COP31 at a Crossroads: Electrification Ambitions vs. Fossil Fuel Realities

World leaders set out their climate priorities in speeches at COP31 in the city of Antalya in Turkey on Wednesday, Nov. 11, as negotiators from nearly 200 countries seek agreement on a plan to increase the share of electricity in global energy use and revive stalled efforts to move away from fossil fuels.

The summit opened Monday, Nov. 9, in the Mediterranean resort city as global greenhouse gas emissions show little sign of falling and wars, inflation and other crises compete for political attention.

A United Nations report last month found the world on course to break through the 1.5 C warming limit that countries had agreed to pursue under the Paris Agreement. The negotiating agenda at COP31 is narrower than at any other major climate conference in the decade since the Paris Agreement, according to Bloomberg. The United States, the world's largest historical emitter, has skipped the talks for the second year in a row after President Donald Trump withdrew the country from climate cooperation following his return to office in 2025...<<<Read More>>>...

Andy failed to bag a standing ovation – there was almost no one there to stand

 Andy Burnham’s speech to the Cop climate conference in Turkey was so vital to the survival of the human race that it took five minutes and 52 seconds. Not so much a speech as an egg-timer.

Mr Burnham and flunkeys (numerous) flew to Antalya on Wednesday in a government aeroplane. They were met by the provincial governor, who rolled out a blue carpet.

Cue shots of Eyelashes Andy and governor Hulusi Sahin looking grim-faced (the climate is a serious matter). Eyelashes Andy strode to a gleaming limousine; the next morning found him addressing an almost empty hall.

‘My fellow leaders, your excellencies,’ began Mr Burnham. Those plural nouns were optimistic. Endless rows of seats were empty. Almost nobody had turned up but there was a knot of about ten British acolytes, including the Mayor of London, Lord Khan, in the front row. Apart from that: tumbleweed. You get more people at day three of a Lib Dem conference.

After announcing the appointment of a special representative for climate security, Mr Burnham bellowed: ‘Britain is back.’

The words echoed. Shades of that moment in the rocky Wadi Rum in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) when Peter O’Toole has no one for company except a camel.

Of the bewitching Dame Emily Thornberry MP, said to have been airfreighted to the souks of Antalya in all her dimpled glory, there was no sign. Mr Burnham’s speech was possibly too early in the day – the dame is not a morning person.

Not that the entire Cop shindig was so dozy. Mr Burnham’s speech clashed with a Greta Thunberg press conference and that was packed. Ms Thunberg told hundreds of disciples that planet Earth was ‘being killed and we know by who’.

A vicious attack, egad, on publicity-seeking prime ministers who ride gas-guzzling aeroplanes 1,900 miles to make six-minute speeches to an empty room.

Mr Burnham was the only G7 leader to bother to attend this year’s Cop. Not even Canada’s damp-as-nappies PM, Mark Carney, made the pilgrimage. For company, Mr Burnham had to settle for dignitaries from Tonga, Lebanon, the Solomon Islands and Lesotho. The prime minister of Palestine received a standing ovation for his speech. Israel-bashing always goes down well at these international knees-ups....<<<Read More>>>...

Microsoft 365 struck by multi-region “connectivity issues”

 According to a report from Fox Business, Microsoft 365 users across multiple regions encountered sudden connectivity errors on Thursday as the company scrambled to contain a widespread outage triggered by elevated loads on its infrastructure. The disruption hit at a time when millions of workers rely on the platform for email, collaboration, and daily operations, leaving many unable to access critical tools.

Microsoft stated that the elevated load was not the result of a surge in user traffic. Instead, the company explained it stemmed from “a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable, straining the remaining infrastructure.” Officials added, “We’re working to safely return them to service,” while noting they were “aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact.”

The outage potentially affected thousands of users attempting to reach their emails through Microsoft 365. Company alerts indicated that services including Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, and Microsoft Defender XDR could be impacted. In a separate update, Microsoft confirmed, “We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas.”...<<<Read More>>>...

The EU Capitulation Agreement

More pantomime fodder. The EU is bankrupt and collapsing. The UK is seen as the cash cow to dig the EU out of the hole, but the UK is bankrupt too!

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With the signing ceremony of the Government’s Reset agreement fast approaching, I was interested to see that the House of Lords European Affairs Committee report, Dynamic Alignment: A fundamental change, has finally been published. I gave evidence to the committee in May and was eager to read its conclusions. Not that I believe the report will influence the EU, our new masters.

Ironically, the report starts with a complaint about being ignored by the Government:

Our ability to assess the full prospect of dynamic alignment for the UK was hampered because the Government declined to provide a Minister to appear before us until after the next UK-EU summit, now scheduled for 20 November 2026.

It also later complains that:

we are making this report prior to the publication of the texts of any dynamic alignment agreements with the EU, or of the European Partnership Bill. Our report seeks to highlight issues to which the House should be alert when it comes to consider such documents.

The members of the House of Lords should probably get used to being ignored if the Government agrees to dynamic alignment with the EU. They, the MPs and even Government ministers will have no influence on UK food standards, agricultural regulations or carbon pricing after this agreement is signed. Regulations in these areas will simply be imposed on the country by the EU under ‘Dynamic Alignment’.

Dynamic alignment basically means our lazy Government will let the EU do its work for it, making our rules and regulations and even ensuring our companies obey them. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will see its carbon pricing plans put in the bin as the EU imposes its more complex carbon tariffs on UK imports....<<<Read More>>>....

Cold, dark, and broke: As wind energy slumps, taxpayers are forced to pay millions for a fossil fuel backup

 Britain's energy transition is confronting an expensive reality: electricity must be available when consumers need it, not merely when the weather cooperates. A gas-fired power station near Plymouth reportedly received an extraordinary £1.4 million-per-hour rate to help maintain electricity supplies after wind generation slumped, exposing the costly balancing mechanisms required to keep an increasingly weather-dependent grid functioning. The episode raises a fundamental question about Britain's energy priorities. If renewable generation cannot reliably meet demand during periods of weak wind, how much must consumers ultimately pay to maintain the conventional generating capacity that policymakers have spent years attempting to displace?...<<<Read More>>>...

Bill Gates says a “Huge Catastrophe May Be Needed”

 The psychopathic madman, associated with all things Deep State nasty, has been wheeled out again to reinforce the current desensitising of the frightened sheep. They are desperate for humans to go into survival mode to help manifest their insane dream

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“The real danger right now is not the AI’s getting out of control,” he said. “It’s really bad people using AI, particularly in AI where you can take out all the safeguards.” He added that the combination of bad actors, the removal of safeguards, and the latest models would produce “a lot of negative surprises,” primarily in the cyber realm.

Gates has characterized AI as the most dangerous technology humans have ever created and has argued that companies cannot be trusted as the sole check on its use. He has compared the situation to the safety regimes governing aviation, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals....<<<Read More>>>...

 

Beware the Crime of Muttering to Yourself

 More evidence added to the Mad World category. If this is true, then the world really has gone mad. 

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The Free Speech Union (FSU) has fought more than 7,000 cases since 2020 and, frankly, I thought I’d seen it all when it comes to the police overreacting to an ‘offensive’ remark. Surely, the Met dispatching five armed officers to arrest Graham Linehan when he got off a flight from America for a tweet is the absolute nadir? But no. We were in court last week defending a man who was being prosecuted for saying something verboten while driving his car. The only person who heard it was his four year-old son, yet he was charged with “threatening or abusive behaviour” with a racial aggravator.

The story begins in April last year, when our member – let’s call him Craig – was driving his son back to their home in Glasgow after a day out at an amusement park in Falkirk. At around 4pm, when he was exiting the M80, he was cut up by another vehicle, forcing him to swerve to avoid a collision. He got the impression the other driver was drunk and called the police from his car. In due course, both vehicles stopped and the police arrived. They declined to breathalyse anyone, but took our member’s dashcam footage to see if any laws had been broken.

A week later, the officers returned the footage and told him that an offence had indeed been committed – but by him, not the other driver. His ‘crime’ was muttering the words “smelly black bastard” under his breath seconds after almost being driven off the road. The windows were closed, so no one outside the vehicle could have heard him, and the other driver wasn’t looking in his direction so couldn’t have seen him say it. The only evidence against Craig was the dashcam footage he’d turned over to the police in the hope of seeing the dangerous driver brought to justice.....<<<Read More>>>...

Labour’s Net Zero chaos as Burnham sends his Attorney General to court to fight for oil drilling rights off Falklands… as new Bill bans new exploration off UK coast

 Andy Burnham has ordered his top legal adviser to defend plans for oil and gas development in the Falklands... at the same time as he is banning drilling in the North Sea.

The Prime Minister has sent Ellie Reeves, his Attorney General, to Hamburg today to represent the UK at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

She is in the German city with a six-strong team of top lawyers to fight Argentina's objections to oil and gas development around the Falklands.

Argentinian President Javier Milei has moved to enforce a crackdown on fossil fuel exploration around the Falklands after reiterating his country's claim to the islands.

The Government is contesting Argentina's demand for 'interim measures' on oil and gas development around the South Atlantic archipelago.

It is feared such measures could include the suspension of any drilling, while the Government has accused Argentina of using the tribunal to renew its sovereignty claim.

But, while saying Mr Burnham is 'right' to defend plans for drilling around the Falklands, the Tories questioned Labour's chaotic position on fossil fuels.

At the same time as Ms Reeves is fighting for oil and gas exploration in the Falklands, the Government is pushing ahead with new laws to ban new drilling off the UK coast....<<<Read More>>>...

North Sea oil and gas should be for the people of the UK

 

Michael Clark argues that the UK should implement a national energy obligation to reserve North Sea oil and gas for domestic use, prioritising households, essential services and industry to mitigate the impact of international price volatility and supply disruptions.

Because North Sea production has declined significantly since 1999, leaving the UK today as a net importer of both oil and gas, this proposed reservation strategy aims to improve security and affordability rather than achieve complete national self-sufficiency....<<<Read More>>>...

Shock Evidence Suggests Humans Are Not Responsible for Most of the Increase in Atmospheric CO2

 Humans contribute just 4% of the carbon dioxide that enters the Earth’s atmosphere each year but the ‘settled’ science of anthropogenic climate change states that this has caused a 50% rise in the trace gas since pre-industrial times. In fact, this arguable statement can be tested using carbon isotope data and the results are in from a detailed mathematical paper just published by a leading climate scientist (sceptic branch) Dr Willie Soon. His bombshell conclusion is that fossil fuels are not responsible for the recent increase in atmospheric CO₂. This is despite the widespread scientific conclusion to the contrary that has the added advantage of backing the political Net Zero fantasy....<<<Read More>>>...

AI dependence linked to sharp decline in cognitive performance, new studies confirm

MIT, Oxford and UC Berkeley researchers found that just 10 minutes of AI assistance significantly impairs focus and persistence on difficult tasks.

Study of 1,222 participants showed those relying on AI quickly abandoned problems when the tool was removed.

AI users showed weaker neural activity compared to those who thought independently, according to separate MIT Media Lab research.

Experts warn AI use causes "cognitive atrophy" and may create a generation dependent on algorithmic thinking.

Researchers urge developing foundational critical thinking skills before introducing AI tools in education....<<<Read More>>>...

Burnham’s EU Reset Will Destroy UK Trade

 Andy Burnham's EU reset will trash 90% of UK goods exports by making them even more expensive while benefitting almost zero. Anyone who cares about British industry must stop this deal, says Catherine McBride.

For the many UK politicians and journalists who don’t know anything about UK trade, here are the highlights:

The UK is now predominantly a service exporter. 57% of UK exports are services, which are not affected by EU ‘red tape’.

UK goods exports have dropped from almost 70% of our total exports in 1997 to just 43% in 2025. This trend began long before Brexit and is tied to Net Zero mandates, high UK energy prices and EV mandates.

Machinery and transport goods, such as cars and aircraft parts, are 42% of all UK goods exports. This is by far the UK’s largest export sector, although it is also falling. It was 50% of UK exports in 2000. But if the UK joins the EU’s CBAM, companies in this sector will see their imported material costs rise, making their exports even less competitive.

Chemicals are the UK’s second-largest export sector. They account for 19% of UK goods exports, but this share is shrinking due to UK and EU energy costs and Net Zero regulations. These costs and regulations will increase if the UK joins the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).

Miscellaneous manufactures account for 11% of UK goods exports. This is still the UK’s third-largest export sector, even though it includes many goods the UK no longer makes because of our high carbon taxes, which will increase if the UK signs up to the EU’s even higher ETS on November 20th.

Fuels account for 9% of UK exports. This is still the UK’s fourth largest goods export sector, even though the current and previous governments have tried to destroy it with bans on new exploration and ultra-high taxes.

Material manufactures account for 8% of UK goods exports. This sector includes iron, steel, aluminium, ceramics and glass manufacturing – industries that have gone, or are going out of business in the UK because of high UK energy costs, which will rise if the UK joins the EU ETS.

These five sectors make up almost 90% of UK goods exports. The other five industry sectors are insignificant. But the Government and our journalists think the UK is New Zealand and that the only goods we export are food and live animals to the EU. We don’t! UK food and live animal exports to the EU were just 1.3% of the UK’s total exports.

The Government is about to sacrifice all of the export industries listed above to slightly reduce the import costs of a handful of supermarkets, at least two of which are privately owned German companies. These savings will not be passed on to UK shoppers because the Government has also increased wages again, and supermarket energy costs will increase if we join the EU’s ETS.

UK exports of food and live animals will not increase because we are paying farmers to not produce them; this has nothing to do with EU red tape. Instead we are paying farmers to plant trees and wildflowers or plaster their farmland with solar panels. (54% of UK electricity is coming from gas today, 12% from solar and 3% from wind.)...<<<Read More>>>....

Godfather Of AI Warns Of ‘Chernobyl-Like’ Blackout Event Soon

More of the fear narratives published on the WWW to generate more fear and put more humans into survival mode ... keep desensitizing the masses including the conspiracy theory fraternity!

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According to a report from NDTV, Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the godfather of artificial intelligence, has issued a stark warning that a Chernobyl-like event triggered by AI could strike later this year or next year, potentially causing a temporary blackout of financial systems or power grids.

The Nobel laureate made the remarks ahead of a screening of a new documentary titled AI: Probably Nothing to Worry About, a name suggested by an AI chatbot itself, which features both Hinton and his former Google colleague Demis Hassabis.

Speaking to The Guardian, Hinton stressed that he does not consider himself a “doomer” about the technology, yet he insisted humanity would have been better off had it never been developed in the first place....<<<Read More>>>....

UK Prepares for “Black Sky” Catastrophe as Experts Warn Power Outage Could Collapse Modern Life Within Days

 Is this for real? Or is it scaremongering to desensitize people and flick them into survival mode. For when human adopt survival mode ... they are easy to control.

Its a world wide warning at this moment in time. Could this be the imminent events to bring in the new world order ... or is this the script that was going to be used and it now has no substance.

Only time will tell. 

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 According to a report from the BBC, British authorities are racing to strengthen emergency backup systems against a “Black Sky” event — a total failure of electricity, water, communications, and retail that could plunge the nation into chaos. The warning comes amid growing recognition that decades of digital dependence have left the country vulnerable once the lights go out.

The concept gained urgency from a real-world failure in Lancaster. On the night of 5 December 2015, the River Lune flooded and cut power to 61,500 residents. Lancaster University professor Roger Kemp later described the moment it hit: “I was halfway through a Scandi crime drama when everything went off. Streetlights were off. The sodium glow that we can see over the horizon from Morecambe was off.”

The following day the city resembled a scene from a disaster film. “Almost like a zombie movie,” Kemp recalled. “People trying to find phone reception, wondering where things were, and there was a huge queue at the one working telephone box.”...<<<Read More>>>....

Labour Gives Energy Companies Powers to Snoop on Tax Records

 Oh the irony! The government giving government controlled quangos the ability to snoop on our tax records.

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The Government is giving energy companies the power to snoop on customers’ incomes, tax records and property values. The Telegraph has the story:


It could pave the way for surcharges on wealthier households to subsidise bills for others as part of future plans to tackle rising energy prices.

Ministers have identified eight official databases that could be shared with energy firms to help them “target” future support at certain households.

These include HMRC income tax and child benefit records, property valuations and benefits and pension records.

The sweeping new powers are part of the energy independence bill, introduced to Parliament last week.

The Government’s impact assessments reveal that future discounts on energy bills for those in financial need could be funded by an extra levy on the bill of wealthier customers. …

Under current laws, energy companies can access fuel poverty data to assess where to target energy relief schemes.

However, under the new laws, they would have access to a far greater range of customers’ personal datasets. These would be shared by the Government on a case-by-case basis, depending on the design of future schemes....<<<Read More>>>...

I Was a Remainer, But There’s No Case At All for Rejoining the EU

 Rachel Reeves has said the UK should rejoin the EU as Brexit made the country "poorer, weaker and less secure". Nonsense, says Nick Rendell, who as a Remainer sees no case at all for rejoining.

My stock phrase to anyone asking me why I intended to vote ‘Remain’ was: “I don’t think the prize is worth the winning.” In retrospect I think I was right. Not because we couldn’t make a ‘go’ of life outside the EU, but simply because the government and the ‘Establishment’ was always going to let the potential slip away.

For me it was a lack of trust in our institutions rather than a lack of principle. And if our institutions were hopeless, how much worse are the EU’s. Not that it’s much solace, but at least we get a vote for our ‘Uniparty’; no one ever voted for Ursula von der Leyen or the EU Commissioners.

Like millions of voters, I could have gone either way. We all had to make a binary choice about something that we felt was very much in the balance.

But now we know that leaving the EU barely made a dent in the UK’s fortunes. The government’s disastrous handling of Covid, Net Zero and migration turned out to be vastly more impactful than leaving the EU....<<<Read More>>>...

Experts warn Bird flu raging on Utah mink farm could spark “human pandemic”

 Another entry in The Pantomime chapter "Fear Narratives" .... "whatever" .... 'experts say' is spin for 'lets activate the mass formation again and feed off the fear' .....

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For more than two months, a virulent strain of bird flu has torn through thousands of mink at a Utah fur farm without decisive intervention, creating what experts describe as a dangerous opportunity for the virus to mutate and potentially ignite a human pandemic.

According to a ProPublica investigation detailed in the Post Register, the outbreak at C&T Fenn Farms, located about an hour south of Salt Lake City, began after state officials learned in mid-August that mink were dying of the disease. It marks the first documented case of avian flu in mink in Utah.

The same highly pathogenic avian influenza that has devastated American poultry and dairy operations for years has already claimed two human lives after animal exposure. While it has not yet shown efficient human-to-human transmission, scientists warn that mink—whose airways closely resemble those of people—could serve as the intermediate host needed for adaptation. Crowded conditions raise the odds of mutations that could allow the virus to attach more readily to human cells....<<<Read More>>>...

At COP31 Even the UN is Giving Up

 As 100,000 people fly into Turkey for COP31 to discuss saving the planet, Tilak Doshi points out that the hosts are pursuing coal, oil and gas projects with abandon, and even the UN is giving up.

Another year has passed, another ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will convene. Next Monday the travelling circus pitches its tent again, this time in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya, for COP31, which runs from November 9th to the 20th. Some 100,000 participants are expected. Apart from the usual grand-sounding communiqués, more breast-beating by the climate NGOs and alarmist headlines by the legacy media, nothing much of practical significance will come out of COP31 in Turkey....<<<Read More>>>...

Americans pushing back against explosion of Data Centers

 Trenton residents have delivered a decisive blow to large-scale data center development, approving a ban on facilities requiring more than 25 megawatts of electricity within city limits. According to a report from the Journal-News, unofficial election results from Tuesday, November 3, showed the measure passing 80 percent to 20 percent with 100 percent of precincts reporting.

The outcome marked a major win for residents who spent more than a year pushing back against proposed projects amid concerns over noise, light pollution, environmental impacts, rising utility demands, and transparency.

Trenton resident Barry Blankenship, who led the effort to place the ban on the ballot, described the results as emotional. “Everybody’s just so happy right now that a group of citizens came together, stood up for an issue — Democrats, Republicans alike,” he said. “We stood together and we beat a city.”....<<<Read More>>>.....

The Simple Empirical Observation That Blows the CO2 Climate Narrative Out of the Water

 There's a simple empirical observative that blows the CO2 climate narrative out the water; it's the inconvenient fact that winter has warmed much more than summer.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

The above principle, stated by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, is one of the foundations of science, yet this seems to have eluded many in the world of climate science.

If rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is the primary driver of recent warming, we should expect relatively uniform warming across the months of the year. Carbon dioxide is a well-mixed gas; its radiative effect does not change strongly from one month to the next. The world’s longest continuous instrumental temperature record tells a different story....<<<Read More>>>....