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Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

Electric car sales trending down in Britain

If you fancy a new petrol car, best buy it now, before it is too late. It surely won’t be long before car manufacturers start to admit that their UK sales operations are in serious trouble, leading some to start withdrawing from the UK market altogether. Why? Because since January car-makers have been under the zero emission vehicle mandate (ZEV), to make sure that at least 22 per cent of the vehicles they sell are pure battery models – a proportion that will rise steadily until it reaches 80 per cent by 2030. If they fail to reach the target they could be fined £15,000 for every extra non-compliant vehicle they sell.

The trouble is, the proportion of sales made up by electric vehicles in March was only 15.2 per cent, and it going in the wrong direction. In March 2023, it was 16.2 per cent. It isn’t hard to work out what is going to happen. Unless there is a sudden pick up in interest in electric cars, manufacturers are going to find themselves in an impossible situation. They will be left with masses of unsold electric cars, while the cars they can sell – petrol and hybrids – will be subject to huge penalties.


And that is in a country where inter-city golf carts can just about make sense.

As for the £15,000 fine....

That will be tacked on to vehicles that are already too expensive for people to buy off the lot. Commonly the vehicles are bought by companies, used for a year or two and then sold. That fine will disappear in the wind. It will be paid by corporations and written off as a tax deduction.
 
What are the national security implications to having all ground transport in a country requiring grid charge-up?
 
What are the national security implications to having all ground transport in a country requiring grid charge-up?
Probably about the same as requiring refineries connected to a grid of pipelines.
 

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For a farmer and a tradesman, somebody working on site or at the roadside, I can see the attraction of the hybrid, and the plug-in hybrid. Moving at highway speeds over long distances with the advantage of exportable power to operate tools. So I can see that being a preferred option over a conventional ICE pickup.

Electric pickups and vans though? Running around large warehouses? Campuses? Airports? Military Bases and ports? That still feels like a niche vehicle application.
 

At last month’s CERAWeek in Houston, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser poured cold water on the forced march of the energy transition, telling the conference, “the hopes and ambitions of 8 billion energy consumers around the world are at stake.” The message from consumers, he said, is that they want energy that protects the planet and their pocketbooks, “with minimal disruption to supplies and their daily lives.”

In the real world, Nasser pointed out, the energy transition is visibly failing despite the expenditure of $9.5 trillion over the last two decades. So far this century, the share of hydrocarbons in the global energy mix fell from 83 percent to 80 percent, while wind and solar supply less than 4 percent of world energy. Despite its marginally lower relative share, the absolute demand for hydrocarbons grew by almost 100 million barrels per day of oil equivalent. “Even coal is at record highs,” Nasser unfashionably observes.

Nonetheless, oil consumption in developing countries ranges from less than one barrel to below two barrels per person per year, compared with nine barrels for the EU and 22 barrels for the U.S. “The energy transition narrative will increasingly be written by the Global South,” Nasser points out. This leaves plenty of headroom for growing hydrocarbon demand. “Peak oil and gas are unlikely for some time to come, let alone [in] 2030,” Nasser concludes.

the IEA’s net zero scenario sees U.S. electricity prices rise by 50 percent on average by 2050. As for net zero being a counterbalance to OPEC: the cartel’s share of the global oil market would rise from 37 percent to 52 percent in 2050, a level “higher than at any point in the history of oil markets.” If oil demand continues to rise, but American and other non-OPEC producers cut their investment in new oil and gas fields, EPRINC reckons that OPEC’s share would rise to 82 percent.




Lots of opportunity for Canadians to make hay. The sun is going to shine a whiles longer.
 
Probably about the same as requiring refineries connected to a grid of pipelines.
You think?

I can't help but wonder if it would be far easier to disrupt an electrified transport system as opposed to one fun on gasoline/diesel fuel.
 
Meanwhile, the macro trends...

The future of four wheels is all electric

Electric vehicles could make up as much as nearly half of global car sales by 2035, and our analysts forecast that more advanced autonomous or partially autonomous vehicles will make up the same share of sales just five years later. It’s a fundamental shift, upending labor markets, supply chains, and commodity markets. Along the way, the car is being completely rethought and re-engineered, to incorporate cutting-edge battery chemistry, microchips, and software.

The future of four wheels is all electric.
 

Last-gasp defence can’t save the carbon tax: Philip Cross in the Financial Post

Fans of the tax lost credibility early when they bought estimates that B.C.'s carbon tax had cut emissions a lot with very little pain. April 10, 2024 Philip Cross

The April 1st implementation of another hike in the federal government’s carbon tax and the growing prospect that a Poilievre government will abolish the tax, have prompted its advocates to mount a last-gasp defence. Three hundred supporters (not all of them economists) have signed a petition in favour of it. Its backers also fanned out to argue for it in op-eds and numerous appearances on CBC, which willingly provided a soap box for one side of this partisan issue. But, far from being persuasive, advocates mostly demonstrated how little they have learned from their long-standing failure to sell the tax to many politicians and most Canadians.

Carbon tax proponents say it is the most efficient way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But their credibility was damaged early on by preposterous claims about British Columbia’s small post-2008 carbon tax having triggered a sharp drop in gasoline sales. In a clear case of hope triumphing over experience, a syndrome economists are supposed to be immune to, this was rationalized as households acting on expectations of future tax hikes.

Supporters of the tax then seized on the supposed B.C. precedent as evidence carbon emissions could be sharply reduced with just a small and largely painless carbon tax, despite abundant evidence that fuel demand is largely insensitive to price hikes. It later became clear lower gasoline sales in B.C. were due to the 2008 recession and cross-border fill-ups in Washington state at a time when the loonie was trading at parity with the U.S. dollar.

Today, its proponents do acknowledge a carbon tax will have to reach painful levels to meaningfully lower consumption. But their initial willingness to ascribe magical properties to the tax undermined their credibility and gave conservative politicians and economists licence to withdraw their tentative support for the tax.

Those who believe the carbon tax is the best way to lower emissions ignore that, as economist Bjorn Lomborg argues, technological change can be even more effective and can boost economic growth at the same time. The U.S. has both achieved large reductions in emissions and reduced energy costs by switching many power plants from coal to natural gas and other lower-emitting technologies.

Defenders of the carbon tax claim the average Canadian household breaks even on it, since the government sends out cheques compensating households for higher energy costs. But, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer has noted, the carbon tax’s negative impact includes slower economy-wide growth, not just the direct bite out of people’s pocketbooks. Take slower growth into account and most households are in fact worse off.

There’s also the problem that some carbon tax schemes have made no effort to be revenue-neutral. Few economists objected (never mind started a petition) when former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne used carbon-tax revenues to increase government spending, thus reinforcing in the public’s mind that the carbon tax was just another government cash grab.

Advocates cite the Bank of Canada’s calculation that annual carbon tax increases of $15 a tonne contribute just 0.15 percentage points to inflation. This sounds trivial when inflation is running at eight per cent, as it was in 2022, but it’s a non-negligible 7.5 per cent of the Bank’s two per cent inflation target. Moreover, the Bank made clear its estimate “does not include second-round effects.” Of course, Catch-22, if the tax’s impact is trivial, that suggests its effect on behaviour must also be limited, which raises the prospect it is more an exercise in virtue-signalling than a serious attempt to lower emissions.

McGill’s Christopher Ragan, a leading carbon tax advocate and head of the now-defunct EcoFiscal Commission, recently lamented that the public debate on the tax had degenerated into a “dumpster fire.” But it was ever thus. Except that when carbon tax supporters were in the ascendant, the low level of debate — including the naïve belief carbon taxes would be painless and politicians would remit all revenues to households — evidently was not worthy of comment. But now that support for a carbon tax is waning, suddenly the petitions are sprouting.

The reality is that carbon tax advocates have never wanted an open and honest debate. As early as 2015, many declared the matter was “settled” and discussion should be shut down — even though a majority of Canadians were hostile to the tax. As early as 2002, long before the carbon tax, Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick observed in their book Taken By Storm that much debate around climate change featured “a fortress, heavily-defended by an arsenal of authoritarian pronouncements designed to intimidate outsiders into staying away.” But these outsiders now include a majority of both the provinces and the Canadian public, who are poised to abolish the tax altogether.

Philip Cross, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, is the author of The Case for a Carbon Tax: What Went Wrong?
 
…that wildfires have been getting bigger and that summers have become hotter?

....and gives the government excuses to raise taxes in their quest to control the weather. 'Look at all the wildfires that have never occurred in the history of the earth! Give us more money, but we won't reduce the fires.'

#climateemergency
 
....and gives the government excuses to raise taxes in their quest to control the weather. 'Look at all the wildfires that have never occurred in the history of the earth! Give us more money, but we won't reduce the fires.'

#climateemergency
Ok. So we agree there are more wildfires. That’s a start.

Other countries had to fly firefighters in to help out. What are we going to pay them with? They weren’t all volunteers.

Or, put in another way, given that more floods/fires/other natural disasters are happening, should the Canadian govt not put more funds into actually combatting said disasters?
 
Ok. So we agree there are more wildfires. That’s a start.
No we don't. The highest number of wildfires in Canada was 1988-1989, again later 90s was more. The numbers are down in the last decade compared to that period.

First part of the conversation, deal in facts not fantasy or fiction. Or Liberal talking points.
 
No we don't. The highest number of wildfires in Canada was 1988-1989, again later 90s was more. The numbers are down in the last decade compared to that period.

First part of the conversation, deal in facts not fantasy or fiction. Or Liberal talking points.
the number of wild fires has decreased constantly over the last several decades, whilst global warming has theoretically been happening. Last year was an outlier. Want to stop forest fires, stop arson. Second issue, control undergrowth. Regardless of moisture conditions, undergrowth will ignite after exposure to open flame.
 
the number of wild fires has decreased constantly over the last several decades, whilst global warming has theoretically been happening. Last year was an outlier. Want to stop forest fires, stop arson. Second issue, control undergrowth. Regardless of moisture conditions, undergrowth will ignite after exposure to open flame.
Agreed and agreed
 
should the Canadian govt not put more funds into actually combatting said disasters?

Gov is justifying a carbon tax for weather control. Making life more expensive isn’t going to do a lick for fires. This needs to be a provincial responsibility.
 
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