Energy 84, CCC's anti-coal, anti-fossil fuel lobbying

The Climate Change Commission (CCC) was created mainly to echo the UN FCCC agreements and lobbying. They may deny this of course but from its activities and advocacies, they point to this fact. Look at its target -- "Survive 1.5 C" -- referring to the UN target of targeted allowable global warming by 2100 compared to pre-industrial levels.

Some of more ridiculous documents by the UN FCCC project up to 7.5 C global warming by 2100. Wow. The modern warm period (from mid-1800s to 2000s) after the little ice age (LIA) produced a warming of only 1.0 F or 0.7 C in the planet. Plateau in overall global temperature, we are moving to a global cooling phase, actually.

Anyway, the CCC organized a “Forum on National Policy Review and Framework Development on Energy” last week November 22 at Sofitel Philippine Plaza, CCP Complex, Pasay City. A friend told me about this and CCC invited some energy players in the country.

The CCC launched the "National Policy Review (NPR) and Framework Development on Energy" last June 16, 2016. The November 22 Forum was part of a series of multi-stakeholder consultations to review the country’s energy policy and develop a policy framework on energy related to CCC Resolution No. 2016-001.

Get that, CCC plans to somehow duplicate if not overrule the DOE in setting the country's energy policy. The CCC is firm on anti-coal, anti-fossil fuel ideology while the DOE wants to increase the country's energy capacity from as many power sources as possible, coal + oil plants + nat gas included.

The next day, November 23, there was a big business conference also at Sofitel on how to "low carbon economy".

The CCC, along with the UN, Al Gore, WWF, etc. of course refer to CO2 in their "low carbon" scenario. The gas that we humans exhale, the gas that our pets and farm animals exhale, the gas that our crops, flowers and trees use to produce their own food via photosynthesis, has been declared as a pollutant gas, an "evil" gas by these groups and hence, must be controlled, restricted via more government regulations, prohibitions and taxation.

So reduce fossil fuel use in transportation, energy and industry. Really? The campaigners do not love their cars, frequent jet-setting to other countries that use fossil fuel 100%? They go to their offices and meetings on bicycles or skateboards or by walking, or hitching a ride with flying carpets or brooms? Enjoying the convenience of fossil fuel then lambasting it and still get lots of taxpayers money, cool.
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Last October 21, Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) Reform Energy Project (REP) that also engages in implicit anti-coal campaign held a forum implicitly supporting natural gas.

REP's Project Director is Tony la Vina, who was also the former Dean of ASoG and a perennial PH climate negotiator for the past two decades, since Kyoto Protocol negotiations, I think.

Look at the other speakers aside from government (CCC, DOE, ERC), from Energy Development Corp. (EDC) and Shell, both pushing for more nat gas.

I support more nat gas plants in the country. I also support more coal plants, more diesel power as peak-load plants, more hydro, more geothermal. Even more variable or intermittent renewables like wind-solar.

What I do not and cannot support are subsidies like FIT or guaranteed price for 20 years for intermittent renewables, priority dispatch in the grid, RPS, other forms of favoritism and cronyism at the expense of energy consumers like you and me.

I also do not support the government setting the "right" mandatory energy mix. Like 30-30-30-10 for coal-nat gas-renewables-oil, respectively. The ones who should set the appropriate and dynamic energy mix should be the consumers, not the government or greeny lobbyists. 

Why? Because consumers would prefer cheaper, stable, available 24/7 (no blackout even for 1 minute) energy sources. If a firm goes bankrupt because of expensive monthly electricity bill, or its production is halted or damaged by on-off power supply and frequent blackouts, only they suffer the losses, not the government or the feel-good greeny lobbyists. 

If people really believe that there is grid price parity of renewables now, then there is little or zero need for (a) subsidies ala FIT, RPS, priority dispatch to the grid, and (b) state-mandated and coerced energy mix nationwide.

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See also:
Energy 81, Trump's climate and energy policies, November 12, 2016 
Energy 82, Jarius Bondoc on FIT for renewables, November 14, 2016 
Energy 83, The PEMC-NGCP Electricity Summit 2016, low ESSPs last October and high FIT-All next year, November 22, 2016

Climate Tricks 32: Yeb Sano and CCC to Save the Arctic

Melting of ice at the Arctic is among the favorite "proof" by the climate alarmists of  "man-made climate change" (CC). They are joking, or lying, of course. Arctic ice, and Antarctica ice, they melt... and grow. Each year, no exception, year in and year out, the ice melts and grows. For hundreds and thousands of years. It is part of natural and cyclical CC or "nature-made CC".

This data of up-down-up-down of Arctic ice (meaning melt-grow-melt-grow) is from International Arctic Research Center - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (IARC-JAXA), as of yesterday, September 15, 2014. See original, daily updated chart here,  http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/Sea_Ice_Extent_v2_prev_L.png

These two data are from (1) Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) – Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (ROOS), Norway, and (2) Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) – Centre for Ocean and Ice, respectively. Both as of September 15, 2014.

These and related data on sea ice including Antarctica ice are available for free, updated daily, see here,  http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/.

The ice extent this year is larger than in previous years. Compared to 2012-2013 for instance, ice this year is up to 2 million sq.km. larger.

Now there is a new drama. Nadareb "Yeb" Sano, a former WWF environmental militant who migrated to become a Philippine government climate bureaucrat, Commissioner at the Climate Change Commission (CCC), went to the Arctic and declared that he and other alarmists can save the Arctic. Save from what? From whom? The Arctic needs a saviour? Seriously.

The above charts, all from official government sources (Japan, US/Alaska, Norway, Denmark) say that Yeb is joking, or outrightly lying. Well, Yeb simply says that we should send them more money and they will junket more and save the Arctic, save the planet. This news from Rappler last September 11.

And from interaksyon last September 12, Yeb said,  "Arctic sea ice is disappearing before our eyes at a much faster rate than even experts predicted.”

Ask him for any graph, Arctic ice extent, last 20 years or last 100 years, Yeb will most likely produce zero. The alarmists are not interested in producing hard data. They are only interested in huge climate money and frequent junkets. 

Yeb, CCC Commissioners, Philippine taxpayers' money to finance your frequent junkets are not enough? You want more money from us? Magkano pa? Tens of Billions of pesos more?

Ok, that statement sounds too accusing. But the climate alarmism  movement is not talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of climate money. They are talking about tens of billions of dollars of money transfer, from the taxpayers of rich economies to the people of poor  countries, via the various climate bureaucracies and foreign aid of course. This news from interaksyon on November 2012.

Are these demands for huge climate money to "fight climate change" justified?

More data below. From No Tricks Zone, September 12, 2014. The two charts show (1) Annual Arctic sea ice volume loss (thousands of cubic km) according to PIOMAS (blue) compared with the mean value 1980-2013 (black) and standard deviation (gray), and (2) impact of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), Heat content south of the polar Atlantic until June 2014 (Diagram from Climate Explorer), respectively. Heat content is plummeting.

Yeb Sano, Tony la Vina, Lucille Sering, Sen. Loren Legarda, Al Gore, UN, etc. say we are about to be scorched soon. That is why we should send them more money so they can save us and the planet.

Global Temperature Update – No global warming for 17years 11 months

… or 19 years, according to a key statistical paper.

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley |

From Dr. Roy Spencer, climatologist  at  the University of Alabama in  Huntsville (UAH). 

Water Vapor Feedback and the Global Warming Pause, September 10th, 2014.

"Increasing surface temperatures cause more evaporation which by itself increases the water vapor content of the atmosphere. Water vapor at low altitudes has indeed increased with warming, as I have shown here (over the oceans)"

If we go back hundreds of thousands of years ago, and not just more than a hundred years ago, from 1850s as the UN IPCC likes to limit the discussion in claiming "unprecedented, zero precedent global warming", the data will quickly invalidate the UN conclusion and alarmism. Global warming was true, it did happen and will happen again in the future. But global cooling was also true, it did happen and is happening now.

Temperatures during the last interglacial period ~120,000 years ago [and several other interglacials] were higher than during the present interglacial period.

source: Hockey Schtick, And then they came for The Holocene: New paper suggests "removing the Holocene Epoch from the geologic timescale", September 15, 2014.

The future. Prepare for global cooling, not warming. Global warming of the last century has peaked and ended more than a decade ago. We are seeing a transition towards a new cycle of natural CC, global cooling. This news is from WUWT, September 13, 2014

Back to Yeb, From the two reports, it is not clear who paid for his junket at the Arctic -- the Filipino taxpayers or WWF/Greenpeace. The interaksyon report said he was with a team with Greenpeace. One need not go to the Arctic to see ice melt or ice growth as the whole area is covered by satellites daily by the US, Japan, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, having their own respectively daily tracking of ice extent there, reportled 365 days a year. Unless one is a natural scientist and wants to conduct separate tests to verify data on the ground to complement satellite data.

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See also::

Climate Tricks 28: Earth Day Cartoons, April 23, 2014 

Climate Tricks 29: Bioethanol to Save the Planet, or Pollute the Planet?, May 03, 2014 

Climate Tricks 30: On the term "CC Denial/Denier", May 06, 2014

Climate Tricks 31: High Intolerance by the Alarmist Camp, May 14, 2014

The President's SONA 2012

The President’s third State of the Nation Address (SONA) will start in about 1 1/2 hour from now. Seems to be a lucky day for the President, the sky has cooperated, cloudy but no rain, the Sun is showing up a bit, after four days. Usually SONA day is SONAbath as the rains, heavy or mild, would fall on that day. July to September are the three wettest months of the year always.

Meanwhile, thousands of anti-government protesters are out on the streets near Batasan, the venue of the annual SONA. People who complain against certain programs of the government and exclaim, “anak ng tokwa” or “SONAmatofu”.

Government climatism bureaucracies like the Climate Change Commission (CCC) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) keep pounding on “fight climate change” and “fight man-made warming”. How can they fight something that is naturally occurring? Climate change is purely natural, warming-cooling-warming-cooling, in endless, natural, multi-decadal cycles. And global warming should mean less rain and less flood, not more; less snow, not more. They just keep deceiving the public to justify their huge budget and junkets to various global climate meetings.

A SONA is a summary of the administration’s achievement of the past year or two, and a list of promises of what it intends to do the next year to improve the lives of the citizens. When promises are not met, people often exclaim, “anak ng tokwa” or other worse terms. From what I observed among the promises in the President’ SONA in 2010 and 2011, here are some of the SONAmatofu.

One, reduce business bureaucracies. He said in SONA 2010, “Ang walang-katapusang pabalik-balik sa proseso ng pagrehistro ng pangalan ng kumpanya, na kada dalaw ay umaabot ng apat hanggang walong oras, ibababa na natin sa labinlimang minuto. Ang dating listahan ng tatlumpu't anim na dokumento, ibababa natin sa anim. Ang dating walong pahinang application form, ibababa natin sa isang pahina.”

SONAmatofu, this did not happen in 2011, and did not happen this year. The volume of business bureaucracies, both at the local and national government levels, generally have remained the same or even got worse. A few cities though, like Quezon City I heard, were able to simplify their business registration and/or renewal procedure and hence, shorten the process. But many have remained bureaucratic. If the government has succeeded in that promise, it should have figured prominently in his SONA 2011 or in his speeches lately, but they did not.

Two, imprisonment for the corrupt, SONA 2011. Aside from former President Gloria Arroyo and the father-son Ampatuan clan, there seems to be no other high profile corrupt officials who went to prison. At least three high profile personalities accused of murder have remained at large – former Congressman Ruben Ecleo of Dinagat Island (murder of his wife), former Palawan Governor Joel Reyes (accused mastermind of the killing of media and environmentalist Gerry Ortega, and former AFP General and party list Cong. Jovito Palparan (accused mastermind in the abduction and murder of two UP students, Empeno and Cadapan).

Cases like these of powerful people committing serious crimes and not getting arrested while ordinary folks are being penalized for minor concerns like driving a motorcycle without helmet or driving a car with a busted headlight, make the citizens’ trust of the police and the government in general to remain low. But even if they distrust the police and the government in general, people simply have to pay lots of taxes and fees to sustain the various bureaucracies in government, from national down to local governments.

Three, lower unemployment rate, SONA 2011. The latest labor force survey of the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed that as of April 2012, the unemployed plus underemployed (those with jobs but are seeking additional work) constituted 26.2 percent of the total labor force. This is still high, more than one-fourth of Filipinos looking for jobs are either jobless or have jobs but are looking for extra work mainly to augment their low income.

Part of the explanation why this is so is in problem #1 above. To start a simple barber shop, bread shop, internet shop, carinderia, etc., one needs a barangay permit, electrical permit, health and sanitation permit, fire department permit, Mayor’s business permit, BIR-SSS-DTI permits, etc., with their corresponding taxes and fees, and penalties for delayed registration and payment. So the formal sector’s capacity to generate jobs is drastically limited. And that is how the informal sector, micro- and small entrepreneurs who go on with their wares, are subject to extortion by some local governments and the police for lack of necessary business permits. SONAmatofu.

Lest this article be accused of endless whining and complain, there were also promises in the past two Presidential SONA that were attained. Among them:

One, no more wang-wang, SONA 2010. People thought, me included, that it was just a short-term campaign, but so far it has been sustained, for two years now. Hats off to the President and his administration for such achievement, both symbolic and actual.

Two, bring the South China Sea (SCS) or West Philippine Sea (WPS) conflict to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), SONA 2010 and 2011. This is a significant action that must be sustained, to further internationalize the issue, non stop. Use various regional and international fora (UN, APEC, ASEAN, etc.) to engage China at the diplomatic level, never at the military and warships level.

Three, some governance-related measures like having the new Ombudsman, compensation for victims of Martial Law, children immunization law, etc.

The President will definitely have a long list of its own definition or perception of achievements over the past two years in office. But two important measures that it has failed to act are the enactment of a Freedom of Information (FOI) bill and controlling the rising public debt.

While it is true that FOI is already in the Constitution, there are no details how government agencies can be penalized for not being transparent to the citizens and taxpayers. And while the ratio of public debt to GDP has declined somewhat, from about 60 percent a few years ago to around 50 percent today, this ratio is still high. A high public is a big problem that requires big payment from taxpayers, not from politicians and legislators. At around P328 billion a year in interest payment alone, average for 2010 to 2012, this problem will continue to hound us as it is the single biggest problem in many European and North American economies now.

But more than waiting for what the government will promise, or over-discussing what it has not promised and not delivered, it is important that citizens’ action – more personal and parental/guardian responsibility in running our own lives, our households and communities, more civil society and voluntary organizations’ involvement – be put into action always.

Government is coercion. By expecting less from government, by demanding less from government, and demanding that government should confiscate less from our pockets and savings, slowly but surely, we should be able develop a more peaceful, more economically dynamic society.
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See also:
SONAnyms and Anthonames, July 25, 2009
The President's SONA, 2010, July 26, 2010
The President's SONA 2011, July 24, 2011
The President's SONA 2011, part 2, July 26, 2011
Fat-Free Econ 17: SONA, the Budget and Debt, July 22, 2012

Climate Stupidity 25: Wetter or Drier, We Send them More Money

I brought my family once again to my birthplace -- Lag-asan, Cadiz City, Negros Occidental -- last December 26-28, this week. When we took the boat last December 26, Supercat, the biggest of the 3 fast craft companies that ply the Iloilo-Bacolod route, would be tossed partially by the rough sea. Many passengers including my wife, vomited. That day, Iloilo and Negros were dark with thick rain clouds above.

Rains started falling around 3pm, got stronger by 6pm and did not stop until the next day around 8 am, or at least 14 hours of non stop rains.

This is the sight the next day, December 27, in a low lying area just about a hundred meters from the house of my parents. My daughter's nanny in Manila who was also on a vacation with us, lives in one of these houses. They said that they experience this kind of flooding from time to time, about 5x last year, and about once this year.

The river swelled from a big volume of rainwater from the mountains, plus the fact that the river's width is shrinking due to thick vegetation of nipa. My elder daughter did not like watching a flood, she did not want to get out of my back. My younger daughter is being carried by her nanny here.

And one more bad news: we have a full day power outage that day. It was cold, fine, no need for an electric fan. But it was also dark as the thick clouds were still around even if the rains have stopped. Power resumed around 6pm. We watched the news on tv. Turned out that the whole Visayas, from regions 6 to 9, were affected by the heavy rains with many cities flooded. And it extended further south to Mindanao.

Yesterday, I saw this weird news headline with some idiotic pronouncements from Philippine government climate and weather officials: