This is an update of articles that I have read that I want to mention but only have time to summarize briefly. I have also included links to some other items of interest. Previous commentaries are available here.
I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed and most of the articles described below are related to the net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
All Goal and No Plan
Ed Reid explains that UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties 21 (COP21) in Paris, France produced the Paris Accords, a non-binding agreement under which the participating nations agreed to take actions necessary to achieve a goal of Net Zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Since then, Reid notes:
It has become increasingly clear that, while the developed nations adopted the Net Zero by 2050 goal, none of them have developed a detailed plan to achieve the goal, nor have any of them analyzed in detail the cost of achieving the goal. Also, none of them has demonstrated that the transition to renewable generation they are pursuing would lead to a stable, reliable and economical energy economy. In spending hundreds of billions of dollars in pursuit of the goal without a plan or a demonstration, they have clearly “put the cart before the horse”.
New York has joined the developed nations because this description is perfectly apt for the Climate Act. It is truly “All goal and no plan”.
What Does No More Fossil Fuels Mean?
Ronald Stein regularly writes articles about energy illiteracy with a focus on the role of crude oil in society. Whenever I read one of his articles I wonder if the folks who demand that we stop using fossil fuels understand the implications. In a recent piece he argues that over the last 200 years, world population has grown from 1 to 8 billion “because of the more than 6,000 products and different fuels that did not exist before the 1800s.” He sums up:
Policymakers have no comprehension that crude oil is virtually never used to generate electricity, but when manufactured into those petrochemicals that are the basis of more than 6,000 products, it is the basis for virtually all the products that support hospitals, medical equipment, appliances, electronics, transportation, telecommunications, heating and ventilating, and communications systems.
Bugged by Wind Turbines
Chris Morrison describes the “Devastating Ecological Carnage Wrought by Wind Turbines”. It is not just the birds but also flying insects – tons of insects. Work in Germany found that each turbine killed 40 million each during the growing season.
Recent work from researchers at the University of Wyoming suggests that moths, butterflies, beetles, flies and true bugs may be the most vulnerable to the giant revolving blades. Wind turbines create vortices, sucking in wildlife and causing problems for both bats and large birds such as eagles. “The vast amount of avian and insect deaths at the hands of wind turbines is disastrous in and of itself, from a conservation and ecological standpoint,” states Heartland.
Morrison sums up noting that “the loss of insects is particularly disastrous since they are decomposers, crop pollinators and a crucial basis of the entire food chain.”
Affordability is not the only risk of politicians dictating energy policy. As I was finalizing this draft, I found an article by Robert Bradley that explains why doing the transition right is necessary. The article is a retrospective on the Great Texas Blackout that describes how politicians are wrecking electric grid reliability.
It was not so much the story of freak weather triggering a market failure writ large. It was a classic application of the political economy of government intervention: the seen and the unseen, expert/regulatory failure, and unintended consequences.
I recommend the article highly.
NY Climate Superfund Lawsuit
ABC News reports that Twenty-two states sued New York on Thursday, contending that a new law forcing a small group of major energy producers to pay $75 billion into a fund to cover climate change damage is unconstitutional.
According to a statement, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey led the coalition of states against New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, which requires payments for damage allegedly done from 2000 to 2018.
The law requires major fossil fuel companies to pay into the fund over the next quarter-century based on their past gas emissions.
“This lawsuit is to ensure that these misguided policies, being forced from one state onto the entire nation, will not lead America into the doldrums of an energy crisis, allowing China, India and Russia to overtake our energy independence,” McCuskey said in a release.
“This law is unconstitutional, and I am proud to lead this coalition of attorneys general and brave private energy companies and industry groups in our fight to protect against this overreach,” McCuskey added. “If we allow New York to get away with this, it will only be a matter of time before other states follow suit – wrecking our nation’s power grid.”
I cannot imagine that anyone is surprised that this act of New York Progressive Democrat political grandstanding would not produce this pushback.
EPA Funding Mismanagement
In my December 8, 2024 commentary I described a Project Veritas report that EPA is getting money out for climate change things before the Trump Administration comes in. The money quote was from Brent Efron, Special Advisor for Implementation, Environmental Protection Agency: “Now it’s how to get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump Administration] come in … it’s like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing gold bars off the edge.”
Jo Nova describes a New York Post article with Trump appointee EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin who describes the most egregious example of waste uncovered so far: “It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023 was chosen to receive $2 billion,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the outlet, referring to Power Forward Communities’ latest tax filings. “That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue.”
How could someone set up a non-profit NGO and then almost immediately grab $2 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grant from taxpayers? That it happened under the thoroughly corrupt administration of Joe Biden explains most of it, of course. The suggestion in this Climate Change Dispatch story is that it all had to do with the influence of Stacey Abrams, a hero of the left.
He goes on to describe the NGO: Power Forward Communities is a 501(c)(3) NGO set up in 2023 with but $100 in assets according to its 990 return. He describes the five NGOs that he brought together. In every instance, the top officers of the organizations were paid enormous salaries. For example, one NGO collected $51,568,253, and it paid its CEO $1,045,416.
Shepstone concludes and I concur:
What is unmistakably clear from the above is simply this: the $2 billion in supposed climate expenditures made with our descendants’ taxes is nothing more than a gigantic green grift. Simply put, NGOs are corrupting everything about our government. They need to be denied any government funding whatsoever if we ever hope to regain control over our republic.
If you thought that such an egregious misuse of funding would be embarrassing for environmental advocates, then you would be wrong. Inside Climate News describes Zeldin’s efforts to claw back the money:
Environmental advocates said Zeldin was unfairly smearing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or “green bank,” program, on which EPA worked for more than a year with the Treasury Department to design a standard financial agent arrangement—the kind the government has used many times before to collect and distribute funds.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 