Climate News Round-Up
The latest science-driven news and analysis to counter the cult of climate catastrophe
“The climate litigation swindle” – A flood of lawsuits utilising junk science is seeking to bankrupt energy companies and undermine the basis of American power, warns Heather Mac Donald in City Journal.
“Stop protecting insurance profiteers, San Francisco Chronicle, climate change is not responsible for California’s high cost of living” – In Climate Realism, Linnea Lueken slams the San Francisco Chronicle’s claims that California is suffering from the impacts of climate change and that oil companies should “pick up the tab”.
“Britain at risk of mobile signal rationing as energy costs soar” – Telecoms firms warn they may have to ration mobile signal to save energy, according to the Sun.
“Ed Miliband’s green energy is going to waste, says EDF boss” – The CEO of EDF has warned that green energy generated by Ed Miliband’s renewables drive is going to waste, says the Telegraph.
“Net Zero: bin it or back it?” – The Spectator has scheduled a debate on whether Net Zero should be scrapped.
From the Climate Skeptic today:
“The conflict between Net Zero and the energy demands of AI and crypto isn’t going away” – A “giant Yorkshire gas field” is to be exploited “to mine Bitcoin”, say the papers. No surprise there, says Ben Pile: the conflict between Net Zero and the vast energy demands of AI and crypto isn’t going away.
The Linnea Lueken article makes some very good points about proportions, but does not try to put actual figures to the claim that the burning of fossil fuels produced by a particular company contributed to the Los Angeles fires. I tried to look at the figures concerning a claim that Shell, with 2% of historical emissions, materially contributed to the severity of Typhoon Rai (Odette) in 2021. This damaged millions of homes and caused around 400 deaths in the Philippines. I found
- Using IPCC AR6 data, only about half the net warming to 2019 was due to the burning of fossil fuels. That is, if one makes the (somewhat difficult to substantiate) assumption that 100% of the observed warming since 1850 is human-caused.
- The attribution study did not look at actual historical typhoon data, but “a range of gridded observational and reanalysis products.”
- The attribution study compared 2001-2021 typhoon data with 1950-1970 data. In the 30 years in between, satellites came along to track typhoons.
- IPCC AR6 2021 could find no global trend in global cyclones in the last 40 years. The only climatic change globally was in the Western North Pacific, where “Tropical cyclone occurrence has been shifting poleward to the coast of East Asia from areas south of 20°N from 1982 to 2018” That is, the Philippines at 6-19°N has been getting fewer typhoons.
- Deaths from typhoons in the Philippines have decreased dramatically. In 2011-13 three typhoons caused over 11000 deaths. From 2014-2024 total deaths were about tenth. Typhoon Rai (Odette) had the highest death toll since 2013, but was the ninth worst this century.
https://manicbeancounter.com/2026/01/25/empirically-baseless-climate-accountability-claim-shell-and-typhoon-rai/
There might be some issues of due process in these prosecutions as well. So-called climate activists try to intimidate “Big Oil”. Look at Just Stop Oil in London. Therefore, when such companies are sued, they feel unable to challenge the evidence presented properly.