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Net Zero Watch press release 12 April 2024 From the director Dear Samizdat Subscribers and Net Zero Watch supporters The astonishing legal ruling from the European Court of Human Rights this week show
12 April 2024From the directorDear Samizdat Subscribers and Net Zero Watch supporters The astonishing legal ruling from the European Court of Human Rights this week shows us just how high the stakes are in the Net Zero game. It is clear that the fanatics in the green movement are willing to sacrifice everything – democracy, liberty, civilisation itself – to their decarbonisation agenda. If anyone was not taking the green threat seriously before, they certainly shouldn’t be now. It’s not all bad news this week though. The steady trickle of evidence that society is starting to turn away from the green agenda is continuing. It’s starting to get quite hard to find traditional car manufacturers who haven’t seen their EV sales slide, spoken out against the Net Zero drive, or quietly started scaling back their ambitions in the area. Heat pump manufacturers are having their hopes disappointed too. So there is much to be hopeful about. There is even a story this week even has a story of a national legislature working back towards sanity. So we shouldn’t be despondent. But we still need your support more than ever, if we are going to roll back the green machine for good. With all best wishes Andrew
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The headlinesTory backlash against European Court of Human Rights climate ruling Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2024 Climate change ruling may be counter-productive, UK judge predicts
Joshua Rozenberg, 10 April 2024 UK pharma companies told to make fewer drugs in draft net zero guidelines
Daily Telegraph, 9 April 2024 Knesset passes 1st reading of climate bill without any clear budgeting
Times of Israel, 4 April 2024 Net zero ban on petrol cars is wrong, says Aston Martin owner
The Daily Telegraph, 11 April 2024 Volkswagen electric car sales plunge as Europe returns to petrol
Daily Telegraph, 10 April 2024 Heat pump owners host visitor days in scramble to increase demand
Daily Telegraph, 11 April 2024 China leads global coal power surge as capacity hits record
Bloomberg, 11 April 2024
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Tory backlash against European Court of Human Rights climate rulingDaily Telegraph, 9 April 2024
Senior Tories urge Rishi Sunak to take Britain out of European Convention on Human Rights after landmark decision
The Energy Secretary has led a Tory backlash against the European Court of Human Rights after it issued a landmark ruling that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change. Claire Coutinho said she was “concerned” that Strasbourg judges were taking over decisions best made by elected politicians. Senior Tories urged Rishi Sunak to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the wake of the ruling. They accused the court of acting in a “profoundly undemocratic” way and being “bent out of shape” by “progressive” activists and politicians. The row came as an exclusive opinion poll for The Telegraph revealed that half of Conservative voters believe the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Some 49 per cent of people who backed the party at the 2019 general election wanted to quit the convention, according to Savanta polling, with 35 per cent wanting to stay. In 2022, polling had found that 43 per cent of Tory voters favoured quitting the ECHR. Last week, Mr Sunak raised the possibility of the UK leaving it if the Strasbourg court continued to block his delayed plans to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda. On Tuesday, Ms Coutinho said: “I’m concerned by the Strasbourg court decision. How we tackle climate change affects our economic, energy and national security. Elected politicians are best placed to make those decisions.” She made the comments after – in the first judgment of its kind – Strasbourg judges ruled that the human rights of a group of elderly Swiss women had been violated by the failure of their government to act quickly enough to tackle climate change. The court found the Swiss state had breached article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the “right to respect for private and family life”. Full story
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Climate change ruling may be counter-productive, UK judge predictsJoshua Rozenberg, 10 April 2024 Yesterday’s judgment on climate change “may well have achieved exactly the opposite effect to what was intended”, the UK’s judge at the European Court of Human Rights said in a partly dissenting opinion. Judge Eicke accused his judicial colleagues of going beyond what was legitimate and permissible for them to do. They had tried to run before they could walk, he believed. Eicke was worried that the 16 judges who held that Switzerland had breached the human rights of older Swiss women had given them false hope. In his view, the courts could not provide an answer to the problems of climate change and litigation would not speed up the measures that were needed. There was a significant risk, he added, that the new rights and obligations created by the court’s majority would prove an unwelcome and unnecessary distraction for the national and international authorities. They would detract attention from current international negotiations. Not only will those authorities now have to assess and, if considered necessary, design and adopt… new “regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible future effects of climate change” but there is also a significant risk that they will now be tied up in litigation about whatever regulations and measures they have adopted… or how those regulations and measures have been applied in practice.
Eicke concluded: While I understand and share the very real sense of and need for urgency in relation to the fight against anthropogenic climate change, I fear that in this judgment the majority has gone beyond what it is legitimate and permissible for this court to do and, unfortunately, in doing so may well have achieved exactly the opposite effect to what was intended.
Full story
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UK pharma companies told to make fewer drugs in draft net zero guidelinesDaily Telegraph, 9 April 2024 Pharmaceuticals companies were told to make fewer drugs for the sake of the environment, in new draft guidelines for businesses in the latest net zero drive. The suggestion was among a vast array of proposals which Britain’s biggest businesses have been told to consider as they are ordered to publish lengthy reports every year to show how they plan to meet their net zero targets. The Transition Plan Taskforce said that it had removed this recommendation before the guidelines were published, following questions from The Telegraph. The draft guidance said pharma companies should “reduce the overall quantity of products manufactured and purchased” as part of efforts to explore “sustainable alternatives” to drugs with high emissions. Britain’s pharmaceutical industry employs 66,000 people, with a turnover of £40.8bn and exports of £26.1bn, according to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). Other recommendations in the report, which have not been redacted, include advice to clothing companies to reduce the amount of cotton used in t-shirts or replace traditional textiles with lab-grown fabrics. The guidance was published by the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT), which was established by HM Treasury and set up following the COP26 environmental conference in Glasgow. Full story
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Knesset passes 1st reading of climate bill without any clear budgetingTimes of Israel, 4 April 2024 In what opponents see as capitulation to Finance Ministry, bill allows government to change climate goals and time targets, as well as base year for comparison The Knesset passed the first reading of a controversial climate bill on Wednesday, by 49 votes to 32. Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman said the proposed law would “protect the public, its health and welfare, and also protect future generations.” She added that the bill “sets targets and programs for the reduction of global-warming gas emissions and for preparing the economy for the effects of climate [change].” But environmental groups and opposition MKs decried the bill as a capitulation to the Finance Ministry, which has fought against anchoring any climate targets in law, leading to repeated delays in presenting the bill to the Knesset. Opposition MK and environmental activist Yorai Lahav-Hertzano (Yesh Atid) posted on X that “the worst government for the environment is passing a climate bill whose purpose is to defraud the public and the world.” He dubbed the bill amateurish, negligent, dangerous and a crime against the environment, and said it showed a “total cave in” to the Finance Ministry. Last month, in a damning report on the failure of successive governments to address and act on climate change, the state comptroller noted that resistance to anchoring climate targets in law was motivated by a fear of facing legal repercussions for not meeting the targets. He said none of the targets set so far were likely to be met. Full story
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Net zero ban on petrol cars is wrong, says Aston Martin owner
The Daily Telegraph, 11 April 2024
The boss of Aston Martin has branded a net zero ban on petrol cars “premature” as global demand founders for electric vehicles (EVs). Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire owner of the luxury British marque, claimed the push towards EVs was currently supported more by “hype” than real consumer demand. Many buyers are simply not interested in buying battery-powered cars despite government incentives, he said, with a lack of charging infrastructure partly to blame. His comments came as new figures showed record numbers of rapid EV chargers were deployed in the UK last month, but carmakers including Volkswagen and Mercedes warned of an electric car sales slowdown in Europe. Full story
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Volkswagen electric car sales plunge as Europe returns to petrolDaily Telegraph, 10 April 2024 Demand for EVs falls by 24pc amid high energy prices and rollback of subsidies Sales of Volkswagen electric cars have plunged by almost a quarter in Europe as demand for battery-powered vehicles stalls and buyers return to petrol. Electric vehicle (EV) sales fell by 24pc in the first three months of the year as high inflation and rising energy prices dampened demand. Globally, all-electric sales at the owner of Audi, Skoda and Porsche dropped by 3pc to 136,400, while sales of combustion engine cars climbed 4pc to nearly two million. The drop-off in EV demand comes as politicians in the region rollback subsidies and reconsider ambitious targets to dump petrol and diesel cars. In September, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, pushed back a deadline to block new petrol and diesel sales in the UK from 2030 to 2035. Incentives for drivers buying new EVs were scrapped in 2022. Data suggests that demand for petrol cars is rising faster than for electric models in Britain. EV registrations were only 3.8pc higher last month than they were a year earlier, according to figures released last week by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, while petrol-engine sales rose 9.2pc. Volkswagen sells some of the UK’s most popular electric vehicle models, including the Audi e-Tron range and Volkswagen ID. Full story
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Heat pump owners host visitor days in scramble to increase demandDaily Telegraph, 11 April 2024 Heat pump owners are to host visitor days at their homes for prospective buyers as Britain races to boost demand for the technology in an attempt to hit net zero targets. Homeowners can invite curious neighbours round so they can see the pumps in action using a website launched by the charity Nesta, in a move likely to recall 1960s Tupperware parties when the brand’s supporters showed off its products to their friends. Heat pumps, a low carbon alternative to gas boilers, are meant to be at the heart of Britain’s switch away from fossil fuels. However, take-up has been far lower than needed, with only 250,000 of the devices installed in UK homes a year against a target of 600,000 installations a year by 2028. Nesta, which said that most families have never even seen one of the generators, has already recruited around 150 homeowners to host heat pump parties and answer questions from would-be owners. Full story
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China leads global coal power surge as capacity hits recordBloomberg, 11 April 2024 Global coal-power capacity rose to a record last year, led by a surge in new plants in China and a slowdown in retirements around the world, according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor. The world’s coal fleet grew by 2% to 2,130 gigawatts, with China accounting for about two thirds of the increase followed by Indonesia and India, according to the climate research firm. China also started construction on 70 gigawatts of new coal plants last year, nearly 20 times more than the rest of the world combined. China’s expansion of what’s already by far the world’s largest coal fleet highlights Beijing’s continued focus on energy security after a series of economy-damaging power shortages in 2021 and 2022. While officials say the plants will primarily be used to balance out intermittent generation from rapidly growing wind and solar farms, the building boom has raised questions about China’s climate commitments and stymied global efforts to phase out use of the dirtiest fossil fuel. “The recent surge in coal power development in China starkly contrasts with the global trend, putting China’s 2025 climate targets at risk,” said Qi Qin, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which contributed to the report. Full story (£)
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And finally…If you haven’t seen it already, do take a look at our latest video, on the financial dilemma that we face as a result of Net Zero policies. Tradeoffs video And, while we’re on the subject of video, SIr Jacob Rees-Mogg’s monologue about the latest doom-mongering from the UN is well worth a look too. Rees-Mogg video
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