Cont: Global warming discussion V

[dann]

65.5 percent of new cars sold in Denmark in the first three months of 2025 were electric. In the EU, it was only 15.2%:
Markant fremgang i EU’s elbilsalg i årets første kvartal (Mobility Denmark, April 24, 2025)

And, surprise, surprise, for the most part those electric cars aren't Teslas:
Teslas salg styrtdykker I Danmark (TV2.dk, April 1, 2025)
Tesla sales plummeting in Denmark

In the first six months of 2024, the percentage of new electric cars sold in Denmark was only 45% - but more than 50% if you include imported used cars: Elbiler i top: Her er vores favoritbiler i 2024 (FDM, July 2, 2025)

I don't know why people in the rest of the EU don't buy more electric cars. I think it may be due to the protective tariffs of 21% on Chinese cars due to the many car-manufacturing countries in the EU. I guess infrastructure may also have something to do with it. It could be a way of limiting the number of electric vehicles without being as overt about it as you are when you use tariffs.

 

[dann]

The 89 Percent Project

Most of the world’s population wants stronger climate action. They just don’t realize that they are a majority (The Guardian, April 22, 2025)
The 89 Percent Project is a partnership between the Guardian US, Covering Climate Now, Agence France-Presse and dozens of other newsrooms across the globe. The collaboration builds on a slate of recent scientific studies finding that between 80-89% of the world’s population want stronger climate action. This overwhelming global majority, however, does not realize that they are a majority; most think their fellow citizens don’t agree. Experts agree breaking this “spiral of silence” could be pivotal to spurring critical climate action.

‘An outlier’: why does the US rank low on demands for climate action? (The Guardian, April 23, 2025)
Support for climate action is growing in the US, but partisan divides and fossil fuel interests hold sway

A silent majority of the world’s people wants stronger climate action. It’s time to wake up (The Guardian, April 23, 2025)
About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority

‘Spiral of silence’: climate action is very popular, so why don’t people realise it? (The Guardian, April 22, 2025)

Activate climate’s ‘silent majority’ to supercharge action, experts say (The Guardian, April 22, 2025)

Wave of Earth Day protests as Americans mobilize against Trump (The Guardian, April 21, 2025)


ETA: The thread on X (April 23, 2025) where I first saw this already suffers from a major MAGA bot infestation:
"I wonder what the survey question was and if it made the costs clear or the chances of the "action" resulting in success?"
"could that be because the left monopolizes the conversation?"
"Now ask these people will they pay 10% more for food and for gas. It's Maslov's Hierarchy of Needs screwing up Utopia."
"PHD disqualifies you from real world reality"
"most of the world is retards.. So there is that."
"No, it really doesn’t. It doesn’t want any dip ◊◊◊◊◊ - either government or academic - telling it what personal freedoms must be forfeited in order to address this made-up problem."

Phil Edwards on X, April 23, 2025
What matters is the developing world. They are prioritizing poverty alleviation. They aren’t going to volunteer to stay poor to please far richer western eco-campaigners. They want what we’ve got.

It's funny how MAGA and Big Oil never want to show us graphs based on the per-capita numbers of CO₂ emissions:

DannSim on X, April 24, 2025
Why don't we take a look at the per-capita numbers for a change?
Refreshing, isn't it?!
is so much worse than . Always was.

https://t.co/Z60uerVOcD

I should have added: "Always was ... since 1900" Before that it was the leading capitalist nation till then, .

 

[dann]

65.5 percent of new cars sold in Denmark in the first three months of 2025 were electric. In the EU, it was only 15.2%:
Markant fremgang i EU’s elbilsalg i årets første kvartal (Mobility Denmark, April 24, 2025)

And, surprise, surprise, for the most part those electric cars aren't Teslas:
Teslas salg styrtdykker I Danmark (TV2.dk, April 1, 2025)
Tesla sales plummeting in Denmark

In the first six months of 2024, the percentage of new electric cars sold in Denmark was only 45% - but more than 50% if you include imported used cars: Elbiler i top: Her er vores favoritbiler i 2024 (FDM, July 2, 2025)

I don't know why people in the rest of the EU don't buy more electric cars. I think it may be due to the protective tariffs of 21% on Chinese cars due to the many car-manufacturing countries in the EU. I guess infrastructure may also have something to do with it. It could be a way of limiting the number of electric vehicles without being as overt about it as you are when you use tariffs.

It means that Denmark will probably succeed in decreasing CO₂ emissions by 72% in 2030. The goal was 70%. 80-90% in 2035, and 100% in 2050 - maybe sooner.
Slut med rækkevidde-angst? Salget af elbiler overrasker og hjælper Danmark med vigtigt klimamål (DR.dk, April 30, 2025)

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Glug. Glug.

How Earth Would Look If All The Ice Melted


Hey. I'm safe. My elevation is 122 metres; well above the 66 metre rise

 

[dann]

List of countries by average (!) elevation (Wikipedia)
Top (or bottom) 10:
Maldives 1.5 m
Tuvalu 1.8 m
Kiribati 2 m
Marshall Islands 2 m
Singapore 15 m
Qatar 28 m
Netherlands 30 m
Denmark 34 m
Gambia 34 m
Estonia 61 m

I think 98% of Denmark will have disappeared at 66 m.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

And, surprise, surprise, for the most part those electric cars aren't Teslas:
Teslas salg styrtdykker I Danmark (TV2.dk, April 1, 2025)
Tesla sales plummeting in Denmark

Not sure what relevance you think this has. EU BEV sales figures for March show Tesla on top with 27,828, Volkswagen second with 25,544, and BMW third with 19,307. BYD is 12th with 8,458 and Toyota is 21st with 3,753. European car makers have little choice due to tightened emissions standards that are effectively forcing them to make BEVs whether they are profitable or not. Mostly not, but they hope to make it up on gas car sales. Tesla doesn't have that option so they need to make a profit on their EVs, making them more expensive because gas car sales aren't subsidising them. This is the perverse incentive other car makers have to sell as many gas cars as they can.

As more cars makers get serious about EVs the competition was bound to increase. Nobody should have been surprised by it. Tesla dominated for years because the others weren't serious, but that changed in 2023 - despite many car makers complaining about not being able to make a profit on their EVs and announcing plans to scale back. Tesla was down 30% (compared to the same month last year) in March 2025, partly as result of closing the Berlin production line as they retooled for new models. But Volvo and Fiat were both down 38%, Nissan was down 26% and Toyota was down 6% - and none of them had a good reason.

We won't know know how it all shakes out until the the end of 2025. However the first 3 months show Tesla's sales improving from -47% in Januarary to -44% in February and then -30% in March, so it seems they are on the mend. Note that this is compared to the same time last year, not absolute sales numbers, perhaps giving a distorted impression of actual sales numbers.

To review, Tesla sold more BEVs in Europe in March than any other car maker, and appears to be improving. Of course with all the different EV brands and models for sale now we would not expect any one brand to have an absolute majority. In the future we can expect that Telsa will slip further in the sales rankings - after all they only have one factory in Germany so even if they were running at full capacity and sold every car they made they still wouldn't beat all the others.

Not only is this no surprise, it's not even worth remarking on. So the question is why do you think it's worth remarking on?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Good to see some European car makers finally getting serious about EVs. However it's disappointing to see the European car industry continuing to slow-walk it.

MEPs vote to delay EU’s 2025 car climate target

The European Parliament today backed a proposal to delay the EU’s 2025 CO2 reduction target for carmakers. Green group T&E said the delay, which was also supported yesterday by EU member state ambassadors, is an unnecessary gift to the auto industry just as electric car sales are surging in Europe. It will only serve to hold back the transition to EVs and undermine investment certainty in European manufacturing...

the EU Commission responded to pressure from the European car industry by proposing to give automakers until 2027 to comply with their 2025 EU emissions reduction targets.

Here's hoping those who are dragging the chain get their just reward as consumers increasingly chose clean technology over stinky gas cars.

 

[dann]

Not sure what relevance you think this has. EU BEV sales figures for March show Tesla on top with 27,828, Volkswagen second with 25,544, and BMW third with 19,307. BYD is 12th with 8,458 and Toyota is 21st with 3,753. European car makers have little choice due to tightened emissions standards that are effectively forcing them to make BEVs whether they are profitable or not. Mostly not, but they hope to make it up on gas car sales. Tesla doesn't have that option so they need to make a profit on their EVs, making them more expensive because gas car sales aren't subsidising them. This is the perverse incentive other car makers have to sell as many gas cars as they can.

As more cars makers get serious about EVs the competition was bound to increase. Nobody should have been surprised by it. Tesla dominated for years because the others weren't serious, but that changed in 2023 - despite many car makers complaining about not being able to make a profit on their EVs and announcing plans to scale back. Tesla was down 30% (compared to the same month last year) in March 2025, partly as result of closing the Berlin production line as they retooled for new models. But Volvo and Fiat were both down 38%, Nissan was down 26% and Toyota was down 6% - and none of them had a good reason.

We won't know know how it all shakes out until the the end of 2025. However the first 3 months show Tesla's sales improving from -47% in Januarary to -44% in February and then -30% in March, so it seems they are on the mend. Note that this is compared to the same time last year, not absolute sales numbers, perhaps giving a distorted impression of actual sales numbers.

To review, Tesla sold more BEVs in Europe in March than any other car maker, and appears to be improving. Of course with all the different EV brands and models for sale now we would not expect any one brand to have an absolute majority. In the future we can expect that Telsa will slip further in the sales rankings - after all they only have one factory in Germany so even if they were running at full capacity and sold every car they made they still wouldn't beat all the others.

Not only is this no surprise, it's not even worth remarking on. So the question is why do you think it's worth remarking on?

You cut out everything except the part about Tesla from my post, which was about the increasing sale of electric cars in Denmark, and you make it all about the sale of Teslas in Europe, so the question is: Why did you do that?
Besides, you link to an article that says:

VW Finally Beats Tesla In EV Sales Across Europe (CarScoops, April 22, 2025)

• BEV sales in Europe reached 240,891 units in March, the second-highest month on record.
• Tesla led March sales but dropped to second in Q1, as VW soared with a 157% increase.
• The launch of the updated Model Y Juniper failed to reverse Tesla’s downward trend.

Did you invest in Tesla stock or something?!

Since you want to make this about the sale of Teslas in Europe for whatever reason:
Tesla Sales Drop in Europe (Statista, April 16, 2025) The graph is impressive!
Tesla Sales Fall in Germany and U.K. to Lowest Point in 2 Years (NYT, May 6, 2025)

Tesla's European Death Spiral Has No End in Sight (Inside EVs, May 5, 2025)
Despite this, Tesla's sales in the region plummeted by 45% to just 36,167 units, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA).

Tesla sales plunge across Europe (CNN Business, May 6, 2025)
Tesla sales continue to dive across Europe even as car buyers there increasingly buy electric vehicles

So the same trend in Europe as in Denmark!

You can find headlines like this one:
Tesla remained far ahead of the competition in Q1 2025, selling 128,100 EVs — more than the next 10 brands combined. (Reddit)
But if you look at the comments, you find a link to this article:
Tesla reports 13% drop in first-quarter vehicle deliveries from a year ago (CNBC, April 2, 2025)
Another one points out: "this is just US what about globally"

And Tesla sales aren't good in the USA:

Tesla's US sales are worse than what is reported, here's more accurate data (Electrek, April 11, 2025)
The Cox report cited in the media today claims that Tesla delivered 128,100 vehicles in the US in Q1 2025 – down 8.6% compared to Q1 2024.

Compare that to Tesla's Chinese competition from just one company:

BYD had its best sales week of 2025 in China with nearly 68,000 EV registrations (Electrek, May 13, 2025)
China's EV giant is on a roll. BYD is coming off its best sales week in China of 2025, racking up nearly 68,000 registrations.

Tesla is screwed!

 

[dann]

Analysis: Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time (CarbonBrief, May 15, 2025)
For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.
The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that China’s emissions were down 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 and by 1% in the latest 12 months.
Electricity supply from new wind, solar and nuclear capacity was enough to cut coal-power output even as demand surged, whereas previous falls were due to weak growth.
The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable, or falling, for more than a year.
However, they remain only 1% below the latest peak, implying that any short-term jump could cause China’s CO2 emissions to rise to a new record.

Other key findings include:

• Growth in clean power generation has now overtaken the current and long-term average growth in electricity demand, pushing down fossil fuel use.
• Power-sector emissions fell 2% year-on-year in the 12 months to March 2025.
• If this pattern is sustained, then it would herald a peak and sustained decline in China’s power-sector emissions.
• The trade “war” initiated by US president Donald Trump has prompted renewed efforts to shift China’s economy towards domestic consumption, rather than exports.
• A new pricing policy for renewables has caused a rush to install before it takes effect.
• There is a growing gap that would need to be bridged if China is to meet the 2030 emissions targets it pledged under the Paris Agreement.

I hope that this will shut up the MAGA morons on X who keep whining about China being the #1 CO₂ emitter - when they aren't busy denying anthropogenic global warming or claiming that CO₂ emissions help make the world greener!

They whine even more when I post this from Our World in Data: Per capita CO₂ emissions
They always insist that it's unfair to look at CO₂ emissions per capita.

 

[dann]

Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions (Heimildin.is, May 15, 2025)
They are said to have the capacity to collect four thousand tons of CO2 each year directly from the atmosphere.
According to data available to Heimildin, it is clear that this goal has never been achieved and that Climeworks does not capture enough carbon units to offset its own operations, emissions amounting to 1,700 tons of CO2 in 2023. The emissions that occur due to Climeworks' activities are therefore more than it captures. Since the company began capturing in Iceland, it has captured a maximum of one thousand tons of CO2 in one year.
(...)
A professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University in the United States, Mark Z. Jacobson, says the capture and disposal industry – abbreviated CCS in English – is nothing more than a scam. “This is the Theranos of the energy industry,” he says in an interview with Heimildin
(...)
Mark is adamant that carbon capture and storage are designed to delay the energy transition. “This technology perpetuates the business model of oil and gas companies,” he says, adding: “This is what this technology is designed to do. None of this is doing any good for the climate. On the contrary, this kind of technology is making things worse.”

The False Promise of Carbon Capture as a Climate Solution (Scientific American, Mar 1, 2024)

 

[Stout]

Lol, Climeworks. I'll bet the corporate directors took home huge paychecks though. IIRC I previously pointed out that in order to capture our current yearly emissions they'd need to build close to 11 million of these things. 11 million.

I suppose the big one is better at 1/9 of that number but it's still a hella lot of these plants.

Chalk up another failure for big climate.

Hey speaking of big climate how is that sooper speshul road through the Brazilian rainforest, just so the CoP 30 delegates don't have to look at poor people, coming along? I wonder if they're going to pave it with concrete or asphalt and if the wall they're building on either side of it (to keep those poors off it) was inspired by the Trump wall.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Hey speaking of big climate how is that sooper speshul road through the Brazilian rainforest, just so the CoP 30 delegates don't have to look at poor people, coming along? I wonder if they're going to pave it with concrete or asphalt and if the wall they're building on either side of it (to keep those poors off it) was inspired by the Trump wall.

Brazil state hosting COP30 denies new road linked to climate summit

Work to build the divided four-lane highway, called Avenida Liberdade, began in 2020, before the state capital Belem was chosen to host the summit, said Para's state government.

The project, which follows the path of an existing power line through a conservation area south of the city, has not received federal funds from Brazil's efforts preparing the city for COP30, according to the state and federal governments.

An 8 mile long 'highway' going though an area which was already cleared for power lines many years ago, planned to ease traffic on a major highway just outside the city of Belem (home to 2.5 million people). Its impact on the Brazilian rainforest is negligible.

Here's what the fuss is about:-

Numerous 'news' sites have described it as "cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest". Not quite what you imagined? That's by design. The concern trolls don't want context getting in the way of their narrative - which is that all government leaders are hypocrites because blah blah blah so we don't have to do anything about global warming.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

You cut out everything except the part about Tesla from my post, which was about the increasing sale of electric cars in Denmark, and you make it all about the sale of Teslas in Europe, so the question is: Why did you do that?

Because you made it about Tesla when you said "And, surprise, surprise, for the most part those electric cars aren't Teslas:". Why did you do that?

The sales in one particular country at one particular time don't mean much. I provided numbers for Europe as a whole to provide context. I probably should have shown how it's quite normal for the numbers to rise and fall dramatically from month to month too - but hey, I'm lazy.

Tesla is screwed!

No, it isn't. I bet you want Tesla to be screwed though, right? Why?

 

[dann]

Because you made it about Tesla when you said "And, surprise, surprise, for the most part those electric cars aren't Teslas:". Why did you do that?

The sales in one particular country at one particular time don't mean much. I provided numbers for Europe as a whole to provide context. I probably should have shown how it's quite normal for the numbers to rise and fall dramatically from month to month too - but hey, I'm lazy.

I did it because it was remarkable in the context of electric cars taking over the Danish market: A company that used to be popular is losing ground. Here my the whole post, which was about the sale of electric cars in general:

65.5 percent of new cars sold in Denmark in the first three months of 2025 were electric. In the EU, it was only 15.2%:
Markant fremgang i EU’s elbilsalg i årets første kvartal (Mobility Denmark, April 24, 2025)

And, surprise, surprise, for the most part those electric cars aren't Teslas:
Teslas salg styrtdykker I Danmark (TV2.dk, April 1, 2025)
Tesla sales plummeting in Denmark

In the first six months of 2024, the percentage of new electric cars sold in Denmark was only 45% - but more than 50% if you include imported used cars: Elbiler i top: Her er vores favoritbiler i 2024 (FDM, July 2, 2025)

I don't know why people in the rest of the EU don't buy more electric cars. I think it may be due to the protective tariffs of 21% on Chinese cars due to the many car-manufacturing countries in the EU. I guess infrastructure may also have something to do with it. It could be a way of limiting the number of electric vehicles without being as overt about it as you are when you use tariffs.

In the meantime, I have made another, much longer post (1,788) about the same trend in Europe as a whole, and you chose to ignore that one, too, except for one sentence. You ignore all the arguments and documentation, for instance:

Tesla Sales Drop in Europe (Statista, April 16, 2025) The graph is impressive!
Tesla Sales Fall in Germany and U.K. to Lowest Point in 2 Years (NYT, May 6, 2025)
(...)
You can find headlines like this one:
Tesla remained far ahead of the competition in Q1 2025, selling 128,100 EVs — more than the next 10 brands combined. (Reddit)
But if you look at the comments, you find a link to this article:
Tesla reports 13% drop in first-quarter vehicle deliveries from a year ago (CNBC, April 2, 2025)
Another one points out: "this is just US what about globally"

And Tesla sales aren't good in the USA:
Tesla's US sales are worse than what is reported, here's more accurate data (Electrek, April 11, 2025)
The Cox report cited in the media today claims that Tesla delivered 128,100 vehicles in the US in Q1 2025 – down 8.6% compared to Q1 2024.

You ignore all of that, and you comment on one sentence only:

Tesla is screwed!

No, it isn't. I bet you want Tesla to be screwed though, right? Why?

So the question remains: Why did you do that, Roger Ramjets?

Did you invest in Tesla stock or something?!

As for your question:
I do think it's good that Tesla is screwed. The company is run by a fascist who is destroying the lives of millions of Americans.
I also like it because it hasn't affected the overall production and sale of electric cars. On the contrary, the shift away from vehicles driven by fossil fuels continues, and so does the general shift away from fossil fuels to solar panels and wind turbines.

I pity the Tesla owners who may have bought their cars in good faith, but I hope that they will be able to sell them to MAGA morons before they become completely unsellable. As it is, Tesla only exists thanks to tariffs on much better and far cheaper Chinese electric cars.
It’s the world’s hottest car company. You can’t buy one in America (CNN, Mar 26, 2025)

And the switch away from fossil fuel is happening not only in Denmark and China but also in places like:

Cuba opens first of 92 solar parks in bid to tame energy crisis (Reuters, Feb 21, 2025)
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel inaugurated the first of 92 solar parks on Friday as part of a Chinese-backed plan to ease hours-long blackouts across the Caribbean island nation.

Havana's roads change as Cubans adopt electric bikes and vehicles (Reuters, July 18, 2024)
Havana is famed for the colorful vintage cars that can still be seen puttering around its streets and are a popular subject for visitors' photographs.
But these days, Cubans are just as likely to be found getting around quickly and quietly on electric scooters made with Chinese parts.

Indonesia 2025. First Quarter 2-Wheelers Sales Dropped 2% While EVs Keep Growing (Motorcycledata, April 14, 2025)
In April 2024, the Indonesian government has committed U$455 million to subsidize the purchase of electric motorcycles aiming to cover the purchase of 800,000 new electric motorcycles and the conversion of 200,000 combustion engine motorcycles into electric ones. The subsidy program provides an Rp 7 million (roughly around US$435.36) discount on the purchase of electric motorcycles.

Tesla doesn't contribute to that change at all, so Tesla can die and rest in peace. Along with Harley Davidson. I think it will probably make the world a better place. It can't happen too soon.

 

[Stout]

Well, of course they're going to spin their new highway through the rainforest to their mega blah, blah, blah conference in the middle of nowhere. They got with bad optics on this along with the usual observations about delegates shoving their fat little faces deep into the oil trough just to get there. They learned nothing from the pandemic, hold this conference virtually \.

CoPs keep happening, emissions keep going up.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

The False Promise of Carbon Capture as a Climate Solution (Scientific American, Mar 1, 2024)

And now they're downsizing, https://www.theguardian.com/environ...bon-from-air-to-cut-workforce-by-more-than-10, quoting economic uncertainty and lack of appetite for "climate technology". I'm guessing their investors, both private and state, have cottoned on to the fact that CCS is a scam.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Lol, Climeworks. I'll bet the corporate directors took home huge paychecks though. IIRC I previously pointed out that in order to capture our current yearly emissions they'd need to build close to 11 million of these things. 11 million.

I suppose the big one is better at 1/9 of that number but it's still a hella lot of these plants.

Chalk up another failure for big climate.
Hey speaking of big climate how is that sooper speshul road through the Brazilian rainforest, just so the CoP 30 delegates don't have to look at poor people, coming along? I wonder if they're going to pave it with concrete or asphalt and if the wall they're building on either side of it (to keep those poors off it) was inspired by the Trump wall.

Another failure for capitalism trying to scam off climate change, you mean.

 

[Stout]

Another failure for capitalism trying to scam off climate change, you mean.

If you want to put it that way then, yes, it was a capitalistic way to scam investors like carbon credits and indulgences.

I saw a rather interesting CCS idea decades ago on Discovery channel. A stand alone solar powered cylinder that creates solid CO2 "torpedos" then the company hauls them out to seas on a ship, chucks them over the side and they're supposedly dense enough to descend to the sea floor at great speed where they bury themselves in the sediment and remain...forever?

 

[arthwollipot]

Analysis: Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time - Carbon Brief

For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.

www.carbonbrief.org

 

[dann]

Already been there. See post 1,789.