A group of 73 major companies from 17 sectors including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and engineering have launched the ‘Antwerp declaration’, calling on the EU to relax Net Zero regulations, lower energy costs and increase investment, while it still has some industry left. Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph has more.
In the U.S., President Biden has launched a tax credit scheme that will pour nearly $400bn into subsidies [for EVs], and while not all the money will be well spent it will give America a chance to build a substantial industry.
Meanwhile, China has funnelled massive amounts of money into building EVs, it has taken control of critical minerals needed to make them cheaply, and it is now about to flood the West with models that could well outcompete European manufacturers on both quality and price.
Instead of sparking a manufacturing renaissance in Europe, the pursuit of Net Zero is leading instead to imminent deindustrialisation. It might be starting with the mighty automotive industry, in which the continent once led the world, but it is being repeated again and again elsewhere.
Indeed only this week a group of major European industries launched the ‘Antwerp declaration’, calling on the EU to relax regulations, lower energy costs and increase investment, while it still has some industry left.
Signed by 73 major companies, from 17 sectors including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and engineering, it argued that “sites are being closed, production halted, people let go… Europe needs a business case urgently”.
Here’s the problem, however. All the major European Governments, including the U.K. of course, are still fanatically committed to Net Zero, and that stops them from responding properly. …
We have allowed energy prices to soar, planned to close down our own offshore oil fields, and held back the growth in fracking even as it has delivered economic booms in North America.
We have ignored the fact that these choices are putting companies out of business – and are allowing Chinese rivals with far lower power costs to trample all over European businesses.
The harsh truth is that China has weaponised Net Zero, and turned it into a way of seizing industrial leadership. America is responding, admittedly perhaps too late, and with too much state control. But Europe has been left floundering, and it is about to get wiped out.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Net Zero will be far more expensive than the public has so far been led to believe, former Chief Economist of the IMF Olivier Blanchard told the Lords Economic Affairs Committee yesterday.
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So first they make up a problem, then they come up with a catastrophic solution to their imaginary problem and then instead of accepting the problem is made up and their solution a disaster, they compound the disaster with yet another catastrophic solution.
It’s a recurring pattern.
Super deadly virus (not), lockdown, killer jab
Anthropogenic climate disaster (not), net zero, subsidies we can’t afford to compound our already crippling debt.
It never occurs to these imbeciles to just get out of the way and stop meddling and destroying everything they touch.
There are different agendas at play here.
Europe is under the control of the Davos Deviants / WEF who are running the politicians. The DDs have Agenda 2030 to follow and this has as its primary aim Depopulation. If the required Depopulation is achieved the de-industrialising of the West is inevitable. The purpose of the great reset is to destroy in order that Build Back Better can be implemented although Klaus and the killer class seem to think that they will be able to live the life they would like to but supported only by a small slave class.
The industrialists are perhaps waking up to the fact that deindustrialisation might involve their businesses and a very real case of ‘when its gone, its gone.’ And nut zero will see off not just businesses but populations.
So the DD’s are committed to the anti-human nut zero and Agenda 2030 and the industrial class are waking up to the implications. Once millions across the continent are out of work all hell will break lose and there will be no-one in control despite what the DD’s might think.
It would be interesting to see if any of the 73 were at the recent Davos piss up.
Mathew Lynn has this to say:
“The Continent has made a complete mess of the transition to net zero, naively assuming that it would create jobs, and that its rivals were only interested in saving the planet, and not in securing an edge for their own industries.”
This plonker still believes in climate change ie AGW and thinks the collapse of Europe is all down to incompetent politicians chasing nut zero which of course he believes in.
For crying out loud.
Nut zero is the key to Depopulation you plonker. Get a grip.
Bingo again hux
Thanks M A k.
It’s about control. Polticians and the wealthy have always been wary of democracy because they don’t get to control us. The powerful alway prefer serfdom to democracy. Remember, democracy is an aberration in human organisation. We have, for millenia, lived under autocracy and totalitarianism. The powerful crave its return.
Nut Zero, WHO Pandemic Treaty, CBDCs et al are just cogs in the wheel to that end
I am just reading a book about the middle ages, apparantly in the 14th century there was (for those times), a major shipping port in East Anglia, however a major storm silted up the entrance to the harbour and following this another major storm took out most of the houses, this was as the Author writes due to climate change. So an Historian correctly pinpoints that even in the 14th Century there were major weather events which caused problems for the human inhabitants. This at a time when there were no engines, no industrialisation, so no nasty C02 emitters apart from the sheep, cattle and pigs that were kept.
Do you think any of these Zealots have read any history at all? How do they think the shape of these islands was made? how were the mountains formed?why was a prehistoric settlement discovered under water?. Truly they are wantonly ignorant.
Thanks Hester.
Whatever happened back then in East Anglia ,it was not “climate change”. It was “Climate”. ——— Climate always changes so you don’t need to call anything that happens, “climate change”. —-“Climate Change” is a term used for changes to climate allegedly caused by humans.
As any businessman will tell you, jobs are a cost. In a well run business jobs will be eliminated to increase productivity.
Increased labour input is only valid if the marginal output exceeds its cost and returns a profit.
Replacing fossil fuel electricity production, replacing ICE vehicles, gas appliances for example, and creating more jobs to do so, increases costs without adding any wealth to the economy and in fact consuming wealth, which makes us all poorer and reduces overall economic activity.
Yep ——The myth of Green Jobs, that never mentions the loss of the jobs in coal oil and gas.
I don’t see it.
You don’t depopulate a place that is naturally depopulating itself by inviting in droves of immigrants to repopulate the place.
Net zero is like CDBCs and vax passports and plenty of other schemes. They serve to give more power and control to a bureaucratic and political class at the expense of the general population.
It’s all about gaining more power and control. At least in my view.
Depopulation will be worldwide. Importing poor, uneducated third world rejects provides for an ideal replacement population which can be slotted in to the slave class. The indigenous population might not be too keen on fitting in to the role of slaves so they have to be got rid of.
Naturally depopulating. To some degree yes but the target date is 2030 not two generations hence. I don’t think people realise how brisk the DD timescale is.
Power and control for the DDs is a given.
That I do see.
I can definitely see the ruling classes wanting to import working drones who are accustomed to arbitrary, capricious rule and who won’t complain about new illiberal laws or CDBCs or absurd “green” policies. People who for now at least are just happy to be here and earning many multiples what they’d be earning back in their home countries.
That is definitely a plan that is being executed.
The imported slaves are, on average, stronger fitter and importantly, have far less to lose than the asset rich indigenous people. Thus, they would normally be regarded as far more rebellious and dangerous to the ruling elites. Wasn’t it the white indigenous people that were gagging for the jab whilst the new arrivals were (rightly) very suspicious of the white mans medicine? Just musing.
Fair points.
Yes but climate change and population are closely related issues.
Yes exactly. ——-But if we think that by you and I and other DS subscribers ranting on this website that it is going stop these human trash in their tracks we are kidding ourselves. What is required is a political movement that exposes the planet savers for what they really are and a TV channel and News program dedicated to the alternative view featuring the energy and climate people who know what this scam is. ——All of the scientists and energy people that have written books like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, Lomborg, Schellenberg, Robert Bryce, Michael J Economides, Mark Steyn, Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford, Ross Clark, and all of the people who study climate because it is the climate. Not because they are government funded data adjusters.
Exactly. The made-up problem was ‘climate change’, so they pursued the renewables (zero carbon [SIC]), and are now pursuing crazy schemes such as Batteries, Hydrogen and CCS to ‘fix’ the renewables problems. And it will continue. In the motor industry, they drove EV and anti-ICE policies because of this fabled ‘climate change’ non-problem, but are now finding the EV sector is running out of juice (in more ways than one).
Well what else would there be for Governments to do? We wouldn’t need them otherwise.
Lynn is wrong to blame China for ‘weaponising’ net zero – it’s the dimwits who signed Europe up to these impossible policies that are to blame.
Betting the farm on EVs though may be a mistake re: all the lithium battery fires which can only become more frequent as more batteries are produced, are damaged and then need to be replaced and the discarded ones stored somewhere. (I don’t think China is going to be recalling them and recycling them.)
How much of a fire hazard are solar farms? How does the insurance industry view them?
These [big] businesses should get no subsidies directly or indirectly. They have been cheering the Net Zero agenda in the belief it would not affect them or they could gain market control thereby. They have had undeserved political access and influence for two or three decades and deserve all they get.
Of course what should be will not be. The EU political class will do what these big industry groups want. If they don’t their post political office will not be spent as they anticipate, on the board of one monopoly or another.
Relax Net Zero regulations? What? Why? They should ERASE them completely. There’s no basis for them. None at all. Even if the cultists are right (which they aren’t), there’s still no case for Net Zero. No middle ground with these tyrants. Not an inch more.
Especially here in the UK where we get this absurd garbage from the mouths of the WEF lackeys like “We want to be world leaders in Renewables” etc etc. ——-We cannot even be world leaders in controlling our borders or emptying the wheelie bins.
“World leaders”, “global leaders”, “super powers”; our politicians think and talk like comic book characters and think that we are impressed with their claims.
Well played China. Amazing that you could convince the west that they needed to reduce their carbon emissions, when all they did was shift them to China.
“Net Zero” should be shortened to “NERO”.
Green communism is what Nuts Zero is. Communists cannot get elected normally, so that grabbed on to a passing panic and weaponised it. Vile, death cult communist nutters. And the tory socialists bought this garbage. There must be trials and long prison sentences for this madness, and immigration. Bliar, Browne, Major, May, Cameron, Johnson, Sunak and their ministers, all 30 years inside. Traitors!
You are not wrong, but ofcourse this will never happen
The world government in waiting at the UN and WEF think the lifestyles of the affluent middle classes are “Unsustainable”. They freely admit that they think it is their duty to bring about the collapse of industrial society. Why are we surprised when they proceed with that and wrap it all up in woolly caring language like “sustainability” and “saving the planet”. ——There is only one thing that those who would “save the planet” really want, and that is to “rule the planet”. There is no worse tyranny than the one that terrorises you for your own good.
See, it’s the Chinese wot dunnit Gov. I honestly cannot fathom that there are people about that are really this stupid. But then I’ve witnessed firsthand the Orwellian brainwashing of the West and have to nod my cap to the powers that be – they’ve done a fantastic job of brainf*cking millions of naïve minds.
China can build all the EV’s it wants, but people don’t want them.
These Lords seemingly cannot understand the mutual exclusivity of Net Zero and an industrial plan!! They want cheaper energy to reduce costs, yet still believe ‘Net Zero is necessary’. When will they get it into their lofty heads that the Net Zero policies are the CAUSE of the failing industrial base in the UK and Europe?? That cannot co-exist.
It is worth reading what the Antwerp Declaration says. It is very short and is not against net zero. It is just calling for an industrial strategy to go with it.
For example:
On 20th February, the undersigned companies and organisations (1) express their full support for a European Industrial Deal to complement the Green Deal and keep high quality jobs for European workers in Europe.
….
The costs of energy in Europe are simply too high to compete and are not only driven by commodity prices but also by regulatory charges.The next European Commission needs to prioritise new projects for abundant and affordable low carbon renewable and nuclear energy. We need a real EU Energy Strategy with concrete actions that enable cross- border electrical power, grid expansion for hydrogen and other renewable & low-carbon molecules, and partnerships with resource-rich countries.
Green New Deal =Red New Deal. ————The Industrial Strategy “to go with it”, needed to be in place first before the likes of the UK forced oursleves in law to push ahead with the absurdity. I have no faith in anything coming from the mouths of people who pass the NET ZERO amendment through parliament with no idea how it could be done, or even if the technologies could be invented and no concern for the astronomical cost. ——–Now some bunch of people come away with this Antwerp Declaration suggesting stuff that should have been thought of long before the NET ZERO nonsense was put in place. But as always with green dogma, ideology comes first and practicality and cost last.
‘Antwerp declaration’. You mean the Twerp Declaration surely?
These twerps should have said and done something 60 years ago rather than going along for the ride on the Fourth Reich gravy train, pocketing the subsidies until realising the cliff edge is approaching.
“In the U.S., President Biden has launched a tax credit scheme that will pour nearly $400bn into subsidies [for EVs], and while not all the money will be well spent it will give America a chance to build a substantial industry.”
These idiots still don’t get it. There is NO mass market for BEVs – consumers don’t want them!
Replacing existing efficient products and energy supply with less efficient will destroy the economy.
The EU has been all about standardisation (harmonisation) which kills innovation, and protectionism to keep foreign products out, which kills competitive influences which keep costs and end user prices down, better allocates resources, and encourages new product and industrial development.
The twerps and EU Governments have got exactly the end result they designed and shambled along into – but not the one they intended. But I’m sure, lessons will be learnt.
Can someone please explain how is this China’s fault?