Energy
Net Zero’s days are numbered? Why Europeans are souring on the climate agenda
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Dr. Benny Peiser recently spoke about how the E.U. and various European nations have started a ‘rollback’ of their climate agendas due to ‘increasing costs and increasing hostility from the public.’
A recent presentation given in Canada brings welcome news to the reality-based community: Net Zero’s days are numbered. The costs of the “utopian” green agenda have been realized, and the public are not buying it any more.
This is the message of Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who was in Calgary on April 9 to speak about “Europe’s Net Zero rebellion and the implications for Canada.”
“The game is over for anyone who is willing to commit industrial suicide through the implementation of Net Zero policies,” he says, going on to cite public opinion and political decisions which are driving the political agenda of the future.
Peiser shows how the European Union and the nations of Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, and Italy have started this “rollback” – due to “increasing costs and increasing hostility from the public.”
Saying that Canada, where he spoke, is “maybe five years” behind the Net Zero rollback in Europe, he said the agenda was in retreat there as its “astronomical” costs have now been grasped by the public.
“This is direct,” he says.
We have been telling [the public] for 15 years this will be very expensive … and your energy bills are going up because of the renewables.
This is all far too abstract for people. They don’t get that.
Citing reports which show that Net Zero will cost over a trillion euros a year, every year, he says:
This they get directly – the car they can’t drive, the way they heat their homes. What they’re allowed to do.
That has caused huge opposition and a lot of headache for governments.
Peiser says political parties across Europe have realized that they face being swept from power in the forthcoming elections in June.
Politics pivots back to reality
The headaches Peiser cites include the near collapse of the German government late last year over a policy to make heat pumps compulsory. A week after Peiser’s talk, news came that the Scottish coalition government has collapsed, with the Greens withdrawing support from the ruling SNP after the abandonment of climate change targets.
Politicians are faced with a choice between electoral oblivion and public opinion, and Peiser says this has led to structural change in European policy.
Peiser believes that the enormous public support behind the farmer protests, coupled with green policies creating crisis in the German government, has made the E.U. think again.
“As a result of these protests governments and the European Commission itself have begun to cave in,” Peiser said. “They are not just losing farmers but a large chunk of the public at the same time.”
Peiser is aware that election cycles see politicians shelve unpopular policies – only to resume them after the votes have been counted. Yet he notes a structural change in priorities.
“The E.U. in its draft agenda for the next five years has decided to relegate climate and shift to defense,” he continued, saying that the European Union is shifting from the green agenda to the “real agenda.”
This pivot to reality is one that is long overdue. As Peiser points out, the case for Net Zero is one that is made out of words, not of facts. To take one example, that of electric vehicles, he says “the biggest fear in Europe is not climate change. The biggest fear is cheap electric vehicles from China.”
The E.U.’s recent Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) has been shaded by economic and industrial concerns, as well as fear from the climate lobby that it too is a rollback of Net Zero commitments.
Passed on April 25, its name alone would suggest business as usual for the climate agenda.
However, in a press conference introducing the Act last November, German “conservative” MEP Christian Ehler was keen to anticipate criticism from the Green lobby, saying “this is not an attempt to scrap social achievements or environmental law.”
Ehler’s emphasis here was on industry and whether Europe will have an economic and industrial future – or not.
Ehler stressed the need to keep industry “on our side” and that the past practices of regulation threatens the economic future of European industry,
It’s simply reflecting the very fact that our industry is burdened by regulation in a way that we can’t expect them to succeed – if we really want to have them on our side – and if we really have to have an economic future for the European industry.
READ: New documentary exposes climate agenda as ‘scam’ to increase globalist power and profit
An act in name only
This may explain why, according to two experts, the Act is in fact just words. Yet it is not only the threat of Green-inspired regulation which faces European industry.
Chinese dominance of the market has rendered E.U. Net Zero measures to create a “sustainable” industry producing “green technology” such as solar panels mere “paper tigers,” according to one analyst.
Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at think-tank Bruegel said this in response to the E.U.’s new Act.
His comments, reported by Euractiv on April 26, included an explanation why the legislation “doesn’t change anything.”
A second analyst, Nils Redeker of the Berlin-based Jacques Delors Centre, agreed according to Euractiv that the new measures “could, in practice, and will most likely, be ignored.”
The green lights are going out all over Europe, most obviously in what was once its industrial and economic powerhouse.
Germany in crisis
Following a budget crisis which also threatened the survival of the German government’s “Red/Green/Yellow” or “traffic light” coalition last November, the former E.U. paymaster of Germany was said to be “likely in recession.”
The February 19 report by the Daily Telegraph noted the resulting “uncertainty” over Net Zero implementation. This is another sign of the impact of reality on the deeply unpopular policies of what Peiser called the “utopia” imagined by the Green lobby.
The Daily Telegraph also reported that the German central bank had warned of “no end in sight” for the “ongoing weakness” of Europe’s largest economy.
The Bundesbank added that “uncertainty regarding climate and transformation policy remains elevated.”
In his analysis of the electoral cost of Net Zero, Peiser seems to have read the room very well. The political climate has changed.
As the British government is faced with power cuts over soaring demand for electricity, its refusal to build more gas-fired power stations may see the actual lights go out as well as the figurative beacon of an agenda the Conservative Party have greenlit for years.
U.K. climate chief quits
The outgoing head of the U.K.’s climate change committee has conceded that Net Zero is a toxic brand:
Net Zero has definitely become a slogan that I feel occasionally is now unhelpful, because it’s so associated with the campaigns against it.
Chris Stark, who looks exactly as you would imagine he would, blamed a minority faction of imaginary “culture warriors” whilst saying on April 22 in The Guardian that the cost of living was effectively irrelevant.
“It’s the culture warriors who have really taken against it,” said Stark. “A small group of politicians or political voices has moved in to say that net zero is something that you can’t afford, net zero is something that you should be afraid of … But we’ve still got to reduce emissions. In the end, that’s all that matters.”
Stark’s missionary zeal is untouched by a Europe-wide survey cited by in Peiser’s presentation. According to the survey, conducted in January by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), it is the climate zealots themselves who are the minority.
With a sample from 12 European nations, it shows a clear majority in 10 countries for “reducing energy bills” over “reducing carbon emissions.” In Germany, support for lower energy costs is more than twice that for the higher ones promised by “reducing emissions.”
Peiser explained, “What [the survey] tells you is that a clear minority of Europeans are prioritizing the climate issue over their energy cost issue.”
READ: Climate expert warns against extreme ‘weather porn’ from alarmists pushing ‘draconian’ policies
Describing the clear majority of European citizens against the cost of Net Zero, he says “that is the most dramatic change I’ve seen in the last 20 years.”
This “realization of cost moment” is one which Peiser shows had been predicted in the 1970s by Anthony Downs, whose “issue attention cycle” predicted public understanding of the true cost as the point beyond which climate policies will no longer enjoy public support.
The graph roughly charts the interest and support of the public, which moves from ignorance of the “problem” to generate public support through a sense of alarm. This enthusiasm steeply fades as the public realizes the price of the product they have been sold.
Yet this process is based on the common sense to the common man. The U.K.’s former climate change chief Christopher Stark is immune to this determining factor.
He displays the alarming detachment from reality which typifies the Net Zero zealot, and which Peiser warns is proving electorally – and industrially – suicidal.
Speaking of the implementation of Net Zero, Stark claimed, against rapid deindustrialization, soaring energy prices, and former measures to restrict cars and home heating to costly and inferior alternatives, that “the lifestyle change that goes with this is not enormous at all.”
This also ignores the likely “power cuts” that Britain will face, given a massive upsurge in Net Zero-driven electricity demand.
The Daily Telegraph, reporting accusations from the Green lobby that Rishi Sunak was “abandoning” Net Zero, said on March 17 that without more gas fired power generation, support for Net Zero “would collapse.”
The report continued that “the U.K. would almost certainly endure power cuts, causing civic and commercial havoc, without more gas-fired baseload in place.”
The piece concludes with a verdict which is now becoming a theme: “And then the case for tackling climate change, already increasingly questioned, would become politically toxic.”
The rule of law – or the rule of lawyers
As Peiser notes, this toxification has weakened the power of politics itself, with the rule of law being replaced by the rule of lawyers. He notes a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which condemned the Swiss government for “violations of the Convention [on Human Rights] for failing to implement sufficient measures to combat climate change.”
Peiser said the ruling showed that democratic majorities do not have the legal power to refuse an agenda enforced by activist judges. He went on:
The judges in their in their ruling said it’s kind of naive to think that democracy would work just with majorities in Parliament and that only judges can rule or decide what makes legal sense – that’s why it’s so important for judges to tell parliaments what they should do.
That’s essentially what they were saying today.
Peiser was speaking on the same day the ruling was announced, which according to a Swiss report will “have a direct impact on the Council of Europe’s 46 member states” and that “its ramifications will extend to the whole world.”
This element of legal insurrection is one direct example of how the sovereignty of democracy is being undermined. In this case, a group of elderly female climate campaigners received a sympathetic hearing from the ECHR’s presiding judge, Siofra O’Leary. Her judgment overruled the Swiss courts’ dismissal of the case. It read:
The Court found that the national courts had not provided convincing reasons as to why they had considered it unnecessary to examine the merits of the complaints. They had failed to take into consideration the compelling scientific evidence concerning climate change and had not taken the association’s complaints seriously.
As Peiser warns, we are ruled by Science Followers, whose emotional enthusiasm for the climate panic talks past the costs of the sale of this agenda. It is a product which most people now recognize promises the permanent collapse of living standards in the West, and is taking democracy down with cries for climate “justice.”
Suicidal policy vs. ‘populism’
Peiser says Net Zero is already “suicidal” – and not in name only. Changing the branding will not wash with voters, Peiser says, as the impact of cost and on freedom is “direct.”
This, he says, is what is driving the beginning of the end of Net Zero.
“Europeans have been told that this Net Zero issue and renewables and so on will make life easier for people.” Instead, he says, “the opposite has happened.”
They’ve been told that energy costs would go down. They’ve gone up.
He observes a factor which could apply to practically any of the policies he also claims are driving “populism.”
So people are beginning to realize that what they’ve been told hasn’t actually materialized.
The opposite has materialized.
Peiser himself notes that this “opposite effect” is driving the rise of “populist parties … skeptical of mass immigration, of Net Zero and of other mainstream policies.”
He says, “I don’t know exactly why they’re called populist but something makes them popular.”
Yet his own presentation shows a simple explanation. What is called “populism” is simply a reaction to the insanity of the policies of national suicide presented as wisdom. The emergence of these parties is the opposite reaction to a political system whose every argument is a contradiction of reality.
Peiser says that this political correction is coming, and soon.
The mainstream parties are concerned that they will hemorrhaging voters.
That’s what the prospects are for the elections in June.
His assessment is shared by the European Council on Foreign Relations, which predicted a “sharp right turn” in the forthcoming E.U. Parliament elections.
He says that for Europe “there might be – for the first time – a center right populist majority in Parliament. If that were to happen of course all bets are off.”
What is more, Peiser concludes that political climate change is coming home – to yours:
That’s the situation in Europe which sooner or later will come to a theater close to you.
Energy
What does a Trump presidency means for Canadian energy?
From Resource Works
Heather-Exner Pirot of the Business Council of Canada and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute spoke with Resource Works about the transition to Donald Trump’s energy policy, hopes for Keystone XL’s revival, EVs, and more.
Do you think it is accurate to say that Trump’s energy policy will be the complete opposite of Joe Biden’s? Or will it be more nuanced than that?
It’s more nuanced than that. US oil and gas production did grow under Biden, as it did under Obama. It’s actually at record levels right now. The US is producing the most oil and gas per day that any nation has ever produced in the history of the world.
That said, the federal government in the US has imposed relatively little control over production. In the absence of restrictive emissions and climate policies that we have in Canada, most of the oil production decisions have been made based on market forces. With prices where they’re at currently, there’s not a lot of shareholder appetite to grow that significantly.
The few areas you can expect change: leasing more federal lands and off shore areas for oil and gas development; rescinding the pause in LNG export permits; eliminating the new methane fee; and removing Biden’s ambitious vehicle fuel efficiency standards, which would subsequently maintain gas demand.
I would say on nuclear energy, there won’t be a reversal, as that file has earned bipartisan support. If anything, a Trump Admin would push regulators to approve SMRs models and projects faster. They want more of all kinds of energy.
Is Keystone XL a dead letter, or is there enough planning and infrastructure still in-place to restart that project?
I haven’t heard any appetite in the private sector to restart that in the short term. I know Alberta is pushing it. I do think it makes sense for North American energy security – energy dominance, as the Trump Admin calls – and I believe there is a market for more Canadian oil in the USA; it makes economic sense. But it’s still looked at as too politically risky for investors.
To have it move forward I think you would need some government support to derisk it. A TMX model, even. And clear evidence of social license and bipartisan support so it can survive the next election on both sides of the border.
Frankly, Northern Gateway is the better project for Canada to restart, under a Conservative government.
Keystone XL was cancelled by Biden prior to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Do you think that the reshoring/friendshoring of the energy supply is a far bigger priority now?
It absolutely is a bigger priority. But it’s also a smaller threat. You need to appreciate that North America has become much more energy independent and secure than it has ever been. Both US and Canada are producing at record levels. Combined, we now produce more than the Middle East (41 million boe/d vs 38 million boe/d). And Canada has taken a growing share of US imports (now 60%) even as their import levels have declined.
But there are two risks on the horizon: the first is that oil is a non renewable resource and the US is expected to reach a peak in shale oil production in the next few years. No one wants to go back to the days when OPEC + had dominant market power. I think there will be a lot of demand for Canadian oil to fill the gap left by any decline in US oil production. And Norway’s production is expected to peak imminently as well.
The second is the need from our allies for LNG. Europe is still dependent on Russia for natural gas, energy demand is growing in Asia, and high industrial energy costs are weighing on both. More and cheaper LNG from North America is highly important for the energy security of our allies, and thus the western alliance as it faces a challenge from Russia, China and Iran.
Canada has little choice but to follow the US lead on many issues such as EVs and tariffs on China. Regarding energy policy, does Canada’s relative strength in the oil and gas sector give it a stronger hand when it comes to having an independent energy policy?
I don’t think we want an independent energy policy. I would argue we both benefit from alignment and interdependence. And we’ve built up that interdependence on the infrastructure side over decades: pipelines, refineries, transmission, everything.
That interdependence gives us a stronger hand in other areas of the economy. Any tariffs on Canadian energy would absolutely not be in American’s interests in terms of their energy dominance agenda. Trump wants to drop energy costs, not hike them.
I think we can leverage tariff exemptions in energy to other sectors, such as manufacturing, which is more vulnerable. But you have to make the case for why that makes sense for US, not just Canada. And that’s because we need as much industrial capacity in the west as we can muster to counter China and Russia. America First is fine, but this is not the time for America Alone.
Do you see provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan being more on-side with the US than the federal government when it comes to energy?
Of course. The North American capital that is threatening their economic interests is not Washington DC; it’s Ottawa.
I think you are seeing some recognition – much belated and fast on the heels of an emissions cap that could shut in over 2 million boe of production! – that what makes Canada important to the United States and in the world is our oil and gas and uranium and critical minerals and agricultural products.
We’ve spent almost a decade constraining those sectors. There is no doubt a Trump Admin will be complicated, but at the very least it’s clarified how important those sectors are to our soft and hard power.
It’s not too late for Canada to flex its muscles on the world stage and use its resources to advance our national interests, and our allies’ interests. In fact, it’s absolutely critical that we do so.
Energy
What Will Be the Future of the Keystone XL Pipeline Under President Trump?
From EnergyNow.ca
By Terry Winnitoy, EnergyNow
The Keystone XL Pipeline, proposed in 2008, was designed to transport Canadian crude oil from Alberta to refineries in the United States, specifically to Steele City, Nebraska, and onward to refineries in Illinois and Texas, as well as to an oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma.
Spanning approximately 1,179 miles and designed to transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day, the pipeline promised significant economic and energy security benefits. However, it became a focal point of political and environmental controversy, leading to its eventual cancellation by Presidents Obama and Biden.
Here’s a brief look at its history, the reasons it should have been built, the political dynamics that led to its cancellation and will President-elect Trump revive it?
Why the Keystone XL Pipeline Should Have Been Built
Economic and Job Creation
The pipeline was projected to create thousands of construction jobs and several hundred permanent jobs, providing a significant boost to the economy. It was also expected to stimulate economic activity through the development of related infrastructure and services.
Energy Security
By facilitating the efficient transport of a large volume of oil from a stable and friendly neighboring country, the pipeline would have reduced American dependence on oil imports from more volatile regions, enhancing national energy security.
Environmental Safety
Pipelines are generally safer and more environmentally friendly for transporting oil compared to rail or truck, with lower risks of spills and accidents. The Keystone XL was designed with the latest technology to minimize leaks and environmental impact.
Regulatory Oversight
The project underwent extensive environmental reviews and was subject to strict regulatory standards to ensure it adhered to environmental protection and safety measures.
Political Reasons for Cancellation
Environmental Activism
The pipeline became a symbol for environmentalists who opposed further development of fossil fuel infrastructure. They argued it would contribute to climate change by enabling the extraction and consumption of oil sands, which are more carbon-intensive than other oil sources.
Obama’s Cancellation
President Obama rejected the pipeline in 2015, citing environmental concerns and its potential impact on global climate change. He argued that approving the pipeline would have undercut America’s leadership on climate change.
Trump’s Reversal and Biden’s Final Cancellation
President Trump revived the project in 2017, citing economic benefits and energy security. However, President Biden canceled it again on his first day in office in 2021, fulfilling a campaign promise to prioritize climate change issues and transition towards renewable energy.
Political Symbolism
For both Obama and Biden, the decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline was also a symbolic gesture, demonstrating a commitment to environmental sustainability and a shift away from fossil fuel dependence in line with their administrations’ climate policies.
Will President-Elect Trump Reinstate It?
Currently, there is no definitive answer on whether President-elect Trump will reinstate the Keystone XL Pipeline. His previous administration showed support for the project, citing its potential economic and energy security benefits. However, reinstating the pipeline would require navigating significant political, legal, and environmental challenges that have developed over the years.
It would also depend on the current geopolitical, economic, and environmental priorities at the time of his taking office. The Keystone XL Pipeline’s history is a complex tapestry of economic aspirations, environmental concerns, and political maneuvers.
Its cancellation has been a contentious issue, reflecting the broader national and global debates over energy policy and climate change strategy. Whether it will be reinstated remains a significant question, contingent on a multitude of factors including political will, environmental policies, and market dynamics.
That all said, re-instating its approval might be the perfect “in your face” moment for Trump to Obama and Biden as he begins his second term of presidency. We’ll have to wait and see.
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