Light blogging

I'm off on my travels today, so blogging will be light for a few weeks. I may be able to check in once or twice and Josh and Messenger are going to mind the fort in my absence and post links to topical stories if they get the chance.

In the meantime you could do much worse than taking a look at Richard North's must-read review of the EU's recent publication of grants to outside organisations.

The database is a goldmine of information, telling us, for instance, that the EU paid the BBC €6,100,987 last year, Friends of the Earth (in all its incarnations) €4,188,230, WWF €5,344,641 and the RSPB €3,802,544. What is also of very great interest is that the EU subsidised UN institutions to the tune of nearly €140 million.

The greens and government

Further to the Greenpeace-go-by-air story this week, Richard North looks at the infiltration of environmentalists into our political governance. This is eye-opening stuff:

As we see the march of globalisation progress, the Green 10 (all of them funded by the EU, except Greenpeace - the WWT between 2007-2012 having grabbed a massive €53,813,343 for its services to itself and the EU empire), are supporting their paymaster, "promoting EU environmental leadership in the global political arena", helping it act at a global level.

Environmentalists trashing the environment, part 324

One of the greens' most successful campaigns in recent years has been to persuade EU bureaucrats to ban the class of pesticides known as the neonicotinoids. This was pretty much the precautionary principle in its pure form, with only anecdotal evidence that there was a problem.

Unfortunately quite a lot of systematic evidence has now been produced which seems to show that there is not actually a problem with bee deaths at all.

The commission’s moratorium vote, which took effect throughout the EU in December 2013, came despite contradictory field evidence—and well before the release of a spate of new studies suggesting that bee health is now improving globally. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in May that bee deaths dropped more than 25 percent this past winter, and that the overall population has increased 13 percent since 2008.

Click to read more ...

Missing the point

While the Guardian is in something of an ambulance-chasing frenzy, devoting its front page to a hysterical outburst from Lord Stern, in the Telegraph Fraser Nelson has a more thoughtful take on the floods.

No one can be blamed for the rainfall, but the extent of the floods has been linked to human error – and deeply flawed ideology. Some years ago, the Environment Agency took the disastrous decision to stop the routine dredging of the main Somerset rivers, as part of an overall idea that a little more flooding might be a good thing. Now, voters may have some opinions about the agency’s decision to put wildlife before people and property – but no one can be fired. It is a massive quango, outside the direct control of the elected government.

He's right about the problem of quangos, but I think that Fraser's preferred solution - bringing the EA back within the Whitehall machine - is inadequate. Decision making by environmentalists in a Whitehall department is going to be as little responsive to the needs of the people of Somerset as decision making by environmentalists in a Whitehall quango. And at the end of the day, neither will be able to make much impact because decision making in London is actually "decision making" in London. The policies are set - or effectively set - in Brussels.

European justice?

Pat Swords sends me a link to this press release by the European Platform Against Windfarms, who have been suing the European Commission over its non-compliance with the Aarhus Convention. The Commission's response was to apply to the European Court of Justice to have the case thrown out on the grounds that the EPAW is not a legal person. The court has apparently now decided to accept the Commission's case without allowing EPAW to respond.

There is no doubt that this is remarkable, EPAW had no opportunity to reply to the arguments put forward against it, especially the main one, which is not based on fact: the European Commission having decided that EPAW was ‘a non-profit-making legal person registered in France’. However, when EPAW first formally approached the European Commission, on behalf of itself and other environmental NGOs, in requesting an Internal Review of the EU’s post 2020 renewable programme, it provided specific contact details in Scotland, which were to be used for this purpose.

Moreover, it seems that the court has previously accepted cases from organisations - including ones involved with violence - that have similar structures to EPAW. There appears to be a very strong suggestion that the court is bowing to the will of the Commission.

"European Court of Justice". There's a /sarc tag missing there I think.

Europe's energy emergency

The FT is reporting a forthcoming EU paper on energy policy, which apparently notes, with almost preposterous understatement, that Europe's disadvantage in energy prices has increased somewhat in recent years.

Industrialists are not so sanguine.

Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of the Italian oil and gas company, Eni, said in a speech at the weekend that lower American energy costs had created a “massive competitive advantage for the US” that was driving investors and businesses to that country at a rapid pace. “This is a real emergency for Europe,” he said.

The green stupor

Jon Snow, the terribly right-on host of Channel Four News reports from an unidentified energy conference and has some interesting things to say about climate and energy policy:

There were a number of big business leaders and European civil service technocrats present. The sum total of our deliberations was that European energy policies and practice are in chaos and we collectively face dangerously expensive supplies, as well as the increasing threat of grave shortages...

In our discussion, the answers to this crisis were grim. The first was for Europe to get fracking, right now, wherever shale gas exists. Going nuclear is a major option too, irrespective of disposal threats. Reconsidering coal was even talked about.

But there was a frightening enthusiasm to terminate all green levies.

Not before time, but whether the voicing of such opinions will awaken our political masters from their green stupor is another question altogether.

Barroso then and now

The EU seems to have seen the writing on the wall and is starting to beat a retreat from its previous environmentalist-friendly policies:

If European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has his way, the European Union would do away with its green energy mandate and replace it with a voluntary system in which EU member states set their own renewable energy targets as they see fit.

German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday reported that Barroso is pushing for an end to EU renewable energy mandates when the current legally binding target expires in 2020.

How times change. Here is Senor Barroso just a couple of years ago:

José Manuel Barroso, the commission president, expressed confidence that renewables would move from an alternative form of energy to the mainstream over the next decade. “I believe renewable energy is neither a luxury nor a distraction,” Mr Barroso said.

The fatal contradiction

The FT looks at the EU's latest interventions in the energy market, wondering where it leaves the idea of nation states having their own energy policies. In particular it points out the possibility of the government's bonkers nuclear deal at Hinckley point being ruled illegal, shale being regulated away to nothing, and exemptions for energy intensive industry being axed.

You can see an interesting (if that's the right word) dilemma appearing here. The environmental bureaucracy in Brussels looks as though it may make fossil fuel use impossible. The single market bit may drive renewables to the wall.

The future's dim. The future's black.

EU backs down on fracking

For a couple of days I've been meaning to mention Richard North's article about attempts within the EU to crush the onshore gas industry before it even gets off the ground. However, before I got round to doing so, the Commission seems to have backed down:

Fracking for cheap gas moved a step closer today after EU officials dropped proposals for new industry regulations.

Click to read more ...

EU considers minor expansion of corrupt biofuels scheme

Having compelled the use of biofuels in transport fuel the European Union is now having to deal with the consequences.

...overall, when land-use effects are taken into account, most varieties of biodiesel turn out to produce more emissions than bioethanol — and often more than fossil fuels.

The effect wipes out more than two-thirds of the carbon emissions that Europe’s renewable-energy policy was supposed to save by 2020, says David Laborde, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC, which has produced influential reports for the European Commission.

In response the Commission has decided not to expand the biofuels mandate, but the EU Parliament is still wondering whether to increase it slightly.

Expanding a scheme that damages consumers and does little or nothing for the environment looks a lot like insanity. Much that goes on in the public sector does. But of course, once you understand that the biofuels mandate is driven by corruption, it all makes sense.

Friends of the Earth say "save our funding"

Ever keen to give voice to the rent-seeking interest, the Guardian is reporting that Friends of the Earth are worried that the UK might leave the European Union.

The UK's membership of the European Union has rocketed up the political agenda in recent weeks, but if Lord Lawson and Nigel Farage get their way, a go-it-alone Britain would be far from green and pleasant.

An analysis for Friends of the Earth, published today by the EU policy expert Dr Charlotte Burns from the University of York, provides a damning critique of UK environmental performance over decades, and highlights the huge risks of EU withdrawal.

That would be the risk of Friends of the Earth suffering a loss of funding from the EU I suppose.

Speak truth to power

The EU has launched a consultation into the 2015 International Climate Change agreement (H/T Pat Swords).

The purpose of this consultation is to initiate a debate with Member States, EU institutions and stakeholders on how best to shape the international climate regime between 2020 and 2030. The Consultative Communication sets out a context and poses a set of questions to frame this debate.

Details here.

The EU apparently tries to avoid speaking just to itself, although the terms of the consultation seem to have been worded so as to exclude dissenting voices. Nevertheless, it is always helpful to place these views on the record.

The latest from Pat Swords

Pat Swords writes with the latest news from his legal battle to have Irish energy policy declared illegal under the Aarhus Convention.

On Tuesday the case to be heard the next day (13th) went instead into adjournment until the 11th April. There are complex legal issues involved in the case, which I have not yet had the time to finish writing up, but they go beyond the renewable energy issues to the core principle of access to justice and 'who watches the watch keeper'. The lawyers on both sides have agreed to extra time to prepare additional written affidavits. In summary though, due to Ireland's failure to ratify the Convention, I could not have taken my case in the Court until after Ireland's ratification of the UNECE Convention took effect in September 2012. As it turned out, the ruling had by then come through from the UNECE Compliance Committee and I brought it before the High Court and got leave in early November 2012, within the recognised time frame applying post ratification.

Click to read more ...

EU for turning?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the existence of a draft EU document that may turn out to be significant:

European policy makers must factor in the impact of the region’s deep financial crisis and stumbling economies as they design climate and energy policies, according to a draft European Union document seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The document signals that the 27-nation bloc may be reining in its ambition to lead the world in tackling climate change.

The paper, whose final version is expected to be published March 27, aims to start a debate ahead of the drafting of the EU climate and energy policy for the decade between 2020 and 2030, of which a first version should be ready by the end of this year.

Who knows what kind of a mess we could be in by 2020, but at least this report suggests the EU has now noticed that there is a problem.