Guest essay by Alberto Z. Comendador
As the US weighs whether it should withdraw from the Paris agreement, a critical question is how effective have climate change policies been so far. A failure of the policies adopted until now doesn’t necessarily mean that future policies will likewise fail, but it will provide further evidence that decarbonizing is, well, difficult. And expensive.
One routinely hears comments that the US is the country most affected by climate contrarians / denialists, and that in other parts of the world (most notably Europe) this debate doesn’t exist, there is consensus about the need to act, etc. To quote a German citizen:
‘The 97% of climate scientists who agree on the basics include many conservative scientists. That there is a problem is not a partisan issue. How to solve it, that is politics. The Paris climate agreement was signed by nearly 200 countries and thus many conservative governments. They accept that climate change is a real problem. European conservative parties may be less active, but do not deny there is a problem.
In Europe only Trumpian racist parties deny there is a problem. That the climate “debate” is mostly an American problem shows that the problem is not conservative versus liberal, that it is not a lack of scientific evidence, it is not a problem of the communication of science. The problem is the corrupting influence of money in US politics and media.’
I take him at his word.
Germany is the country with the strongest consensus around the need to ‘do something’ about climate change. No other nation has started an ambitious a plan as Energiewende. The program started in 2000 and set an objective for 2050 – though bizarrely, as is common with these ‘plans’ and ‘roadmaps’, the objective is stated in absolute greenhouse gas emissions rather than the emission intensity of the economy. It’s easy to see the problem:
a) If emissions by 2050 are higher than the plan stated, advocates will claim that this happened because economic growth was stronger than expected. In other words: advocates could claim climate policies succeeded in making emissions lower than they would otherwise have been. Of course advocates of emission cuts never clarified how much economic growth they expected in the first place, so this claim is completely unfalsifiable.
b) If emissions by 2050 are the same or lower than the plan stated, advocates will claim success for the plan – even though the decline in emissions may in fact be due to economic crises and/or population decline.
Not to sound repetitive, but the only measure of progress that makes sense is the emissions intensity of GDP. In particular, how much this intensity declines per year. In this article I will show a positive number, i.e. how many more dollars of GDP per ton of CO2 emissions we get every year, as that seems more intuitive to me. I call it the decarbonization rate. I use CO2 emissions from combustion, as emissions of methane, ozone, N2O, and CO2 from land use are highly uncertain.
Anyway, let’s get back to Energiewende. We’re now 1/3 through the plan, so if it’s having any effect one should see:
a) That the decarbonization rate in Germany is higher than in the previous period
b) That this rate is higher than in other countries, which presumably don’t care so much about climate action. Compared with the US the difference should be massive.
Here we can see US decarbonization since 1966, as emissions data starts only in 1965. We can see the same for Germany since 1971, as that’s when the country’s GDP data starts – at least in the World Bank’s website.
Ooops: now only is Germany’s rate about the same as the US’s, it’s also lower than it was before!
In fact, to be more precise, the 2000-2015 average is 2.06% for Germany and 2.26% for the US. Over 1971-1999, Germany’s average is 3.13%. But this figure is inflated by the very high increases of 1989-1992, when the formerly communist economy of East Germany shut down most of the CO2-intensive industries (with little effect on GDP). Excluding those four years, Germany’s pre-Energiewende average is still 2.58%, or a bit higher than since 2000 – though one must mention the figures for the 70s are ‘helped’ by high oil prices.
I guess the best one could say is that Germany’s decarbonization rate is about the same as before.
Just to be clear: a higher rate of decarbonization is the minimum one could ask of a climate policy. It’s necessary, but not sufficient, because it’s still possible for that policy to cost so much as to make the reduction in emissions not worth it. One shouldn’t automatically consider a higher rate of decarbonization better than a lower one. In other words, one has to consider cost-effectiveness – as with every other thing we spend money on.
In Germany’s case there is no point debating the cost-effectiveness of climate policies, because their effectiveness is at best zero.
Advocates of emission cuts are entitled to their own opinions, not to their own facts. If someone wants to make the case that climate policies have in fact been successful, whether in Germany or worldwide, he has to find fault with the numbers supplied by the World Bank and BP. If the data on fossil fuel combustion were significantly wrong, that would be big news. If the data on German (or global) GDP growth were significantly wrong, that would be huge news.
So proving that climate policies have worked is simple: prove the numbers wrong.
You could win a Nobel Prize.
References:
Emissions data from BP can be found here. The 2016 version should be published in a month or so.
GDP growth data from the World Bank can be found here.
The calculations and plot used in the article can be seen here.
Further reading
Shameless plug here: this is the fourth article in a series (not sure if it will continue). The first showed that there is little difference in the rate of decarbonization in Europe compared to the US., and little improvement over time either side of the Atlantic (except during periods of oil crises) That article left out Germany, as I thought (mistakenly) that the data would be a mess due to the reunification.
The second illustrated that:
a) The rate of decarbonization, worldwide, has actually declined since the Kyoto agreement in 1997.
b) Even if climate policies managed to increase this rate by 1% (essentially doubling it, as the historical average is only 1.1%), the difference in century-end temperatures would be only 0.38ºC
The third article likewise assumed that climate policies increased the rate of decarbonization by 1%, but applied this to historical data since 1979. In other words: if we had implemented effective decarbonization policies back then, what would be the difference in current temperatures? The answer is between 0.05º and 0.1ºC, depending on how much of the reduction in emissions corresponds to a reduction in CO2 concentrations.
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Alberto Z. Comendador:
Thankyou for your clear analysis.
I like your parameter of ‘decarbonization rate’ and I will adopt its use.
Richard
Thanks! Other people have used this metric before but for some reason it hasn’t caught on.
Btw: ‘an ambitious a plan’ should read ‘as ambitious a plan’. My bad.
Not “my bad” but My mistake. Americans have difficulty with English too.
(Grey, I’m pretty sure it’s from sports, particularly basketball, wherein there is a need to quickly communicate that one recognizes they committed a minor error or oversight . . it’s not (necessarily) that the speaker doesn’t understand the proper English version, so much as it indicates awareness of the “no big deal” nature of a mistake, and a cooperative/cordial attitude. I think Alberto’s usage was excellent . . Your bad ; )
“Numbers don’t lie”
but depending on how you use them they can. Always be suspicious when you see rates before you see the numbers. Especially if you never see the numbers…
Based on your referenced tables, Germany is some 70% of what CO2 emissions that it had in the early seventies; the US is more than 20% over, and only some 10% less than what it was 10 years ago.
I would say that is big difference.
ReallySkeptical:
You have missed the point again.
In this case both economies have grown while emissions growth has be constrained to a lesser rate.
That is a great success.
Richard
Germany is some 70% of what CO2
==============
“But this figure is inflated by the very high increases of 1989-1992, when the formerly communist economy of East Germany shut down most of the CO2-intensive industries (with little effect on GDP). “
RS,
The numbers don’t lie, but how you misrepresent them can make people wonder if you’re a liar…
1-You’re reading the chart wrong. It shows the rising and falling of the emission intensity of GDP, not gross emission rates. So the higher the plotted line goes, the more decarbonization is happening in a growing economy, the lower it goes, the less decarbonization is happening.
The US’s rate of decarbonization is MUCH higher today than it was in 1970 (much more decarbonization today) and the German rate is slightly lower (less decarbonization). So far, their Energiewende has produced no change. We don’t have an Energiewende, but we do show change.
2- He provided links to the numbers.
RC: I think the problem is that in modern times GDP and emissions are no longer linked like in the past.
Ap: Not reading his chart; reading the tables.
The real problem, of course, is that there is no proof–none–that CO2 actually raises the temperature of the earth; nor is there proof–real, actual, observational proof–that a little rise in the average temperature (whatever that might actually be) would be harmful. All of the Energiewende is gargling at windmills and trying to think the weather cooler–no effect at all except to cripple the economy. Who has shown that all the measures of adopting and using “renewable” fuels have actually, really, truly, verifiably reduced the earth’s temperature by as much as a millionth of a degree F? What a waste of time, money, energy, and lives all of this is! What an odd and ironic phenomenon is this German nonsense–and Germany used to be known for its contributions to science!
Again it’s Don Quixote against windmills.
Thanks, Alberto!
Griff, Germany’ north / south grid is delayed min. 2025:
https://www.google.at/search?q=germany+electricity+north+south+grid+is+complete+around+2025.&oq=germany+electricity++north+south+grid+is+complete+around+2025.&aqs=chrome.
compare with BER = airport berlin delayed 5. time and you know stupid germans last resort is
LYING.
https://www.google.at/amp/s/global.handelsblatt.com/companies-markets/berlin-airport-opening-delayed-for-fifth-time-668964/amp
And then compare costs for 1 single airport to a grid spanning north/south, east/west all germany.
Won’t happen in this century – there’ll be other solutions until. Cheaper?
And then compare costs for 1 single airport to a grid spanning north/south, east/west all germany.
Won’t happen in this century – there’ll be other solutions until. Cheaper?
/ WordPress mess; annoying /
However Germany’s original plan did not take into account switching off nearly half its nuclear reactors overnight in 2011.
Also, to date progress on emissions has been mostly in the electricity sector, with transport and heating lagging behind.
Then they reorganised the energienwende to make it affordable and to restrict some classes of renewables until the north south grid is complete around 2025.
So the original shape of the plan has been dented a bit, but overall it looks on track,
so – are they continuing with it? Yes.
Is it on target for 2020? yes
And 2030 and 2050? yes
(and with 4 of the 8 remaining reactors offline in recent weeks, looks like they’ll have no problem doing without those either)
“On plan” for massive electricity price increases..
and regular “load shedding”.
The future of Germany is assured. 😉
No problem; 45% of german people diving below ‘Armutsgrenze’;
they will pay for.
Nuclear reactors do not have a CO2 problem….So your comment is irrelevant.
“So your comment is irrelevant”
That’s griff for you….
… always IRRELEVANT !!
@ur momisugly griff
“Is it on target for 2020? yes
And 2030 and 2050? yes”
That is flat out wrong.
It is neither on target for 2020 nor for 2030. Even proponents and government admitted that the 2020 target (40% reduction compared to 1990) will be missed. They are at approx 28% currently which means they should achieve nearly 4% / year in the remaining 3 years whereas the average achievement in the past 17 years 0.7% / year. Another issue is that until 2020 Germany will lose more clean nuclear power and will have to replace it by coal & gas since the RE ratio is already relatively high and subsidies for as well as investment in RE are decreasing.
What went wrong for the Energiewende proponents? They calculated with a higher electrification rate in the transport sector which did not come (mainly because nobody invested in load stations and people drove further to their work than estimated). Then they calculated with a higher energy saving in the housing sector. But they weren’t able to provide a standard or a guideline what to do and not do. Additionally much less people wanted to build such expensive new homes as they imagined simply because interest rates are already near zero and the government offer of 0.2 or 0.5 percent less for a climate neutral building does not rock if that means to invest additional 50,000 €.
It might get slightly better for 2030 since electrification of transport might start in the coming years. But do not forget that every 7th household already has problems to pay the energy bill. Once they move from fossil fuels to electric cars they will have to raise energy costs by another 20% to substitute the high tax returns from fossil fuels. Imagine what the poor people without cars in cities might hink of that.
Energiewende is dead, yet, they just don’t tell you. They call it different future sustainanbility goals.
Some call it “a huge botch”.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/03/04/basf-executive-calls-german-energiewende-a-huge-botch-government-fooling-the-public/#sthash.yQHvds08.dpbs
And then there’s this recent article from German researchers studying the effects of infrasound on the brain.
http://www.windconcernsontario.ca/wind-turbine-infrasound-can-harm-health-new-research-paper-says/
In Griff’s mind, if the government says they are on target, they are on target. No disagreement is permitted.
He and all the other [snip]
Griff, such a mischief from your side. I live in Germany and I have been born here and I know exactly which plans can be fulfilled and which are not. For example, in the area of electro-mobility, people simply do not buy electric cars. In the country of the inventors of the car engines such as Otto or Diesel this is not surprising. Furthermore, in the unstable weather of Germany, any solar or wind power solution of energy generation needs backup power plants with fossil energies such as coal and gas, or petroleum. Solutions on the storage side are conceived, but at this time and in the state of the art in the manageable future technically feasible, but to the necessary extent uneconomical. And any uneconomic system will not be viable in the long run, no matter how you get stomped.
Hans-Georg,
Can you explain why the nuclear plants are being taken offline, if the big concern is CO2 emissions?
Are people in Germany aware of how badly overstated the dangers of low-level radiation are?
Has anybody there heard of radiation hormesis?
Besides for that, won’t the process of replacing fossil fuel based energy, with wind and solar, become increasingly difficult as the percentage of these sources in the power grid increases?
My understanding is that it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a stabilized grid when intermittent sources become a larger percentage of the total power input.
Please no, I’m asking these questions seriously, I’m not trying to be rude or impudent.
Thanks in advance.
Menicholas, I’m not German but can read it decently well, and my feelings from the comments on German newspapers is that people in general are much less sold on energiewende than we are lead to believe, there’s very frequently a lot of criticism about it, and the governement has taken that into account by making the subsidies regularly less generous in recent years, EEG 2017 is a new step for that.
However they are completely sold on nuclear being horribly dangerous. They are indeed massively convinced than closing their modern, and very well maintened nuclear plant is the only way to avoid an impending disaster.
Meanwhile, up to this stage their engineers have made wonders keeping the grid stable despite the high level of renewables. And also allowing their coal plant to follow load in an impressive way. We see everyday the whole fleet going down to what looks like lower than the minimum production level of a coal plant, and then going back to full power a few hours later. Must have a really high maintenance cost, but as to now, they manage to do it still. Also frequently and on average the level of renewable is not necessarily that high actually.
The main problem is the peaks during which the percentage can become very high, and we are going into May where it won’t be easy at all. The highest solar production of the year, with a significantly higher capacity of wind than last year, including a significant part of offshore wind that will more reliably produce even with clear weather when the solar production is also high. We could see renewables produce more than both is consumed and can be exported, which will be *interesting* to observe. Already during the last weekend, they have had almost 24 continuous hours of negative prices.
Germany has proportional representation. That means that a parrty like the Greens can with say 10% of the vote get 10% of the seats, as all German governments are coalitions of compromise. De nuking was the price of having greens onside at one point.
Compromise is never good. Neither side gets what they want, and what they get is typically bad for everyone.
MarkT: So you prefer a dictatorship?
The old saying: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” applies here.
Menicholas: The nuclear power plants in Germany have been and are being closed because the green party (which by the way now stands at 7 percent of the votes in Germany, when Bundestag elections were next Sunday) wanted it as an ancient, very green demand, and the Christian Democrat Merkel did not want a mess with the Greens. She hoped for a black / green alliance. Shortly after the accident in Fukushima the Ethics Council of Germany was convened and ordered from above that all nuclear power plants should be closed by 2020, since a similar accident in Germany could not be excluded (Germany is also an island and lies in the subtropical Pacific). However, the excellently technically maintained and secure German nuclear power plants were sacrificed on the altar of politics. If it was after the greens (thank god, it is now not quite so strong for them) so in Germany any nuclear research, no matter whether nuclear fission technology or fusion technology where forbidden.
The German dilemma is the result of green fear mongering!
They stir up the fear of nuclear energy and waste storage, and they exaggerate the danger of CAGW.
On the other hand, they are telling fairy tales about the possibility of energy supply with “renewables”!
Unfortunately the “Greens” have a strong adherence among journalists in the media, so that their (Neo Marxian) ideology of the “Great Transformation” (Decarbonisation) is spread under the cover coat of environmental protection!
Climate and environmental protection have become a sort of substitute religion for many!
So Germanys power supply for the next 50 years is not determined by an expert commitee, but an ethics council of laymen (mostly church representatives)
The conclusion (this time not only in Denmark) is:
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t!”
To wake up from green dreams, some Germans need the nightmare of a 2 day blackout!
“Fool’s Errand” comes readily to mind as well.
If I am reading the daily Griff rationalizations correctly, then Germany’s wind power plan doesn’t work because 1) no Nuclear power and 2) they tried to make it affordable, 3) the plan is nevertheless “on track” and best of all, 4) they promise it will all work in another 30+ years.
That’s your story and you’re stickin’ to it, right?
Griff, you do realize that it has been suggested that you are engaged in a ruse and that you are, in fact, a skeptic agent, filling these pages with all the latest Green newspeak, in order to highlight the complete irrationality of enviro- climate politics…
If that is his motive, it’s working. They really do come across as dimwitted fools, don’t they?
Bingo!
Well then either way, Griff is a brilliant win-win around here!
i doubt the plan considered companies building their own coal fired power stations (below the size where planning consent was needed) due to the the increasing cost of unreliable grid power. stupid actions usually have unexpected consequences .
Just as here in the states lots of businesses and home owners are putting in natural gas powered “emergency” generators.
at least that is better than the diesel powered emergency generators we have here in the uk.
Drill and frack, baby, drill and frack! Gas will solve that diesel problem. Or just live in the dark and freeze, that is the Final Solution the ecotards are driving you toward.
Griff,
for a ten year old you are quite smart, BUT !!! turn off the “outside source” ( Energy from Poland, Denmark, France etc ,) and Germany would be in the dark !
reducing CO2 is easy. raise the price. this will freeze the poor, cutting the problems with poverty. with global warming the poor don’t need heat anyways. at best a needless luxury. then as manufacturers move to china to cut costs, you can shut down all the remaining power plants and cut CO2 to zero.
And all it took was tripling the cost of energy.
Germany gamed the system initially, by counting the emissions from what was East Germany, with inefficient, soviet-era heavy industries, producing a lot of CO2 & real pollutants.
Their “decarbonisation” plans came off the rails, as their very powerful Green lobby, had their nuclear power stations turned off, post-Fukushima & they needed to replace the lost power. Lignite (Brown Coal) was used!
It really is surreal. They are razing villages that have been around since the Middle Ages in order to mine the dirtiest coal there is to cover the shortfall.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/02/140211-germany-plans-to-raze-towns-for-brown-coal/
Another variable in the energy equation is the movement of industry to other countries. I have never seen an accounting of German industry that has moved to China, India the USA or other countries. They exported the carbon emissions, so they count for someone else, but the CAGW is global – so what was gained. Recent and proposed movements of industries to the USA are based on affordable energy – sounds like lose-lose to me for Germany.
China stopped buying coal from North Korea…maybe they have a new market opening between the “Boy whom would be King of Earth” to supply them. LOL.
Probably from Moktar Rihatti in Indonesia, courtesy of his friend William Jefferson.
I do not see anyone getting a Nobel Peace Prize for proving that the Energiewende has not been a raging success any time soon. More likely to be dubbed a ‘Trumpian racist denialist skeptic’.! (Did I miss any derogatory labels?)
Hetero
Old.
white
‘Trumpian racist denialist skeptic’.! (Did I miss any derogatory labels?)’
Hah – words are cheap and filters are stuffed with blocked phrases.
Anyway I appreciate Trump’s open hearted tweets – better
– Trump said, “I think our side’s been proven very strongly and everybody’s talking about it and frankly, it should be discussed.”
– than everything is debated in backroom ‘speak easies’ and know one knows till 30 years after that documents are disclosed – as long as those documents weren’t shredded until.
CIS, thankfully I don’t know what that means but I see it thrown around a lot lately
Hans-Georg,
Can you explain why the nuclear plants are being taken offline, if the big concern is CO2 emissions?
Are people in Germany aware of how badly overstated the dangers of low-level radiation are?
Has anybody there heard of radiation hormesis?
Besides for that, won’t the process of replacing fossil fuel based energy, with wind and solar, become increasingly difficult as the percentage of these sources in the power grid increases?
My understanding is that it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a stabilized grid when intermittent sources become a larger percentage of the total power input.
Please no, I’m asking these questions seriously, I’m not trying to be rude or impudent.
Thanks in advance.
Cis is shorthand for cis-gendered, as opposed to trans, or transgendered.
The implication is that there is something wrong with being normal.
Sorry for the duplicate comment.
Mods, can you please delete?
Menicholas
For years Germany was the border between the Soviet Bloc and the West. The cold war was fought there. Well funded anti-nuclear anti-American anti-capitalist propaganda campaigns were the net result.
The Cold war has gone, but the campaigns and the groups have not: they now are funded by …well ‘knock me dahn wiv a fevver, Trevver’, Gazprom!
Russia builds domestic nukes and exports gas.
Energiewende doesn’t work, so as predicted gas consumption is steady and or increasing as coal gets shut down.
So long as nuclear power is an unacceptable option, politically. And fracking of course. Cant have Europe with access to its own gas can we?
Guess what is at the top of Greens list of bogey men. Nuclear power and fracking. They are unconcerned about coal.,
The European Green movement was hijacked many years ago to become a political propaganda arm of first, the KGB, and then post USSR collapse, the highest bidder in Russia.
Merkel is an East German communist. She knows how the game is played.
Male
Old
White
Male
(Thread is not posting in correct order)
Good comment, Asp. (not peace, though) In this age of the internet you get a +1, or more — I’m not sure how that works.
I’m of the age of getting little gold stars stuck to the top of things!
Further, about Alberto’s statement: “You could win a Nobel Prize.”
I’m old enough to remember when that was thought to be a high honor.
Now it has been corrupted by similar sounding silly awards.
For example, this one is fine, and deserved:
. . . “Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to British trio”
These 2 are just useless pandering:
. . . “Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize”
. . . ” awarded to the (IPCC) and Al Gore
OT:
[In the central part of the Great State of Washington — we are finally having a nice spring day!]
orange
Patriarchial.
Let’s get clear here. One of the goals of Energiewende is to shut down Germany’s nuclear power plants. We may question the wisdom of that decision, but it’s not irrational and it’s their decision to make. A quick Google search tells me that they’ve switched about 10% of their power generation from non-carbon emitting nuclear to other sources in the past six years. Doing that without substantially increasing carbon output seems something of an accomplishment.
Don K:
It is never an “accomplishment” when money that could have been spent on something useful was wasted on something pointless.
The appropriate phrase is ‘an act of stupidity’ NOT “an accomplishment”.
Richard
Money is how we ultimately keep score.
You forget that someone is footing the bill, and that is consumers,some of whom are going to freeze to death when they can’t afford to heat their homes. Or they starve, since it is a food/heat choice for some.
Either that, or they cut and burn “protected” forest which just puts the environment under stress.
The only up side is it is going to blow up in the faces of the current crop of politicians.
This accomplishment costs 40 billion Euro / year currently and since the grid costs now are rising as well it will cost definitely even more in the future.
Please have a look at the nice landscape in Germany’s North. Windmills are growing faster than trees there. Up there and in the East there are 2 villages that are 100% energy independent. They just use wind, solar and biomass and claim to produce the kWh at costs of about half the retail costs. If you look in the details you find that the investment was about 1.2 million Euro / household of which the households just had to pay 1,500 Euro. The rest was paid by the government and the EU. But the media are propagating that as a success. I wrote to our local government and asked for a million EURO, too to produce cheap sustainable energy. So far, I did not get an answer. Maybe i will get two million and have to sell it for a quarter of the retail price. That’s how the economy is supposed to work, at least in the former SU, China and nowadays in Germany.
Let’s clarify that ” The rest was paid by the Government and the EU” shall we, it was actually TAX PAYERS.
The Government & the EU do not have any money.
Don K.,
I disagree with your contention that it is not irrational for them to shut down those nuclear plants.
It is completely irrational, and doubly so when one looks at it from the perspective of people who believe that CO2 is the Boogeyman.
Do the people in Germany think that there’s going to be a tsunami?
The problems at Fukushima were caused by a veritable comedy of errors. One would have to be trying hard to repeat that disaster..
Shutting down the safest, most cost effective form of power is never rational.
Political Left and rationality are mutually exclusive.
You’re more likely to win a multimillion dollar lottery than see a catastrophic nuclear meltdown in your lifetime.
Leo Smith
100 + %
There isn’t one. That was just a political sidebar. It’s sheer happenstance that Fukishima opened the door for them at this time.
They panicked, over-reacted and got it wrong.
Just like the UK Gov’t did in 2001 with diesel cars and now admit as much. Yes, diesel gives better fuel economy but unfortunately will always produce soot and greater fuel efficiency means higher burn temps inside the engine means more NOx
Of course, those ingenious Germans who make a lot of Europe’s diesel engines got round the soot problem by (just incredible) feeding the engine’s exhaust back into the air intake. So, it makes the engines clean, but also makes them an expensive servicing and maintenance nightmare and, the big kicker, destroys their fuel economy.
Meanwhile, said Gov’t can never get their heads around Jevon’s Paradox. They keep pushing efficiency blindly unknowing that that increases overall consumption.
The Dead Hand of bureaucracy will result in a lot of dead people at some point. I’m not saying soon but – there is nothing else that can happen.
Peta. Gasoline engines also use Exhaust Gas Recycling and have since the 1970s in order to reduce NO2 emissions. NO2 is a real — quite visible — problem in places like Southern California with its notorious Summer inversion layer issues in the coastal basins. The problem the Germans had was that if you use EGR on the scale needed to pass emissions tests, it plays hell with performance. So they cleverly turned the EGR on during emissions testing and off when the cars were in the road. Great engineering solution perhaps, but quite illegal.
I’m told that not all diesels use EGR is their primary pollution control. Much the same results can apparently be achieved by injecting a bit of urea into the exhaust stream upstream of the catalytic converter. But that adds complexity and means that the vehicle operator has to keep fluid in the urea tank..
Ach du Lieber! Ich haft fluid in meine urea tank right now!!
injecting a bit of urea
======
the added benefit of pissing on the world as you motor along.
Peta in Cumbria: The diesel problem is largely homemade. In the delusion, also in the case of the actually economical diesel to reduce the CO2 emissions, these engines were optimized to this circumstance. The O is just the most reactive atom, and now it has been broken out of CO2 and attached to N. From this, NOx was used to the same extent as for the all-old diesel engines, although in the meantime they needed much less fuel. So far we see what the CO2 panic can do. And it is much worse if the exhaust gases, especially NOx, were measured in real-life conditions and not with exhaustion software and in the laboratory, there would still be far higher NOx values for all manufacturers of diesel cars, but also for gasoline coaches. Stylistic blossoms of CO2 delusion.
Just chew on the word ‘decarbonization’
my spell checker this moment learned it.
/ sarc on
anybody interested in decarbonizing children , elders, politicians, cute little polar bears.
/ sarc off
still decarbonizing environment is high priority
– OMG !
I agree that decarbonization, per se, is a crummy metric. Decarbonization per GDP is also bogus because the GDP includes financial services. link The GDP can look great but somehow people aren’t better off. link
We import much of our consumer goods from China. In that regard, we are exporting our carbon consumption to China. What we need is a way to count that in with our own decarbonization data. It could be that we aren’t really decarbonizing at all.
We are not exporting anything to China. They are choosing to manufacture goods and sell them for export. In doing so, they emit. We do not.
“We” are the world, so what they emit, we emit. No gain on a world wide basis.
And THIS! He just nailed the moral chicanery and fraud behind the entire “green” movement, as it relates to manufacturing! Same thing happens on the California/Mexico border.
How it works – enviros complain about emissions and industrial mess, no one fights back. Industry in question is shamed and banned, or at least operations are restricted so intensely that it has to shut down.
However, the industry in question is still in demand, may even be essential. Manufacturers, having anticipated this, simply move operations across the border where there are no environmental regs, few if any safety regs, and where employees can be hired for a fraction of what they would have cost back in the states. Also, any government “oversight” in the future can usually be managed by a few envelopes full of small bills.
Result – Manufacturers profits go UP. Total net pollution goes UP. Trade deficit goes UP. Left wing smugness, based on the feeling that they “Did something”, goes UP. Costs to consumers who need the product goes UP.
Jobs in the US go DOWN. Revenue to the US Government in the form of taxes goes DOWN. Amount of actual influence and control the US has over the amount of harmful pollution produced goes DOWN.
This is the system the left has created, the system the left cheers for.
wws: Not just the left. In the US, the political right embraced “free trade” just as strongly as the left who assured us that all sorts of great new high-tech jobs would replace the manufacturing jobs being shipped off shore. In fact back in the 1980s and 1990s just about the only two voices that I recall speaking loudly and clearly against unrestricted free trade were H Ross Perot (moderate right) and Bernie Sanders (far left).
As I recall Mr Limbow was no too keen on it either. Their were voices against it, and they all got demonized equally by left and right, just with different descriptive words.
And what we got was not any form of free trade.
Free trade is and has always been a net good.
The reason why manufacturing jobs are leaving is because of taxes and government regulations.
They would have left even without free trade.
The only thing NAFTA did was to take plants that were heading to Asia, and put them in Mexico instead.
It’s true that a country’s numbers can look good (or bad) simply because CO2-intensive industries are moving elsewhere. In other post I showed the data for the UK and it had a high decarbonization rate, but that may simply be because it’s de-industrializing while Germany mostly isn’t.
So the most reliable metric would be the global figure (see the ‘further reading’ section).
we should start by decarbonizing food. agricultural products should be all carbon free as well as gluten free to avoid health problems later in life.
That was funny. Yep. Starvation changes the mortality rate.
Jonchi7: Yep, decarbonize the population.
Ferd: you forgot that they have to have less sugar and lower starch, no salt, no additives for shelf life so we can drive to the store every day, be organically produced and non-GMO. All of this has extended life expectancy by many years during the last century – bad! The world needs fewer folks – especially old ones who don’t buy the green blob’s propaganda. We need more snowflakes and refugees who can’t read and write. They are a lot easier to control than us old grey beards.
I have directed two low-info twerps from NoTricks to come and argue against this.
I doubt they will have the courage to appear.. but if they do, please treat them with the hilarity they deserve.
Wouldn’t be Seb & Sod by any chance?
Has the decarbonisation policy provided lots of free money for protest organisations and their political friends?
Then it’s worked…..
There is a potential problem with the data.
People in my old hometown in England used to defy clean air laws by burning cheap coal in fireplaces, to avoid expensive electricity bills.
High prices drive civil disobedience and dishonesty.
I wonder how much of this grey market is captured by official statistics?
Nailed it there Eric.
All the laws in the universe are not worth the paper they are written on if everyone just ignores them.
It’s true that coal mined/sold within a country can escape statistics. China’s emission numbers are unreliable precisely for this reason – most of their emissions are from coal, and most of their coal is mined in China itself.
That said, in developed countries the bulk of coal use takes place in power plants, not in people’s homes. In Spain, for instance, outside a couple coal-mining provinces I don’t think anyone actually uses coal at home – and even in these provinces it’s rare. So for Germany and the US I believe the data will be accurate.
Log burners, the new “must have”.
Skip rats now pulling every bit of wood, painted, creosoted, varnished etc and selling it as kindling for wood burning households.
So Green,So Progressive,
RS
You have a point that a significant part of heating in Germany was electric, and now it has turned to whatever they can burn. It didn’t make a lot of difference in terms of carbon emission, because Germany’s electricity has always been very carbon intensive. But for people who don’t have the money to install an efficient gas heating, whatever they can burn will frequently be destructive, illegally chopped wood.
OT…. but sort of relevant
The WARMEST part, Holocene Optimum, of the Holocene was 9000-6000 year ago, when CO2 was at its LOWEST !!!
The COOLEST part (last 1000 years or so), is when CO2 was at its HIGHEST.
Someone has made a VERY BIG OOPS !!!
I like to point out that if CO2 is so warming, why do we re-glaciate only when it is at its highest levels?
I once saw a video of a presentation by James Hansen where he blew off a similar question using the phrase “delayed feedback”. Sounds good. I have no idea what it means. I don’t think Hansen did either..
Then the next point is, ‘Gee the CO2 changes after the temperature, WUWT?’
There, fixed that one for you:
http://i.imgur.com/0oqGbx0.png
Peta in Cumbria,
Just like the UK Gov’t did in 2001 with diesel cars and now admit as much. Yes, diesel gives better fuel economy but unfortunately will always produce soot and greater fuel efficiency means higher burn temps inside the engine means more NOx.
___________________________________________
yes, diesel trucks and tractors free people from
– Tenant miserably or body-ownship by landlords.
– that a lot of Europeans changed for freedom in the Americas.
To step back from Diesel trucks / tractors only leads to oxen force; slavery.
Free speech, freedom of mind, freedom of religion doesn’t apply to Islam as long as Islam isn’t just an intimate private religion but per ‘sharia’ is a worldly, political power.
But that’s another discussion.
“Not to sound repetitive, but the only measure of progress that makes sense is the emissions intensity of GDP. In particular, how much this intensity declines per year.”
Understand the point, but this is what allows China to pretend to be reducing while going from 10 billion tons to 15 billion. They are reducing intensity but increasing GDP by more, so total emissions rise.
You need both. If its to be real, you need to see real tonnage reductions, and if you are to keep standard of living, it has to be by reductions to intensity.
Of course, this is the point – that the only way to make enough reductions is to lower GDP. It is not in fact possible to lower intensity enough to make real reductions. This is why no-one will do it.
Number don’t lie, but the people who collect, crunch, and present the numbers often do.
how does the old saw go? Oh yeah: “Figures may not lie, but nobody ever said liars couldn’t figure, 😉 😉
You numpties just don’t get it! You’re not supposed to count all the “nice” carbon being used by the Greens to produce all the bird mincers, solar panels, etc. etc. to counter all the “nasty” carbon produced by all the horrible industrialists?
[/sarc added as requested. .mod]
Sorry sarc off tag missing!
SS…two questions?
What the heck is a numpty, and who you callin’ a numpty?
Building a visible-from-space neon sign with the German equivalent of “We’re Virtuous!” would have been just as effective, at a fraction of the cost (both financial and human).
I’m offended. We’re proud deniers here in Australia too. How dare they forget us.
If shooting yourself in the foot was an Olympic sport, Germany would own the podium (with Britain and Australia as close runners-up).
It would seem that left-wing governments always contain the seeds of their own destruction. The typical left-wing urge to go virtue-signalling on a vast scale always ends up with a really annoyed populace. They don’t necessarily appreciate the full reasons for their annoyance, but they will eventually lash out and destroy the smug elites who have caused their problems. This happened in France in 1789, and to a lesser extent in the US when Donald Trump was elected. Look for a similar reaction in Germany in the near future.
Roger, I agree with your podium. There was a time when I also expected a similar reaction in Germany as with Trump. I still do but not in the near future. I think it is more likely that the Germans take it to extremes before the whole system crashes. One reason is that the conservatives are no longer different from the left. As a conservative voter you just stay where you are (Merkel) and swallow the leftwing politics or you vote for the extreme right which most people probably refuse to do. There is no alternative in between. Finally I think a coalition between left, extreme left and greens is more likely than a rightwing revolution.
The problem comes from the fact that most people expect the government to take care of them, and when push comes to shove, they will always vote for whichever political party promises them the most free stuff.
It’s the socialist version of the Grasshopper and the Ant. Tax the ants to feed the grasshoppers.
Warmistas do no measure their success by merely lowering the concentration or emission rate of CO2 but rather by the cost, inconvenience and suffering that they are able to inflict on others in the pursuit of demonstating their Clear Moral Superiority over all other People on earth andsignalling to all their great Virtue before Gaia..
It was never intended to reduce any emissions, it has always been about reducing the available amount of energy/electricity/fuel. Drag everyone down into poverty and the Dream Of Socialism is acheived.
And raising the cost of such on those who don’t control the market. Usually leads to war.
Oh, the war which will engulf Europe in the not to distant future will be entirely religious, muslims have no problem with burning coal and petroleum.
It was never intended to reduce any emissions, it has always been about pandering to Green aspiration with virtue signalling cosmetic solutions that achieve nothing but a placebo for the weak green mind.
2hotel9, I’ve seen you here before and each time I am reminded of the USMC. hotel 2/9, as Hotel Co, 2nd Bn, 9th Mar. Is that you John Wayne?
Nope. That was a radio call sign I used in Army. Started using it as online usename when I finally gave in and became a part of the Borg. 😉
Do the German numbers include the emissions by the Polish coal plants that provide some of their electricity?
No. Only the coal/gas/oil burnt inside a country is counted.
Shutting down their ‘dangerous’ Nukes in favor of cheap French Nuclear electricity ‘safely’ across the Rhine and replacing dirty coal plants with ‘clean’ Russian Natural gas… now there’s a way to ‘hang’ Europe’s largest economy from the gibbet of its chief rivals..!?
Pity Kyoto wasn’t around instead of Munich in 1938!
HHH
Sorry, but this is a ridiculous exercise in proving the age old adage, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
A so-called “decarbonization rate as a function of GDP” is irrelevant to the effects of carbon generation worldwide … the climate, to the extent that it is affected by CO2 (certainly subject to vigorous debate) couldn’t care less that the GDP of the entire world is, let alone the GDP of any individual isolated small states within the worldwide economy.
Indeed, this chart showing the massive uptick the so-called “decarbonization rate of GDP” in Germany during the first several years of reunification is proof that this approach is fully bogus. One could probably perform a hundred peer-reviewed studies or PhD dissertation on the short term yet massive effects of reunification on the combined German economy, lifestyle, as well as other other socio-political effects, but clearly that range of data cannot be used to prove any point about the effectiveness of decarbonization. Any decent scientist or statistician would have to throw that data out of any model used.
I am a full blown critic and skeptic of AGW and the whole warmists’ schtick, but fighting bad, miseading fake science with more of the same from the other perspective only discredits the skeptics’ argument.
Germany is clearly trying to do more to remove carbon from its economy than is the USA, and likely all things considered are successful in doing so. That it makes no difference to anything is what matters.
This is pure eyewash. Germany is never able to implement the plans for energies with the current technical possibilities. In the case of wind energy, it is also not desirable, for reasons of nature protection and human protection, to flutter everything with windmills.
No. Energiewende is not needed, yes, we can agree on that, but even in its own terms it is not successful.
It has failed to reduce emissions from electricity generation. Or anywhere else.
Meanwhile, here in the bad old US of A, we have cut over CO2 emissions, while growing GDP.
And we did it while not even trying and while saving money and making power cheaper!
The contrast could not be more stark.
Get on board with fracking, or build more nuclear, or stop trying to pretend you can have a vibrant industrial economy and eliminate CO2 emissions at the same time.
Perhaps someday these things will be possible, but that day is not yet.
Besides we need more CO2, and we need a warmer Earth not a colder one. You would think the people that have large agricultural sectors and that live in a place that’s freezing cold half the time would know these things.
You would think.