The Republican victory alters the arguments on net zero

COP 29 meets against the background of a new US President about to take office who sees net zero as a scam. China generating 33% of world CO 2 is still expanding her output by burning more coal and gas as well as cornering the market in renewables and batteries. Now the US accounting for 13% of world CO 2 says Drill baby drill there is no way the world can meet its 2030 targets en route for net zero by 2050.

The Republicans by a majority reject not just the damaging policies of trying to force people into battery cars and heat pumps but also some of the theory and forecasts behind the policies. Some Republicans point out that there was substantial climate change before man arrived on the scene, with periods both colder and warmer than today. This argues that natural causes can boost and reduce temperatures substantially with no man made CO 2. Some argue climate models are dominated by man made CO 2 and need to include  many natural changes to get their predictions right. Some think there has always been extreme weather events and are not convinced there are now more or worse. Some think if China, Russia, India and others are not reining in their use of fossil fuels, why should America?

COP 29 is going to find it difficult to get advanced countries to pledge the huge sums needed by the emerging world to pay  for their huge transition. With the US under Trump likely to resist such payments it throws matters back on the Europeans. It is telling that the President of the EU and the President of France are giving this COP a miss and the German government has just collapsed. None  of these countries have the large sums the emerging world wants.They are asking for $1trillion a year for net zero transition!

President Trump will change this debate and force a re think to policies trying to cut CO 2 which are very costly. So far these policies have not succeeded in reducing world CO 2. With China and the US not trying this transition is much delayed.

100 Comments

  1. David Peddy
    November 12, 2024

    I was not born when we had the very hard winter of 1947 but I do remember ’62/’63 . The floods of 1952. The heatwaves on 1975 and ’76
    Further back there are similar exceptional events and history tells us that there have been warmer and colder periods in the earth’s history

    Reply
    1. David Andrews
      November 12, 2024

      I am old enough to remember 1947. The snowball fights lasted weeks and weeks. Unfortunately the scam that CO2 is bad for you has lasted over 30 years. Too many have been brainwashed into thinking this must be true by 30 years of taxpayer funded propaganda. No doubt the climate changes over time. The time honoured response is adaptation to actual experience not reckless expenditures on doubtful predictions that the end of the world is nigh.

      Reply
      1. Pominoz
        November 12, 2024

        Thank God for Trump!!
        For the third? time a very brave ‘non-politician’ received sufficient support from the US electorate to deliver salvation to the whole of the Western World from the range of devastating strategies foisted on them, manipulated by the WEF elites, and their gullible followers, which, sadly, includes not only the self-interested hyper wealthy, but also those in political office in the UK and elsewhere, who seek personal benefit from the blatant con. The pendulum must now swing, or we are all totally doomed.
        I remain optimistic, but why must the population of the UK rely on the common sense, and courage, of people from other countries to save them from a fate from which, with fortitude, they can save themselves?

        Reply
        1. Lynn Atkinson
          November 12, 2024

          +1

          Reply
        2. S Wanderer
          November 12, 2024

          +1

          Reply
    2. agricola
      November 12, 2024

      The very coal we have beneath our feet, we now deny ourselves, that fueled the industrial revolution, that lifted man from serfdom, was layed down at a time when an unreckognisable geographical UK was sub tropical if not tropical. How about that as a warmer period in our evolution, not to mention two ice ages.

      Reply
      1. Mike Wilson
        November 12, 2024

        That ‘very coal beneath our feet’ gave us smog, acid rain, black buildings etc.

        Reply
        1. Lifelogic
          November 12, 2024

          No longer it can be burned very cleanly but natural gas if still preferable so get fracking. CO2 however tree, plant and crop food is clear and is not pollution. In fact it is a net good the gas of life.

          Reply
        2. glen cullen
          November 12, 2024

          Don’t worry the tories with the support of labour banned the sale of coal
          ”The Air Quality (Domestic Solid Fuels Standards) (England) Regulations 2020 outlaw the sale of wet wood and house coal”

          Reply
        3. agricola
          November 12, 2024

          No Mike tbe way we chose to use it without any serious effort to control its downsides resulted in what you highlight.

          Reply
      2. Mark B
        November 12, 2024

        +1

        Reply
    3. Lifelogic
      November 12, 2024

      The East Cost floods were 1953 killing over 300. Imagine the BBC going on about climate change if that happened today. It had nothing to do with CO2 just a high spring tide, low pressure and a storm with wind in the wrong direction at the time.

      Thank goodness Trumps will expose the climate alarmist scam. Hopefully with a team of sensible scientists like Lindzen, Happer
 “a re think to policies trying to cut CO 2 which are very costly” indeed very costly and do no good at all indeed positve damage.

      A bit more CO2 is not a problem it is a net good.
      The policies pushed to reduce CO2 renewables, heat pumps, burning wood at Drax, public transport, EVs… do not even reduce CO2 anyway and are impractical and vastly expensive.
      The idea that CO2 is some kind of World thermostat is totally moronic.
      Ed Miliband is a deluded relegious Zealot with duff A levels (albeit in Physics and Maths though) and a PPE Oxon degree. He needs to be fired now he is a huge danger to the UK and our economy. Evan worse than Reeves.

      Reply
    4. Mickey Taking
      November 12, 2024

      I was born in the snowed-in winter of early ’47. The midwife couldn’t reach us until I was already born.
      I do remember snow several years in the fifties, trying to skate on very shallow ponds/pools, ice inside windows, horrible in bedrooms. In the very early ’60s I got sunstroke through standing for ever fielding facing the sun at cricket. I also realised I had got hayfever although assumed it was summer colds. Fairly extreme weather happened pretty regularly.

      Reply
      1. Lifelogic
        November 12, 2024

        There is no increase in extreme weather events despite what the BBC types like to claim. Just more houses, cars, buildings & people living in places when these events do happen.

        Reply
  2. Ian Wraggg
    November 12, 2024

    A d not before time too.
    We may now get some sensible discussion on the WEF/UN mandated nonsense
    It is becoming increasingly obvious that the whole shooting match is designed to impoverish the western world for the benefit of the ROW
    Vast sums of money are expected to be transferred to other nations with no oversight as to how it’s spent
    The whole scheme seems to be a make work exercise for UN agencies to control the world
    The sooner this scam is exposed the better.
    The sad thing is the uniparty in Britain has so much political capital invested that they will never admit to being wrong and double down o their endeavours.
    They’ve managed to get rid of steel, aluminium, fertiliser and many other activities. Now they’re aiming for the car manufacturers and small businesses.
    Let’s hope we can salvage something before it’s too late.

    Reply
    1. Mark B
      November 12, 2024

      Vast sums of money are expected to be transferred to other nations with no oversight as to how it’s spent

      Well that’s Socialism for you, mate. And we’ve had an unending run of Socialist governments here in the UK since 1997.

      Reply
  3. Cliff.. Wokingham
    November 12, 2024

    Does COP stand for Cash Only Please?
    It worries me when a Labour PM attends an international event with our nation’s cheque book in his pocket.
    If CO2 really was such a problem, then this event would be done on zoom. How many of these world leaders are walking or riding a bicycle to the event?

    Reply
    1. Berkshire Alan
      November 12, 2024

      Cliff
      Not only a Labour PM, all PM’s have given away taxpayers money when either attending overseas meetings, or welcoming heads of State in our own Country.
      Anyone can be benevolent with other peoples money, the test is when they spend their own !
      I see it is reported that Starmer has confirmed during yesterdays COP meeting that he wishes the UK to be a World leader in Co2 reduction, so it would appear that the lunatics are still in charge of the UK Government asylum.
      Let us hope Trump will bring some common sense and realism back into the argument, as they all refuse to listen to anyone else, even many Scientists.

      Reply
    2. Bryan Harris
      November 12, 2024

      +9

      Reply
    3. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      It will be 15-minute-cities next for the plebs ….unless you have a ‘special’ pass

      Reply
    4. Sharon
      November 12, 2024

      They’re also using the meeting to make deals on gas and coal and oil sales, apparently!

      Reply
  4. agricola
    November 12, 2024

    Ref your title, at last we have a major politician who calls it for what it is, a scam. A scam via which governments of few scruples exercise ever more restriction and control.

    I have now read your submission so as not to taint my initial response, but find myself largely in agreement with it. Based on past performance, the UK and Europe have been places of great intellectual advance for many hundreds of years, so why have ostensibly educated people fallen for this “South sea bubble”. Is it Orwellian, to the extent that we have been commatised via corrupted education, to sit back and accept that snake oil is the true panacea, without the capacity to question it.

    The majority of 370 million people in the USA have awoken from their slumbers, how long before we in the UK and Europe do likewise.

    Reply
    1. Lifelogic
      November 12, 2024

      Well in the UK the population suffer endless daily BBC lies and propaganda no BBC programme, news or weather is complete without these lies. Most people have little no science or engineering and so assume this is true as “the experts” tell us so. Plus in universities that is the way to get you research grants. They fell for the net harm Covid vaccines, lockdowns and useless masks too.

      Reply
    2. Mark B
      November 12, 2024

      . . . so why have ostensibly educated people fallen for this “South sea bubble”.

      For the same reason people believed that banging their posts and pans on a Thursday evening would somehoe save the NHS. People are too trusting and fearful. A combination that can, and has, been used by some very unscrupulous people.

      . . . how long before we in the UK and Europe do likewise.

      I believe when the lights start to go out and food becomes as scarce and as expensive. Land (homes), bread and peace (an end to funding foreign wars and States).

      Reply
      1. Mickey Taking
        November 12, 2024

        When people gather together, physically or virtually they tend to lose their balance of mind and commonsense.

        Reply
  5. Linda Brown
    November 12, 2024

    We have people in power who do not listen so how will they react? I can see a real battle emerging between us and the US which I don’t want. I go with America on this but we have these backward people in power and how do we change their mindsets?

    Reply
    1. Christine
      November 12, 2024

      Contributors here have quite rightly been calling Net Zero a scam for years. It’s all about wealth transfer from Western countries to those more impoverished plus a select number of billionaires. Thank goodness Trump is going to put a stop to it. Unfortunately, this Labour government will not follow suit and we will have four more years of them transferring the wealth of the middle classes. We need to continue to call out the nonsense they continue to spew, but the opposition seems to be of the same mindset, so nothing will change.

      Reply
    2. Peter Wood
      November 12, 2024

      Well Starmer isn’t listening, he’s on Radio 4 stating how important the 2030 target is for the UK, and we’re going to get to ‘clean energy’ by then. We are creating the economic roadmap to disaster, that’s all.
      Perhaps the Orange man is the new saviour of the world after all…

      Reply
    3. Dave Andrews
      November 12, 2024

      I don’t think you do change their mindsets. These are people wise in their own conceit, surrounded by others that lend their approval. It will need events to remove them, hopefully before the next election. The frightening thing is when you look around the Labour benches, it seems Starmer is the best they have.

      Reply
      1. Sharon
        November 12, 2024

        Dave A +1

        Reply
    4. Lifelogic
      November 12, 2024

      Cheap reliable on demand energy people a little bit of renewables when and where it can compete any without subsidies or market rigging is required is fine.

      Reply
    5. Mark B
      November 12, 2024

      Our biggest trading partner is with the USA. If it came down to it, the USA would win and many remaining profitable business would just go Stateside.

      Reply
    6. Lynn Atkinson
      November 12, 2024

      Just change the people.

      Reply
      1. Mickey Taking
        November 12, 2024

        A 4+ year wait, or a rather quicker solution?

        Reply
  6. S Wanderer
    November 12, 2024

    Estimated average world temperature has in the geological past been lower than now, even though CO2 concentrations were nearly 20x higher. Difficult for climate alarmists to explain. And there are other such glaring “anomalies” to their narrative.

    Bring on Trump, the President to end this madness. Perhaps we won’t bankrupt ourselves after all.

    Reply
  7. Martin Griffiths
    November 12, 2024

    Attendance at COP jamborees should be by mandated ‘Shanks Pony’ with no access to in journey communication. That requirement would have the added benefit of keeping the Climate brainwashers out of the media for a few months at a time.

    Reply
  8. Rod Evans
    November 12, 2024

    Not only are China and India and Indonesia not backing a reduction in Co2. Those countries make up over 3 billion people. They are all expanding their economies and all putting huge resources into increasing coal mining and consumption.
    Our domestic leaders here in the UK (I resist using the word government) are so out of step with reality, they intend to ban the use of gas in new homes by statute from next year?
    Gas is one of the cleanest, most adaptable and easiest transportable energy options we have. It is actually under our own land readily available, yet the Net Zero zealots think stopping its use will be a good thing?
    Net Zero is nothing other than an economic suicide pact, signed by the Western Climate Cult followers.
    We have to Reform the thinking of those making these disastrous de-industrialisation decisions.

    Reply
    1. Mitchel
      November 12, 2024

      David P Goldman of Asia Times tweets this morning:

      “First India and China resolve their border dispute(at the BRICS summit last week).Now Indonesia and China agree to ‘overlapping claims’ in the South China Sea,meaning that Indonesia(now a BRICS partner) considers its claims negotiable.Meanwhile China and Indonesia announce $10 billion in new trade and investment deals.China’s exports to Indonesia have more than doubled since 2020.”

      Did you also see Saudi Arabia’s gushing comments about Iran yesterday….and Vladimir Putin and his Ministry of Foreign Affairs both (verbally) slapping down the new Israeli ambassador to Moscow?

      The usual suspects’ attempts at divide and rule are coming up nul points!

      BRICS a-go-go!

      Reply
  9. Cynic
    November 12, 2024

    Hallelujah! The ice is starting to crack. Perhaps now we will get a sensible debate on the global warming theory.

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      …..but but but don’t you want to save the planet, what of the children …(sarc.)

      Reply
    2. hefner
      November 12, 2024

      At the North and/or the South Pole?

      Reply
  10. Mick
    November 12, 2024

    The trouble is that most of the idiots who are brainwashed into this climate change nonsense think that because we reduce our emissions to near zero with the help from the moneys that all politicians steal from us that the low co2 stays firmly stuck above the U.K. I have news for them but NO it moves ands gets eaten up with the earth’s atmosphere abit like the moneys stolen from us to keep the biggest con in history going, at least Donald Trump as the balls to ignore this climate change/ global warming/ozone layer crap and that’s what we need is politicians in power who will look after the people and not the self interest of themselves

    Reply
  11. James1
    November 12, 2024

    Fortunately an increasing number of people in the UK and elsewhere also see net zero as a scam, not to mention insanity. No doubt many will look back and wonder how we could have been so stupid.

    Reply
    1. Mickey Taking
      November 12, 2024

      How? – we were lied to, media lied so the people had little to make rational judgements on.
      Each Government lied – about docks, mines, cars, steel, coal, Brexit, vaccines, NHS, Immigration….
      So telling your average younger generation of teachers and lecturers that the whole sham should be explained for what it is and the collapse of our economy is going to seriously damage their students’ working futures.
      Not a chance – their own jobs are at stake.

      Reply
  12. Paul Freedman
    November 12, 2024

    Like the Republican Party, I am very sceptical of the validity of the Net Zero 2050 requirement too.

    The main reason is no-one in the climate body can evidence the need for it with a model. Their claim rests on lots of correlations (eg Arctic ice melting) but they never prove the underlying causes.
    If I may share, I have asked a major climate body for ‘the model which evidences that net zero energy related CO2 emissions will prevent the global temperature from exceeding 1.5 degrees celsius if netted to zero by the year 2050. More importantly however I would be grateful if you could provide the out-of-sample forecasting results
 Please could you also provide the multiple regression results to confirm the model is efficient and reliable as well as its adjusted R-squared, AIC and BIC too.’
    All I am asking for is the model and its standard testing results to prove its reliability. I have received no reply at all from that climate body.
    The only reason I can deduce is that the model does not exist / does not work. By the way, I am not surprised by this outcome at all.
    How are we supposed to believe a claim they cant evidence?

    Reply
  13. Vivian Evans
    November 12, 2024

    As far as I’m concerned, there’s simply no longer a point in demonstrating that this Climate ‘Extinction Crisis Change we’re all gonna die’ has been based on fraudulent data, pushed by academic shysters, helped by a politically lefty lobby to the detriment of western industrialised countries.
    This latest COP is yet another exercise in green-washing what is simply a demand of even more money transfer from “Teh Rich West” to the poor developing countries, ahem: their elites.
    Like so many others, I’ve been reading, commenting and writing about this for twenty years. Look at Germany: crashed government, crashed economy. Is that what we want to follow?
    I’m tired of it. Nowadays, I enjoy playing Sister Toldja at every opportunity.

    Reply
  14. J+M
    November 12, 2024

    Meanwhile our idiot PM and his sidekick Millipeed will sign up to whatever is going and prostrate our lives and economy on the alter of man made climate change.

    Reply
  15. Lifelogic
    November 12, 2024

    Hopefully Trump will force a rethink on the appalling WHO and their appalling attempted power grab treaty and on woke lunacy with the gender affirming child abuse going on with children. Also we need criminal investigations in to the net harm Covid Vaccines and appalling regulation of them. It looks like he will look at this too.

    In short we he a U-turn on everything Starmer is doing and Sunak was doing before him.

    Has Lammy gone yet? Has Sunak corrected his lie? to the house that the Covid Vaccines we safe. Has he bother to look at the appalling statistics yet?

    Reply
    1. Lifelogic
      November 12, 2024

      “The left wing gender insanity being pushed are our children is child abuse on day ome
” well said Trump.

      Of course much religion being pushed at young children is child abuse too. Be it some old religions or the new net zero bogus science net zero one. The BBC still pushing this bogus science religious lunacy every day. We used to have that Catz Camb. English graduate Roger Harrabin doing it, now they have the equally deluded Justin Rowlatt PPE Oxon yet again.

      Reply
  16. Richard1
    November 12, 2024

    I see the Taliban are invited to come and contribute worthy pieties at this event. Perhaps Greta Thunberg who will also be in attendance could re-direct her campaigning abilities against the Taliban’s appalling oppression of women and girls and other human rights abuses.

    Reply
    1. Mickey Taking
      November 12, 2024

      I don’t think the level of CO2, if they were educated to understand what it is, will even get mentioned alongside the human rights restrictions imposed.

      Reply
  17. Brian Tomkinson
    November 12, 2024

    The climate has always changed and will always change regardless of what some perpetrators of a scam to demonise carbon, on which life is based, and more specifically CO2 without which there would be no life as we no it on earth, have to say. I have asked before if you really believe this nonsense and if you believe that politicians or any one else for that matter can control the earth’s temperature as though they were adjusting a heating thermostat? The whole thing is an outrageous fraud to control and impoverish the majority of people for the benefit of a greedy and already very wealthy minority.

    Reply
  18. Keith from Leeds
    November 12, 2024

    If only the election of Donald Trump would make the UK government think again about Net Zero. I am afraid we have people like the PM and Ed Miliband who don’t want to be confused with the facts!
    The facts are that Global Warming/ Climate Change has been happening for 1000s of years, and CO2 is not the slightest problem. Minds, like parachutes, work best when they are open! But for years, our MP’s minds have been closed. They won’t do some basic research on GW/CC, and they don’t seem aware of the problems their NetZero crusade is causing the UK. But the budget also showed they do not know how to grow the UK economy and are so ignorant that they don’t understand a successful modern economy is built on cheap, reliable energy!

    Reply
  19. Old Albion
    November 12, 2024

    Sir JR, any chance of you pointing this out to Ed Milliband and Two-tier Keir?

    I continue to publish and broadcast this view

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      Starmer has just declared that the UK will set a 81% cut in emission targets at cop29 ….and that wasn’t in their manifesto

      Reply
      1. Lifelogic
        November 12, 2024

        It well it might be his “target” but it certainly will not happen unless they just fraudulently fiddle the figures. By pretending that burning wood young coal cut CO2 and exported CO2 does not count.

        Reply
  20. Bryan Harris
    November 12, 2024

    The Republicans by a majority reject not just the damaging policies of trying to force people into battery cars and heat pumps but also some of the theory and forecasts behind the policies. Some Republicans point out that there was substantial climate change before man arrived on the scene, with periods both colder and warmer than today.

    The Republicans are right

    One of the reasons that the German government collapsed and EU countries have no money to throw at woke idiocy is down to netzero.

    If Trump can inject just a little sanity into the whole subject by withdrawing funds then we will all be better off. He will be fighting against a lot of forceful believers who will try and thwart him at every turn. He is only one man. He will already be fighting against the deep state and will need all of his energies to make any progress, in any direction, when we need miracles.

    Trump has so much stacked against him, but it seems he is the only person on this planet that can turn the tide. We pray he succeeds.

    Reply
  21. Original Richard
    November 12, 2024

    The Republican victory doesn’t alter the arguments on Net Zero but hopefully it will end the Marxist funding and thereby cause a collapse of this hoax. Both the history of climate and the science is clear that CO2, a trace gas, has little to no effect on global temperatures and hence on climate and once this funding ends so will the hoax.

    We have the recipe for a terrible national disaster when our country, which has a very high reliance on technology, is ruled by a PPE, law, languages (ancient and modern), history (ancient and modern) qualified elite with absolutely no scientific knowledge. Even unable to understand the difference between power and energy let alone climate science.

    In addition our politicians have invested so much political and the country’s financial capital into the CAGW/Net Zero hoax it will be very difficult if not impossible for them to admit that they were wrong. They will need to be removed

    Reply
  22. Original Richard
    November 12, 2024

    The fact that the Marxist sympathisers at the BBC do not allow any debate on climate change on any of its many channels is a national disgrace for a country that calls itself a democracy.

    If the BBC believes that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 have led to irreversible climate change, is causing extreme weather events and will cause planetary extinction, when will their special disinformation reporter, Marianna Spring (French and Russian at Oxford), be sent to interview the many distinguished scientists who appear in the documentary film ‘Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth)’?

    Reply
  23. Ian B
    November 12, 2024

    COP 29 is simply the unelected unaccountable bodies of what has become personal socialists’ agendas of the UN with encouragement of WEF to create a centralized Socialist Government to rule the World by redistributing hard earned wealth.

    It has nothing to do with emissions, or what some like to call global warming.

    If these problems imagined or otherwise needed to be addressed the first thing needed would be money lots of it to find solutions to change direction. Redistributing the hard-earned wealth from on part of the Globe to another does nothing, zero, zilch.

    Yesterday it was reported in the Media by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that Britain tops energy efficiency rankings. The however, was that it was achieved by the UK off-shoring its production capability. The malicious decline in the UK energy intensive industries. Further research Shows that since 1990, the CO2 generated abroad to make products for the UK has risen from 200m tonnes to nearly 400m tonnes per year. So in a Nutshell the successive Government with their cancel doctrine has done nothing for the World, but compound the situation, its made the egos of individuals feel good about themselves, its made the UK poorer. What it hasn’t done is reduce World emissions or Global warming.
    The end result is UK wealth, its creation and jobs have been forced out of the Country. The UK now no longer has the income resources to react and protect itself in this changing World. We have to thank May, Johnson, Sunak and now Starmer with his ‘Milibrain’ for contriving to destroy the UK.

    The rest of the World marches on with energy bills in some cases as much as 75% less than ours. 90% of the World still pollutes and still raises its temperatures. The UK still contributes, it has just exported it, to make us poorer, then reimports with a resulting higher magnitude of the problem than would have happened otherwise. The UK Government may think they have cancelled emissions and global warming but they have caused more and at greater cost to everyone living here.

    It would appear our Political Class has exported Common Sense their own personal Common sense on the back of stroking their own personal esteem. The Country and its People can be damned they are there to serve the Political Class, the Worlds modern slavery

    Reply
    1. Ian B
      November 12, 2024

      Reported in the Media – COP29 This year’s edition of the event is distinctly underpowered, with numerous prominent figures opting not to attend, including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Ursula von der Leyen.

      With Starmer promising stable energy bills( Just higher than all our competing Nations). Then the big Laugh out loud laugh the UK will have energy independence by 2030

      Reply
    2. Ian B
      November 12, 2024

      COP 29 from Red Ed. today today hitting the Media – “Miliband: Shift to clean power will not result in higher household bills. Ed Miliband insisted moving to clean power by 2030 will not drive up household energy bills. Labour has previously claimed its energy plans would save households up to ÂŁ300 a year”

      If that is true why is the Taxpayer giving their money to his main sponsor to subsidies his ‘green energy’ ?

      The guy is either deluded or deranged in 6 years he is going to spend close of on a Trillion Pounds(of our Money), yet it wont not cost us a penny. New Power generation solely create by UK owned industry, using UK manufactured and owned materials and products, with a brand new grid owned by UK Companies for the purpose

      Then from Starmer – “the UK will have energy independence by 2030”

      Energy independence is when it is independent of foreign ownership and doesn’t require taxpayer or user subsidies. The cost of buying would also need to be in the lower band or our competitors not in the highest possible band.

      Reply
      1. Original Richard
        November 12, 2024

        Ian B :

        The reason Ed Miliband can say that the transition to clean energy (nonsense as CO2 is NOT a pollutant but necessary plant food) will not result in household bills (for electricity?) is because he intends to ration electricity with smart meters and rolling blackouts and we will consequently all be using far less.

        Reply
  24. formula57
    November 12, 2024

    No doubt, but perhaps not by enough? Recall the first Trump presidency saw the USA withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate, a move promply reversed by Biden.

    Now the public may be waking up to the scam and/or what going green really means for them but shifting the agenda being pursued by the believers of the likes of Miliband (who tells us the UK will ow take the lead at COP29) and Starmer (who reportedly has some big announcement to make at COP 29) seems less than probable.

    Reply
  25. Mark B
    November 12, 2024

    Good morning.

    COP 29 is going to find it difficult to get advanced countries to pledge the huge sums needed by the emerging world to pay for their huge transition.

    And

    None of these countries have the large sums the emerging world wants.They are asking for $1trillion a year for net zero transition!

    So why do other countries need money to ‘transistion’ when our country does not ? Seems a bit odd to me. Why do we have to pay for higher and less reliable energy when, those that are doing the most poluting have cheap energy and many of the manufacturing jobs that make things we intern purchase ?

    The word SCAM does rather come to mind 😉

    Reply
  26. glen cullen
    November 12, 2024

    Two decades of costly net-zero, and it hasn’t achieved anything, and the kicker is that the UN establishments are telling us that we’ve breached the global 1.5 degree rise milestone 
..and the world didn’t go on fire nor sink rising oceans, and we still have the four seasons

    Reply
  27. Atlas
    November 12, 2024

    Quite so, Sir John.

    Reply
  28. Lynn Atkinson
    November 12, 2024

    Trump is going to follow Putin and declare that there are only two sexes. East and west finding their feet – and here we are, stuck in the middle with Starmer!

    Reply
  29. Northern Lass
    November 12, 2024

    I read that 50,000 people have arrived in Baku for the COP Conference. Anyone know if this is true?

    Reply
  30. Kenneth
    November 12, 2024

    Is there a problem with man-made CO2?

    The reason I and others are sceptics is that this issue has been hijacked by those who see the solutions as grand socialist/Marxist plans.

    The solutions always involve the rich giving large sums of money to the poor. How does this reduce CO2 output?

    What is more, most people pushing this agenda seem not to be too worried about flying around in aeroplanes and producing a lot of their own CO2 along with the hot air. If they are not worrked, why shouild we be?

    What is more, it is not working! No wonder there is scepticism.

    We need to start all over again with a proper study by independent scientists with proper peer review. The media needs to stop the propaganda and do its job in providing facts, distilled for public consumption.

    The BBC is one of the worst culprits. It has cried wolf about this issue and is now discredited and, as a consequence, useless.

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      ”Is there a problem with man-made CO2?” ….best question yet !

      Reply
    2. Sharon
      November 12, 2024

      Kenneth
      “Is there a problem with man-made CO2?”

      I don’t know, but farmers spray CO2 into their greenhouses to encourage growth of the fruit or vegetables!

      Reply
    3. Mickey Taking
      November 12, 2024

      Kenneth ‘The solutions always involve the rich giving large sums of money to the poor. How does this reduce CO2 output?’
      Exactly. Doesn’t anyone stop and think what this new found wealth to underdeveloped countries will mean?
      I’d suggest an awful lot of the people will want what the west has had for a long time, more food, more consumer products, even more military spending! So how will any of those increases reduce CO2?

      Reply
  31. mancunius
    November 12, 2024

    The hypocrisy and illogicality of the climate-change zealots is reflected in their choice of a meeting-place: in Azerbaijan, one of the most heavily oil- and gas-dependent nations on the planet!

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      There’s no policy of ‘net-zero’ in Azerbaijan ……sorry, no active plan nor policy of net-zero; they’ll tell the UN that they’re making great efforts but need a little bit more cash

      Reply
  32. Mitchel
    November 12, 2024

    Another casualty of the Ukraine war:

    Barents Observer,11/11/24:”The war in Ukraine has put scientific exchange with Russia on hold for almost three years now.Scientists in Europe are increasingly worried about the lack of access to data from the Russian side of the Arctic-the fastest warming place on Earth.”

    Russia accounts for half the Arctic-the Eurasian half,strategically the only half that anyone is interested in.

    Reply
  33. Mark
    November 12, 2024

    I see Trump has wasted no time in appointing Zeldin to take over at the EPA, and he has immediately announced his agenda:

    “It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin wrote on X announcing his appointment. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

    Not sure what AI has to do with his remit, but the rest of it is just good sense for America. It might be good if we managed to move towards a competitive energy supply, rather than leaving it all to America.

    Reply
    1. Original Richard
      November 12, 2024

      Mark :

      The reference to AI is possibly because the IT industry has correctly realised they will not be able to run their AI data centres on expensive and chaotically intermittent renewables and are looking at nuclear energy instead.

      Reply
  34. Mark
    November 12, 2024

    I note the latest net zero folly of the government is a plan to ban gas boilers in all newbuild homes from 2027. That should bring housebuilding to a grinding halt, as few will willingly buy these net zero home designs that will have few windows and inadequate ventilation. So it will become social housing paid for by taxpayers with shivering occupants having their enormous electricity bills subsidised or paid by the rest of us.

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      Just a bit more ‘social-engineering’ 1984 style

      Reply
  35. Ed
    November 12, 2024

    At last. Yes, yes, yes!!!
    Hooray.

    And Starmer today has pledged to double down on this nonsense, I despair.
    O/T People in this country have been sent to prison for using ‘hurty words’. Why does that not apply to the Labour front bench for their disgusting comments about President Trump?

    Reply
  36. Lynn Atkinson
    November 12, 2024

    Congratulations to all those commentators on this blog who have doggedly refused to accept that Global Warming is a scam.
    You now count the most powerful man on earth in your number.
    Really anything other than stating the bald truth is counterproductive – always.

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      hear hear

      Reply
    2. Michael Staples
      November 12, 2024

      As far as my reading goes, virtually everybody commenting here does, like Trump, regard Global Warming as a left wing corruption of science, or maybe your comment was ironic.

      Reply
      1. Mickey Taking
        November 12, 2024

        I hope so, or horribly wrong!

        Reply
  37. Ian B
    November 12, 2024

    Who will be at COP 29? More a case of who will NOT be at COP 29? All the Countries that profit from the increases in manufacturing output, increases in earnings and wealth, or more correctly the 90% of the world that is getting on with looking after their Citizens, their Countries welfare – its wealth creation, will be absent from the great Socialist love in. COP 29 as with previous versions is for the egotistical numpties that want to say look at me I am punishing those that voted for me.

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev opened COP29 by saying oil and gas are “a gift of the God,”

      Reply
  38. Sam
    November 12, 2024

    Once a few hundreds of billions has been spent and we have achieved Net Zero in the UK, by how much will this reduce global average temperatures?
    I read that it might be a tenth of a degree.
    Is that correct?

    Reply
    1. Mickey Taking
      November 12, 2024

      An exaggeration of the effect!

      Reply
    2. Lifelogic
      November 12, 2024

      If that, and anyway slightly warmer is a net good anyway.

      Reply
  39. Original Richard
    November 12, 2024

    At COP29 today our PM declared our NDC to be to reduce CO2 emissions by 81% on 1990 levels by 2035 (despite a massive population increase). In the Q&A after he said “What we’re not going to do is start telling people how to live their lives. We’re not going to start dictating to people what they do”.

    Oh really?

    What about forcing people to use expensive, impractical and dangerous evs instead of ices? What about forcing people to use expensive, impractical and noisy heat pumps instead of cosy gas boilers? What about the installation of smart meters to ration electricity and force people to use electricity only when the wind is blowing? What about the required reduction in the eating of dairy and meat? Or the 15 minute cities and 1 flight/year restrictions?

    We are told this great leap backward is necessary to save the planet.

    Reply
  40. Old Albion
    November 12, 2024

    Have you heard Herr Starmers latest wheeze? He’s going to cut UK emissions by 81% by 2035. I think I’ll buy some long-johns and a fur coat.

    Reply
    1. Mickey Taking
      November 12, 2024

      OMG. Not real fur surely? the hordes will be after you.

      Reply
  41. Sharon
    November 12, 2024

    Why are The Taliban at the cop 29?

    They’re a terrorist group aren’t they? I can’t see them taking net zero seriously, unless the authoritarian measures suit them?

    Reply
    1. glen cullen
      November 12, 2024

      They can apply for some of the UN climate change funds

      Reply
  42. hefner
    November 12, 2024

    ‘It is telling 
’: Maybe UvdL is busy with the present Commission transition, maybe Macron is not too pleased with the accusation of espionage these last few months against French citizens. And President Putin is not going either. Is that ‘telling’?

    Reply
    1. Original Richard
      November 12, 2024

      hefner :

      Would you not agree that these are very poor excuses for non-attendance when we must limit the temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution (aka the Little Ice Age) by 1.5 degrees C to avoid an existential threat to the planet?

      Reply
  43. hefner
    November 12, 2024

    O/T ‘Britain: The rich country with the worst mobile-phone service’, 11/11/2024 economist.com

    Reply
  44. Ukretired123
    November 12, 2024

    Woke MSM and Politicians have no real world common sense and go along with groupthink on the biggest man-made money spinner in history virtue signalling on a world scale.
    They cannot see only China and her friends benefit whilst we are going in the completely opposite direction and make fools of us all. Starmer, robotic parrots cannot debate why this nonsense continues leaving Ed Miliband to spin the old scripts decrying anyone instead.
    Donald Trump should debate Labour on live TV. but they would chicken out. That would be very telling indeed.

    Reply
  45. Ukretired123
    November 12, 2024

    Starmer saying “My target is cutting 81℅ ” is telling folk 60+ million how to run their lives and businesses and it proves he is delusional if not unhinged.

    Reply

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