Tous les articles par Alain Préat

Full-time professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium apreat@gmail.com apreat@ulb.ac.be • Department of Earth Sciences and Environment Res. Grp. - Biogeochemistry & Modeling of the Earth System Sedimentology & Basin Analysis • Alumnus, Collège des Alumni, Académie Royale de Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique (mars 2013). http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=2a8crwkksq&lg=fr&pag=858&rec=0&frm=0&par=aybabtu&id=4471&flux=8365323 • Prof. Invited, Université de Mons-Hainaut (2010-present-day) • Prof. Coordinator and invited to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (Belgian College) (2009- present day) • Prof. partim to the DEA (third cycle) led by the University of Lille (9 universities from 1999 to 2004) - Prof. partim at the University of Paris-Sud/Orsay, European-Socrates Agreement (1995-1998) • Prof. partim at the University of Louvain, Convention ULB-UCL (1993-2000) • Since 2015 : Member of Comité éditorial de la Revue Géologie de la France http://geolfrance.brgm.fr • Since 2014 : Regular author of texts for ‘la Revue Science et Pseudosciences’ http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/ • Many field works (several weeks to 2 months) (Meso- and Paleozoic carbonates, Paleo- to Neoproterozoic carbonates) in Europe, USA (Nevada), Papouasia (Holocene), North Africa (Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Gabon, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, South Africa, Angola), Iraq... Recently : field works (3 to 5 weeks) Congo- Brazzaville 2012, 2015, 2016 (carbonate Neoproterozoic). Degree in geological sciences at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in 1974, I went to Algeria for two years teaching mining geology at the University of Constantine. Back in Belgium I worked for two years as an expert for the EEC (European Commission), first on the prospecting of Pb and Zn in carbonate environments, then the uranium exploration in Belgium. Then Assistant at ULB, Department of Geology I got the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Geology) in 1985. My thesis, devoted to the study of the Devonian carbonate sedimentology of northern France and southern Belgium, comprised a significant portion of field work whose interpretation and synthesis conducted to the establishment of model of carbonate platforms and ramps with reefal constructions. I then worked for Petrofina SA and shared a little more than two years in Angola as Director of the Research Laboratory of this oil company. The lab included 22 people (micropaleontology, sedimentology, petrophysics). My main activity was to interpret facies reservoirs from drillings in the Cretaceous, sometimes in the Tertiary. I carried out many studies for oil companies operating in this country. I returned to the ULB in 1988 as First Assistant and was appointed Professor in 1990. I carried out various missions for mining companies in Belgium and oil companies abroad and continued research, particularly through projects of the Scientific Research National Funds (FNRS). My research still concerns sedimentology, geochemistry and diagenesis of carbonate rocks which leads me to travel many countries in Europe or outside Europe, North Africa, Papua New Guinea and the USA, to conduct field missions. Since the late 90's, I expanded my field of research in addressing the problem of mass extinctions of organisms from the Upper Devonian series across Euramerica (from North America to Poland) and I also specialized in microbiological and geochemical analyses of ancient carbonate series developing a sustained collaboration with biologists of my university. We are at the origin of a paleoecological model based on the presence of iron-bacterial microfossils, which led me to travel many countries in Europe and North Africa. This model accounts for the red pigmentation of many marble and ornamental stones used in the world. This research also has implications on the emergence of Life from the earliest stages of formation of Earth, as well as in the field of exobiology or extraterrestrial life ... More recently I invested in the study from the Precambrian series of Gabon and Congo. These works with colleagues from BRGM (Orléans) are as much about the academic side (consequences of the appearance of oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic and study of Neoproterozoic glaciations) that the potential applications in reservoir rocks and source rocks of oil (in collaboration with oil companies). Finally I recently established a close collaboration with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium to study the susceptibility magnetic signal from various European Paleozoic series. All these works allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of carbonate rocks (petrology, micropaleontology, geobiology, geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, diagenesis) as well in Precambrian (2.2 Ga and 0.6 Ga), Paleozoic (from Silurian to Carboniferous) and Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) rocks. Recently (2010) I have established a collaboration with Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a government program to boost scientific research in this country. My research led me to publish about 180 papers in international and national journals and presented more than 170 conference papers. I am a holder of eight courses at the ULB (5 mandatory and 3 optional), excursions and field stages, I taught at the third cycle in several French universities and led or co-managed a score of 20 Doctoral (PhD) and Post-doctoral theses and has been the promotor of more than 50 Masters theses.
climate-debate

Hiding the Endangerment Finding’s Systemic Biases – Politico’s Failed Attack on DOE’s Climate Science Report

by M. Lewis, Oct 28, 2025 in WUWT

Politico recently published an article by Benjamin Storrow, Chelsea Harvey, Scott Waldman, and Paula Friedrich titled “How a major DOE report hides the whole truth on climate change.” The reporters’ objective is obvious and their strategy simple. They aim to discredit the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to repeal the December 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Findingby discrediting a Department of Energy (DOE) draft report which is cited in the repeal proposal’s climate science discussion.

From a statutory perspective, that strategy is not a winner. The EPA’s proposal to repeal the Endangerment Finding (plus motor vehicle emission standards adopted by the agency in April 2024) relies chiefly on legal arguments that do not presuppose specific climate change assessments.

However, the Politico article could sway the court of public opinion, which in turn could influence future litigation. Such influence would be undeserved. The article ignores foundational biases compromising the scientific basis of the 2009 Endangerment Finding. Further, its criticisms of the DOE report repeatedly misfire or backfire, and none comes close to refuting any of the report’s conclusions.

Background    

The 2009 Endangerment Finding purported to determine that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new motor vehicles “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The Finding was the impetus for the Obama administration EPA’s adoption, in 2010, of GHG emission standards for model year 2012-2016 motor vehicles. To one degree or another, the Finding undergirds all subsequent climate policy regulations proposed or promulgated by the Obama and Biden administrations.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

How Climate Dogma Is Keeping The World’s Poor In The Dark

by P. Keeney, Oct 27, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Poverty in India
Among all the discussions about climate change, one aspect of the debate gets far too little attention: the moral and practical costs that climate alarmism places on the developing world. [emphasis, links added]

For those in the West, energy is so plentiful that it’s almost invisible. We flick a switch, start a car, or refrigerate food without considering the miracle of power that makes it all possible.

But for billions of people in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, energy is not just a convenience in the background; it’s the difference between subsistence and progress, between darkness and light, between education and ignorance.

It is easy for comfortable Westerners to moralize about “ending fossil fuels.” For the world’s poor, that slogan means ending development itself.

Wind and solar can supplement power in modern economies, but they cannot satisfy the needs of industrialization. A solar panel may charge a phone or light a hut, but it cannot operate a factory, a hospital, or a modern water system.

The idea of “leapfrogging” fossil fuels and moving straight to renewables is delusional.

As Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg points out in his book “False Alarm,” a solar panel:

“can provide electricity for a light at night and a cell phone charge, but it cannot deliver enough power for cleaner cooking to reduce indoor air pollution, refrigeration to keep food fresh, or the machinery needed for agriculture and industry to lift people out of poverty.”

For the rural poor in Africa or South Asia, what they need is not less energy but more reliable, affordable, and plentiful energy similar to what the West has long enjoyed.

Yet Western governments and financial institutions have become increasingly obstructive. Under pressure from climate activists, the World Bank and other lenders have reduced fundingfor coal and natural gas projects—the very fuels that helped Western countries prosper.

Wealthy nations, which industrialized through the use of fossil fuels, now refuse the same opportunity to others. It’s a form of moral imperialism: a policy of “Do as we say, not as we did.”

The consequences are significant. In sub-Saharan Africa, around 600 million people still lack electricity. Women cook with wood or dung, inhaling toxic fumes that claim thousands of lives each year.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Bill Gates Retreats From Climate Doom, Tells Activists To Focus On Urgent ‘Social Issues’

by T. Catenacci, Oct 29, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Gates, who spent a fortune warning about ‘climate disaster,’ now says it ‘will not be the end of civilization’.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, who spent tens of millions of dollars funding far-left climate initiatives and authored a book warning of “climate disaster,” is now changing his tune on global warming and urging activists to divert their attention to other progressive causes. [emphasis, links added]

In a lengthy blog post published Tuesday morning, Gates said climate change remains a serious issue, but that “it will not be the end of civilization.”

Gates then bluntly said the money that has been designated for climate is “not being spent on the right things.”

“Sometimes the world acts as if any effort to fight climate change is as worthwhile as any other,” Gates wrote. “As a result, less-effective projects are diverting money and attention from efforts that will have more impact on the human condition: namely, making it affordable to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions and reducing extreme poverty with improvements in agriculture and health.”

In other words, leaders need to focus less on fighting long-term global warming and more on near-term economic issues.

That means Gates is prepared to divert millions of dollars in funding from climate issues to other social issues, a shift that could have significant reverberations across the American climate-advocacy ecosystem.

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minerals and ores

Trump Moves To Break Communist China’s Grip On Rare Earth Minerals

by  S. Milloy, Oct 27, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Surface mining
It’s great news that the Trump administration agreed this week with Australia to take steps toward breaking Communist China’s chokehold on rare earth minerals. [emphasis, links added]

In addition to a July announcement of a project to extract rare earths from coal mined in Wyoming, President Donald Trump is moving us in a desperately needed direction. But our vulnerabilities to China go much deeper, and much more and faster action is needed.

Rare earth minerals are essential for modern technology. The good news is that they are available virtually everywhere. The bad news is that they generally require strip-mining to produce ore, and then the ore must be processed and refined.

Because environmentalists oppose both mining and processing, neither activity has been undertaken on a meaningful scale in the U.S. for decades.

And while a few Western nations allow rare earth strip-mining, about 90 percent of rare earth processing occurs in China, where there is no green activism or bureaucracy to obstruct operations.

This means that virtually all our technology is dependent on China, including military technology such as the advanced F-35 fighter jet. Imagine not being able to build warplanes without China’s cooperation. Even if China were neutral toward the U.S., this situation would be unacceptable.

China plans to become the lone global superpower by 2049, if not sooner. Toward that goal, China is quietly but certainly preparing itself for confrontation, if not war.

This is evidenced, in part, by China’s focus on electrifying its economy to reduce its dependency on the global oil and natural gas market, which is dominated by the U.S.

China has also cleverly worked to avoid war against a superior foe by simply checkmating the U.S. and Western nations through economic and energy dependence, and even sabotage.

After being mildly criticized by Australia during COVID, China announced that it would use trade as a weapon and then promptly stopped trading with Australia.

More recently, in response to U.S. and European efforts to build EV batteries domestically, China announced export limits on the rare earths and processed graphite needed to make batteries.

The Trump administration moved to stymie this part of the Chinese plan through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) enacted last July.

Our China-dependent technology includes all the wind turbines, solar panels, grid batteries, and EVs that greens have induced us to buy over the past two decades.

Worse than just the $250 billion in solar subsidies China expected to reap from U.S. taxpayers through the Green New Scam is the fact that electricity prices and equipment availability in the U.S. would be almost entirely dependent on the goodwill of China.

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climate-debate

Recent Global Warming Mostly Due To Natural Factors, New Study Finds

by P. Gosselin, Oct 26, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Recent warming is mostly due to natural climate factors…only 1/3 is attributable to the rising GHG concentrations. 

CO2’s impact on warming is likely wildly overstated. 

A recent paper by Ad Huijser, “Global Warming and the ‘impossible’ Radiation Imbalance,” published in Science of Climate Change, presents a detailed analysis that challenges the widely held assumption that rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations are the sole, or even the primary, drivers of recent global warming.

Hat-tip Report 24.

By comparing observed energy trends with theoretical forcings, the study concludes that natural factors play a significant and dominant role in the warming observed since the mid-1970s.

The Discrepancy: GHG Forcing vs. Observed Warming

The study scrutinizes the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis, which attributes all observed warming solely to human-caused GHG emissions. Using satellite data from the CERES program and Ocean Heat Content (OHC) data from the ARGO float program, the author analyzed the Earth’s Top of Atmosphere (TOA) radiation imbalance—the net energy flux into the Earth’s thermal system.

Natural factors dominate

The central finding is that the assumed radiative forcing trend from GHGs is insufficient to account for the magnitude of the observed TOA radiation imbalance. The discrepancy suggests that another, significant factor must be involved in heating the planet.

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climate-debate

Is Subdued COP 30 a Trump effect?

by D. Wojick, Oct 27, 2025 in WUWT

The mainstream press run-up to COP 30 is the most subdued I have ever seen, and I have seen them all. No grand global plans or calls for astronomical sums of cash. Likely a Trump effect — but as a scientist with no hard evidence, I will not claim that, just point out the possibility).

The big thing missing is easy to see. This is the strident call for trillions of dollars in “financial flows” from developed to developing countries via various UN funds.

If payments are mentioned at all, they now tend to be in hundreds of billions a year, not trillions. Mind you, a few hundred billion is still ridiculous, but it is way less than trillions, definitely a new low profile.

President Trump has done several big things to contribute to this lack of financial grandeur. He is pulling America out of the Paris Accord, effective this January. He denounced climate alarmism as a colossal scam to the UN General Assembly, in their face as it were.

On the financial side, he has terminated the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was throwing billions of dollars a year around the world in climate money. Many other US agencies have also terminated climate spending.

Thus, it is perfectly clear that no climate change “financial flows” will be coming from America for at least the next few years. The other developed countries, some of which are still rabid on climate, are in no position to make up for the loss of America.

Moreover, and this may be another reason for the somber COP, these other developed countries are experiencing serious economic problems. Ironically, some of these are energy cost crunches brought on by ill-conceived climate policies. This is certainly true for the EU and UK.

Mind you, the monster-dollar “financial flows” rhetoric was mostly motivational. It had little to do with the actual work program of the COP, so that will still proceed, albeit cautiously, when it comes to costly national commitments.

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climate-debate

No, Washington Post, Climate Change Isn’t Killing Washington, DC’s Trees—Urban Stress Is

by A. Watts, Oct 27, 2025 in WUWT

In The Washington Post’s (WaPo) article, “Climate change is coming for D.C.’s trees, and the city won’t look the same,” the authors claim that climate change is killing off Washington, DC’s tree canopy. This is false. While the article mentions other effects that contribute to the decline of the urban tree canopy, they miss or dismiss the primary causes, preferring to blame climate change instead.

The authors argue that rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns are forcing arborists to abandon native species in favor of more “climate-tolerant” trees from the southern United States. The Post asserts that without urgent adaptation, the District’s iconic maples, lindens, and elms could “vanish by 2100.” It also states that “urban development and climate change have contributed to the annual loss of thousands of D.C. trees and threaten the long-term survival of some of the region’s native tree populations.” That may sound convincing, however, in fact, it is deeply misleading.

The majority of DC’s tree stress has little to do with global climate change. Rather, urbanization is the culprit. The city’s heat, pollution, and dense infrastructure have transformed what was once a temperate forest into an artificial microclimate. This is the urban heat island effect (UHI) at work. As Christy and Spencer demonstrated in their peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, as much as 65 percent of apparent “warming” in urban areas is attributable solely to human development, not global greenhouse gases. Pavement, buildings, and waste heat raise nighttime temperatures, putting added stress on trees that evolved in cooler, more permeable soils.

As Climate at a Glance: Urban Heat Islands notes, “most of the apparent warming in U.S. cities results from localized effects of urbanization, not global climate change.” This localized heating can be several degrees higher than in nearby rural areas, making it a huge stressor for trees already dealing with limited water and root space.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

U.S Surface Temperature

by WUWT, Oct 2025

August ’25 | 0.54°F (0.30°C)

US Climate Reference Network (Updated when Gov shutdown ends)

Click for description of the data/larger graph

The US Climate Reference Network record from 2005 shows no obvious warming during this period. The graph above is created monthly by NOAA.

The graph shows the Average Surface Temperature Anomaly for the contiguous United States since 2005. The data comes from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) which is a properly sited (away from human influences and infrastructure) and state-of-the-art weather network consisting of 114 stations in the USA.

These station locations were chosen to avoid warm biases from Urban Heat Islands (UHI) effects as well as microsite effects as documented in the 2022 report Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Surface Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed. Unfortunately, NOAA never reports this data in their monthly or yearly “state of the climate report.” And, mainstream media either is entirely unaware of the existence of this data set or has chosen not to report on this U.S. temperature record.

The national USCRN data, updated monthly as shown in the above graph can be viewed here and clicking on ClimDiv to remove that data display in the graph: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/national-temperature-index/time-series/anom-tavg/1/0

24-hour precipitation and temperature data for individual stations can be viewed with graphs, by clicking ‘PLOT’ on the Current Observations page: ncei.noaa.gov/access/crn/current-observations

better to know...?

Is Public Criticism of Climate Claims a Criminal Offence in Today’s Britain and Europe?

by E. Worrall, Oct 26, 2025 in WUWT

“… It is perfectly OK to have different opinions on climate change. What becomes problematic is when a society can no longer agree on facts …”

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…

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My point is, to declare some facts are beyond challenge, especially “facts” produced by artefacts as flimsy as climate models, is to strike at the foundations of freedom of expression and scientific inquiry. Forcing broadcasters to embrace a uniform, government approved version of unassailable facts, then claiming they still somehow have freedom of expression, is utter nonsense.

better to know...?, Cooling

Antarctic Amundsen-Scott Station Sees Coldest October in 44 Years…Mainstream Media Silent!

by P. Gosselin, Oct 24, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

This is not supposed to be happening, according to the climate models.

While the headlines relentlessly holler about “exploding global warming” and “dramatic melting” of the polar caps, the South Pole is telling a starkly different story.

Here reports Germany’s Report 24.

On October 15, the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station registered an astonishing temperature of minus 61.3 degrees Celsius and it isn’t even winter there. It’s springtime and temperatures  should be on the rise.

Coldest October since 1981

According to Report 24, the numbers are clear: It was the coldest October measured at the station since 1981.

This extreme cold is not an isolated event. As the article points out, even CNN reported in 2021 that the continent had experienced its coldest winter since records began.

The data from stations like Amundsen-Scott, Vostok, and Dome C show that instead of a linear, CO₂-driven heating trend, the South Pole is dominated by naturally occurring, extreme temperature fluctuations, including pronounced cold snaps.

Natural factors dominate

This directly contradicts the dominant narrative that “extreme heat is the new normal” and challenges the core assumption that the trace gas CO₂ is the overwhelming, all-determining factor in our climate system. Climatological mechanisms like stratospheric waves, polar vortex stability, and cloud cover appear to be the actual drivers of weather events.

Even growing colder

For decades, we’ve been told that polar regions would experience the strongest warming. Yet, the Antarctic region has stubbornly resisted, in some parts even growing colder.

The Report 24 article argues that this recurring cold record is a “nail in the coffin of the CO₂ dogma.” If carbon dioxide were truly the dominant climate control knob, such an extreme, decades-long cold minimum shouldn’t be happening.

The underlying models—like the IPCC forecasts from the 1990s—have systematically overestimated temperature trends. When faced with such real-world deviations, one must ask: are the climate models flawed, or is the CO₂-centric theory of climate incomplete?

For those politicians and policymakers who are basing sweeping, economy-altering decisions on the idea that the “science is settled,” the stubborn cold of the South Pole presents a critical challenge that can no longer be ignored.

See full article at report 24 

better to know...?

17 Republican AGs Urge Trump Admin To Skip COP30 Over Green Energy Policies

by A. Streb, Oct 24, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

COP30 Amazon
Seventeen Republican attorneys general urged the Trump administration Thursday to skip the major U.N. climate conference this year over concerns that participation would validate the aggressive green policies that align with the conference’s talking points. [emphasis, links added]

Though the Trump administration has not announced that it will send a delegation to attend COP30 this year, some GOP senators have reportedly floated the idea of participating in the conference on Oct. 10.

The letter, led by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, warned three energy cabinet secretaries that the administration’s attendance may signal endorsement of COP-aligned green policies that the Republican attorneys general argue have dire consequences.

“Sitting out the COP-30 conference sends a strong message that America will no longer be part of the green new scam. Renewables are not reliable and are expensive – just look at California – but yet, this gathering will continue to push these climate initiatives with their grandiose declarations, while ignoring reality,” McCuskey told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In this country, we finally have an administration taking bold action to secure the Nation’s energy interests by investing in traditional fuels and undoing harmful regulations. Skipping COP-30 signals that America will pursue energy policies based on what provides the most affordable and reliable energy to the American people, not international pressure.”

Letter Re COP30 From AGs by audreystreb

McCuskey and the 16 other attorneys general argued in the letter that COP-aligned policies like net-zero have major consequences and run counter to the Trump administration’s goals, addressing the warning to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

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better to know...?

New Study Determines It Is ‘Impossible’ For CO2 To Be The Driving Mechanism In Global Warming

by K. Richard,  Oct 24, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Approximately 75% of the increase in the global ocean heat content must be natural, or attributed to an increase in solar forcing.

The manifestation of what is commonly referred to as “global warming” is predominantly (93%) depicted as an increase in ocean heat content (OHC). Only 1% is indicated by an increase in surface air temperatures. Rising OHC is the parameter of modern warming.

According to Levitus et al. (2012) the 1955-2010 temperature increase corresponding to the rise in OHC amounts to just 0.09°C in the 0-2000 m layer.

A new study calls attention to the abrupt warming and cooling OHC trends since 1955 in this dataset that cannot be attributed to linearly-rising CO2 emissions.

The OHC changes manifest short-term “periods with a very strong +0.8 W/m² (1970-1980) as well as a very strong negative -0.7 W/m² radiation imbalance (1963-1970). But also a period with an almost perfect radiation balance (1980-1990).”

In contrast, the increase in forcing from the gradual rise in CO2 is wholly inconsistent with these dramatic decadal-scale fluctuations.

“[T]he almost constant forcing rate from GHGs [greenhouse gases] cannot have triggered these abrupt radiation imbalance shifts [and therefore] the dramatic radiation balance shifts must have been triggered by natural events.”

It is estimated that ¾ of the rising ocean heat content (OHC) trend since 1955 must be natural, or due to the “rising solar input” associated with the decline in cloud (and aerosol) albedo. In sum, rising CO2 “cannot explain the observed [OHC] trends.”

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unclassified

Green Transition? Coal Use Hits Record High

by E. Worrall, Oct 24, 2025 in WUWT

Sustainability Magazine laments despite the success of green energy, the world is burning a lot of coal.

Coal Use Hits All-Time High Despite Renewable Energy Boom

 

A report from the World Resources Institute shows global coal consumption reached record levels in 2024, threatening 1.5°C warming target as emissions rise

Global coal consumption reached a record high in 2024, according to the World Resources Institute’s annual State of Climate Action report published this week.

The increase occurred despite rapid expansion of renewable energy capacity worldwide.

While coal’s share of electricity generation declined as clean energy surged, overall power demand grew sufficiently to push total coal use to unprecedented levels.

The findings cast doubt on whether countries can meet their climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

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“The message on this is crystal clear. We simply will not limit warming to 1.5C if coal use keeps breaking records.”

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India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, celebrated surpassing one billion tonnes of coal production this year.

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Read more: https://sustainabilitymag.com/news/coal-use-hits-all-time-high-despite-renewable-energy-boom

The World Resources State of Climate Action 2025 report is available here, though you need to supply a lot of personal details to download a copy.

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See also:

Aussie Climate Minister Slams Queensland’s Reliance on Intermittent Coal
energy and fields

Europe’s Energy Crisis Shows Net Zero Dogma Comes At A Cost

by V. Jayaraj, Oct 23, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

The China threat calls for an ideologically free energy policy.

Shipping port near power plant
Whether China’s threat to restrict the export of rare earth minerals materializes or is resolved through trade negotiations, the episode underscores the fragility of U.S. supply chains and the importance of developing domestic sources. [emphasis, links added]

Nowhere is this more evident than in the energy sector, where climate policies have made dozens of countries more reliant on imports than ever before.

Adherence to climate orthodoxy has repeatedly exposed countries to avoidable risks, each instance demonstrating the cost of subordinating real-world utility to the pseudoscience of theoretical models and the grifting of special interests.

The reshuffling of the global flow of oil and coal after 2022 exposed the foolishness of the anti-fossil fuel agenda.

European nations, led by Germany and the United Kingdom, embarked on aggressive phaseouts of fossil fuels, dismantling coal plants and shrinking domestic natural gas output in favor of wind and solar.

Domestic production of hydrocarbons collapsed, and reliance on imported energy spiked, particularly for the Germans and British.

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unclassified

State Of The Climate 2024: ‘No Runaway Warming, No Climate Crisis’

by GWPF, Oct 17, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

From sea level rise to sea ice extent, observations show global climate trends remain normal.

Antarctic Peninsula Penguins

Top: Penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula in summer. Observational data shows global climate trends remain within normal ranges. Photo by Jean Wimmerlin on Unsplash

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has today released The State of the Climate 2024, the latest annual review by Professor Ole Humlum, Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Oslo. [some emphasis, links added]

Based on observational data rather than climate models, the report provides an evidence-based overview of global climate trends.

Key Findings:

  • 2024 was the warmest year on record in all major temperature datasets, and was significantly influenced by a strong El Niño event that persisted through much of the year.
  • Recent warming remains uneven, with most temperature increases occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.
  • The upper 1900 m of the global ocean have warmed by a modest 0.037°C since 2004, with most of this warming confined to the top 100 m near the equator.
  • Northern oceans (55–65°N) have cooled significantly down to 1400 m depth since 2004, while southern oceans (55–65°S) have seen slight warming at most depths (down to 1900 m) but mainly near the surface.
  • Sea level rise continues at a rate of 1–2 mm per year according to tide-gauge records, well below satellite-based estimates of about 3.7 mm per year, and shows substantial local variation.
  • Global sea ice extent, though below the long-term satellite average, has been stable or slightly increasing since 2018.
  • Global snow cover remains essentially stable across the satellite era.
  • Global precipitation shows no long-term trend toward wetter or drier conditions since 1901.
  • Storm and hurricane activity continues to fluctuate naturally, without any long-term increase in strength or frequency.
  • Overall observations confirm normal overall variability of average meteorological and oceanographic conditions, with no sign of an escalating climate emergency.

Professor Humlum said:

“The global climate represents a highly complex system. Many com­ponents and their interrelationships are still not fully understood or perhaps not even recognized and are therefore not included in climate models.

“In fact, the global climate has remained in a stable condi­tion within certain limits for millions of years, although with important variations playing out over periods ranging from years to centuries, or more, but it has never been in a fully stable state without change.

“Modern observations show that recent years are also characterized by this normal behavior.”

Read the full report here – The State of the Climate 2024 (pdf)

better to know...?

Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase

by Lindzen et al., June 2024 in CO2Coalition

example, if the United States achieved net zero emissions of carbon dioxide by the year 2050, only a few hundredths of a degree Celsius of warming would be averted. This could barely be detected by our best instruments.  The fundamental reason is that warming by atmospheric carbon dioxide is heavily “saturated,” with each additional ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide producing less warming than the previous ton.

Abstract:

Using feedback-free estimates of the warming by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and observed rates of increase, we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084 ◦C (0.015 ◦F), which is below our ability to accurately measure. If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 ◦C (0.13 ◦F) would be averted. If one assumes that the warming is a factor of 4 larger because of positive feedbacks, as asserted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming averted by a net zero U.S. policy would still be very small, 0.034 ◦C (0.061 ◦F). For worldwide net zero emissions by 2050 and the 4-times larger IPCC climate sensitivity, the averted warming would be 0.28 ◦C (0.50 ◦F).

Read the entire short paper here:

Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase

climate-debate

New Study Contradicts The Alarmist Narrative That Says The AMOC Is Catastrophically Collapsing

by K. Richard,  Oct 16, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Alarmists claim that, due to anthropogenic climate change (AGW), the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is weakening to the point that it’s on the verge of collapsing. It’s claimed this will lead to abrupt cooling and extreme weather in the North Atlantic region.

But the author of a new study points out that changes in sea level trends are a useful proxy for detecting AMOC variability over time.

Interestingly, from one side of the Atlantic to the other, or, specifically, from the coasts of New York to the coasts of France, mean sea level rise has been stable, not accelerating, since 1960.

This affirms the stability of the AMOC and contradicts the narrative that the AMOC is on the cusp of collapse.

“…a negligible difference in absolute sea level rise between these locations [The Battery, New York, and Brest, France] reinforces the stability of the AMOC within the period 1960 to 2024. These findings challenge claims of AMOC weakening.”

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better to know...?

The Hill’s Crazy Coral Claims Challenged By Reef Recovery, Record Growth

by L. Lueken, Oct 16, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

reef coral

A recent article in The Hill, “Climate change is not a ‘con job’,” claims that catastrophic, human-caused climate change is killing reefs via ocean heatwaves. This claim is false. [emphasis, links added]

In reality, corals have existed for millions of years, through warmer and colder periods, and in the recent past, coral reefs have recovered from bleaching events and even die-offs, proving the species is adaptive and resilient in the face of climate change.

The Hill article, from Rebecca Vega Thurber, the director of the UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute, is framed by Thurber’s annoyance that President Donald Trump says climate change is a “con job.” She claims her personal research experience refutes his comment.

Thurber explains that pollution from fertilizer runoff can kill corals, which is true, but goes on to assert:

“[E]very result we have collected, in every one of these well-intentioned and carefully designed experiments, was waylaid by the increasingly frequent and severe heat waves that have arisen in the last decades.”

She says their efforts to mitigate pollution were “overwhelmed by high water temperaturesdriven by climate change, or worse, climate change killed our whole experiment.”

Thurber claims marine heat waves in the French South Pacific hampered her work by “transform[ing] these normally bountiful reefs from habitats where there was once 60 percent of the seafloor covered with healthy corals to barren plains with less than 1 percent live coral.”

In point of fact, one long-term study from 2019 showed that rather than a “barren plain,” French Polynesian reefs have an “outstanding rate of coral recovery, with a systematic return to pre-disturbance state within only 5 to 10 years.”

A second study from 2024, published in Nature, sought to understand why reefs bounced backso readily after major heat waves, concluding that:

“Over the past three decades, there have been five main warming events that have caused mass bleaching around Moorea and Tahiti, in 1994, 2002, 2007, 2016, and 2019. Despite bleaching levels up to 100% for some coral species, reefs experienced as high as ~76% recovery following each event. …

“It is currently unknown what controls the ability of coral coverage to recover quickly at these locations. It has been suggested that reefs may develop an increased tolerance to higher SSTs following each bleaching event, and that the increased resilience would allow for a shorter recovery period with less die-off under subsequent SST extremes.”

In short, the scientific literature does not support Thurber’s contention in The Hill that coral reefs are dying off in vast numbers.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

We Need to Talk About Climate (To Each Other)

by N. Komar, Oct 1, 2025 in WUWT

Among professionals who work on the climate issue (the “Climate Community”), there is a long-standing reluctance to engage in conversation with people who don’t consider that the climate is in crisis.

Due to this reluctance, there are exceedingly few recorded debates between members of the Community and those from the outside with an appropriate level of expertise to make for a lively and educational dialogue (but there are some, and below, I’ve listed all of the debates that I have been able to find).

I find the lack of debate to be frustrating.  In my case, I am skeptical of the idea that the earth’s climate is in crisis.  To me, the skeptical arguments seem to be more likely to be correct than the alarmist arguments.  Two important reasons for my skepticism: 1) The few actual debates I have had the pleasure to witness have been won by the skeptic(s). 2) The skeptics I speak to appear confident in their views and are eager to debate people from the Community; members of the Community, conversely, display what seems like a tribal attitude and either are hesitant, or in many cases, just unwilling to debate.

I am willing to be proven wrong regarding my skepticism.  But I can’t be bullied into changing my view.  It would take a reasoned argument, juxtaposed against arguments from the skeptic side of the debate.  And I’ve been following this issue for over 25 years.  For the average person curious about climate, but new to the issue, I would guess that it is quite hard to find arguments on both sides in order to make an informed decision for themselves.  While the question of how climate works is a question of Science, the culture that has developed around the issue is a culture of Politics.  Consequently, a search on the internet for articles on climate will return a politically curated batch.

I’ve been working on a project for the last 2-½ years to transform the situation described above.  It’s called Climate Verso.  Currently the project consists of a podcast, with only a few episodes published to date.  It can be found on any podcast platform: https://theclimateversopodcast.buzzsprout.com/

More episodes will be dropping over the next few months, and I’m totally open to help from anyone interested in getting involved.  The format of the podcast is a dialogue between two climate professionals with differing perspectives.  I am the moderator of the discussions.  Please listen to either or both of the episodes published so far. The first is Matthew Wielicki and Peter Fiekowsky debating the efficacy and risks of Ocean Fertilization.  The 2nd is a wide ranging conversation between Judith Curry and Andrew Revkin about how the climate issue became polarized over the last 40 years.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New ‘Climate at a Glance’ Book Challenges ‘Climate Crisis’ Narrative with Hard Data

by A. Watts, Oct 08, 2025 in WUWT

Second edition of Climate at a Glance, published by The Heartland Institute, provides public with Facts on 40 Climate Topics
First edition in 2022 was a #1 Amazon Best-seller in the categories of ‘Science for Kids, ‘Climatology,’ and ‘Environmental Science’

 

…

“For too long, climate discourse has been dominated by slogans and fear, while real science and sound policy have taken a back seat, but the data tell a far more complicated story. This book is not about denying that the climate changes—it always has and always will—but about questioning whether today’s costly, disruptive policies are grounded in evidence or in politics. By examining the data, the models, and the history of our ever-changing climate, this book cuts through the noise to show that climate change is not a one-way catastrophe but part of Earth’s natural variability. Instead of rushing into policies that wreck economies and livelihoods, we need honest science, open debate, and the courage to question a narrative that too often puts politics before facts.”

Anthony Watts
Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate
The Heartland Institute

climate-debate

COP30’s Carbon Circus: Elites Show Everything That’s Wrong With Climate Alarmism

by D. Blackmon, Oct 0, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Sky-high costs, private jets, and rainforest destruction make a mockery of the very climate agenda activists claim to champion.

 

Massive Amazon deforestation for COP30 road
In case you’ve missed it amid the Trump White House’s decision to ban U.S. participation, this year’s U.N.-sponsored COP30 conference is being hosted by Belem, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Pará. [emphasis, links added]

Suffice it to say that, as is always the case with these annual gatherings of globalist elites, preparations for this year’s event have been filled with a series of pitfalls, emergencies, and the usual stories of rank hypocrisy.

A great example came on Tuesday, when Bloomberg ran a story with the alarming headline, “Nations Rethink Plans for Brazil Climate Summit as Costs Soar.” Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s probably the point.

It turns out that prices for hotel rooms and other accommodations are soaring (unexpectedly!) in advance of the conference, which should actually surprise no one, given that these events are regularly attended by tens of thousands of conferees armed with virtually unlimited expense accounts.

The profit motive remains alive and well in the midst of the Amazon jungle despite the best efforts of Brazil’s socialist government to kill it off. Go figure.

Bloomberg’s writers first imply that the high costs of attendance are falling mainly on the shoulders of developing nations, saying, “representatives of developing and at-risk countries say they’re considering scaling back their presence at this year’s event, which would reduce their visibility and negotiating power.”

Countries must have a big delegation present to ensure they get their entitled slices of every one of the myriad climate alarm initiatives, schemes, and scams that will be rolled out at this year’s conference, you know.

The piece singles out Tanzania’s Richard Muyungi, who chairs the African Group of Negotiators, as claiming that “African national delegations typically range from about 60 to 100 people.”

After all, it’s a two-week event, so countries feel the need to sub in backups for exhausted participants like an NFL defensive coordinator rotates tackles and linebackers.

Later in the story, though, Bloomberg admits that some developed countries are also scaling back their planned delegations from previous years.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Sea Level Rise Hoax Exposed: The Disappearing Islands That Refuse To Disappear

by P. Gosselin, Oct 4, 2025 in NoTricksZone

Germany’s Klimanachrichten here publishes an article titled “The Disappearing Islands (That Don’t Want to Disappear)” summarizes findings suggesting that the widespread assumption about low-lying islands inevitably sinking due to rising sea levels is too simplistic and detached from reality.

Earlier, the media often tried to scoff at and discredit findings from inconvenient sea level experts, like Axel Mörner:

Undeniable science: Mörner et all, 2011

But today, climate alarmist media are forced to concede things are not as dire as they once believed.

74 of 101 islands are growing

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climate-debate

The Guardian Is Wrong: Cities Are Hotter Because of the UHI Effect, Not Increased CO₂

by A. Watts, Oct 6, 2025 in WUWT

In The Guardian’s op-ed, “World’s major cities hit by 25% leap in extremely hot days since the 1990s,”asserts that global warming has caused a sharp rise in the number of extremely hot days in cities worldwide, citing an International Institute for Environment and Development analysis that claims urban residents from London to Tokyo now experience 25 percent more hot days each year than they did in the 1990s. The claims are highly misleading if not outright false. While cities worldwide have in fact gotten warmer, carbon dioxide increases from the burning fossil fuels are not to blame, rather data strongly suggests that the significant rise in measured temperatures in and around major cities is Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in response to population growth and development.

The article quotes scientists as saying, “Global heating caused by fossil fuel burning is making every heatwave more intense and more likely. Extreme heat is likely to have caused the early death of millions of people over the past three decades, with elderly and poor people in fast-growing cities most deeply affected.”

One telling moment comes in The Guardian article itself, where researchers concede that “failing to adapt will condemn millions of city dwellers to increasingly uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions because of the urban heat island effect.” Precisely. It is the UHI effect, not CO₂, that drives the city heat trends.

The Guardian’s narrative collapses under scrutiny, because it ignores the UHI effect. Cities are not thermometers for the planet. They are microclimates dominated by concrete, asphalt, and glass which trap heat and bias local temperature readings upward. Peer-reviewed research by John Christy, Ph.D. and Roy Spencer, Ph.D., published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology shows that urbanization is a major driver of observed warming at city weather stations. Their research found that UHI contributed to 22 percent of the raw observed warming trend on average, and up to 65 percent at suburban and urban stations. When examining rural stations, the effect nearly vanishes. This demonstrates that much of the increase in urban temperatures is the UHI, not global climate change. This is vividly illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Mid-Holocene South China Sea Level 2-3 Meters Higher Than Today Due To 1-2°C Warmer Temps

by K. Richard, Sep 30, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

The mechanisms driving the meters-higher sea levels a few thousand years ago do not support claims that CO2 is a driver.

A comprehensive analysis (Zhang et al., 2025) of the South China Sea region indicates warmer sea water was fundamentally responsible for sea levels that were, on average, 2-3 meters higher (and in some regions as much as 5-7 meters higher) than today from approximately 7000 to 4000 years ago.

“Understanding Holocene high sea levels in the South China Sea (SCS) is critical for understanding climate change and assessing future sea-level rise risks. We provide a comprehensive review of the Holocene highstand in the SCS, focusing on its age, height, and mechanisms. Records reveal a wide range for this highstand: ages span 3480–7500 cal yr BP, while elevations range from −7.40 to 7.53 m relative to the present. Positive elevations dominate (80.5% of records), with the most frequent range being 2–3 m.”

“…the Holocene high sea level in this region occurred between 7200 and 5000 yr BP…at least 2.9-3.8 m higher than today.”

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climate-debate

New Study Attributes Arctic Sea Ice Decline – And ‘Slowdown’ Since 2012 -To Internal Variability

by K. Richard, Oct 2, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

“Observations show no significant decline in Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) since 2012…revealing a negligible trend of -0.4% per decade…” – Wang et al., 2025

Scientists are now acknowledging the sharply declining trend in Arctic sea ice from the mid-1990s to 2010s (-11.3% per decade), as well as the “negligible” or flat trend since 2012 (-0.4% per decade) are both “closely coupled” with natural decadal-scale variations in the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscilliation, and “enhanced summertime radiation balance associated with an anticyclonic atmospheric circulation pattern.”

In other words, instead of a linear decline in Arctic sea ice coupled with rising greenhouse gas emissions, it is claimed that “approximately half” of the observed Arctic sea ice decline in the modern era can be attributed to internal variability.

The authors of this new study published in Nature Communications further suggest the flattened trend or “slowdown” in sea ice decline will likely persist for the next 10 to 15 years. Consequently, alarmist predictions of an “ice-free” Arctic in the coming decades will have to be put on hold until after the 2030s.