Statewide carbon free electricity by 2050…all buildings decarbonized…actually does nothing for the climate but hurts the poor
Diesel trucks and cars are pictured passing a wind turbine farm on a California highway on Dec. 8, 2009.
In the name of preventing global warming, New York State unveiled the most aggressive climate goal in the nation in 2019, the Climate Leadership and Community Conservation Act (CLCPA), which sets a statewide goal of using carbon-free electricity and “decarbonizing” all buildings with energy efficiency retrofits by 2050 ” and is now pushing the state legislature to pass a piece of legislation called the Climate and Community Investment Act (CCIA) before the summer recess, making a super-stimulative leap forward by imposing a carbon tax and raising gas prices.
These climate bills are full of abstract terms, decarbonization, carbon neutrality, just transition… but will that stop catastrophic weather like hurricanes? Clean energy and net-zero emissions are only as effective as the real-world consequences.
Roger Caiazza, a meteorologist who has worked in the air quality industry for more than 40 years, points out that spending a lot of money on subsidies for wind and solar energy and introducing more restrictions on economic development will at best reduce climate warming by 0.0097 degrees Celsius by 2100, and will do little to nothing. Most importantly, climate science can’t confirm whether global warming is man-made or not, and the risks these policies take, like overpaying for harm, hurt the poor rather than help them.
Kayaza, a self-described “pragmatic environmentalist,” posted on his blog on April 23rd, “Legislative Findings on the Climate and Community Investment Act,” an article-by-article analysis of the CCIA’s provisions from a professional perspective to help readers understand the consequences of the CCIA. The following is an excerpt of the content.
Caiazza’s Analysis of the CCIA
In the wake of the Texas energy crisis, one might think that politicians wouldn’t just change energy and environmental laws until the causes of the disaster were understood, or at least until a feasibility study was conducted to determine implementation options. But in New York, that’s not the case; the CLCPA makes energy more expensive and less reliable, and the CCIA exacerbates that effect.
(According to Wikipedia: Last February’s Texas blackout, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal identified wind energy, which accounts for about a quarter of Texas’ electricity generation, as the main cause of the blackout when wind turbine blades froze during severe cold weather, and questioned U.S. policies to promote clean energy.)
Great Green Leap Forward Study Based on Speculation
In general, the basic premise of all New York legislation is that there is a climate crisis. But politicians and regulators who make assumptions about “solving climate change” often conflate weather and climate, as is often the case.
Dr. William Briggs also said that the idea of blaming extreme weather on man-made global warming is “overconfident and probably wrong. The first problem, he explained, is how to define nature, because “some people mistakenly believe that the Earth’s climate never changed until humans began to ‘interfere’ with it.
Briggs explained how trying to attribute weather and climate problems to “anthropogenic impacts” is impossible to verify independently, no matter how you estimate them. The main tools used today to estimate impacts are climate models. But those models “must first prove their predictive power, and if they can’t or aren’t accurate, then they can’t be trusted. He concluded that because the research is based “on these conjectures, it is either wrong or overconfident.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., concluded, “In summary, it is not yet possible to conclude convincingly that increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities have had a detectable effect on Atlantic Basin hurricane activity.”
The number of hurricanes making landfall in New York is actually declining
The fact that New York has been affected by several hurricanes in recent years has been used as “evidence” of climate change. However, an actual look at the data shows the opposite. Roger Pielke summarized the number of hurricane landfalls and found a downward trend in landfalls since the early 1960s.
The supposed risks associated with climate change do not exist, so reducing greenhouse gas emissions would have no effect.
The fact is that reducing greenhouse gases will necessarily increase energy costs, and vulnerable communities will be more affected (by higher oil prices). The money spent on “emission reductions” will not pay off and will not benefit them in any way.
Only 0.0097°C of cooling buys harm at a high price
New York does have a long history of supporting clean and renewable energy. However, the results of these investments have not been promising. Upon closer inspection of the 20 programs supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), only the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) funds provided to the RGGI were 1.1% cost effective in reducing CO2 emissions, the rest of the programs did not reduce CO2.
In 2019, New York State enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), the most aggressive climate law in the United States. To achieve the goals of the CLCPA, New York State needs to transform its energy infrastructure, including rapid and significant deployment of clean and renewable energy.
I made an estimate of what impact New York’s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would have on global warming. I found that the CLCPA’s emissions inventory would reduce climate warming by roughly between 0.0097°C and 0.0081°C by the year 2100.
Currently, there is no dedicated state agency to oversee and direct the coordination of “carbon reduction” compliance, but only NYSERDA can take on this job because they have the staff with the relevant background and knowledge. Unfortunately, judging from the returns on their investment in RGGI, if New York were to meet the standards by 2050, the cost would be $91.948 billion. The main reason for this poor performance is political interference.
The CCIA proposal calls for the creation of a specialized agency to manage “climate goals” that would have the flexibility to manage the emissions fees charged and coordinate statewide mitigation strategies. I think the idea of having a bureaucracy “flexibly manage emissions fees” is ludicrous. As NYSERDA’s investment results show, the more political interference, the less efficient it becomes.
Ambitious goals are extremely expensive. Unfortunately, CLCPA and CCIA are on a path that will cost huge amounts of money, hurt more poor people than they help, and have no impact on global warming itself.
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