Achieving NET ZERO is a complex issue…

GUS LEONISKY HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF EXPLAINING GLOBAL WARMING SINCE 1979. ON THIS SITE, WE STARTED 20 YEARS AGO WE EXPLAINED HOW today's CLIMATE CHANGE, A RESULTANT OF GLOBAL WARMING, PRESENTS MANY CHALLENGES AND DOUBTS THAT WE HAVE TO OVERCOME. 

UNFORTUNATELY, MANY HONEST ALTERNATIVE AND MAINSTREAM COMMENTATORS WILL ERRONEOUSLY LUMP OTHER CONSPIRACIES AND GLOBAL WARMING IN THE SAME BASKET. 

KNOWING THE EXACT FUTURE OF GLOBAL WARMING IS IMPOSSIBLE, BUT WE NEED TO PLACE TRUST IN THE SCIENCES OF IT, EVEN IF THEY ARE FLUCTUATING WITHIN BRACKETS OF TRENDS. THE TRENDS — AND POSSIBLE TURNING POINTS — ARE INDICATING A MAJOR CATASTROPHIC CHANGE IN THE CLIMATIC BALANCE ON THIS LITTLE LUCKY PLANET. 

WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT NOW, MAY NOT HAVE ANY EFFECT IN THE NEAR FUTURE, BUT IT COULD REDUCE THE DRAMATIC EFFECTS BY A FEW CATASTROPHIC NOTCHES IN A COUPLE MORE GENERATIONS OF HUMANS…

FIRST, this concept demands that we “believe” in global warming…

Antarctic Ice Melt

Pro: Antarctic Ice Melt is Dangerous

Climate Change is causing accelerated ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland. This is causing sea level rise to increase dangerously. This rising sea level threatens the homes and livelihoods of 100’s of millions of people living on coasts and low-lying islands. NASA presents this graph showing sea level rise plotted by satellite data, and suggests

Con: Why Antarctica And Greenland Ice Melt is Not Serious:

Antarctica and Greenland are indeed losing ice mass, which is corroborated by a modest rise in annual sea levels.  However, this has been the case since the end of the last glacial maximum between 20 thousand and 19 thousand years ago.  At the height of this glacial period, gigantic ice sheets over a mile thick, covered all of the Artic [sic], Canada and the US from approximately Seattle to New York City.  These tremendous ice sheets also covered much of Northern Europe and Asia as well as regions in Southern South America.  Antarctica and Greenland also had more extensive and deeper ice sheets than today.  Since the last glacial maximum, over the past 20 thousand years, virtually all of these ice sheets have melted away, leaving only Antarctica and Greenland and thousands of relatively tiny glaciers still in existence.  This is normal melting during interglacial periods that generally last approximately 10 to 30,000 years. The last four have averaged about 20 thousand years. (we are approximately 17,000 years into our current interglacial period).  This melting has occurred during each of the past 11 interglacial periods.  In fact, over the past 800,000 years, approximately 60-75% of the time the world has had extensive ice sheets over the Northern and Southern reaches of the North and South hemispheres.  Which means that about 25-40% of the time over the past 800,000 years earth has experienced the warm climate that we’ve experienced over the past 11,000 years.

This interglacial melting has caused an increase in sea levels. The deglaciation spanned approximately 14,000 years, starting about 20,000 years ago.  The vast majority of these ice sheets disappeared in the period between 12,000 and 6.8-6,000 years ago, when the earth experienced warming several degrees greater than we experience today.  In the past 8,000 years, the world has been generally cooling a bit, with intermittent spikes of warming and cooling.  Starting around 1450 the world experienced a significant decline in global temperatures that lasted about 400 years, ending in about 1850.  This period is called the Little Ice Age.  Since the end of the Little Ice Age, the world has been warming and the remaining massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continue to experience fractional melting as a result. 

It would require several thousands of years of detailed ice mass data to accurately determine the natural trends and fluctuations of Antarctic and Greenland ice masses that would allow an accurate comparison to ice mass fluctuations since the 1.3 part per ten thousand increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1850.  This is the period during which human activity contributed CO2 to the atmosphere, most of which occurred since 1940.

Despite the lack of long-term historical data, short term data contradicts theories of rapidly increasing ice mass loss due to increases in atmospheric CO2 levels. 

Thirty years ago, Antarctica was barely losing ice mass, and this remains so. In 2019 and 2020, media outlets began claiming the Antarctic ice cap is melting six times faster than 30 years ago. “Six times” almost no ice loss remains almost no ice loss. When recent ice loss measurements are compared to the full entire Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, the loss is so small that it is barely detectable.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/antarctic-ice-melt/

(Note: the website above is geared to saw doubt in the scientific assessment of global warming… The science of “con” appears authoritative but is wonky.

SECOND:  we need to accept that present global warming is Anthropogenic. 

At this stage we need to mention that many meteorologists [USA] DO NOT subscribe to the global warming theory. There is too much imprecision and imponderables in their own work as to accept that the theory of global warming could be so precise. The figure is that only 29 per cent of AMS (American Meteorologist Society) members agree to the tight wording of the “scientific consensus” on global warming. Many dismiss global warming entirely. Meteorologists do not specifically exclude the “weatherman” or “weathergirl” who are often only experts in delivering the weather on TV every night, while looking knowledgeable. The weather they report is usually supplied by the BoM (Bureau of Meteorology) in Australia and similar outfits around the world. Some of these “weatherperson” will do their own research on the “oscillation index” or such, like La Nina/el Nino effect, but it is a rare state of affairs.

Here we have established that weather prediction is a very imprecise science. 

Climatologists will also add that:

EXTRA CO2 AND EXTRA OTHER warming GASES in the atmosphere will induce a warming above the “normal” natural settings. Even Arrhenius predicted this.

SIMPLE.

Few scientists can dispute this statement. 

But scientists who question global warming try hard to discredit this statement. The other main point is to dispute by how much this extra CO2 will influence warming. So, why dispute this very intuitive and scientifically verifiable statement?

ANSWER: FOSSIL FUELS... burning fossil fuels is the culprit....WE LOVE FOSSIL FUELS: COAL, OIL AND GAS...

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/33287

THIRD: What do we do about it.

REDUCE OUR EMISSIONS OF WARMING GASES.

BY HOW MUCH?

DO NOTHING.

FOURTH:  Is NET ZERO the cure to our problems?

NO, BUT NECESSARY AS A PLUG GAP... (see comment to come)

FIFTH: Is the science of global warming unbiased and reliable?

99.9 per cent of the science is reliable and geared to show that WE ARE IN TROUBLE. Climatic changes that take millennium are now taking place over a couple of "human" centuries, with accelerating trends. 

SIXTH: achieving NET ZERO….

McKinsey Sustainability

Although there is meaningful momentum, the world is not on track to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions in line with the Paris Agreement’s goals.1 Despite numerous net-zero commitments from countries and companies, and an increase in climate-related investments, global CO2 emissions are far from on track to reach net-zero by 2050.

As the world considers how to meet climate goals in the aggregate, national decision makers will need a comprehensive understanding of the trade-offs associated with different transition pathways. A successful net-zero transition will require achieving four interconnected objectives: 

emissions reduction

affordability

reliability

and industrial competitiveness. 

A well-executed transition must ensure that energy and materials needed for the transition are affordable; supply of energy and physical inputs remains reliable to meet the growing demand; and companies and countries remain competitive to benefit from the transition. At the same time, the world will need to consider resilience commitments around advancing other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including around biodiversity and pollution, and planetary boundaries. Further, differentiated impacts between groups both within and across countries need to be managed for the transition to be effective and sustainable for the global community as a whole. To date, however, climate transition planning has not adequately addressed these dimensions together, nor has it adequately addressed the implications of this transition for the lived experience of people on the ground.

SEVENTH: WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES?

A) Many people do not “believe” in global warming. AND THOSE WHO DO, GET HAMMERED…

In crash-test dummy land, we solve teenage girl climate anxiety with $500b in fantasy weather experiments…

By Jo Nova

And so we arrive, a nation of people looking at TikTok as they cruise down the freeway

This week, our national energy policy is an Agony-Aunt letter — poor Alexa, 21, has been suffering from ‘climate anxiety’ since she was 15. Instead of asking her grandparents (who don’t rate a mention) she dreams of telling her grandkids that she did “everything she could”. Everything, that is, except for talking to her own grandparents, listening to climate skeptics, or seeking alternative views.

Instead of doing her homework, she gate-crashed the PMs promo event so she could be used as emotional bait in a battle between the deep-state-banker-blob and the workers. She probably thinks she’s on the side of the workers (though she’s also probably never met one).

Channel Nine reports on her mental health disorder in the middle of an election campaign, not to help her heal, but to exploit her to push for the climate policies, and political winners that Nine shareholders probably want. See their first line. It’s not “news”, it’s political advertising.

https://joannenova.com.au/2025/04/in-crash-test-dummy-land-we-solve-teenage-girl-climate-anxiety-with-500b-in-fantasy-weather-experiments/

B) Some developing countries see NET ZERO as a form of “colonialism”.

In a November 2021 speech, India's prime minister, Narendra Modi attacked the colonial climate politics:

The colonial mindset hasn't gone… We are seeing from developed nations that the path that made them developed is being closed for developing nations ... If we talk about absolute cumulative (carbon) emissions, rich nations have emitted I5 times more from I850 till now… the aim has always been one to stop the progress of developing nations. The issue of environment is also being attempted to be hijacked for this purpose. We saw an example of this in the recent COP26 Summit.

South Africa’s Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has warned against "standards that are set by the developed nations and imposed on the poor and developing nations":

In recognition of the continued role of the fossil fuels in supporting energy security and the fact that 82% of energy sources in the world are from these fossil fuels, Africa must intensify its efforts aimed at developing its oil and gas sector in order to benefit from the expected increase of natural gas market in global supply.

The recent sizeable discoveries of oil in Namibia and Côte d’Ivoire and gas in South Africa are proving to be a game changer and have intensified the need to step up exploration campaigns on the African continent. This is an opportunity for Africa ….

 Net zero is EXPENSIVE for poorer people in the developed world. In 2022 Emmet Penney said how in the United Kingdom: 

… the number of people behind on their utility bills mushroomed from 3 million to nearly 11 million between March and August. Eleven percent of the British population — nearly 6 million people — are already forgoing food to pay their energy bills.

Penney presented similar statistics for the US:

…electricity prices increasing by 233% in some parts of the US in a year. Net zero also disrupts rich countries' economies. Penney quoted a collection of headlines: "Curtailed ammonia production in Antwerp and Ludwigshafen." "High natural gas prices lead to a shutdown of British fertilizer plants." "Diesel Shortage Amid Soaring Prices: Truck Stops Resort To Rationing." He pointed out that these headlines were all from 2021. They were not caused by Putin's Ukraine War in 2022. They were the result of mismanagement of energy, caused by net zero policies. 

The transition to renewables disrupts traditional capitalist economies. "Energy Return on Energy Invested" (EROEI) is the ratio of usable energy output to the energy required to deliver that output:

…the EROEI of natural gas is estimated to be around 30, and for wind and solar around 3.5 (after allowing for intermittency and redundancy). In other words this transition seeks to replace gas, with a surplus energy of -29 units for each energy unit invested, with renewables with surplus energy of -2.5 units for each energy unit invested. This means it takes around eleven wind or solar installations to deliver the same surplus energy that a single gas installation delivers.

Major countries, like China and the USA, have been ambivalent about doing something to reach NET ZERO.

June 2017 — President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the United States will not comply with the Paris Climate Change Agreement agreed to by former President Barack Obama in 2015 without the consent of Congress.

Not everyone agrees with the decision, including Democrats, Vladimir Putin and the communist Chinese government.

“The Russian Government has said it supports the Paris Agreement on climate change ahead of Donald Trump’s expected announcement that he will withdraw the US from the landmark accord,” the UK Independent reported on Thursday.

The Kremlin said the deal, which seeks to limit global warming to as close to a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase as possible, would be less effective without the participation of major countries, Reuters reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters that “President (Vladimir) Putin signed this convention in Paris. Russia attaches great significance to it.

C) Why are CHINA and RUSSIA blamed for the destruction of Paris Agreement?

COP21 won’t get a meaningful agreement, but they will get “breakthrough success”

Don’t think China, India and Russia can save us. They won’t give up fossil fuels in a meaningful way, but they all have a price and buying them off is a lot cheaper than you might think. That’s because the goal is not for them to reduce CO2, but only for them to give the appearance of doing so.

It’s not about CO2, but about PR

Paris is a theatre– a grand show, and China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Jianmin said as much. He “laughed when the ‘High Ambition Coalition’ was mentioned. “It is a kind of performance,” he said, “It makes no difference.”

The 1.5C “high ambition” target is a perfect PR win. The Green Machine will be able to claim a major success getting X number of countries to sign up for a breakthrough pledge to do something “more ambitious”, something that “far exceeded our hopes” but that is really decades away and likely to happen even if nobody did anything at all. It’s the do nothing, unaccountable promise that politicians love to make.

All three nations have publicly poured cold water on the Paris solutions, but view that as just posturing for a better position to negotiate from.

Figure how the equation looks for China:

how do I hobble my competitors, steal their factories, and sell them more of my goods?

how do I collect more of their pointless guilt payments (carbon credits etc)?

and how can I look like a hero in the West at the same time?

Answer to all three: smile at the press conference, and pander to the global extremists in words only. Do token efforts and turn the guilt screws on the West as appropriate.

https://joannenova.com.au/2015/12/why-china-india-and-russia-want-to-be-bought-off-for-the-paris-climate-pr-spectacle/

2023 August 7 China Abandons Paris Agreement and Makes Others’ Efforts Even More Futile

According to some policies, CHINA commitments to net zero is for 2060 — not 2050...

Companies geared to sell carbon trading can be open to abuse.

The use of reference area methodologies creates moral hazard. An unscrupulous party could nominate a preservation project, then exploit the reference area, operating through untraceable associates, doubling or quadrupling the carbon offsets from its preservation project by doubling or quadrupling the exploitation of the reference area; a win win; then route the profits through a tax haven — three benefits for the price of one. Verra couldn’t conscientiously complain about the use of tax havens. Although Vera is providing services to commercial businesses, it doesn’t pay US corporate tax. Carbon offsets merely shift the deck chairs. Quite properly climate purists despise them.

Evolutionary Geopolitics: The Road To Human Egalitarianism by Geoffrey Lehmann

WARS are not climate friendly.

SELF-EXPLANATORY (OFTEN MENTIONED ON THIS SITE).

SOLUTIONS can consume or waste more energy than they produce.

Cost of Renewables: Subsidies

There are three subsidy schemes supporting renewables. The first is Renewables Obligations (RO). Renewables generators are awarded certificates for each unit of electricity generated in addition to the market price they receive for their output. Accordingly, electricity from these generators will always be more expensive than market rates, often set by gas. Even though this scheme is closed to new participants, the OBR (see the October 2024 detailed forecast tables: receipts) shows us the RO scheme cost £7.6 billion in 2023-24 and the cost is forecast to rise to £8.5 billion in 2026-27. Yesterday, the electricity spot price was £73.25 per MWh, mostly set by gas including the carbon tax. ROC-funded offshore wind farms get about 1.9 certificates per MWh, onshore one certificate and solar gets about 1.4. In the current financial year, the buy-out value of each certificate is set at £67.06. Working through the arithmetic, this puts the current cost of ROC-funded offshore wind at £200 per MWh, onshore £140 per MWh and solar £169 per MWh, all much more expensive than gas-fired electricity.

The second scheme is Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT), paid mostly to small solar installations. FiT generators are paid a fixed amount to generate electricity plus a smaller amount for the power they export (or are deemed to export) to the grid. Again, this scheme is closed to new entrants. However, analysis of Ofgem’s latest report into the FiT scheme shows it cost nearly £1.9 billion in 2023-24, or around £221 per MWh which is over three times higher than market rates today. These prices are index-linked, so current prices will be higher.

Finally we have the Contract for Difference (CfD) scheme used for the now annual renewables auctions. Here, generators receive a fixed amount for the power they generate. They receive the market value for their power and are then paid a top-up to the strike price of their contract. If market prices are above the strike price, they must pay back the difference. Analysis of data published by the Low Carbon Contract Company shows the CfD scheme cost a record £2.24 billion in subsidies during financial year 2024-25. Even though CfD generators paid back a net amount of about £346 million during the energy crisis of 2022, the total cost of CfD subsidies recently broke the £10 billion barrier. During 2024, CfD-funded offshore wind generators cost about £153 per MWh and received more than half their revenue from subsidies. Onshore wind cost £112 per MWh and solar £110 per MWh. These prices were recently indexed upwards for the new financial year and so the average will rise again, except for solar where new, lower priced generators will bring down the average for that technology.

The total cost of these subsidy schemes amounts to nearly £12 billion per year or the equivalent of over £420 per household per year and as we have seen we can expect these costs to continue to rise, putting upward pressure on bills.

Extra Costs of Renewables

However, subsidies do not represent the full cost of renewables. First, because wind and solar are intermittent their output can fluctuate significantly so that sometimes they produce less than expected and at other times can produce more than demand or more than the grid can handle. Therefore, the grid needs to be balanced, usually using gas-fired generators. NESO produce Monthly Balancing Services Summary reports and the data for 2023-24 show the cost of this service was £2.54 billion. In addition, we pay for backup through the capacity market and the OBR shows this cost us £1 billion in 2023-24 and the costs are forecast to rise to £4bn per year in 2027-28. Even if balancing costs remain constant, we can expect the total costs of balancing and backup to rise by £3 billion by 2027-28 or the equivalent of over £100 per household.

Wind and solar farms tend to be sited away from the source of demand, so we need to spend even more money to expand the electricity network to connect them to the grid. NESO has announced £54 billion of spending on grid infrastructure to 2030 and a further £58 billion to 2035, making a total spend of £112 billion. If we assume an 8% cost of capital and 2% operations and maintenance costs, the annual costs on energy bills will amount to about £11 billion once the investment is complete, or the equivalent of another £385 per household.

However, these announcements were made before the Clean Power 2030 (CP2030) plan was announced. NESO estimated this would cost £44-48 billion per year to the end of 2030, or a total of £264-290 billion over the six-year period. According to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) we used 205.7 TWh of gas to produce 101.7 TWh of electricity in 2023. Using the current price of gas of 83.7p per therm (or £28.57 per MWh), this gas would have cost us £5.9 billion. The CP2030 plan would eliminate much of this gas, giving a saving of around £5 billion per year. However, assuming a cost of capital of 8% and operations and maintenance costs of 2% for CP2030, would give an ongoing cost of £26-29 billion per year or more than five times the projected savings on gas. Adopting the CP2030 plan will likely increase our energy bills by £900-1,000 per household. Additional costs are in the pipeline from subsidies for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and green hydrogen.

Taxes on Gas-Fired Electricity

Energy bills are also increased by the taxes placed on gas-fired electricity generation which is subject to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The UK ETS Authority has set the carbon price for 2025 at £41.84 per tonne of carbon dioxide. Actual carbon prices vary somewhat, but this price can be used to estimate the extra costs of gas-fired generation. Modern gas turbines emit around 350kgCO2 per MWh of generation, so gas-fired generation attracts a carbon tax of about £14.60 per MWh, or about 20% of today’s electricity spot price. The CP2030 plan anticipates carbon prices rising substantially to around £147 per tonne, adding further upward pressure on energy bills.

Conclusions

By ignoring the giant bull elephants in the room representing renewables subsidies and the extra costs of grid balancing, backup and expansion of the network, Berman was allowed to paint a false picture of the drivers of high energy bills. The truth is that renewables are the major force driving bills higher and if Miliband gets his way with CP2030, then our bills will rise higher still.

Perhaps we should take Adam Berman at his word and offer to pay renewables generators just the market value of their output, which on summer days can often be negative. I don’t think we will see many takers. Remember, if something needs a subsidy, it’s more expensive.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/16/no-bbc-electricity-is-not-expensive-because-of-gas-but-because-of-renewables-subsidies/

Will NET ZERO be enough?

NO, BUT NECESSARY... see comment (to come)

COP31

It is unsafe to hold the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Australia, it is turning into a toxic country, Professor Alexei Martynov told Sputnik.

Australia's hosting of the next UN climate change conference is "unsafe" as the country is a "toxic" environment for debate, says a leading Russian academic.

Alexei Martynov, Associate Professor of the Financial University under the Government of Russia, Director of the International Institute of Modern States, told Sputnik that Australia remains a British "protectorate" after 124 years of independence.

"There are real doubts about holding large and important pan-planetary events on the territory of this state," Martynov said. "Australia has been extremely defiant in recent years."

"There is nothing to hold there, it is unsafe for everyone, and not only in terms of physical security, obtaining or not obtaining visas," the academic added.

He said Australia had become toxic despite its outward show of tolerance.

"It's not just anti-Russian. It is becoming an anti-Semitic country," Martynov warned. "For the past two years, many Russian Jews who moved to Australia in different years for different reasons are returning to Russia because it is becoming unsafe in Australia in terms of the manifestation of intense anti-Semitism."

Australia and NATO member Turkey have both offered to host the 31st UNFCC Conference of the Parties (COP31) in 2026. The decision will be taken at COP30, which will be held in Belem, Brazil, from November 10 to 21 this year.

The venue of the conferences rotates between regions.

Martynov accused Australia of segregation against aboriginal peoples like the Torres Strait Islanders, which the Australian government does not protect from the effects of climate change.

"There is a strict segregation of the indigenous people there," said the commentator "They did not want to protect them and they never will. This is a wildly misanthropic ideology, they are white descendants of the British colonizers."

Australia also violates of indigenous peoples' rights by planning energy projects on their lands, which is typical of Western countries.

"If they need it, they can do anything," said Vladimir Bruter, an expert at the International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Studies.

"The formula of non-inclusiveness still exists in one form or another, even when they say that everyone is represented," Bruter added. "This usually means that there is representation, but there is no possibility of influence."

He highlighted plans to mine coal in Australia for decades to come, despite the country's stated climate commitments.

"They have it as a sovereign country that proceeds for its own benefit, and everyone else should do as they say," Bruter explained.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20250401/unsafe-to-hold-un-climate-session-in-toxic-australia--expert-1121724292.html

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.