Following a tropical storm, it doesn’t take much time for the chattering classes to jump to climate change as the root cause. However, a new report, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has found that far from what the media might have you believe, hurricane activity has not increased in recent years. Far from it – 2021 and 2022 saw the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes for any two years since 1980.

What’s more, the paper’s review of historic evidence found little to support the observed trend that hurricane activity has worsened since the 19th century – this pattern has only emerged due to changing measurement methodology. The report also argues there are no trends in hurricane frequency since reliable satellite data was introduced in the 1970s and that new methodology may well be overestimating the wind speed of large hurricanes, relative to historic data. You can always trust the eco-loons to whip up a storm in a teacup.

Co-conspirators can read the paper in full here.

Yesterday was International Polar Bear Day, and on cue the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has released its annual report on Guido’s favourite cuddly carnivores. Despite the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group’s suggestion that the polar bear numbers are declining, zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford is the bearer of good news: recent studies indicate they’re actually thriving. According to the GWPF, the global polar bear population total is almost 32,000…

Writing in the report, Crockford adds:

“The current health and abundance of polar bears continues to be at odds with predictions that the species is suffering serious negative impacts from reduced summer sea ice blamed on human-caused climate change.”

The reports of the bears’ deaths are greatly exaggerated – happy (belated) International Polar Bear Day!

Last year Guido reported the news that the Government was refusing to publish the “over 220,000 specified data points… organised over 100 Excel workbooks” it had produced on calculating the cost of a net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 policy. The work, completed in 2019 prompted then Chancellor Philip Hammond to write a letter to Theresa May citing the greater than £1 trillion cost of Net Zero. Despite Hammond explaining it would leave certain industries “economically uncompetitive”, the policy was rushed through with next to no debate in the dying days of the May administration…

Yet now the Information Commissioner’s Office has finally ruled that the Treasury needs to release the underlying cost calculations. It was ruled that the public interest was not given sufficient weight in the Treasury’s original decision to withhold. In a lengthy contemplation of the case, the Information Commissioner’s decision notice, seen by Guido, finally concludes that “the public interest favours disclosure” of the cost calculation. The Treasury has 28 days to appeal or put up…

Andrew Montford, Global Warming Policy Forum, which won the decision says:

“This is a major embarrassment for the Treasury. It appears that it cobbled together a few numbers on the back of an envelope, and simply emailed them off to the Prime Minister without a blush. After Parliament’s decision to adopt the Net Zero target without any meaningful scrutiny, and without consideration of the economic and engineering implications, it is becoming clear that the whole project is misgovernance on a historic scale.”

A trillion-pounds is completely off the scale…