Europe’s Strange Conflicting Observations

Following the news over the past week or two one would have observed some very strange happenings particularly as it relates to Europe. 

Most Canadians may be aware our PM Trudeau, flew off to Europe to attend the NATO Summit, the G7 Summit and the Canada-European Summit where the politicians joined together to make joint commitments on a variety of issues. Naturally there were castigations of the continuing Russian/Ukraine conflict and lots of the promises made were what many would consider conflicting.  

One of the weirdest was how NATO pledged to revamp its energy-guzzling equipment as “NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the 30-member alliance would reduce emissions by at least 45% by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.”  The article went on with Stoltenberg stating: “If we fail to preserve peace, we also fail to fight climate change” which appears to be a double entendre but what we should expect from our bureaucrats and politicians during these times.  This seems weird as Germany; the UK and several other European NATO members are firing up their mothballed coal plants to provide reliable power for their electricity grids due to attempts to curtail Russian natural gas and oil purchases.  

Shortly after the Summit, Trudeau reported “a new NATO centre of excellence for climate change and security will be located in Montreal, and that Canada plans to host the North American office for a network of NATO innovation hubs called the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA).”  That suggests the ever-expanding Canadian bureaucracy will grow further at the expense of Canadian taxpayers! The same article also said Canada is on track to spend the $500 million set aside in the 2022 budget to support the Ukraine.

Additionally coming out of the NATO Summit was an accession protocol for Sweden and Finland to join the current 30 member NATO group which would reputedly further isolate Russia.  Interestingly Turkey, a NATO member, could block their admission should either of them refuse to extradite certain terror suspects (named by Turkey), who sought and obtained refuge in those two countries. Each and every member of NATO must unanimously approve a new country’s admittance so at this point Turkey holds the key, unless Sweden and Finland agree to extradite those terror suspects.

Another event that caught my eye was a WEF short video expressively excited about how Finland was the first country in the World to pass into law a “Negative Emissions Pledge” suggesting by 2040 they will be absorbing more CO2 than they emit. Finland is without fossil fuels so it imports crude principally from their immediate neighbour, Russia.  They managed to reduce their Russian purchase of crude oil from 502 thousand tons in January to 501 thousand in February so they will have to do a lot better in the future.  That “sweet” Russian crude is refined by Neste Porvoo Refinery which is partially owned (35.9%) by the Finnish government.  Finland is counting on its forests, which cover three-quarters of its land, to achieve its emissions target but Statistics Finland’s recent report indicate their forests released more greenhouse gases than they absorbed!

It sure looks like “double jeopardy” for Finland; having asked to join NATO (impacting Russian oil imports) while passing a law committing to be carbon negative by 2040.  They better get their neighbour Sweden, to send Greta over to plant lots of trees! At the same time, they should get used to living without many of the amenities that the “sweet” Russian crude oil brings them.

A long standing member of NATO and the EU; Norway, was also recently called out by the European Commission to explore and produce more “offshore oil and gas”.  It seems obvious this reflected a rapid change in the EU energy policy due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the failure of all those industrial wind turbines and solar panels. This sudden change of heart has come about as Russia’s Gasprom has partially or fully cut supplies of natural gas to 12 European countries including Germany and has resulted in an energy scarcity and increasing costs of electricity along with the lack of fossil fuels used in many industries.

Conclusion

From just the few issues highlighted above it seems obvious the numerous eco-warriors active in the EU successfully convinced the majority of the politicians in most countries “global warming” was imminent and caused by mankind.  Some of those EU politicians now seem to be sobering up from drinking the “net-zero” kool-aid and have started to appreciate the damage they have inflicted on so many of their people.  Nevertheless, many others are still in the WEF’s “Building Back Better” camp and are convinced it’s all the fault of Russia’s war with the Ukraine. Those latter politicians seem unable to recognize their conflicted mind-set but one should hope the continuing events occurring; such as the current Netherlands “farmers protest” will enlighten them.  

Should the upcoming winter be a cold one, those in the WEF’s camp may finally see the light as “energy poverty” will strike many more households and cause more harm than a 1.5 degree increase in global temperatures by the year 2100 ever would. 

Conflicted political opinions on unsettled science causing harm will undoubtedly cause conflicts!    

NB: As this article was about to be posted the UK’s PM, Boris Johnson announced he is stepping down as his Minister’s pushed him to resign.