Global Warming Policy Foundation | 13 August 2014
Despite the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and caused by human activity, a new survey conducted for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette demonstrates that many Americans remain uncertain about the impact of climate change and the need for government action to address it. Only 41 percent of Americans believe that ‘most scientists agree that climate change is happening now caused mainly by human activities.’ –James P. O’Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10 August 2014
A year ago, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to mobilize the nation behind a grand plan: fight climate change by slashing carbon pollution at home, while prodding other countries to follow. A key part of that strategy was for the United States to stop using public money to finance the construction of most coal-fired power plants abroad, seen as one of the main causes of rising pollution from heat-trapping gases. But a year later, momentum has stalled on the Obama administration’s plan for a global “domino effect” that would choke off financing for coal projects from public lending institutions around the world. –Anna Yukhananov and Valerie Volcovici, Reuters, 12 August 2014
In the fall of 2013, Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy testified before Congress defending the Obama administration’s climate change policies – policies that have defined its second term by political calculation, rather than diplomatic or legislative achievements. But despite all the rhetoric on the issue, few nations are embracing the White House’s approach, and an increasing number are doing just the opposite. Without the global participation the administration agrees is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reductions will be inconsequential. Around the world, nation after nation has declined to follow the Obama administration’s lead, and those who adopted similar measures have seen devastating economic results. –Andrew Powaleny, The Daily Caller, 11 August 2014
The dispute in California over cap and trade may just be the harbinger of a wider conflict within the party nationally. Progressives shrug at the loss of these regions and the associated white working-class voters who, as the liberal website Daily Kos contended earlier this year, are just a bunch of racists, anyway. But, at least here in California, much of the working class is made up of minorities, who are increasingly the economic victims of the enlightened ones. Essentially, you have on one side overwhelmingly white, often very-affluent greens, allied with powerful Democratic politicians, arrayed to obstruct the refinery. On the other side, you have minorities, many of them union members, whose livelihoods and high-paying jobs depend on the refinery. Many of today’s progressives not only are determined to protect their privileges, but seek to limit the opportunities for pretty much everyone else. -–Joel Kotkin, New Geography, 4 August 2014
China is finding it harder than it expected to unlock a shale gas boom like the one in North America, calling into question its lofty goals to use natural gas to help clean up its air and control the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Citing complicated geology and high production costs, the Chinese government has cut its ambitious 2020 target for shale gas development roughly in half. –Mike Orcutt, MIT Technology Review, 12 August 2014
Green policies imposed by Brussels are endangering 1.5m UK jobs by saddling manufacturers with high energy costs, an influential group of business leaders has warned. A report published on Wednesday by Business for Britain (BfB), a Eurosceptic lobby group, says that EU policies are to blame for up to 9 per cent of costs on energy bills for industrial companies and warns this could rise to 16 per cent by 2030. Manufacturers are now considering moving their operations to countries where energy is cheaper, risking “devastating” job losses in the UK, it warns. —Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2014
1) Most Americans Don’t Believe Climate ‘Consensus’, New Survey – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10 August 2014
2) U.S. Anti-Coal Dominoes Hit BRICS Wall, Other Sceptics – Reuters, 12 August 2014
3) Few Other Countries Are Following The Obama Administration’s Lead on Climate – The Daily Caller, 11 August 2014
4) U.S. Democrats Risk Blue-Collar Rebellion Over Green Policies – The American Interest, 9 August 2014
5) China’s Shale Gas Bust: Another Reason Beijing Won’t Agree CO2 Cap – MIT Technology Review, 12 August 2014
6) EU Green Energy Policies ‘Put 1.5 Million UK Manufacturing Jobs At Risk’ – The Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2014
1) Most Americans Don’t Believe Climate ‘Consensus’, New Survey
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10 August 2014
James P. O’Toole
Despite the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and caused by human activity, a new survey conducted for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette demonstrates that many Americans remain uncertain about the impact of climate change and the need for government action to address it. Only 41 percent of Americans believe that ‘most scientists agree that climate change is happening now caused mainly by human activities.’
This is contrary to some polls suggesting wide support for steps to counter the phenomenon. David W. Moore, director of the iMediaEthics survey, said the results suggest that, because of flaws in methodology or wording, some other surveys have overstated the degree of public knowledge on the issue, and the intensity of support for measures to curb carbon emissions. [See Mr. Moore’s essay in today’s Forum section, “Climate Partisans.” The poll report is available here, along with a description of the methodology.]
Mr. Moore argues that while many poll respondents will express an opinion on issues such as global warming, closer scrutiny shows that they do not have strong feelings on it one way or another. One indication of the relative lack of intense, informed views on the issue is the way responses can be influenced by outside factors. As an example, the survey of 1,000 respondents was divided into subsamples with half asked about their support for “federal government” action to regulate greenhouse gases, and the other half asked about the “Obama administration.”
Specifically, half of the respondents were asked: “Would you approve or disapprove of the federal government requiring power plants to reduce greenhouse gases, even if it would mean higher utility bills for consumers, or are you unsure?” The other half were asked: “Would you approve or disapprove of the Obama administration requiring power plants …”
The results differed significantly with the use of the name Obama eliciting a margin of support of 42 percent to 28 percent, compared with 36 percent approval and 32 percent disapproval for the federal government. That may seem counterintuitive, given the president’s overall job approval ratings, but Mr. Moore explained that while the use of the Obama name reduced support among Republicans, it increased support, by a greater margin, among independents and Democrats.
Republicans disapproved of “federal government” regulation by a margin of 51-27; but opposed “Obama administration” regulation by a margin of 48-18. Independents disapproved of “federal government” regulation, 28-26, but that turned around with the mention of “Obama administration.” In that case, independents approved of the prospective regulation, 36-27. For Democrats, the mention of Obama had an even more positive effect, boosting approval from 50-16, to 64-13. In both cases, about a third of the sample said they were undecided.
Pointing to another way that wording can prejudice polling results, Mr. Moore noted another survey that asked people repeatedly about “the problem of climate change,” conditioning them to consider it a problem regardless of their views before taking the survey.
Beyond the uncertainty that wording can introduce into a survey, Mr. Moore and the iMediaEthics poll drilled down further to assess how much people actually cared about the proposed regulation, asking if they would be upset if the regulations were imposed or not. In his analysis of the results, Mr. Moore pointed out that, “Many respondents immediately acknowledged that they wouldn’t be upset if the opposite happened to what they had just said. The net result, 30 percent strongly favored the Obama administration trying to curb greenhouse gases; 22 percent strongly opposed the idea, with the rest not caring one way or the other.’’
Mr. Moore said that the relative lack of intense views on the issue was consistent with other findings that showed that many Americans are uncertain about the impact of climate change and of the broad consensus among climate scientists that climate change is a man-made problem.
“Just 41 percent of Americans are confident that ‘most scientists agree that climate change is happening now caused mainly by human activities,’ while 18 percent firmly believe “there is little agreement among scientists’ on the issue and the rest are unsure.”
Full story
2) U.S. Anti-Coal Dominoes Hit BRICS Wall, Other Sceptics
Reuters, 12 August 2014
Anna Yukhananov and Valerie Volcovici
A year ago, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to mobilize the nation behind a grand plan: fight climate change by slashing carbon pollution at home, while prodding other countries to follow.
A key part of that strategy was for the United States to stop using public money to finance the construction of most coal-fired power plants abroad, seen as one of the main causes of rising pollution from heat-trapping gases.
But a year later, momentum has stalled on the Obama administration’s plan for a global “domino effect” that would choke off financing for coal projects from public lending institutions around the world. Some key lenders continue to finance coal projects, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States has put its ban on hold.
In the past year, Japan has approved funding for three major coal plants in energy-thirsty emerging markets. And Germany, typically a leader in global climate action, continues to support coal projects.
Observers say a new development bank from the BRICS group of emerging markets – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is also unlikely to follow strict coal limits when it launches in two years.
If countries move away from coal as a fuel source, they are likely to do so for reasons other than a lack of public funding.
In 2012, according to the World Resources Institute, almost 1,200 coal-fired power plants had been proposed globally, with China and Pakistan (sic) accounting for the majority of the projects.
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS RULE
U.S. officials say their plan to limit public support for coal has had a global impact, with the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries joining the effort over the past year.
Now, the United States is trying to persuade other countries to change their export credit policies “to help level the playing field for U.S. coal-related energy exporters and bring other countries’ financing practices in line with their climate change policies,” Treasury spokeswoman Holly Shulman told Reuters.
U.S. officials have floated proposals at multilateral forums such as the G20 but have been rebuffed by Japan and Germany. U.S. Treasury officials have also discussed with China the role that public funds can play in developing less carbon-intensive energy sources.
Scott Morris, a former Treasury official for development finance, said the rapid change the United States has hoped for was never realistic.
Full story
3) Few Other Countries Are Following The Obama Administration’s Lead on Climate
The Daily Caller, 11 August 2014
Andrew Powaleny
In the fall of 2013, Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy testified before Congress defending the Obama administration’s climate change policies – policies that have defined its second term by political calculation, rather than diplomatic or legislative achievements.
McCarthy told Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS), “What we’re attempting to do is put together a comprehensive climate plan across the administration that positions the U.S. for leadership on this issue, and that will prompt and leverage international discussions and action.” The statement spoke to the administration’s eagerness to show strength on the issue of climate change several years after a cap-and-trade system died in the U.S. Senate and as the president faces the reality that his ability to get much done is waning.
In the same hearing, Administrator McCarthy symbolically added, “Climate change requires a global effort.” But despite all the rhetoric on the issue, few nations are embracing the White House’s approach, and an increasing number are doing just the opposite. Without the global participation the administration agrees is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reductions will be inconsequential.
Around the world, nation after nation has declined to follow the Obama administration’s lead, and those who adopted similar measures have seen devastating economic results.
Take Australia, which recently repealed a tax on carbon emissions as a way to boost manufacturing and lessen the economic toll it was taking on consumers. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “people [in Australia] will notice a significant difference when they get their next quarterly power bill,” as a result of the reversal.
Australia’s implications go much deeper, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported: “In Europe, Australia’s repeal has hobbled ambitions of linking up similar carbon emissions trading systems around the globe to the EU’s own. Since the emissions trading system (ETS) was first introduced in 2005, it has been a key plank of the EU’s aim to achieve a 40 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.” Like many nations in Europe, including the United Kingdom, Australia has come full circle and is now importing large amounts of American coal. A separate Wall Street Journal article notes, “The 28-nation EU imported 47.2 million tons of U.S. coal last year, up from 13.6 million tons in 2003.”
President Obama once called on Americans to “look to Berlin” for sound green energy policy, but Germany’s renewable energy-subsidized market has been a disaster.
Full story
4) U.S. Democrats Risk Blue-Collar Rebellion Over Green Policies
The American Interest, 9 August 2014
Walter Russell Mead
California’s elite-favored green agenda is driving a wedge between the upper and lower classes in the overwhelmingly liberal state. Resentment toward the political powers that be has been building for some time, and increasingly looks like a full-blown “blue-collar rebellion” against the Democratic Party, says Joel Kotkin
At least here in California, much of the working class is made up of minorities, who are increasingly the economic victims of the enlightened ones. One place to see this is in Richmond in Northern California, where a Green Party mayor and a similarly aligned planning department have tried to block the refurbishing of Chevron’s large refinery there, which is also the economic bulwark of the area.
The dispute over the refinery suggests divisions that may become more commonplace. Essentially, you have on one side overwhelmingly white, often very-affluent greens, allied with powerful Democratic politicians, arrayed to obstruct the refinery. On the other side, you have minorities, many of them union members, whose livelihoods and high-paying jobs depend on the refinery.
The incipient rift between such blue-collar workers and gentry Democrats is inevitable. The wealthy donors who dominate both local and national Democratic politics, like San Francisco hedge fund mogul Tom Steyer, may have made much of their fortunes in fossil fuels, as the New York Times, among others, have reported. But now, having embraced a stringent environmentalism, the gentry seek to impose their “green” agenda on the hoi polloi. If this hypocrisy isn’t disturbing enough, consider the increasingly top-down nature of environmentalist politics. In the past, conservationists focused on how to protect people from harm and preserve nature, in part, so people might enjoy it.
Full post
5) China’s Shale Gas Bust: Another Reason Beijing Won’t Agree CO2 Cap
MIT Technology Review, 12 August 2014
Mike Orcutt
China is finding it harder than it expected to unlock a shale gas boom like the one in North America, calling into question its lofty goals to use natural gas to help clean up its air and control the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
Citing complicated geology and high production costs, the Chinese government has cut its ambitious 2020 target for shale gas development roughly in half.
In 2013 China became the third biggest user of natural gas behind the United States and Russia, consuming 166 billion cubic meters (bcm). By 2019, the International Energy Agency expects China’s annual natural gas consumption to grow 90 percent, to 315 bcm. Half of that increase is expected to be supplied by domestic gas production, which would come from multiple sources, including shale reserves.
That IEA estimate for gas consumption is much lower than the production target China had set for itself: 420 bcm of natural gas annually by 2020, with hydrofracturing, or fracking, being used to get 60 to 80 bcm from shale.
China is estimated to hold the largest technically recoverable reserves of shale gas in the world—nearly twice as much as the U.S. But the shale industry in China has struggled to get off the ground. Most projects are still in the exploration phase. In many cases the formations that hold gas are deeper than in North America and more expensive to reach. Further, Chinese shale tends to have more clay in it, which is an obstacle to extraction (see “China Has Plenty of Shale Gas, But It Will Be Hard to Mine”). These challenges led the government last week to reduce the 2020 shale-gas target to 30 bcm.
Full story
6) EU Green Energy Policies ‘Put 1.5 Million UK Manufacturing Jobs At Risk’
The Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2014
Emily Gosden
Green policies imposed by Brussels are endangering 1.5m UK jobs by saddling manufacturers with high energy costs, an influential group of business leaders has warned.
A report published on Wednesday by Business for Britain (BfB), a Eurosceptic lobby group, says that EU policies are to blame for up to 9 per cent of costs on energy bills for industrial companies and warns this could rise to 16 per cent by 2030.
Manufacturers are now considering moving their operations to countries where energy is cheaper, risking “devastating” job losses in the UK, it warns.
More than 1.5m people are employed in energy-intensive industries, such as metals, ceramics and glass, with 363,000 of those in direct employment and therefore deemed to be at “high risk”.
The report says that the cost of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, and the Renewables Obligation (RO), a UK subsidy scheme for wind farms and other green technologies designed to hit EU renewables targets for 2020, together account for 9pc of energy bills for manufacturers.
BfB acknowledges “there is a good chance that the UK would have introduced similar policies had it been outside of the EU” and that the UK has “in some areas gone considerably further than the EU in introducing expensive policies”. Despite this the UK “enjoys relatively low energy prices compared to many other EU countries”.
However, it says this “should not cloud the fact that the EU does play a role in driving up the cost of energy and has introduced expensive policies”.
It notes that ministers have rejected EU moves for further renewable energy targets beyond 2020, arguing that decarbonisation targets allow countries to pursue cheaper ways of going green.
Opting out of the existing renewables target could see manufacturers’ bills fall by up to 7 per cent, the report claims, although its authors do not explain how this would happen. Most of the RO costs already on bills are for projects that have already been promised they will be paid the subsidies for at least a decade.
The report estimates that the total costs to the UK economy of policies that help meet EU energy laws could be as much £93.2bn. Its authors said this was based on adding up the net impact figures from UK government impact assessments. This includes policies implemented since the 1970s, and includes the lifetime costs and benefits of some policies extending several decades from now.
Full story
