The current state of play in the EU, thanks to the GWPF: The Germans have quietly given up on their own hard climate targets. They have 30% renewables, the most expensive electrons in the world, and their emissions are about the same as five years ago. The EU, climate champion, can’t even agree among the member states about how to ratify the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile the Turks are planning to build 80 new coal fired power stations (eighty!) and are subsidizing them up the kazoo. Turkey wants to use its low grade lignite deposits instead of Russian gas. After the recent purges, no one wants to criticize Erdogan, plus the energy minister happens to be President Erdogans son-in-law.
The E.U.’s over-arching ambitions,
To change climate by cutting emissions,
Is a pointless own-goal,
When others use coal,
As they please,and with no inhibitions.
— Ruairi
Greens are angry that Germany dropped real targets in Climate Action Plan — call new plan a “Toothless-tiger-skin-rug”:
[CleanEnergyWire] The final version of the German Environment Ministry’s Climate Action Plan has been published. But concrete targets included in previous drafts have been removed, prompting the Green Party to describe the document as an “admission of government failure”.
The Climate Action Plan was announced at the Paris Climate Summit as a framework for how Germany was to reach its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050.
Germany is already struggling to meet its 2020 climate targets, and is under additional pressure after Chancellor Angela Merkel repeatedly said she would make climate policy a priority of Germany’s G20 presidency next year.
But the Green Party and environmental organisations said the Climate Action Plan has lost all power as a blueprint for decarbonising Germany.
“Hendrick’s Climate Action Plan started as a tiger, but turned out to be a toothless tiger-skin rug,” said Green parliamentarians Bärbel Höhn and Oliver Krischer.
Germany increased power production from renewables to over 30 percent in 2015, yet overall CO2 emissions, as well as emissions from the power and transport sector, have stagnated or increased slightly over the last five years.
The EU is running at full Gigacrat speed — the velocity of bureaucrats in a vacuum:
The inability of the EU’s member states to agree on an effort-sharing deal could delay the ratification of the Paris Agreement until late 2017. This would see the climate deal enter into force without the world’s biggest economic bloc.
MEP Ian Duncan accidentally gives half the gameplan away:
For Scottish Conservative MEP Ian Duncan, the rapporteur on carbon market reform, enough is enough. “Climate action is not just about nice words and handshakes,” he said.
Of course, it’s also about the money.
It is now very possible that the Paris Agreement could enter into force without the ratification of the EU, which would be a major political defeat for the bloc. For the deal to apply, it must be ratified by at least 55% of signatory countries representing 55% of global CO2 emissions.
What kind of “major political defeat” would this be — Will the EU miss out on winning the Most Virtuous Global Citizen of 2016?
Turkey has 25 coal fired stations, wants another 80:
Not quite the energy revolution the Greens had in mind:
Turkey plans to build as many as 80 new coal plants in the next few years, on top of 25 that already exist, belching an extra 200m tonnes of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere each year.
Under the new plan, any project deemed a “strategic investment” can be exempted from corporate taxes, tariffs, stoppages, and the duty to carry out environmental risk assessments, or even permitting applications.
Coal operators could be leased state lands for free, receive a 50% discount on electricity bills, and pocket state funding for wage subsidies, insurance premiums and interest on investment loans.
The government is also offering a guaranteed €0.05 per kilowatt hour (kWh) coal-generated electricity price and commitment to buy 6bn kWh’s of coal-generated electricity annually.
–The Guardian
Germany has 40GW of solar power, sunny Turkey has 0.3GW. Like the Greens, the Turks want to reduce the influence of fossil fuels from Russia. Unlike the Greens, they want to use their own fossil fuels to do it. Apparently solar is not such a strategic investment then.