Parts 1 to 4 of this series covered numerous issues associated with the “cult’s” push to eliminate the use of fossil fuels advocating for electrification of transportation, generating electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar etc. and ending the use of fossil fuels all to save the world from climate change! We will try to add a few more issues suggesting the Church of the Climate Change Cult (CCCC) is going to lose many more worshipers as more and more failures are causing their flock to question their beliefs.
Copper:
Copper is an essential ingredient in the electrification process and in the past five years has risen in price by over 44% and will presumably keep increasing if the push to “electrification” continues as trillions of dollars will be needed to improve the grids around the world. Interestingly a recent event in Alberta suggested coppers value has impressed people as police arrested two individuals who were stripping wire from a wind turbine! Now, as the expression goes; “isn’t that ironic”!
Canada has 127 out of 696 world copper mines currently in production but will need many more but the regulatory process is incredibly long in Canada so that will take well over a decade just to get “regulatory approval”. Maybe those individuals the police arrested in Alberta were aware of the latter! We should all wonder if they were members of the CCCC out to get rich from the “net-zero” push?
How Dare You-Canadian Banks:
BloombergNEF is an outgrowth of one of the world’s richest individuals (Michael Bloomberg ) but it’s unclear what the “NEF” actually stands for? Based on how they frame their purpose on their website does suggests what the “NEF” stands for! It states: “BloombergNEF helps you gain a clear perspective on global commodity markets and the technologies driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy.“ My personal guess is the NEF stands for “Net-Zero Energy Forum”
An article in the FP on December 15, 2023 citing the above report, carried the following opening line: “A report by BloombergNEF finds that while Canada’s top five banks are among the biggest energy financiers globally, they rank among the worst of the top 100 when measured on how much of that funding is directed to low-carbon sources.” The article from the “Canadian Press” only bothered to seek input from a CCCC member “Stand.earth” whose spokesperson stated “No bank is doing its fair share of the work required to transition our global energy systems. In fact, they continue to make the problem worse,“. The article fails to say anything about the jobs created, the contribution to our GDP ($269.9 billion in 2022), or the taxes paid by the sector. Without the sector’s contributions Canada’s economy in all areas would be in even worst shape then it currently is but it is obvious Stand.earth and BloombergNEF are both firm proponents of “net-zero” and obviously, the latter, as one of the media outlets of the CCCC only focus on the “cults” push to electrify the world and drive the rest of us into energy poverty.
Carbon Capture:
Due to the oppression on companies involved in the oil and gas sector by the CCCC coupled with the political support and pressure on oil and gas companies the latter have sought to develop the ability of carbon capture at a significant scale. Canada’s largest oil and gas companies have formed the Pathways Alliance in an effort to develop technology to satisfy the “cult” and the Trudeau led government. Collectively the “Alliance” working with government bodies plan to spend $24.1 billion by 2030 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands operations by 22 million tonnes per year by 2030 and the Federal Government will contribute an additional $7 billion. It sure seems to be aimed at driving up costs, perhaps to make renewable energy look cheaper?
Existing Carbon Capture:
As one looks at the concept of carbon capture it makes one wonder why the many well-educated bureaucrats involved at the federal level pushing the narrative of full “electrification” have failed to come up with a much simpler solution? Why not simply give each purchaser of an EV a free CO 2 fire extinguisher which are primarily used for electrical fires? Annual sales of new motor vehicles in Canada in 2022 was 1.56 million so surely that would result in a lot of carbon capture if they were EV. With Minister Steven Guilbeault’s recent declaration that by 2035 100% of all automobiles sold be EV that would represent a large amount of CO 2 storage. Perhaps he could also mandate a fire extinguisher for every electric furnace or heat pump that is installed and three or four of them per electric school bus and several more for each electric transit bus.
One should surmise, based on the foregoing that the Church of the Climate Change Cult “can’t see the forest for the trees”!
Powering Past Coal:
Coming out of COP 28 the US joined 56 other nations in the “Powering Past Coal Alliance” where Steven Guilbeault, a long-time member of the CCCC sits as the Co-chair along with Graham Stewart, the UK Minister of State for Climate Change. While the US is currently the 3rd largest user of coal in the world, they have promised to be coal free by 2035 but it is basically meaningless. Their consumption when compared to China and India’s annual increases simply means those two countries will increase their coal consumption and it will represent 76% in the near future, up from the 70% it represented in 2022! It is worth noting with the US joining the other 56 countries it means there are still 138 countries who are not members of the “Alliance”! The following is a chart from the IEA with a forecast out to only 2026 suggesting China, Indian and other Asian countries will be consuming more coal in 2026 than they did in 2022!
We should also not have a lot of faith in the forecasts emanating from the IEA (International Energy Agency) as it is a hotbed of CCCC worshippers.
President Biden’s Green Energy Subsidies are Mind-boggling:
When President Biden released the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) back in 2022 the cost estimates for the climate and energy sectors were a miserly US$384.9 billion over the following 10 years but less than a year later appears to be way off the mark as several recent reports have noted! A University of Pennsylvania review from late April 2023 pegs the foregoing costs at $1,045 billion. Yet another lengthy report by Jonathon A. Lesser an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute wrote one for the GWPF (Global Warming Policy Foundation). The report indicates the estimated costs originally contained in the IRA are indeed about ten times the original estimate and verifies that “subsidies for green energy impose disproportionate economic harm on lower-income residents and small businesses; in effect, green energy policies are forcing the least well-off in society to subsidize the most well-off, increasing economic inequality.“ Lesser’s conclusion nicely summaries his review by stating: “the profligate spending on costly, but low value, green energy will collapse under its own economic weight. The unanswered question is this: How high an economic and social price will the US pay for this folly before that occurs?“
To support the above the mainstream media fail miserably as noted in an article from January 29, 2023 which carried the following suggesting the IRA was working: “So far, dozens of firms have announced projects that qualify for government relief, totaling more than $40 billion in clean energy investment and adding nearly 7,000 jobs, according to a report from American Clean Power, an industry group representing green energy companies.“ The foregoing basically ignores the fact that if $40 billion in “clean energy investment” has created 7,000 jobs it costs taxpayers $5.7 million for each job! Perhaps some of the IRA spending should find it’s way to train a few journalists so they would have the ability to at least do some basic math when presented with data provided by politicians or high-paid bureaucrats or the MSM could stop hiring “cult” members!
The apparent lack of ability of the democratically elected Biden administration to even forecast costs; signals just how far the CCCC have penetrated the political system and the damage they are creating in how the world functions. They have managed to do this pushing the narrative; mankind can change the climate!
Conclusion:
What is obvious from the foregoing and the prior four summaries of the Church of the Climate Change Cult is their incredible invasion of the political systems in the developed countries around the world. Convincing duly elected individuals and the bureaucrats employed by taxpayers is a mantra we voters somehow endorsed and are now suffering the affects. We can only hope the “cult” continues to lose more of their worshippers and we can emerge from the damage they have inflicted!
Let’s cross our fingers and pray to those with commonsense!
Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives 
Excellent series. I will forward links to friends.
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Climate alarmism relies on the ignorance of the masses.
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