“Net-Zero Tyranny”

Ten years on from the referendum, the Brexit debate is mostly about what it has or hasn’t already delivered. Rupert Darwall argues that its greatest prize still lies ahead. Net zero and Brexit were always linked. Because the EU is an administrative state built to regulate and unable to deregulate, its member states are locked into net zero by treaty and court. Britain, having left, can repeal its commitment to net zero with a single Act of Parliament. That, Darwall contends, is the biggest Brexit benefit of all – and the example that might yet rescue Europe from itself.

h/t handy n handsome

The west needs to have a denazification program for Net Zero fanatics like Carney.

The modern world and the rich, free lives it brought are both dying in Britain. Energy consumption has fallen by about 30% since 2005 and electricity consumption by about 23%, both due to climate policy costs, and particularly that of renewable energy, subsidies to which amount to £25 billion a year, 40% of the total cost of electricity supply. Insofar as we are maintaining our standard of living, we do so by borrowing and importing the goods of fossil- and nuclear-fuelled Asia. That borrowing cannot continue indefinitely, and an abrupt reversal in distressed circumstances is all but certain, with the consequence that wind and solar are not only a threat to British prosperity, but to any realistic hope of reducing emissions.

Homeowners are being forced to tear out air conditioning from their private properties under climate laws, despite rising temperatures.

Council planning officers ordered residents to remove air-con units over fears they produce too much carbon dioxide, stating they should only be used as a “last resort”.

There was a time when I would not believe this to be other than the Bee.

For years, some of the most alarming projections of climate change were built upon a scenario known as RCP 8.5 and its successor, SSP5-8.5.

The public rarely heard those technical labels. Instead, they encountered the conclusions. Headlines warned of climate catastrophe. Studies projected severe economic losses, rising mortality, agricultural disruption, sea-level rise, and increasingly extreme weather. Governments cited such projections when developing policy. Courts referenced them in climate litigation. Businesses incorporated them into risk assessments.

While shareholder proposals were originally designed as a tool for investors to safeguard and enhance the long-term value of their holdings, a well-funded network of activist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and climate-focused groups has increasingly repurposed them to advance environmental and ideological agendas. In Canada, this campaign has zeroed in on the oil and gas sector and the financial institutions that support it. Yet, despite years of persistent pressure, these efforts appear to be hitting a wall — suggesting that the era of well-funded ideological environmentalism may be entering a less profitable phase.

In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, I was making $1.30 per week delivering 85 newspapers, five days per week. From such suckers as me, strong economies are built. Apart from my employer, I was also resentful of my father for not building a bomb shelter in the backyard, ensuring the survival of his progeny — me. Had I been asked if I really, really wanted my father to build a bomb shelter, I would have said “absolutely… 100%.” If I had been asked to give up half of my $1.30 per week to get the bomb shelter, I would have balked. I really, really wanted the bomb shelter, but only if it was free to me.

WITH 2050 in mind, a government report has announced a new target reduction of emissions by the period 2038-2042. The same report restated the earlier manifesto aim to have nearly all our electricity generation ‘clean’ (i.e. emission-free) by 2030. The three aims of the 2030 plan are ‘a secure and affordable energy supply . . . new industries and investments . . . and protection of the environment’.

Notice that ‘affordable’? ‘Families and businesses across the UK,’ they say, ‘will continue to reap the benefits of the clean energy transition.’ Are your clean energy benefits continuing? Have any of you received help of any kind from this Net Zero madness?

THE Government has signed up to a legal target to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 87 per cent by 2040, Ed Miliband has announced.

The rather bland press release from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) states: ‘Families and businesses across the UK will continue to reap the benefits of the clean energy transition, as the Government sets a new emissions target to further protect family finances, grow the economy and tackle the climate crisis.