Australian Labor Government Approves First Thermal Coal Mine

James Fernyhough
Wed, July 5, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Australia has approved its first thermal coal project since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese came to power, drawing criticism from climate groups and the Green party.

The decision, made on Friday, allows Idemitsu Kosan Co. to mine power-station coal at Ensham in Queensland for another nine years. The Japanese company will be producing 4.5 million tons a year of the fuel at the mine, which is equivalent to around 2.5% of Australia’s thermal coal exports in 2022.

The decision shows the tricky environmental and economic balancing act for Albanese’s Labor government. It won last year’s election on a platform of stricter emissions targets and support for renewable energy, but it has also backed the expansion of coal and natural gas production, Australia’s second- and third-biggest export earners.

Albanese’s government approved another mine in Queensland for metallurgical coal, used in steel-making, in May.

The greenlighting of new fossil-fuel projects may complicate Labor’s legislative agenda in the Senate, where it doesn’t hold the balance of power and often needs the support of the Greens.

“Labor’s current climate strategy is to condemn a decade of Liberal inaction in Parliament, whilst hoping you don’t notice their massive expansion of coal & gas at the exact same time,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said on Twitter on Tuesday.

The Ensham decision was made according to existing environmental rules, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said in a statement, adding she had blocked three coal mines since coming to office. The government remained committed to rolling out renewable energy, she said.

Climate advocacy group Lock the Gate said the approval would worsen climate change, estimating it would contribute an additional 100 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over its lifetime — about a fifth of Australia’s annual emissions.

The coal would be mined after Idemitsu sells the project to a consortium led by South African coal miner Thungela Resources Ltd., in a deal reached earlier this year. Thungela was spun off from Anglo American Plc in 2021.

Growing demand for coal in India and Southeast Asia will underpin an increase in Australia’s exports of the fuel by volume for at least the next three years, according to an Australian government report released this week. The country earned A$113.8 billion ($76 billion) from coal shipments in the year through June 2022, almost a fifth of total export earnings.

McKinsey Adds to Warnings of Clean-Energy Metals Shortages

Lars Mucklejohn
Wed, July 5, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- McKinsey & Co. joined the growing chorus warning that metals considered key to the clean-energy transition face shortages in coming years, potentially suppressing the adoption of electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels.

These deficits likely will slow global decarbonization efforts by raising supply-chain costs and, consequently, the prices of lower-carbon products, McKinsey said in a report released Wednesday. Trafigura Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Weir and BloombergNEF have expressed similar concerns.

Nickel, necessary for the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, is expected to face shortages of about 10% to 20% by 2030, while dysprosium, a rare-earth element commonly used in electric motors, may experience deficits of as much as 70%, McKinsey said. Supplies of copper, lithium, cobalt, iridium and tin also may be crimped.

The number of the approximately 500 cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel mines operating today will need to increase by as much as 76% to almost 900 in order to meet demand for batteries, the McKinsey analysts wrote.

The materials shortage would result in an additional 400 million-600 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, the report estimates. That would blow through international plans to limit global temperatures as set out in the Paris climate accord.

McKinsey recommends investments in mining, refining and smelting increase to between $3 trillion and $4 trillion by 2030 — a 50% annual increase compared with the previous decade.

--With assistance from Mark Burton.

'Green' Steel Maker Signs €1.5 Billion Deal With German Auto-Industry Supplier

Lars Paulsson
Tue, July 4, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- H2 Green Steel AB signed a seven-year steel delivery deal with one of the biggest suppliers to the automotive industry worth €1.5 billion ($1.64 billion).

The agreement, one of H2GS’s largest yet, covers a “significant share” of ZF Friedrichshafen AG’s annual steel demand of about 2.5 million tons, according to a statement Tuesday. Deliveries of near zero-emissions steel are due to start in 2026.

The Swedish company is among a new breed of steelmakers seeking to overhaul the way the alloy is manufactured in one of the most polluting industries in the world, replacing coal with green hydrogen made using renewable power. The sector, which has relied largely on the same production techniques for more than a century, accounts for about 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Read more: What It Would Take to Make Steelmaking Greener: QuickTake

The deal is expected to reduce ZF’s CO2 emissions by close to 2.3 million tons compared with traditional steelmaking processes, according to the statement. H2GS will also work together with ZF’s sub-suppliers.

The company last month received a full environmental permit to start building a plant in Boden in northern Sweden. The facility is poised to produce 5 million tons of so-called green steel annually by the end of the decade.

The founder and largest shareholder of H2GS is Vargas Holding AB, which is also co-founder and one of the larger stakeholders in Swedish battery maker Northvolt AB.

BMW bets on hydrogen in battle with Musk’s Tesla

Howard Mustoe
Mon, July 3, 2023 

BMW iX5 Hydrogen runs on the odourless gas and emits only water vapour as a result

Off a backroad and behind a gate near Heathrow Airport stands one of the UK’s handful of hydrogen filling stations.

The familiar canopy, pumps, no smoking signs and other paraphernalia are present, but there are none of the smells or stains of a petrol station as enough fuel to travel hundreds of miles is dispensed in under four minutes in the form of a clear, odourless gas.

BMW is betting on this technology as it seeks to find an alternative to battery-operated electric cars – amid a scramble to dethrone Elon Musk’s Tesla in the battle to rule the future of driving.

The German carmaker believes that hydrogen cars could help four big groups of drivers who are unlikely to go electric.

It intends to market them to customers who do not have home charging, such as those without a garage or driveway; drivers who require high flexibility or travel frequently, for whom even fast charging is too time consuming; buyers in cold climates which kill battery life; and those who tow heavy loads.

The cars drive like an electric vehicle since their fuel cells burn hydrogen, which produces only water, to generate electricity that powers a motor. Fill them with hydrogen made using solar or wind power and they are just as green as a battery-powered car can be.

To prove the concept, BMW has kitted out a small test fleet of X5 SUVs with a hydrogen power plant which can deliver 170 horsepower.

It is paired with a small battery, to gather waste power from braking and offer an acceleration boost, as found in a hybrid petrol car. Together they can deliver more than 400 horsepower and hit 62 miles per hour from a standstill in six seconds.

BMW and Toyota are among a minority of big car makers pressing on with the technology as an option as the industry scrambles to find an answer to Musk.

On Sunday night, Tesla once again proved its leadership credentials in the electric arena by reporting a record number of deliveries in the second quarter of 2023.

The carmaker handed over 466,000 cars in the three months to June after price cuts paid off, beating analyst expectations of 445,000 deliveries.

Shares rose 6.9pc on Wall Street as a result, valuing the business at $877bn (£691bn) – bigger than the next nine largest companies combined.

European rivals have been left playing catch-up, and BMW regards hydrogen as a useful way to stand out.

“Putting all the eggs in one basket is not the right thing to do,” says Jürgen Guldner, general programme manager for hydrogen at BMW.

He also hopes that a company like his can kickstart demand for the gas.

“The transport sector can pay a higher price for hydrogen as a fuel to replace diesel than, for example, a steel factory,” he says.

“This steel factory is replacing either coal or gas. So the transport sector can actually be the catalyst to start out a hydrogen economy because they can pay a higher price in the beginning plus the amount of hydrogen that is needed for the transport sector versus what the heavy industry needs is lower.”

Others are also showing an interest, albeit with a dose of scepticism thrown in.

Last year, Volkswagen filed a patent for a new hydrogen fuel cell system with a 1,243 mile range, using cheaper ceramic components when compared to the polymers used by Toyota and Hyundai.

But in February, Volkswagen brand boss Thomas Schafer said for the next decade at least, hydrogen was not a cost-effective option.

Ford and Stellantis, which owns brands from Vauxhall to Citroen, have focused their hydrogen efforts on vans as a diesel alternative, and for most vehicle makers, the gas is seen as a good bet for heavier vehicles like vans, trucks and heavy goods vehicles.

While hydrogen cars seem like an ideal solution for caravan owners, sales reps and city dwellers, to be carbon-free they must use gas made by renewable electricity, using the current to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

This extra step means the fuel will always be more expensive than electricity itself, which can be used to directly charge a battery car.

The X5’s 6kg hydrogen tank costs about £120 to fill, offering a range of about 310 miles, for a price today of about 39 pence per mile.

It also puts drivers in competition with industries which have few other options, especially in the near term since green hydrogen is expensive to make and has very limited capacity today.

Steel, cement and glass makers and the aviation industry are all clamouring for the gas since batteries and electricity are either too heavy or do not generate the heat they need.

Sabine Klauke, chief technical officer at Airbus, said in an interview last month that industries which can use batteries should do so, leaving the limited feedstock supplies available for those with no alternative.

In an interview at the Paris Air Show, she said: “There are industries which are really difficult to decarbonize.

“So it would be far more helpful if the ones who can go electric, go electric.”

Others are more optimistic. Blake Scholl, founder of supersonic jet designer Boom Supersonic, is confident that huge demand for sustainable jet fuel, and the hydrogen it’s made from, will mean an explosion of production.

He told a press conference last month: “Over time, as supply increases to catch up with demand, prices will fall. This happens in every market.”

If hydrogen is to play a larger role in British transport access to the fuel will need to improve beyond the dozen stations that exist today - ED ROBINSON

Hydrogen production can soak up excess green energy produced on windy, sunny days that can then be used later on, taking pressure off the electricity grid which already requires billions of pounds of upgrades to cope with the looming demand for millions of electric cars, heat pumps and greener industrial processes.

Unlike sunshine, it can be stored and shipped about on the UK’s natural gas network, which already exists and is being upgraded to accommodate the fuel.

The gas can also be imported from areas with high wind or sun, such as the UK or Saudi Arabia, offering an export for those nations.

BMW’s Guldner was guarded when asked how much its hydrogen-powered car would cost, but acknowledged that it would have to be competitive with electric options.

Fuel cells are getting cheaper, and newer models should only need as much platinum as a typical catalytic converter, which would help drive costs down.

Clare Jackson, chief executive of Hydrogen UK, says the industry is keen to work with all comers.

“In line with Government’s low carbon hydrogen production targets set for 2030, Hydrogen UK encourages both aviation and road transport to decarbonise using hydrogen,” she says.

Only 5pc of the hydrogen being produced in seven years will be needed for aviation fuel, she says, while running 7,5000 trucks would use another 1.6pc – leaving more than 90pc for other industries.

The UK has some catching up to do. With fewer than a dozen filling stations, a flurry of openings will be needed to tempt motorists into using the fuel.

And for BMW, beating Musk with a hydrogen-powered car still looks like a very distant dream.

China's SAIC doubles down on European expansion with EV plant plan

Reuters
Tue, July 4, 2023 

MG Motor Mexico, owned by China's SAIC Motor, launches an electric vehicle

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's SAIC Motor is working on the site selection to build a plant in Europe to produce electric vehicles, the company said on Tuesday, as it presses ahead with it expansion in the region.

The Chinese partner of Volkswagen and General Motors, which did not give further details on the plant plans, said it had sold 530,000 units overseas in the first quarter, an increase of 40% from a year earlier. Nearly 70% of those sales came from its MG brand. Sales of MG cars in Europe more than doubled to 115,000 units in the first half, SAIC added.

The state-owned Chinese automaker estimated its overseas sales could exceed 1.2 million units in 2023. It plans to launch more than 10 new models under the MG brand in the next 18 months globally.

Automakers including Tesla, BMW and BYD are ramping up efforts to export China-made vehicles to other markets as auto demand weakened at home, taking advantage of the lower manufacturing and supply chain costs in China.

SAIC was the biggest exporter among all Chinese automakers in the first five months, according to data from China Passenger Car Association. Britain, Mexico, Australia and India were among its largest overseas markets, the data showed.

(Reporting by Zhang Yan, Brenda Goh and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Louise Heavens)

China Takes the Trade Fight to Europe, Targeting the Green Transition

Ewa Krukowska, Bryce Baschuk and Richard Bravo
Tue, July 4, 2023

China Takes the Trade Fight to Europe, Targeting the Green Transition

(Bloomberg) -- China’s decision to restrict critical mineral exports will hit key sectors in the European Union’s effort to decarbonize its economy, and demonstrates the limits of western aspirations to shift supply chains beyond the reach of policymakers in Beijing.

China is the largest global producer of the two minerals, gallium and germanium, which will be subject to export restrictions next month and that are crucial to the semiconductor, telecommunications and electric-vehicle industries. The EU gets 71% of its gallium from China and 45% of its germanium.

The move comes weeks after the EU unveiled a new economic security strategy, which seeks oversight of critical technology exports and may curb outbound investments in the name of national security. The proposal is part of a growing push within the bloc to strengthen security tools as countries such as China and Russia increasingly use trade and the control of critical supply lines to advance political and even military goals.

“China’s action is a stark reminder of who has the upper hand in this game,” Simone Tagliapietra, a researcher at the Bruegel think-tank in Brussels, said in an interview. “The harsh reality is that the west will need at least a decade to de-risk from China’s minerals supply chains, so this really is an asymmetric dependency.”

The EU was taught a difficult lesson when Russia invaded Ukraine last year, triggering surging inflation and fears that entire industries might collapse as the bloc rushed to source new supplies of oil and gas. The bloc’s member states were torn over how to respond to Moscow, with some countries overly reliant on cheap Russian crude and gas.

The same dynamic is also playing out with the EU’s policy on China, with certain nations unwilling to put their trade relationship with the world’s second-largest economy at risk.

Reacting to China’s announcement, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said the government in Berlin must “learn the lesson from recent years in terms of what a certain sovereignty in production, energy and economic security really means.”

“You probably saw today that China is really starting to up the ante regarding two types of metal,” Habeck said at a chemicals industry lobby conference. “If that happens with lithium or something similar then we really have a different kind of problem,” he warned.

China’s $6.8 trillion consumer marketplace is a critical destination for European exports of cars, pharmaceuticals and machinery. German automakers Volkswagen AG, Mercedes-Benz AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG have built dozens of factories in China and all three manufacturers now sell more vehicles in China than any other market.

The US has pushed for Europe to take a tough line with Beijing, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has argued that the bloc needs to “de-risk” from China, but short of a full-blown “decoupling.”

The EU launched its Critical Raw Materials Act in March to ease financing and permitting for new mining and refining projects and strike trade alliances to reduce the bloc’s dependence on Chinese suppliers. The US and Europe have also been looking to set up a “buyers’ club” to strike supply deals and investment partnerships with producing nations.

“We have seen a very deliberate hardening of China’s overall strategic posture for some time and it has now been matched by a ratcheting up of increasingly assertive actions,” von der Leyen said in a policy speech earlier this year. “Just as China has been ramping up its military posture, it has also ramped up its policies of disinformation and economic and trade coercion.”

And member states have been taking even stronger measures. The Dutch government announced last week measures that will prevent ASML Holding NV — a company with a near-monopoly on the machines needed to make the most advanced semiconductors — from selling some of its equipment to China.

WTO Complaint

The commission, the EU’s executive arm, could confront China’s new export restrictions via dispute settlement proceedings at the Geneva-based World Trade Organization.

However, such a dispute could take years to wind its way through the WTO’s partially dysfunctional dispute settlement body. Furthermore, China’s claim that the measures are necessary for national security could trigger a WTO loophole that allows governments to take “any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests.”

But more immediate for the EU, an escalation of tensions could threaten the bloc’s ability to transform its economy to become more environmentally friendly.

The Chinese move comes as the EU is embarking upon an unprecedented overhaul to eliminate carbon emissions across its entire economy, from energy production to agriculture and transport. The Green Deal, whose target is to make the region climate-neutral by 2050, will require access to massive amounts of critical materials used in everything from solar panels to electric vehicles.

“Europe today largely depends on China for a set of clean technologies and critical components, so an escalation of these tensions might make Europe’s green transition more bumpy for sure,” Tagliapietra said.

--With assistance from Alberto Nardelli and Kamil Kowalcze.

Chinese EVs have yet to succeed in Europe. The Middle East could be different

Rita Liao
Tue, July 4, 2023 


For Chinese electric car manufacturers, Europe has long been a priority destination for international expansion. With its affluence, environmental consciousness, and relatively friendly attitude towards China, the continent has attracted established players like BYD as well as emerging brands like Nio and Xpeng.

Despite their ambitious plans, Chinese EV makers yet to achieve the level of success they had hoped for in Europe. In 2022, BYD held a mere 0.3% market share across 14 major European markets, while Xpeng and Nio, which both entered Europe in 2021, each accounted for 0.1% of the region, according to auto data tracking site EU-EVs. Western carmakers continue to dominate the market, with Tesla enjoying a 15% share, Volkswagen with 11.3%, and BMW with 6.2%.

It's too soon to say if China's ambitious EV makers will ever establish a strong foothold in Europe, but the early tepid performance is driving them to hedge their bets. They are setting their sights on a region halfway between Europe and China -- the Middle East.

As countries around the world accelerate efforts to phase out fossil fuels, the oil-rich countries in the Middle East are also joining the fray to electrify the auto industry. In a controversial move, the United Arab Emirates, a country known for its abundant oil reserves, will host the 2023 United Nations-sponsored climate talks, more commonly known as COP28.

"Oil is relatively cheap [in the Gulf countries] but can be exported for a big profit margin. The money made from export can then go towards subsidizing the domestic EV industry," Emma Meng, an auto influencer with over one million followers on Weibo who is also an EV consultant based mostly in the UAE, explained in an interview with TechCrunch.

Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers are taking note of these developments. The Middle East, with an EV market that is still nascent, offers a wealth of potential for growth. But the same challenges that Chinese EV makers have faced in Europe will arise once again in this land of opportunities.

Pushed to go beyond China

China's EV makers feel an increasing urgency to expand overseas as consumer demand weakens amid an economic slowdown and Tesla's aggressive price cuts heighten domestic competition.

The price war started by the American titan has triggered some 40 Chinese EV brands to slash prices. Even Nio, which prides itself on its premium brand image and pledged not to join the price war, gave in eventually.

"The Chinese market is too cut-throat. EV makers have no choice but to get out," suggested Meng.

The momentum in Europe is driving Chinese EV makers to look elsewhere. Meanwhile, the increasing level of government-level interactions between China and the Middle East is offering reassurance for automakers to invest in the region.

In early December, President Xi Jinping traveled to Saudi Arabia, marking one of his first trips abroad since China closed its borders to control the COVID-19 pandemic. His meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was widely viewed as China's attempt to assert more influence in the region. In June, Saudi Arabia signed a historic $5.6 billion oil deal with China, further solidifying the economic ties between the two countries.

Almost all major Chinese EV makers have now developed plans for expansion into the Middle East, according to Meng. For carmakers already present in Europe, the region represents a natural next step as their European Union homologation makes it much easier for the companies to obtain certification for the Middle East. The Middle East also serves as a nice springboard for expansion into North Africa, which shares similarities in terms of religion, language, and climate, with vast desert landscapes and sparse rainfall, Meng suggested.

Win-win partnership

Having Chinese EVs in the Middle East could potentially create a mutually beneficial situation. To establish the necessary network to power EVs, the oil-rich nations need to seek external know-how. It come down to two options.

"There are only two types of EV companies in the world: Tesla, or Chinese EV makers," said Meng. China's reputation for infrastructure development makes it an ideal candidate to help build facilities like charging stations.

According to one industry report, demand for EVs in the UAE is projected to grow by an annual rate of 30% between 2022 and 2028, with Dubai alone expected to require 70,000 charging points by 2030.

Meng's consulting firm is one of many Chinese businesses tapping the region's thirst for EV expertise. In a joint venture with Shenzhen Bus Group, it won a bid to assist in the electrification of Abu Dhabi's public transport system through the deployment of electric taxis and buses.

Slowed down by red tape

Despite the eagerness of Chinese manufacturers to enter the Middle East, only BYD has managed to open stores in the region thus far. This slow pace is partly attributed to the challenging process of obtaining the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) certification, which is partially needed to demonstrate that the cars can withstand the region's harsh weather conditions.

Timing is crucial for getting the approval to sell in the GCC. As Meng pointed out, there is a brief period during the summer when EVs can be tested to show they could perform well in hot weather. If this window is missed, manufacturers would need to wait another year.

Nio recently scored a significant investment of $738.5 million from the Abu Dhabi government. However, there has been no indication of when the company can begin selling in the country.

Like other governments, the Middle East expects foreign firms to play a role in driving the local economy. But setting up, say, production on the foreign land could undermine Chinese manufacturers' competitiveness -- a complete supply chain and affordable labor at home that lead to lower prices.

Chinese EVs exported to Europe and the Middle East are already considerably more expensive than their domestic prices. BYD's popular ATTO3 (known in China as Yuan Plus) model is priced at roughly twice as much in the UAE as in China mostly due to steep logistics and homologation costs, according to Meng.

Wait times for Chinese EVs are also lengthy. Given the relatively small export volume, manufacturers are still prioritizing their domestic models. Long wait times, coupled with the absence of an established brand reputation and less competitive pricing, undercut Chinese EV cars' appeal to their foreign buyers. The upcoming year will be key to determine if the Chinese carmakers will stand a better chance of success in the region.

Abu Dhabi pours $738.5M into China’s Tesla challenger Nio

TORIES LIE

UK
Leaked memo sets out ‘huge challenge’ to meet £11.6bn climate pledge

David Hughes, PA Political Editor
Wed, July 5, 2023 


Rishi Sunak’s promise to meet an £11.6 billion climate and nature pledge looks set be missed, according to a leaked internal memo.

The briefing note to ministers sets out that the international funding commitment would be a “huge challenge” and require backing for other aid projects to be slashed.

The Government insisted it is delivering on the pledge and said suggestions the commitment could be dropped are “false”.

The memo, obtained by the Guardian, says the commitment to provide £11.6 billion between April 2021 and March 2026 was made at a time when the Government was meeting its legally-enshrined target of spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid.

That commitment was dropped to 0.5% as a result of the impact of Covid-19 on the nation’s finances.

The leaked document said meeting the climate pledge within this spending “would squeeze out room for other commitments such as humanitarian and women and girls”.

The promise was made by Boris Johnson in 2019 but the BBC reported the memo pointed to “subsequent turbulence” in the economy – such as the pandemic – which had “turned a stretching target into a huge challenge”.

Meeting it would require a “reorientation” of the budget on a scale which “has not previously been achieved”.

Ministers including Rishi Sunak have publicly declared the £11.6 billion commitment remains in place.

A Government spokesman said: “Claims that the international climate finance pledge is being dropped are false.

“As the Prime Minister set out at Cop27, the Government remains committed to spending £11.6 billion on international climate finance and we are delivering on that pledge.

“We spent over £1.4 billion on international climate finance over the course of the 2021/22 financial year, supporting developing countries to reduce poverty and respond to the causes and impacts of climate change.

“We will publish the latest annual figures in due course.”

Lord Goldsmith, who raised the issue when he resigned as a minister last week, said failing to meet the promise would be seen as a “betrayal” around the world.

“The PM is insisting he isn’t breaking his promise,” the peer said. “The figures show he is.”

He said the only way the commitment could be met is if the next government, in its first years in office, allocates “over 80% of all UK bilateral aid” to climate funding, at the expense of humanitarian, health and education schemes “which obviously it cannot do”.

“There will be some who welcome this,” Lord Goldsmith said.

“But they should consider the impact on the UK of breaking a promise that Commonwealth allies and countless others prize above all others.

“It will be seen as an act of betrayal on a profound level and will cause us irreparable reputational harm.”

Senior Tory Sir Alok Sharma, president of the Cop26 climate summit, warned against dropping the pledge.

“So hope the government is not planning to drop its climate finance pledge to some of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world,” he said on Twitter.

When Mr Johnson announced the commitment there was “spontaneous applause” and “it was a proud moment for the UK”, Sir Alok said.

Memo reveals pressure on UK climate finance pledge


Justin Rowlatt - climate editor, BBC News
Wed, July 5, 2023 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak addressing delegates at last year's COP27 in Egypt after initially saying he would not attend the event

The government looks set to break its flagship £11.6bn climate and nature funding pledge for developing countries, an internal government document seen by the BBC says.

The document details how the government has consistently underspent and would now struggle to meet its 2026 target.

Some 83% of the total overseas aid budget would need to be reallocated to climate to catch up, it adds.

The government says it will honour promises made on climate finance.

"The government remains committed to spending £11.6bn on international climate finance and we are delivering on that pledge," a government spokesperson said.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged in 2019 to double the amount spent on the UK's international climate finance (ICF) - aid for vulnerable nations to deal with the causes of climate change - to at least £11.6bn between 2021/22 and 2025/26.

But the document says "subsequent turbulence" - referring to economic shocks such as the Covid pandemic - "has turned a stretching target into a huge challenge".

Overall international aid spending has also since been cut to 0.5% of GDP, down from 0.7%.

Civil servants have calculated the government is now so behind on its spending promises it would have to spend 83% of the total foreign aid budget on climate to meet the ICF target by 2026.

That would require a "reorientation" of the budget on a scale which has "not previously been achieved", they say.

Doing so would also mean that there would be no cash left for other priorities such as projects "specifically targeted at helping women and girls", civil servants write.

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The revelations follows Tory peer Lord Zac Goldsmith's resignation from Rishi Sunak's government last week over what he described as the prime minister's "apathy" towards climate change.

Lord Goldsmith has told the BBC that in his view, the low levels of expenditure so far combined with the decision to define our spending on Afghan and Ukrainian refugees here in the UK - something he says other countries have not done - means "it is going to be virtually impossible to honour the promise."

"Whoever is in government after the next election", he said, "would have to savagely slash humanitarian, education, health and other funding in order to hit the £11.6bn target."

Lord Goldsmith said he was worried that small island states in particular "will be left feeling utterly betrayed" and said the UK's reputation as a "reliable partner" will "simply be shredded".

That is a view that is echoed by many in the overseas aid community.

"Frankly it is embarrassing", a director of one UK aid agency told the BBC. "The cuts make it supremely difficult to credibly state the UK remains a climate change thought leader."

"There used to a be a huge amount of goodwill across Africa for the UK", he continued. "We were seen as the best in the sector, engaged and effective. This is no longer the case. The UK is now seen as an unreliable partner."

Mr Sunak insisted Lord Goldsmith had quit after being asked to apologise for comments he made about the Privileges Committee inquiry over the conduct of Boris Johnson and whether he had intentionally misled the House of Commons as PM.

But Lord Goldsmith denied this, instead saying his decision to step down had been a "long time coming".

The ICF refers to UK aid given to support vulnerable countries to deal with the causes of climate change, including preventing deforestation and reducing carbon emissions, as well as preparing for its effects.

It forms a part of the global commitment to spend $100bn a year on climate finance for developing countries.

UK

The Tories know the game is up – and mass migration proves it


Opinion
Sherelle Jacobs

THE TELEGRAPH
Mon, July 3, 2023 

Rishi Sunak onboard Border Agency cutter HMC Seeker during a visit to Dover

The end of political reigns – when they finally come – tend to be remorselessly uncomplicated. John Major failed to craft Thatcherism with a human face. New Labour was exposed as a vacuous, even sinister, movement based on lies and spin. And now the Tories are set to be booted out ultimately because they have betrayed the country on immigration.

The Conservatives know in their bones that it is over. No 10 has been keen to play down the implosion of its plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda. The argument goes that the Court of Appeal ruled against the Government’s policy last week on a mere detail about Rwanda’s immigrant processing standards; with a bit of diplomatic fudge from Kigali, it is claimed, the Supreme Court could be adequately reassured to overturn the ruling in Downing Street’s favour.

This smacks of delusion. No doubt, the president of the Supreme Court, Lord Reed – who is said to be more sensitive to claims of “judicial overreach” than his predecessor, Lady Hale – will give the Government a fair hearing. But countering the judgment that Rwanda is not a safe third country will be no easy task.

And even if the Government does win at the Supreme Court, it will come much too late. After 13 years in power, the Tories need to go into the next election with not merely a colourful plan for tackling the small boats, but a demonstrable record of doing so. One might challenge whether a proposal that, in its pilot phase at least, would have seen just 0.03pc of Channel crossers sent to Central Africa was ever a serious deterrent plan. Still the party’s last hope – of building the kind of populist momentum that voters might think twice about jeopardising with a change of administration – was, as far as politics goes, a reasonably coherent one. This hope has now been vanquished. The Rwanda policy is dead – and with it any pretence of a Tory plan for getting control of the country’s borders.

It is a similar story with legal migration. The Conservatives came to power in 2010 promising to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands. With the figure now over 600,000 a year, the scale of its failure is so preposterous as to verge on parody.

True, Boris Johnson did try to edge away from the vow, pledging instead to get a grip on migration by erecting a strict Australian-style points system. But the post-Brexit regime is a self-contradicting shambles. Higher processing fees are counteracted by low salary thresholds for visa sponsorship. Loopholes in the student visa programmes created a backdoor for the effective continuation of low to mid-skilled mass migration.

Retail giants have been thrilled to find that they are essentially free to import as many South Asian software developers to run their vast new warehouses as they like. Meanwhile, the Home Office’s flagship “Global Talent” visa scheme to fast-track the applications of world-leading scientists has been an embarrassing flop, receiving next to no applications amid uncertainty over science funding.

Some on the Right might charitably commend backbench calls this week for the Government to cut net migration by two thirds as a heroic last-ditch effort to avoid political carnage. But these are the panicked spasms of a party in its death throes. Tory MPs know full well that such a move, in the short term at least, would risk crashing the economy as well as the social care system and the NHS. They are in utter denial that the party missed its chance to reduce immigration in a steady, sustainable fashion. And now it’s game over.

Within the Westminster bubble, one hears all too often the fatalistic argument that the problems of the Channel crossings and mass immigration were always too intractable to solve. That might make MPs feel better about their failure, but it is simply not true. With the right attitude, the Tories could have fixed both. But they failed to grasp, upon coming to power, that their role was not merely to “clear up New Labour’s mess”. It was to address what has become nothing short of a civilisational challenge in the West: the implosion of an entire model of economic and political governance.

After the financial crisis, the consensus that wealthy countries could continue to grow, financing expansive public services with a consumption-based economic model fuelled by cheap credit and cheap labour, came crashing down. The Syrian civil war, meanwhile, exposed the fact that the whole global refugee system is defunct. More people are eligible to claim asylum in Western countries in line with international human rights law than such nations will ever realistically be willing or able to take.

Brexit was meant to be the great wake-up call that, in Britain, the status quo is not just economically terminal but politically unsustainable.

The Tories could have risen to this challenge. They could have done a serious deal with France some time ago to help nip the small boats issue in the bud. Paris mandarins have been sidemouthing for years that, with France processing twice as many asylum seekers as the UK, Emmanuel Macron would only be willing to step up on illegal boats if the UK agreed to take a larger share through legal channels. The Tories have had plenty of opportunity to bite the bullet and strike such a deal, making it more politically palatable with a robust plan to reduce the country’s dependence on economic migrants over time.

And contrary to widespread defeatism, they could have weaned the UK economy off its reliance on mass migration as well. They just decided that it was too hard and too expensive. Training more doctors and nurses and improved retention through reform of the NHS comes to mind; as does adapting Britain’s obsolete apprenticeship programme to one that befits a burgeoning services superpower. Eight years after David Cameron’s pledge to end the welfare “merry-go-round”, the Tories have had ample chance to tackle two of the biggest obstacles to getting millions of people off benefits and into work: the wreck of the social care system and an over-regulated, unaffordable childcare sector.

Instead, bewitched by the Blairite playbook, the Conservatives convinced themselves that their great task was not to reform a broken system but simply to manage it with a vague air of competence that they could continue to dominate the centre ground. Its leaders arrogantly gambled that the party could neglect the immigration quandary, instead riding on its reputation as the party of sound money. They called it wrong and they have gone bust. And many will think: good riddance.

Teachers in England on picket lines as strikes cause more school disruption


Eleanor Busby and Jacob Phillips
Wed, July 5, 2023

Teachers in England were back on picket lines on Wednesday as they staged another strike in a long-running dispute over pay.

Many schools are expected to either fully close or restrict access to pupils as a result of the walkouts by teacher members of the National Education Union (NEU), with another strike planned on Friday.

There are fears that pupils could miss out on end-of-year activities – including concerts, trips, sports days and opportunities to meet new classmates – during the strikes at schools and sixth-form colleges this week.

It is the seventh day individual schools in England have faced walkouts by NEU members since February.

Union leaders have warned that schools could face co-ordinated strike action by education unions in the autumn term if a deal over pay cannot be reached.

Speaking from a picket line outside Regent High School in north-west London, NEU general secretary-elect Daniel Kebede said teachers are taking up second jobs amid the cost-of-living crisis.

He told the PA news agency: “I’m certain (if other) education unions would like strike ballots in the autumn term there will be co-ordinated action.”

The NEU – alongside the NASUWT teaching union, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) – are balloting their members in England to take action in the new school year.

The Government offered teachers a £1,000 one-off payment for the current school year (2022/23) and an average 4.5% rise for staff next year after intensive talks with the education unions in March this year.

But all four education unions involved in the dispute rejected the offer and the decision on teachers’ pay in England for next year has been passed to the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).

Education union leaders have called on Education Secretary Gillian Keegan to urgently publish the STRB’s recommendation as they warned the hold-up is causing “anxiety” in schools and “frustrating headteachers”.

(PA Graphics)

Mr Kebede told PA: “Teachers are taking up second jobs to pay the mortgage, pay rent and to meet the cost of living. A friend was in an Uber yesterday and their Uber driver was a full-time teacher and a part-time Uber driver.

“The fact is teaching is not providing a decent standard of living anymore. We have a crisis in recruitment retention, we have schools struggling to retain teachers and recruit new teachers. We now have a million children taught in classes of over 31.”

Picket lines were mounted outside schools and sixth-form colleges across England on Wednesday morning, and a number of rallies are due to be held.

Striking teachers will march in Westminster in London before taking part in a rally in Parliament Square.

A poll by Teacher Tapp, of 6,952 teachers in England on June 19, found that only a third said there were no transition days, trips, sports days, concerts or performances, or work experience placements scheduled for the strike dates.

A picket line at Grestone Academy in Birmingham (Jacob King/PA)

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU, said: “Teachers do not want to strike. They want to be doing what they do best – teaching and supporting their pupils.

“We regret the disruption caused to education by our strikes and we support the rearrangement of transition days where possible – as some local authorities such as Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire have confirmed.

“We grant exemptions to members involved in school trips that cannot be rearranged.

“However, the disruption to children and young people’s education occurs daily due to the running down of our education service by Government. This cannot go on.”

Members of the NEU went on strike across England on February 1, March 15 and 16, April 27 and May 2.

Regional walkouts by NEU members also took place between February 28 and March 2, where any individual school took one day of strike action across the three-day period.

During the most recent national strike action on May 2, Department for Education (DfE) data suggests that 50% of state schools in England were open but restricting attendance and 5% were fully closed.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said: “This week’s strikes are a problem of the Government’s making through its neglect of education and refusal to resume formal negotiations with unions.

“Unless the Government changes its approach then there will likely be further strikes in the autumn term.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Any strike action is hugely damaging. We have made a fair and reasonable pay offer to teachers, recognising their incredible work and commitment.

“Thousands of schools received significant additional funding as part of the extra £2 billion of investment we are providing both this year and next.

“As a result, school funding will be at its highest level in history next year, as measured by the IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies).”

NS Power plans to produce electricity with fuel oil until 2050 instead of with coal

FUEL/BUNKER OIL IS AS BAD AS COAL

The Canadian Press
Tue, July 4, 2023 



HALIFAX — Nova Scotia's power utility plans to convert a coal-burning electricity station in Cape Breton to burn heavy fuel oil once federal regulations phase out coal entirely in 2030.

The proposal has raised the eyebrows of one utility review board member and was characterized as “disturbing” by a climate policy expert.

Documents filed by Nova Scotia Power show that three of four coal-fired units at the Lingan Generating Station will be converted to heavy fuel oil in 2030 and are scheduled to operate until 2050.

“I have to say, I was a bit surprised,” Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board member Jennifer Nicholson said at a recent hearing. “It doesn’t really seem a lot cleaner.”

David Pickles, chief operating officer of the privately owned utility, responded to Nicholson by explaining that the company is required by federal regulation to stop burning coal by 2030.

In 2016, the federal government announced coal would be entirely phased out by 2030, a move estimated to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by nearly 100 million tonnes over the following two decades.

Pickles told the hearing that it would be less expensive to produce electricity with oil than to replace its coal-burning generating station, as the Cape Breton station already has the capacity to run on oil. The emissions from coal and heavy fuel oil were comparable, he added, but the facility has “a really low utilization rate” and is usually only used to generate reserve electricity during the coldest days of winter.

Thomas Arnason McNeil, a climate policy co-ordinator with Halifax-based Ecology Action Centre, says the privately owned energy utility is “getting around'' coal restrictions by using a fossil fuel with comparable emission levels.

“It’s absolutely outrageous,” he said in an interview. “It would be laughable if it wasn’t so dire, I think, and disturbing, quite frankly.”

Nova Scotia plans to generate 80 per cent of its energy from renewable resources by 2030.

Preparing for “peak” energy usage during cold winter months requires “dispatchable power,” Arnason McNeil said, which can be achieved by storing energy generated from renewable resources on large-scale batteries.

“Why instead, are they choosing to take the money of ratepayers and spend it on expensive, polluting technologies?” he said. “It just represents a total lack of imagination, a total lack of ambition.”

Jacqueline Foster, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia Power, said in an email Tuesday that the electric utility is committed to helping the government reach the goal of having 80 per cent of the province's energy by 2030 come from renewables. Emissions from heavy fuel oil would be low and not impact the province's targets — which have been enshrined into law — because the Lingan coal-fired units would only be used in "limited situations."

"We know it will take a mix of energy solutions, including wind and solar, battery storage, and other generation sources to get there," she said about the province's energy goals. "The potential fuel conversion of three units at Lingan is just one small piece of the puzzle."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2023.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Marlo Glass, The Canadian Press

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil

Fuel oil - Wikipedia 

Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and ...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK531265

FUEL OILS (HEATING OIL) - NCBI 

Fuel oil No. 1 is a light distillate intended for use in burners of the vaporizing type in which the oil is converted to a vapour by contact with a heated ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nishandegnarain/2020/08/14/what-is-heavy-fuel-oil-and-why-is-it-so-controversial-five-killer-facts

What Is Heavy Fuel Oil, And Why Is It So Controversial? Five... 

Aug 14, 2020 ... Heavy Fuel Oil is highly concentrated in sulfur (35,000 parts per million). This means global shipping accounts for 8% of global emissions of ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_fuel_oil

Heavy fuel oil - Wikipedia 

Heavy fuel oil (HFO) is a category of fuel oils of a tar-like consistency. Also known as bunker fuel, or residual fuel oil, HFO is the result or remnant ...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/bunker-fuel

Bunker (Fuel) - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics 

Bunker C: Bunker fuel is the colloquial term for fuel oil used by marine vessels. Bunker fuels A, B, and C are respectively downgrading ...

Researching changing tornado patterns in Canada

CBC News: The National

 Jun 30, 2023 #tornado #cbcnews #canadaTornadoes have not only become more common in Canada, but they’re also happening in different places. CBC’s Thomas Daigle hit the road with researchers trying to determine what’s causing the changes.

Alberta weekend tornado that damaged, destroyed homes rated rare, violent twister

The Canadian Press
Tue, July 4, 2023 



EDMONTON — A preliminary report on a weekend tornado in central Alberta says its winds were so violent they picked up a 10-tonne farm combine and tossed it half the length of a football field.

"(The combine) then rolled for another 50 to 100 metres after that," said the report, issued Tuesday by the Northern Tornadoes Project.

The report follows up on ground and drone surveys on the tornado that ripped through the rural area between the towns of Carstairs and Didsbury on Saturday.

Researchers rated the twister as a four on the Enhanced Fujita, or EF, scale of wind-damage intensity, one short of the maximum rating of five.

The storm destroyed three homes and damaged seven more, downed power lines, killed livestock, shredded trees and damaged vehicles.

The report said there was one injury — a cut to a first responder.

The estimated maximum wind speed was 275 kilometres per hour along a 15-kilometre path that stretched as wide as 620 metres.

It was the fiercest tornado to hit Alberta since the infamous “Black Friday” F4 storm in 1987, which killed 27 people and destroyed hundreds of homes in Edmonton.

And it’s the second EF4 storm to hit Canada since it adopted the EF damage scale a decade ago.

The first EF4 struck Alonsa, Man., in 2018, killing one person while destroying houses, farms and cabins.

“The Didsbury EF4 tornado enters some rarefied territory among Canadian tornado events,” said the report.

“Though this was a climatologically significant tornado, it thankfully won't enter the list of Canada's top 10 'worst' tornadoes due to the single minor injury and limited property damage.”

Northern Tornadoes Project, affiliated with Western University in London, Ont., completed the report with Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Arctic Storm Prediction Centre.

Area resident Elisa Humphreys recounted how she managed to flee just before the twister levelled her home and another building on her property.

Scores of volunteers showed up the next day with gift cards and helped find mementoes in the wreckage.

Environment and Climate Change Canada said Alberta typically sees 15 tornadoes per year, based on data collected between 1980 and 2009.

So far this year, the province has had up to 13.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2023.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

A tornadic storm that hit Saskatoon is one of Sask.'s worst weather events

Randi Mann
Tue, July 4, 2023


This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them.

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On Thursday, July 4, 1996, aggressive thunderstorms hit Saskatoon, Sask. The storms produced several tornadoes. These Saskatoon thunderstorms are considered one of Saskatchewan's worst weather events.

At 4:50 p.m., thunderstorms started to develop just south-southwest of North Battleford. The storm cluster moved east and formed a supercell. The storm organized into a “hook echo” formation, which is a supercell that appears as hook-shaped on weather radar.

Courtesy CTV Saskatoon - lightning

At 5:45 p.m., the storm produced an F2 tornado. which is referred to as the “Maymont, Sask. F2 tornado." The tornado travelled for 13.6 km with a maximum width of 100 metres.

At 6:04 p.m., a hook formation produced an F3 tornado in Fielding, Sask., near the Yellowhead Highway.

*Courtesy of CTV Saskatoon - tornado

At 7:00 p.m., the hook was still active just north of Saskatoon. The storm produced around 11 tornadoes. Three of those tornadoes had a track longer than 10 km.

Overall, “severe thunderstorms on July 4 spawned at least eight tornadoes in Saskatchewan. Winds of 140 km/h and hail the size of golf balls produced $15 million in property damage,” reported by Environment and Climate Change Canada.

A Regina tornado on June 30, 1912, is considered Saskatchewan's worst weather event. The tornado is the deadliest twister in Canadian history. A total of 28 people died and hundreds were injured. It flattened homes and businesses, leaving 2,500 homeless.

The Regina tornado was featured on postcards and memorabilia in 1912.

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"View of Lorne Street, following the cyclone; two dogs can be seen on the road, as well as two unidentified women walking. (Postcard.)" Courtesy of Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan

To learn more about the July 4 Saskatoon tornado, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."

Subscribe to 'This Day in Weather History': Apple Podcasts | Amazon Alexa | Google Assistant | Spotify | Google Podcasts | iHeartRadio | Overcast'

Thumbnail: Courtesy of CTV Saskatoon