And by the way, according to this, your (implicit) claim (via the article you linked to, which claimed "China’s emissions peaked in 2013 at a level of 9.53 gigatons of CO2, and have declined in each year from 2014 to 2016.") that China reduced emissions for 3 years in a row is false:We must triple our efforts

NOAA

Met Office

Faced with the urgency of the problem, arguing about Merkel and Lignite seems almost petty.

And by the way, according to this, your (implicit) claim (via the article you linked to, which claimed "China’s emissions peaked in 2013 at a level of 9.53 gigatons of CO2, and have declined in each year from 2014 to 2016.") that China reduced emissions for 3 years in a row is false:

You are getting your data from a Greenpeace website with no stated provenance? Risky around here, don'tcha think?

Various agencies estimate emissions with differing results; for my claim that Chinese CO2 fell from 2014-16, I can (and did) point to a peer reviewed paper that quoted emissions hitting a record 9.53 gigatonnes in 2013 and falling in the next three years to 9.2 gigatonnes in 2016.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2153546/carbon-emissions-might-have-peaked-china-study-finds

Hey ho. TDS, tl;dr as our resident fool might well say.

I remain bemused as to your position. Why all the verbiage on whether Germany or China has or has not, will, or will not meet its targets?

Let me state where I am (and there is, sadly, just one of me. Even more tragically, I remain unpaid). I've read the science, which is quite ingenious and wonderful. I accept it, and thus the need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The political response has been nothing less than a betrayal of humanity. Ranging from the moronic denial of Trump ('it's all a hoax') to lukewarm, timid responses elsewhere. The Chinese targets, while better than nothing, even if fully met, would not avert a 3C increase in global temperatures. Nitpicking seems the wrong response, somehow. There have been a flurry of reports recently, from the UN, our own Met Office and the US NOAA, all stating the risk we face and (finally) picked up by the MSM.

We must triple our efforts

NOAA

Met Office

Faced with the urgency of the problem, arguing about Merkel and Lignite seems almost petty.

According to the BBC, Macron is down to 30% public approval. He originally won with two thirds of the Vote.

His version of Green Blob Climate Science taxation, has not proved popular with the French. Who on earth told him it would?

The Climate Change Act has been the UK's biggest Peace Time Disaster, and is turning into a Waterloo for France.

Could the BBC accept some annual cost comparisons of the CCA, measured in terms multiples of "Iraq Wars" or other more minor Peace Time Disasters?

Faced with the urgency of the problem, arguing about Merkel and Lignite seems almost petty.

Nov 27, 2018 at 11:14 PM | Phil Clarke

You fail to identify any problem. Let me assist:

People are fed up with paying for Climate Scientists to have pointless politicised conferences, based on dodgy science, statistics and economics.

Climate Science is being told to go forth and fund itself. Taxpayers will be relieved of a problem.

"I've read the science, which is quite ingenious and wonderful. I accept it, and thus the need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Nov 27, 2018 at 11:14 PM | Phil Clarke"

You are the "resident fool". I was gullible about Climate Science once.

Phil, what a wonderful moving of the goal posts by you, not just a few feet, but onto a completely different pitch!

You say: "I remain bemused as to your position. Why all the verbiage on whether Germany or China has or has not, will, or will not meet its targets?"

Well, the verbiage is because it was precisely what, on this occasion, was under discussion. This is a thread about the CCA and the damage it's causing the UK. You sought to defend it and Darwall's criticism of it, cited on the Trump thread, by linking to Bassi & Duffy. The essence of that defence is that the CCA is not damaging British business by higher energy costs and that anyway, where we are leading, others are following, by introducing "binding" and rigorous climate legislation, so the CCA is for the best.

That is "[w]hy all the verbiage on whether Germany or China has or has not, will, or will not meet its targets" Because China represents 30% of the world's GHG emissions; Germany is the biggest CO2 emitter in the EU. Others who Bassio & Duffy claim to have followed the UK in passing "climate" legislation, aren't even meeting their INDC targets. In other words, only the UK is beating itself up in a meaningful way over GHG emissions, the rest of the world isn't following our "leadership" (which was one of the justifications for the Act, and which is certainly part of Bassi & Duffy's defence of it), and there is no way the unenforceable and pointless Paris Agreement targets will be met.

Instead of acknowledging the truth of this, the best you can do is say "Faced with the urgency of the problem, arguing about Merkel and Lignite seems almost petty" and rather hilariously say "There have been a flurry of reports recently, from the UN, our own Met Office and the US NOAA, all stating the risk we face and (finally) picked up by the MSM."

Finally?!!!! We've been inundated by this scaremongering for decades now, and people are being increasingly turned off by it.

For the sake of clarity regarding my position, I accept that the climate is changing, and I accept that humankind is contributing to it. I don't accept the scale of what is claimed, since I don't find the statistics around temperature observations entirely convincing, and I think the alarmism is massively overdone. Instead of 20,000 or 30,000 people jetting round the world once a year (and more frequently for many of them with the various pre-meets etc) to pass pointless and non-binding agreements and scaremongering ineffectually, we would all do better to recognise that mitigation will be cheaper and more useful than Canute-like trying to hold back the tide. The climate will do what the climate will do, even if we are contributing to it, and without changing our lifestyles completely (which you will never succeed in persuading people to do) we'd do far better to recognise that fact and plan some useful mitigation accordingly.

By the way, I think we can openly and honestly and respectfully agree that this is a sensible and meaningful difference of approach, and that my view doesn't make me some sort of evil fossil fuel-funded "denier". I care about the poor, and I resent rich people virtue-signalling at their expense. The hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions worldwide) of people making a living out of all this, while achieving very little, don't impress me. I exempt from my sneering the small number whose work might be leading to new technology which might improve our lives, rather than the large proportion making a living out of "green" PR.

Finally, it would have been nice if, instead of moving the goalposts and changing the argument completely, you acknowledged that I have a point, on this thread at least.

Climate Science kills people with poverty:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/27/energy-poverty-kills-more-people-than-coal-and-cecil-b-demille-combined/

The Climate Change Act and other Mann made disasters.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/28/having-fun-with-the-fourth-national-climate-assessment-report/

That is "[w]hy all the verbiage on whether Germany or China has or has not, will, or will not meet its targets" Because China represents 30% of the world's GHG emissions; Germany is the biggest CO2 emitter in the EU. Others who Bassio & Duffy claim to have followed the UK in passing "climate" legislation, aren't even meeting their INDC targets. In other words, only the UK is beating itself up in a meaningful way over GHG emissions, the rest of the world isn't following our "leadership" (which was one of the justifications for the Act, and which is certainly part of Bassi & Duffy's defence of it), and there is no way the unenforceable and pointless Paris Agreement targets will be met.

Pointless? Let us do a thought experiment. Let us imagine, purely for the sake of argument you understand, that the world's scientific academies are on to something. Let us take, just as an example the American Geophysical Union (Approx 20,000 climate scientists) and their position statement:

Human-caused increases in greenhouse gases have been the major influencing factor on global climate change over the past 140 years.
Energy production and consumption, specifically the burning of fossil fuels, are the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Less than 4% of countries are responsible for more than half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Both ecosystems and human infrastructure around the world face risks from climate change. Increased temperatures and extreme weather events, impacts on precipitation, and sea level rise can have wide-ranging and long-term consequences.
The American Geophysical Union and its network of Earth and space scientists are committed to studying climate change, its impacts, and opportunities for improvement and to educating the public on their findings.

Health

Major health concerns as a result of global warming include the following:
• water- and heat-related illnesses
• vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus
• food safety
• nutrition and distribution issues
• mental health implications
For example, nearly 7 million U.S. children are currently affected by asthma.[1] The changing climate contributes to increased levels of airborne allergens that are associated with a risk of increased allergic and asthmatic episodes.
Climate-related health issues can put the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the poor, at risk.

Economy

Climate change has led to a growing number of extreme weather events that are even more likely to occur in the future.[2] In 2012, climate and severe weather disasters cost the U.S. economy more than $100 billion.[3] From 2004 to 2013, the United States saw estimated multibillion dollar losses from the following disasters: $392 billion from hurricanes, $78 billion from heat waves and drought, and $76 billion combined from tornadoes, flooding, and severe storms.[4]
Impacts to infrastructure in the wake of these severe weather events can be costly. For example, as a result of climate change, wildfire seasons now last 78 days longer than they did in 1970, and in 2015 alone, the U.S. Forest Service spent more than half its budget fighting fires.[5]

Safety and Security

Climate change’s effects place strains on natural resources, supply, and distribution that can threaten a country’s or a region’s overall stability and cause conflict.
Concerns include the following:
• Flooding and drought can affect safety and water supply. Specific regions in the United States, such as the Southeast, Southwest, and Great Plains, are particularly vulnerable.[6]
• American forests contribute to the country’s sustainability by removing roughly 12% of the United States’ total greenhouse gas emissions from the environment but are at risk from increased drought, wildfire potential, and development.[7]
• According to the Department of Defense, “the military could be called upon more often to support civil authorities, and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the face of more frequent and more intense natural disasters.”[8]
• Military operations both at home and internationally could be affected by an increased demand for disaster and humanitarian relief.
• Ocean acidification could have negative impacts down the marine food chain, limiting the ability of marine animals, such as clams, oysters, and crabs, to grow, survive, and reproduce. [9] Changes to marine-based food sources will challenge global economies.

Now, I could cite similar statements from every other scientific association of standing on the planet.

Seems to me, we stand on opposing ends of a spectrum; you regard the Paris targets as 'pointless', I regard them as inadequate, in the sense that even if met, they commit us to a future planet several degrees warmer than the one in which our current infrastructure, agriculture and civilisation took hold.

This will not be pleasant, we will adapt, mitigate and suffer. All the signs are, we have missed the boat on mitigation, and suffering that could have been avoided, is what comes next.
 
I hope to be proved wrong.

Phil, tomois right. You can wave your arms about the impending apocalypse as much as you like. You've still lost the argument about the CCA, still won't have the good grace to admit it, and are still moving the goalposts.

The critique of the CCA is that it has pushed poor people in the UK further into fuel poverty; it has damaged the competitiveness of what's left of British industry; and the much-vaunted claims of the UK leading the way with others following, are false.

The critique of the Paris Agreement also holds good - it IS pointless. It lets the producers of more than 2/3 of the world's GHG emissions carry on increasing their emissions, and provides no binding obligations or effective sanctions on the developed world, who, under its terms, ARE supposed to do something about THEIR emissions. And guess what? The developing world is increasing its emissions; and the developed world is failing to meet the targets set out in the INDCs.

When doomsayers like you enter the real world, I'll start to take you seriously. When "green" activists stop demanding that the UK does "more" and understand that it is the rest of the world that is failing to do anything meaningful about emissions, then I might start to listen to what they have to say. Until then you're just a bunch of frustrated religious zealots, howling in the wind.

By the way, I'm really looking forward to your line-by-line critique of Darwall, as opposed to another link to another pointless "study".

Since we seem to have moved from the CCA to the Paris Agreement (no worries, that's the way of discussions), here's the latest from Politico:

"Paris is burning
Worries are mounting that the global effort to fight climate change will not meet its goals."

https://www.politico.eu/article/cop24-paris-climate-deal-is-burning-cop24-summit-global-warming/

"They were supposed to always have Paris.

Three years after world leaders celebrated the signing of a landmark agreement intended to head off catastrophic global warming, the effort looks to be going down in flames."

"Scientists say the cuts to greenhouse gas emissions agreed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement fall far short of what would be needed to meet the treaty’s goals. Meanwhile, national governments are failing to deliver on even those promises, and the United States — regarded as a linchpin in any effort to fight climate change — has announced it intends to withdraw from the agreement altogether."

The next paragraph is hilarious:

"“You’ve got a hostile environment,” said Rachel Kyte, special representative of the United Nations secretary-general on making energy accessible to the poor. “It’s not just the U.S. The U.S. is giving other people the permission to be less than their best selves.”"

"...on making energy accessible to the poor"! Given that he and his colleagues would make energy more expensive for the poor, that's a bit rich. As is blaming the USA for the failure of Paris. It's the Paris Agreement itself and its get-out-of-jail free card for developing countries, combined with the non-binding nature of the Agreement, that has given "other people the permission to be less than their best selves.”. Still, as always with these people, why let the truth get in the way of some doom-mongering? Why admit where the blame really lies, when your job depends on ever more rounds of tens of thousands of people jetting in annually to pointless climate conferences that never achieve anything in dealing with the issue you are paid to propagandise about?

"But with atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at their highest levels in human history and continuing to rise — last year, global carbon dioxide emissions increased again after a three-year hiatus — worries are rising that the agreement will fail to meet its objectives.

After a burst of optimism following the 2015 meeting in Paris, “reality is starting to come back again,” said Glen Peters, a research director at Norway’s Center for International Climate Research (Cicero)."

Ah, that awkward word - reality.

"The big achievement in Paris was getting 197 governments to agree to the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius — ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius — by the end of the century. "

Well, it's an achievement of sorts, but not one that actually achieves anything...

"Rather than attempting to set fixed targets — as had been done under the agreement’s predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol — negotiators in Paris agreed that greenhouse cuts would be voluntary and non-binding."

Indeed - and there's the rub.

"For now, scientists say, the commitments made by individual countries are far from what would be needed to meet the agreement’s goals."

Indeed - and there's the rub, again.

"Current pledges on the table, including those made by the U.S., are predicted to lead to around 3.2 degrees of warming — a level scientists say will cause catastrophic change to the Earth’s environment.

“National commitments to combat climate change come up short,” the U.N.’s Environment Program said this week."

Who'd have thought?

"Making promises was the easy bit. Getting countries to follow through with painful steps like shutting down coal-fired power plants, revamping their car industries and funneling billions from rich to poor countries in climate finance is proving a lot tougher." Really? Who'd have thought?

"China is pushing hard to boost its fleet of electric cars and expand renewable energy, but its use of coal is back up this year after a few years of decline. India and other emerging economies are continuing to build new coal-fired power plants. “India can sell the narrative of mind-boggling solar growth, which is partly true, but at the same time business as usual is coal,” said Cicero’s Peters."

Hmm, they never saw that coming, did they?

"Meanwhile, with the U.S. out, other countries are taking Trump’s lead and heading for the exits, according to Elisabeth Köstinger, the environment minister of Austria, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU.

“Australia also raised doubts over the Paris Agreement,” she said. “Other countries are following suit.”

Brazil — with a president-elect who is a climate skeptic — on Wednesday announced it would withdraw its offer to host next year’s climate talks, citing budgetary constraints."

Naughty Trump - it's all your fault.

"Even in the European Union, which has sought to position itself as a leader in the fight, countries are falling short of their commitments."

But, but, but, I thought that the CCA meant that other countries, especially the EU, now have BINDING targets? Bassi and Duffy have told me so. Phil Clarke says their right. This reporter must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, surely?

"Despite Germany’s Energiewende green energy transformation, politicians there have shied away from conflict with the powerful car industry and put off shutting down the coal plants that generate nearly 40 percent of the country’s electricity. Germany will miss its 2020 goal of cutting emissions by 40 percent and is struggling to meet binding EU renewable and energy efficiency goals, too.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron has been trying to placate protesters demonstrating against a planned fuel tax hike. The so-called Yellow Jackets movement has blockaded roundabouts, truck depots, bridges, and even Paris’ iconic Champs-Elysées boulevard, demanding he retreat.

“It’s a very difficult balance for governments to be ambitious but not overly ambitious” because otherwise they tend to lose elections, said Peters. “It’s very hard to change that about pissing a lot of people off.”"

People, eh? 30 years of ramming alarmism down their throats, and they still don't want to change their lifestyles. I blame the deniers.....

"The gathering in Katowice is supposed to be a largely technical affair, working out how countries monitor and report their emissions cuts and increase their climate and financial efforts over time. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

“This will be a complicated COP, it will be difficult,” European Energy and Climate Action Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete said last month, expressing confidence the bloc “will be united, active, and leading.”

“The most important thing is that … we agree the rule book,” he said. “If we don’t have a system to monitor, to review, to compare where are we globally, Paris won’t be operational.”"

One might have expected them to think about that when they agreed the Paris Agreement. It's a point I made on the Paris Agreement thread here at Bishop Hill, and which has been made by many critics of the Paris Agreement. We haven't been taken seriously - until now. Some "greens" at least are finally waking up and facing reality.

"The gathering is also meant to serve as the first moment in which governments signal that they will go beyond what they originally pledged in Paris three years ago. But preparatory talks in the fall yielded little reason for optimism.

The challenging political landscape, paired with the difficulty of negotiating highly complex rules to implement the deal, is dragging the process down."

'Nuff said, really.

By the way, apologies to "Rachel Kyte, special representative of the United Nations secretary-general", who is presumably a she, not a he, as I incorrectly wrote.

How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb? Quite a lot if Phil is to be believed:

"...the American Geophysical Union (Approx 20,000 climate scientists)".

20,000 climate scientists in one union in one (admittedly large, and leading) country. How many must there be on the planet? What do they all cost? And in hard meaningful terms, what have they achieved that could not have been achieved by a fraction of their number?

You've still lost the argument about the CCA, still won't have the good grace to admit it, and are still moving the goalposts.

Well, that's strange, here was me thinking the exact same about you. Key points I have made (costs of the CCA small relative to wholesale fuel fluctuations, the lack of impact on competitiveness, the OECD research, no evidence of a collapsing economy) have gone unanswered, but I won't bother repeating myself.

The critique of the CCA is that it has pushed poor people in the UK further into fuel poverty; it has damaged the competitiveness of what's left of British industry; and the much-vaunted claims of the UK leading the way with others following, are false.

I never mentioned fuel poverty. This measure is a relative one with inputs including income after housing costs, costs of heating which clearly are influenced by the thermal efficiency of housing, and the cost of energy. Equally clearly as the CCA does increase the latter it will tend to increase the incidence of fuel poverty, as it tacitly stated. But what I can find no mention of in Darwall is a discussion of the measures the Government implemented to offset this impact, or targets (that word again) set. If you look at the data (figure 2.1), the number of people in fuel poverty is lower than 2008/9 when the ACT was made law, and the average fuel poverty gap has been falling steadily since 2011. So 'pushed poor people in the UK further into fuel poverty' would seem to be (another) false claim and the critique has little or no merit.

This is typical of Darwall, it is slanted in favour of the costs and disbenefits with little or no mention of the benefits or the real world data. Another classic example is the highly selective quotation from the Helm Review of the costs of energy. From Darwell you would think that Helm lays the blame for 'higher than necessary' energy costs squarely at the door of the CCA. But nearly the very first sentence in the review is

The cost of energy is too high, and higher than necessary to meet the Climate Change Act (CCA) target and the carbon budgets

In other words, market inefficiencies, poor forecasts and other woes are responsible for high prices, if measures to comply with the Act only had been enacted, prices would be lower. In fact Helm is supportive of the Act, but critical of Government policies, and the market response, to achieve its targets. For example he notes …

Since 2015, a number of reforms have begun to reverse some of the more grossly inefficient dimensions of current policies. The greater use of auctions has begun to bear down on excessive costs, but there is a long way to go. The decision to exit coal by 2025 is a belated but welcome step to recognise that switching away from coal is the cheapest way to decarbonise. It should have been the first option.

Another key claim of Darwall is that reducing emissions in one member country of the ETS just leads to more being emitted elsewhere, so-called 'carbon leakage'. He claims this amounts to 100%, that is , for every tonne of carbon dioxide not emitted in Britain, an extra tonne can be emitted elsewhere in the EU. In terms of cutting global emissions, the CCA doesn’t do anything. Yet the economic case for the CCA rests on the fiction that it does

Well no, once again, Darwell omits the measures built into the ETS to mitigate leakage and is silent on the real world evidence, which tells a different story, carbon leakage does occur, but at a maximum rate of 15-16%.

 Leakage is limited to 15% of the emission reductions in the pioneering regions, and depends on the size and composition of the pioneering coalition and the decarbonization strategy in the energy sector. There is an incentive to delay action to avoid near-term costs, but the immediate GDP losses after acceding to a global climate regime can be higher in the case of delayed action compared to early action. We conclude that carbon leakage is not a strong counter-argument against early action by pioneers to induce other regions to adopt more stringent mitigation.

So two key planks of Darwall's criticism have little basis in fact. Once again, it seems to me anyone relying on a report from the GWPF to tell the whole story is likely to be very disappointed. For another viewpoint, try Fankhauer et al.

So sez Tomo author of 'Obama claimed to be born in Kenya'.

My irony meter is broken. One of these days you'll make an argument stronger than 'I don't like government funded projects'. Not today, though. Remind me again who funds the GWPF?

While Mr Hodgson rubs his hands with glee at the 'hilarious' lack of progress against the Paris targets, here's yet another report …

People’s health is being damaged today by climate change through effects ranging from deadly heatwaves in Europe to rising dengue fever in the tropics, according to a report.

Billions of hours of farmwork has been lost during high temperatures and global warming has damaged the ability to grow crops, it said.

The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change was produced by 150 experts from 27 universities and institutions including the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

“The findings are clear and the stakes could not be higher,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general. “We cannot delay action on climate change. We cannot sleepwalk through this health emergency any longer.”

The report sets out the impacts of global warming on health in stark terms. ”A rapidly changing climate has dire implications for every aspect of human life, exposing vulnerable populations to extremes of weather, altering patterns of infectious disease, and compromising food security, safe drinking water and clean air,” it said.

Nick Watt, the executive director of the Lancet Countdown, said: “These are not things happening in 2050 but are things we are already seeing today. We think of these as the canary in, ironically, the coalmine.”

Add The Lancet and the WHO to the list of conspirators.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/28/climate-change-already-a-health-emergency-say-experts

Ooops, I put the wrong URL in the link to Fankhauser et al. It is here

And it informs us that

The first two carbon budgets, for the period 2008 to 2017, have been met with relative ease. The UK has been successful in decoupling greenhouse gas emissions from gross domestic product. Since 1990, UK GDP has grown by more than 65 per cent while total annual greenhouse gas emissions fell by 41 per cent to the end of 2016, the latest year for which official figures are available.

Which seems incompatible with the idea that the CCA has inflicted massive damage to the economy, putting it mildly.

Blimey, yet another report …

2018 is on course to be the 4th warmest year on record. This would mean that the past four years – 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 – are also the four warmest years in the series. 2018 is the coolest of the four. In contrast to the two warmest years, 2018 began with weak La Niña conditions, typically associated with lower global temperatures. The 20 warmest years have all occurred in the past 22 years.

World Meteorological Organisation, provisional State of the Global Climate 2018.

Phil, I'm a bit surprised you pray in aid Dieter Helm,

http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/energy/energy/cost-of-energy-review-independent-report/

"Since late-2014, the prices of oil, gas and coal have fallen significantly, contrary to the modelling and forecasting of both the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC)."

"Productivity increases should have been putting further downward pressure on the costs of transmission, distribution and supply. New technologies should mean lower, not higher, costs and much greater scope for energy efficiency. Margins should be falling as competition should be increasing. Yet in this period, households and industry have seen limited benefits from these cost reductions. Prices have gone up, not down, for many customers."

"These excessive costs are not only an unnecessary burden on households and businesses, they also risk undermining the broader democratic support for decarbonisation. In electricity, the costs of decarbonisation are already estimated by the CCC to be around 20% of typical electricity bills. These legacy costs will amount to well over £100 billion by 2030."

"Many of these excessive costs are locked in for a decade or more, given the contractual and other legal commitments governments have made. These include Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs), feed-in tariffs (FiTs), and low-carbon contracts for difference (CfDs) granted to early-stage wind and solar, larger-scale nuclear, biomass, and offshore wind. Since the ROCs, FiTs and low-carbon CfDs are formal contracts, they are taken as given in this review."

"The burden on households and businesses would have been even greater had there not been a financial crisis in 2007/08 which held down demand, and a parallel continued decline of the energy-intensive industries. Had the crash not happened, GDP would be perhaps 20–25% higher in 2017 (assuming no sharp fall in GDP in the immediate aftermath of the crash and 2–3% GDP growth since then). There would then have been a serious capacity crunch and much higher prices. As it is, the UK has flirted with dangerously low capacity margins despite the GDP effect, and this drives up prices as the more expensive marginal plant is drawn onto the system to match demand."

"In the current decade, the government has moved from mainly market-determined investments to a new context in which almost all new electricity investments are determined by the state through direct and often technology-specific contracts. Government has got into the business of ‘picking winners’. Unfortunately, losers are good at picking governments, and inevitably – as in most such picking-winners strategies – the results end up being vulnerable to lobbying, to the general detriment of household and industrial customers."

"In determining not just the level of new capacity, but also the composition of the low-carbon portfolio, the government started out with some of the most expensive technologies first, and it could be argued that since then it has at times been exploring even more expensive options. The result is that British households and businesses are locked into higher renewables and other low-carbon generation costs than they need be to achieve the decarbonisation objectives for decades to come."

"These state-backed contracts have been supported by the return to formal modelling and forecasting by DECC (now BEIS, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) and the CCC. In the case of DECC, the results have at times been spectacularly bad."

"The EU Renewables Directive and its particular definition of renewables has been a major contributor to raising the costs above those necessary to reduce carbon emissions to meet the CCA."

"The overwhelming focus on electricity rather than agriculture, buildings and transport has added to the cost. Agriculture in particular contributes 10% greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the costs of reducing these emissions are much lower than many of the chosen options because the economic consequences of a loss of output in agriculture are small. Agriculture comprises just 0.7% GDP and at least half its output is uneconomic in the absence of subsidies. With the development of electric vehicles (EVs) it is apparent that transport can contribute more. The CCC could have paid more attention to the lower marginal cost of abatement in these sectors."

"Keeping costs down is all the more important as the electricity system faces a series of major challenges over the next decade. Not only does it need to meet the carbon budgets, it needs to do this in the context of major retirement of existing capacity, the investment requirements to handle the intermittent renewables, the coming of electric transport, and the wider demands of a digitalising economy. These challenges are on a scale and magnitude not witnessed since the reconstruction of the electricity industry immediately after the Second World War."

"The CCC neglects some of the opportunities of these technology impacts in its time horizon to 2050, arguing that any new technologies will have to be deployed before 2030 if they are to make much impact before 2050. This, together with the assumption that gas prices will rise by 30% by 2030, is a key rationale for the roughly linear profile of emissions reductions from now through to 2030. If the objective is limited to the CCA 2050 target, then the carbon budgets overegg the early stages, and make the trajectory between now and 2050 more expensive than it needs to be."

"Since 2015, a number of reforms have begun to reverse some of the more grossly inefficient dimensions of current policies. The greater use of auctions has begun to bear down on excessive costs, but there is a long way to go."

And the killer final conclusion. Bear in mind that Helm supports decarbonisation, and seeks to improve the efficiency and reduce the costs of doing so:

"Not to implement these recommendations is likely to perpetuate the crisis mentality of the industry, and these crises are likely to get worse, challenging the security of supply, undermining the transition to electric transport, and weakening the delivery of the carbon budgets. It will continue the unnecessary high costs of the British energy system, and as a result perpetuate fuel poverty, weaken industrial competitiveness, and undermine public support for decarbonisation. We can, and should, do much better, and open up a period of falling prices as households and industry benefit from the great technological opportunities over the coming decades."

Phil, please don't ever take my comments out of context and misquote me, as per this shabby effort by you earlier:

"While Mr Hodgson rubs his hands with glee at the 'hilarious' lack of progress against the Paris targets..."

My hilarity was expressed thus:

"The next paragraph is hilarious:

"“You’ve got a hostile environment,” said Rachel Kyte, special representative of the United Nations secretary-general on making energy accessible to the poor. “It’s not just the U.S. The U.S. is giving other people the permission to be less than their best selves.”"

"...on making energy accessible to the poor"! Given that he and his colleagues would make energy more expensive for the poor, that's a bit rich. As is blaming the USA for the failure of Paris. It's the Paris Agreement itself and its get-out-of-jail free card for developing countries, combined with the non-binding nature of the Agreement, that has given "other people the permission to be less than their best selves.”. Still, as always with these people, why let the truth get in the way of some doom-mongering? Why admit where the blame really lies, when your job depends on ever more rounds of tens of thousands of people jetting in annually to pointless climate conferences that never achieve anything in dealing with the issue you are paid to propagandise about?".

I didn't say what you purport to quote me as saying. It's not the first time you've done this, and I repeat my request that you don't do it again. It does you no credit - I know you're better than that. I can only conclude you're rattled, and tired of fighting us climate heathens all by yourself.

Phil:

"Key points I have made (costs of the CCA small relative to wholesale fuel fluctuations, the lack of impact on competitiveness, the OECD research, no evidence of a collapsing economy) have gone unanswered, but I won't bother repeating myself."

Well, excuse me, but I think the quotes I gave you from the EEF (which you have ignored), my observations that OECD research and Bassi & Duffy's study both seem to fail to interview a single business person at the sharp end, and Helm's criticisms of the problems caused by the way our energy industry has been run post-CCA all do that (I'll grant you that I've just quoted from Helm in the last few minutes). I did ask you to tell me if I was wrong in my assertion that OECD and Bassi & Duffy all failed to interview business people when coming to their conclusions., and you haven't done so. Provisionally therefore I assume my criticism is correct.

And in case you try to argue that the CCA is not to blame for the bad and expensive way our energy industry is run, I'd remind you that much of it has been on the advice of the CCC, which is specifically a creature of the CCA - the two go hand in hand.

Phil

Many thanks for the link to Fankhauser et al. Despite my criticisms of you, I'm always grateful for the links. I've skim-read it now. I confess I haven't read it in detail, since it's a political polemic written by authors who work for the Grantham Institute, and who see the world solely through the eyes of the need to reduce GHG emissions. Their main point seems to be to consider whether the Act does enough, whether it should be strengthened etc. Hardly any of it even purports to deal with the question of whether the Act has had a negative impact on GDP. That isn't what the paper is about, and such references as are made are made in passing, without any serious attempt to justify them. I recommend anyone interested in this subject to read it for themselves and to judge for themselves.

As for this quote:

"Since 1990, UK GDP has grown by more than 65 per cent while total annual greenhouse gas emissions fell by 41 per cent to the end of 2016, the latest year for which official figures are available."

Well, yes, fair enough so far as it goes, but we're talking about the Climate Change Act 2008. The clue is in the date - 2008. So wouldn't it be fair to compare GDP with greenhouse gas emissions since 2008?

I completely accept that the crash can't be blamed on the CCA, and that the timing is an unfortunate coincidence. However, GDP has increased by only 11% since 2008. You might be able to help me ascertain the GHG emissions fall in the UK since 2008, as I'm struggle to find it. However, since 2008 it doesn't look especially impressive, which isn't surprising, since presumably the "low-hanging fruit" was plucked early.

You also didn't bother to finish the paragraph when you chose to offer up that quote. It actually concludes with this:

"This is a striking statistic, although critics will point out that emissions are measured on a production basis and consumption emissions have continued to rise (CCC, 2013)." Yes, critics might. Why then do Fankhauser et al leave it at that and not seek to deal with such a criticism?

Fuel poverty is not a straightforward issue, I'll grant you (not least since the Government has changed the definition for England, but not for the rest of the UK, since it seems to be regarded as a devolved issue).

"Until recently, the usual definition of fuel poverty was that a household was considered to be in fuel poverty when it needed to spend more than 10% of its income on fuel – or energy as it is often called.

However, in June 2013, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)* published 'A framework for future action’ which set out the Government’s intention to adopt a new definition of fuel poverty for England.

This new definition states that a household is said to be in fuel poverty if:

They have required fuel costs that are above average (the national median level), and

Were they to spend that amount they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line."

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Fuel-Poverty/What-is-fuel-poverty

Fuel Poverty across the UK
Scotland
In 2016, 649,000 households (26.5% of the total) were in fuel poverty.

(Source: The Scottish House Condition Survey 2016, December 2017)

The definition of fuel poverty in Scotland is if a household spends more than 10% of its income on fuel costs.

Wales
In 2016, 291,000 households were classed as fuel poor (23% of the total).

(Source: The Production of Estimated Levels of Fuel Poverty in Wales: 2012-2016, Welsh Government/BRE, July 2016)

Like Scotland, Wales uses a 10% indicator to measure fuel poverty.

Northern Ireland
In 2016, 160,000 households were in fuel poverty (22% of the total) using the 10% indicator.

The fuel poverty figure was also reported using the Low Income, High Costs indicator – 7% of households.

(Source: Northern Ireland Housing Executive 2018)

Northern Ireland uses a 10% indicator, but has no statutory target.

The latest figures for England show that in 2016, the number of households in fuel poverty was estimated at 2.55 million, representing approximately 11.1% of all English households.

(Source: Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics Report, BEIS, June 2018)

England uses the Low Income High Costs definition to measure fuel poverty. This states that a household is in fuel poverty if their income is below the poverty line (taking into account energy costs) and their energy costs are higher than is typical for their household type.

England has a fuel poverty target for as many fuel poor homes as reasonably practicable to achieve an energy efficiency standard of Band C by 2030.

https://www.eas.org.uk/en/uk-fuel-poverty_50535/

I don't think you can reasonably afford to be so complacent about fuel poverty, Phil:

"More than one in 10 households living in fuel poverty, figures show
Millions of families in England unable to meet costs without falling below poverty line
Tuesday 26 June 2018"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fuel-poverty-uk-figures-poor-bills-cost-households-a8417426.html

"More than one in 10 households in England are living in fuel poverty, new figures reveal, in what has been branded a “national scandal”.

A government report said more than two-and-a-half million families were unable to pay the costs associated with heating their homes without falling below the poverty line in 2016 – an increase of 69,000 on the previous year.

Single-parent households fared worst, with more than a quarter (26.4 per cent) struggling to afford the bills. This compared with 15 per cent of couples with children, 10 per cent of lone people under 60 and 9 per cent of couples over 60.

The figures show that while the number of people in fuel poverty had been steadily reducing between 2009 and 2012, it increased by 9 per cent in the four years after the Conservatives took power.

Politicians have accused ministers of presiding over a “broken energy system”, warning that fuel poverty can have a detrimental impact on health as well as increasing the risk of mental health problems and negatively impacting children’s education."

"Research by National Energy Action and climate-change charity E3G published in February found that more than 3,000 people were “needlessly” dying each year in the UK because they could not afford to properly heat their homes, and called for urgent action to end to the devastating but “entirely preventable” tragedy."

Ironically "Amelia Womack, co-leader of the Green Party, said: “Being able to heat your home should be a basic human right. Yet these figures show the proportion of people in Britain facing fuel poverty went up between 2014 and 2016 – with the poorest hit hardest."

Then there's this (from the Guardian on 26th June 2018):

"Rising energy prices expected to worsen UK fuel poverty
Gap between cost of energy and what people can afford set to rise by 9% in 2018"

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/26/rising-energy-prices-expected-to-worsen-uk-fuel-poverty

"The depth of fuel poverty blighting Britain’s poorest households is expected to worsen because of energy price rises this year, according to official forecasts.

The Labour party said it was a national disgrace that the government was failing to turn the tide on fuel poverty.

A key measure known as the average fuel poverty gap – between households’ energy bills and what they can afford to pay – narrowed slightly in 2016.

But the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy forecasts that the gap will expand by 9%, up from £326 in 2016 to £357 in 2018.

The department said the growth would be “mainly driven by increases in fuel prices”."

"The proportion of households living in fuel poverty in 2016 rose for the second year in a row to 11.1%, or around 2.55m homes."

I fully accept that there are a number of factors playing in to the cost of energy and also into the question of fuel poverty. However, I'm not aware of anyone arguing (again, correct me if I'm wrong) that the CCA hasn't increased the cost of energy in the UK, and so far as I'm concerned, anything that adds to the burden is by definition a bad thing. Remember the quote from Helm:

"In electricity, the costs of decarbonisation are already estimated by the CCC to be around 20% of typical electricity bills. These legacy costs will amount to well over £100 billion by 2030.""