Germany Leads Europe in Ditching Net Zero Commitments as Reality Hits
Things are not going well in Germany’s bid to reach Net Zero by 2045, says Ross Clark in the Spectator, “five years earlier even than Britain’s own unrealistic target”. As reality starts to hit, the scramble to back out of green economic self-harm becomes more and more frantic.
For months, the German Government has been trying to devise a way to save its heavy industry from high energy prices which are sending production fleeing to Asia. Just last year, chemicals giant BASF announced that it would invest in a new £10 billion plant in China rather than Europe, thanks to the cost of energy.
Now, the Government seems to have found a way. It is going to raid its £200 billion climate transition fund, which was supposed to invest in green technology. The fund was also meant to compensate householders who have been groaning under the expense of policies such as next year’s proposed ban on new gas boilers.
Instead, some of the money will be going towards subsidising cheaper energy for heavy users (although householders may end up paying more). Needless to say, some of the subsidies will be disappearing into the pockets of the owners of coal-fired power stations – given that some of these have had to be fired up again to cope with the disappearance of Russian gas.
Ross notes that the German car industry “has already succeeded in watering down an EU ban on petrol and diesel cars from 2035”:
Internal combustion engines will still be allowed if they are capable of being run on synthetic ‘e-fuels’ manufactured from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Given that you can make synthetic fuels to any recipe you like, this effectively means that the car industry will be able to continue making internal combustion engines pretty much as now.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I’m beginning to think this whole net zero thing is a lucrative tie in deal between the Chinese and players of Davos and the WEF. An agreed takeover. A backroom used car deal for a shit tonne of cash. Either that or the Chinese have a terrifying secret weapon pointed at our heads.
They’ve got enough advance weapons to wipe out all life on the planet several times over and the Cultural Revolution shows they’ve got no qualms about genocide.
Using more funny money to subsidize energy isn’t “ditching net zero” or “scramble back out of self harm”.
I agree. I groan sometimes at the wishful thinking. I suppose.it gives hope. But not for long. Whenever I read the phrase “the tide is turning” I just know things have yet to get worse. Probably much worse.
My default position is cynicism and pessimism. At the start of “covid” I thought “they’ll never get away with this, people won’t stand for it”. As “covid” continued, I kept thinking “they won’t get away with this for much longer”. Now that “covid” is “over”, sometimes I think “surely soon people will wake up”.
Ah yes, the mad rush to Net Zero by the West. This is the most insane policy ever enacted by any governments anytime or anywhere in history. Even more insane than Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao. They “only” killed millions. Net Zero, if its supporters get their way, will result in the deaths of BILLIONS world-wide.
How can we get people to wake up to this madness?
It won’t kill anyone I don’t think. What it will do is enslave everyone. Except only a few of us will know we are slaves and suffer it. The majority will be zombies out and mildly unsatisfied without really knowing why.
Net Zero as envisaged by its most ardent lunatic supporters requires the de-industrialisation of agriculture. This includes the banning of the most effective fertilisers. This alone would kill billions.
Add a few million more who would die of hypothermia in their own homes as the inevitable power cuts rage throughout the West in winter, all fossil fuel more or less banned and only intermittent power being made available from windmills and solar panels. This is what they want. It must be stopped.
This sort of catastrophic predictions were made with the covid jab and they didn’t come to pass. In the end it killed a few(relatively speakong), maimed many more, but overall the establishment has managed to cover up and obfuscate the damage. And the general public are playing along with it because everyone was coaxed into participating and no one wants to feel a fool.
I expect the same with Net Zero. It’ll cause plenty of misery but nothing that can’t be explained away in a fit cognitive dissonance while the establishment claims it to be a roaring success.
I didn’t think the catastrophic predictions of the jabs were helpful and I don’t think catastrophic predictions of Net Zero are helpful either.
There is so much to criticise without having to go that far.
Yet catastrophic predictions are everywhere everyday on every news channel regarding climate. We apparently face a climate emergency and a climate crisis. Millions will die as seas rise and refugees in their millions form swarms to escape the devastation of extreme weather all allegedly caused by a little rise in some CO2. ——-So are you ok with these evidence free “catastrophic predictions”? ——-WHY? Net Zero was waved through parliament with no questions asked. Not one single question as to cost, and not one single question as to benefit. It is all pain and no gain. It is economic suicide. You choose to call it “catastrophic predictions” but that is your words. I call it the biggest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated and I see when my government wants to imprison me for not getting a heat pump and a smart meter that there may be trouble ahead. BIG TROUBLE.
When did I say I thought the climate change catastrophic predictions were all ok?
I think most if not all catastrophic predictions are unhelpful and manipulative. And I don’t think the best way to counter climate change catastrophic predictions is with Net Zero catastrophic predictions.
All I’m saying is that claiming billions are going to die because of Net Zero is hyperbolic, incredibly unlikely and not helpful.
You say you don’t think the best way to counter climate change catastrophic predictions is with Net Zero catastrophic predictions. I see it differently. If we are going to have our standard of living lowered, our prosperity destroyed, our ability to move freely, to heat our homes etc etc all based on politicised junk science then the gloves have to come off. Being polite with these people who would destroy the western world with draconian eco socialist energy policies pretending it is about the climate simply doesn’t work. They have to be hit as hard as they are hitting us. I make no apology for anyone who maybe seems to exaggerate the pain of net zero which no politician would even discuss as they waved that amendment through parliament in 2019.
Don’t know whether it’s for the net zero or the jab thing that stewart has had 41 downvotes. The jabs might kill millions or billions eventually but for now they have not which is why it has not been noticed sufficiently to cause a scandal.
Your standard of living is directly tied to the availability and cost of energy. Net Zero will for sure harm people. How many it will kill I cannot say but cold kills way more people than heat does, and our absurd energy policies are going to leave us very cold.
Don’t disagree. Just don’t think it will kill billions. And don’t think claiming it will helps.
Billions are currently being brought out of abject misery in China and India and other poor countries because they are using coal and gas. The very fuels that the UN and our own lackey politicians here , in the EU and in the US want to ban. Taking away those fuels leaves them in abject misery and poverty where billions will die young of preventable diseases and of a life of back breaking labour. Over one billion people on this planet have no electricity. Try living like that for a month and see how you like it. We always hear about the risks of fossil fuels which are hugely exaggerated but we never hear about the risks of not using them and that risk is enormous and make no mistake, without fossil fuels people will DIE, and ARE DYING
Well, if you look at the real situation over there rather than listening too much to the political rhetoric about the sources of energy in use, it could be educational. E.g. this place can be interesting: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/service/recent-electricity-data/chart/conventional_power_generation/21.08.2023/28.08.2023/today/ and compare it with: https://grid.iamkate.com/ Compare the values of CO2 emissions per kWh between them.
The truth is that in Germany, they are still heavily reliant on coal – lignite (brown coal), which is the dirtiest type you’ll find anywhere. Then again, they have abandoned nuclear reactors, in contrast with EDF in France. And for those that are keen on plug-in EVs as a form of traction, you can burn coal on the road, in effect!
Incidentally, synthetic fuels for diesel engines are more likely to be hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO), such as scrap cooking oil and the like.
The second link is corrupted by ‘compare’ the next word of the text.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Thanks. A snag with cut and paste.I often glance at that one.
This is how it ends. The engineer in overalls with sweat pouring from his brow clutching a wrench gets up from his knees to tell the commanding officer, “Sir, this was never going to work, why didn’t you listen?”
Common Sense will trump ideology every time but Europe (including the silly UK) is still sleepwalking. Will they wake up in time? Perhaps only if they get a large dose of reality injected into their veins.—— The Germans so desperate to be GREEN have over 30,000 wind turbines. How absurd is it to cover a beautiful country in huge Industrial turbines when a few Nuclear plants tucked away in a corner would suffice. Green pretend to save the planet ideology is INSANE. Why would you do any of this? ———They do it for the same reason the UK does it and why Democrats in the US do it. Because it isn’t about the climate and never was. It is a political agenda called Sustainable Development that thinks western lifestyles are “unsustainable” and we must all stop using the fuels (coal oil and gas) that brought us prosperity because we have used up more than our fair share of this finite resource. ——To get away with lowering our living standards and fobbing us off with technologies that are inferior and more expensive you need a plausible excuse and that excuse is climate change. A TOTAL SCAM. There is no science that… Read more »