GOLDEN CRESCENT AND 1000 ISLAND NEWS

  European ministers of environment and energy are gathered in Valladolid, Spain, this week for an informal climate meeting. High on the agenda is “bicycle policy,” which is aimed at reducing the use of vehicles powered by fossil fuels. They’re not kidding. Spain’s Ecological Transition Minister, Teresa Ribera, a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, is hosting the event. To get things going on Monday she cruised on a city bike through the streets of the small metropolis on her way to the conference. Cameras were rolling. The message was unmistakable: Pedal to your destination like me and save the planet. The proletariat wasn’t buying it. The video of the minister’s “green” bike ride shows her escorted by two security cars—one in front and one behind. Besides allegedly snarling traffic, her carbon footprint was twice what was required. Some reports said that the minister had emerged from a limousine 100 meters from the event and got on the bike there. Ms. Ribera cert...

  The week of July 3, 2023: Net zero questions There was a time when the IEA (International Energy Agency) could be taken seriously. Established as part of the OECD response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo, it was, among things, a provider of great amounts of useful data on the oil and gas sector (and, in many respects, it still is). However, international organizations are what they are and mission creep is what it is, and  the IEA has embraced climate millenarianism.     In May 2021, the agency produced a “ flagship report ” (its description) on “Net Zero by 2050.” The report was, claimed the IEA, a “roadmap for the global energy sector.” The road it describes may well be one to ruin, although that’s not, unsurprisingly, how the IEA described it: This special report is the world’s first comprehensive study of how to transition to a net zero energy system by 2050 while ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access, and enabling robus...

  Shell Plc  is exploring options for its global renewable power operations, including a potential stake sale to outside investors, people with knowledge of the matter said.  The UK energy giant is working with advisers to study a range of possibilities that could also include separating the business into a more independent unit, the people said. It’s approached a number of international investors to gauge their interest in buying a stake, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.  The deliberations come as Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan focuses the company’s investments on fossil fuels in a bid to increase shareholder returns and narrow the valuation gap with Shell’s US peers.  Discussions are still at an early stage, and there’s no certainty they will lead to a transaction, the people said. Shell may also consider introducing outside investors into some other operations such as its downstream assets, one of...

  Here in New York, we proceed giddily along shutting down our functioning and reliable mostly-fossil-fuel based electricity-generating system, in anticipation of an imminent future of clean and free “renewables.” After all, our Climate Act (officially, the “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019”) has decreed that we must do so. A   Climate Action Council   — created by the statute and packed with politically-appointed climate activists with next-to-no expertise in how the energy system works — cooks up   “Scoping Plans”   that direct the little people to go out and   create an entirely new energy system on a politically-determined timetable. And almost nobody so much as raises any questions as to whether this can possibly work . Among the tiny handful of doubters we have myself, but more importantly a much more indefatigable guy named Roger Caiazza. Caiazza has a website called  Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York . Recently he ha...

  As yet another example of a bureaucracy gone completely nuts, consider the International Energy Agency. IEA started out in the 1970s as a consortium of Western nations organized to counteract the oil price shocks imposed by OPEC in those years. That seemed reasonable enough. But somewhere along the line, gradually, the mission, let us say, evolved. Today, IEA is fairly described as a center of advocacy for elimination of fossil fuels from the world’s energy supply. In May 2021 IEA published a big Report with the title  “Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.”  You might get the impression from the title and some of the text that this could be just a few helpful “how to” tips on reducing emissions. But you don’t need to get too far into the document to figure out that it’s really another one of those crazed demands for immediate desperate action to save the planet from impending doom — the difference being that this one is directly funded by essentiall...

  New Jersey legislators   barely approved a bill   Friday that handed millions of dollars in tax breaks to a foreign-based offshore wind power company — a move Republicans, commercial fishermen and activists have all opposed for its generous subsidies and potentially harmful environmental consequences. The legislation allows Orsted, a Danish wind turbine producer, to use federal tax credits for its Ocean Wind 1 building project near Atlantic City, which is expected to power more than 500,000 households,  according to   reports . Orsted must place a $200 million guarantee into state coffers, which will accrue $2.40 annually for every New Jersey ratepayer. That could put Orsted’s cumulative tax credits as high as $1 billion, according to state Sen. Ed Durr (R-Gloucester).  May that cables running offshore to power the turbines were “a dire threat” to several fish species vital to the business. Republicans had  called for a 60-day pause  on the wind...

  JUL 5, 2023 If there is “front line” in a planet-wide climate crisis, it may well be the Caribbean, where large populations live on islands that are right in the path of hurricanes that are stronger and come more frequently than ever. The storms wreck power systems, other infrastructure, and housing that were not designed to withstand the assault. The region recognizes the problem. At a recent meeting of top-level officials convened to address the problem, Phillip Davis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, said that “Almost one-third of national debt is as a result of hurricanes and other climate-related  impacts .” But how to react? The Caribbean should of course do its part in cutting the carbon emissions that are driving sea level rise and increasingly powerful storms, but the impact of that effort will depend on work done by larger countries around the globe.  Even if the Caribbean cuts all its emissions, it will not cause a major dent in global carbon emissions beca...