towards economic disaster,” Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, chairman of the German Wildlife Foundation, wrote in a report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. “A serious move away from the Energiewende would amount to an admission of a strategic blunder, with unforeseeable consequences for the current political establishment.” –Andrew Follett, The Daily Caller, 25 January 2017
German emissions increased in 2016 for a second year in a row as a result of the country closing one of its nuclear plants and replacing it with coal and natural gas, a new Environmental Progress analysis finds. German emissions would have declined had it not closed a nuclear plant and replaced it with coal and natural gas. Not only did new solar and wind not make up for the lost nuclear, the percentage of time during 2016 that solar and wind produced electricity declined dramatically. —Environmental Progress, 13 January 2017
At a mid-January meeting in parliament buildings in London, Professor Fritz Vahrenholt provided a very detailed monologue on the motivations behind Germany’s energy transition, and why he feels it’s misguided and potentially disastrous. Had the lecture been delivered by somebody from the coal power sector, they might have been written off as a ‘climate denier’, but given Vahrenholt’s background and pedigree as a backer of renewable energy, he is not so easily dismissed and his position must cause some unease for those so adamant that climate change is manmade. –Diarmaid Williams, Power International, 25 January 2016
The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have been happily married for more than a decade, with signs of friction hardly ever surfacing in public. However, they may not see entirely eye to eye on global warming, one of the issues closest to the prince’s heart, if comments the duchess made yesterday are anything to go by. At a reception for British winegrowers, she suggested that climate change may not be an entirely bad thing. The duchess was addressing a reception at Clarence House marking the 50th anniversary of the UK Vineyards Association (UKVA). Praising the vision of the those who began producing wine half a century ago, she said: “We don’t exactly have the climate, or we didn’t then. I expect with global warming it’s going to get better and better and we are going to get better and better wine.” This, clearly, was a state of affairs that met with her approval. –Valentine Low, The Times, 26 January 2017
