Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Who feels like shedding a tear, that the unprecedented opportunity, the Great Reset Green New Deal Build Back Better renewable revolution is foundering on the rocks of political and economic reality?
We’re at a turning point on climate change. But most countries are still choosing fossil fuels over clean energy, report says
By Helen Regan, CNN
Updated 1401 GMT (2201 HKT) December 2, 2020(CNN)Governments of the world are at a “critical juncture” for shaping the climate’s future but are on course to produce too many fossil fuels in the decade ahead, a new report has found.
To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — which scientists say would avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change — countries need to wind down their fossil fuel production by 6% every year between now and 2030, according to the 2020 Production Gap report.
Instead, countries are on track to produce an increase of 2% per year.
And as governments pour money into their economies in a bid to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, they risk locking the world into a climate disaster by investing more heavily in fossil fuel industries — such as power, aviation, and car manufacturing, according to the new analysis from the Stockholm Environment Institute, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Overseas Development Institute (ODI), E3G and the UN Environment Programme.
“We find ourselves at a critical juncture at this time. While global fossil fuel production will dip sharply this year, government action and recovery measures are poised to shape our climate future,” said Ploy Pattanun Achakulwisut, SEI scientist and co-author of the report.
“They could either return to pre-Covid production levels that lock-in severe climate disruption, or they could set the stage for a managed wind down of fossil fuel production.”
…
Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/02/world/climate-production-gap-fossil-fuels-intl-hnk/index.html
If only all that proposed green energy infrastructure was a genuinely profitable business opportunity, so wealthy people would invest in renewables without demanding the assurance of economically unsustainable government mandates and subsidies.
The good news is that adding more carbon to our current atmospheric levels will have negligible effects on warming. But hey, we can’t criticize the CNN for ignorance – it’s their stock in trade.
“They could either return to pre-Covid production levels that lock-in severe climate disruption, or they could set the stage for a managed wind down of fossil fuel production.”
Let’s build cemeteries. Both scenarios call for them.
Who tells Zucker what narrative to promote, and who tells that person? It that direction coming from somewhere within government?
You want the phone number for Davos or just a name?
The World Economic Summit.
They proscribe solutions that leave humanity in a World of Economic Despair.
No, they proscribe solutions that protect their wealth
You mean prescribe not proscribe, right?
Our old buddy Noam Chomsky points out that you don’t actually need a conspiracy. Manufacturing Consent
The rich and powerful realize which side of their bread is buttered and behave accordingly. That combines with the maxim that the freedom of the press belongs to the guy who owns the press. Bam! No coercion necessary.
When it comes to controlling the public discourse, the Soviets were rank amateurs.
Soviets rank amateurs… but they will be sure to copy from them what was good!
I’m not sure an article on what CNN is thinking gives much fodder for thought. Are these folk
so naive as to think that ‘people’ are “choosing” oil and gas for fuel. They certainly aren’t choosing windmills and sq miles of solar arrays either. The ‘people’ owned gasoline cars and used mainly fossil fuelled energy before Covid and still own this technology so what is the thinking here?
Maybe ‘people’ is being redefined to refer only to our betters and We the former People are now ciphers.
There are many reasons for the increase in fossil fuel use. Some of its usage goes to manufacturing Green contraptions to suck out energy from the wind and solar.
Therefore we could save fuel by stop producing wind turbines, solar panels and associated electronics and network expansion/extension.
But keeping our face masks on ensures the impression that the measures for the Net Zero normalization is needed and acceptable, whereby only the noble will be enjoying the fuel.
It said that the price of diesel/petrol/gasoline is going to increase by a factor four within a foreseeable future.
If this comes true, EU minus Poland and Hungary is joining Venezuela and North Korea, the fossil fuel consumption may then diminish a little bit.
CNN never complains about their friends….
“Same day” delivery by Amazon has a huge carbon footprint. Bezos, by declaring donations of Billions to green causes, is reverse blackmailing them into conveniently ignoring his company’s duplicity. Richard Branson got on the bandwagon recently. Hollywood agents for stars like DiCaprio invented the fake enviro meme almost 2 decades ago to cover their own huge footprint while remaining “popular” amongst ecolytes.
“ecolytes”
That’s good.
Hasn’t every year been a “critical juncture” for curbing carbon emissions?
In other words, an indulgence is required by climatism to attain virtue.
“Tipping point” is getting old, “Critical Juncture” is new and improved.
Ten out of ten for displaying the usual level of ignorance that most people have about the nature of an indulgence.
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence is “a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins”. Wikipedia
The concept of indulgences majorly increased cash flow to the churches coffers, with enough people convinced that their religious beliefs were correct.
The parallels to eco-taxes are clear.
““Science tells us we have nine years before the damage is irreversible,” Biden said.”
That flaring of gas bugs me: we need the heat in the northern winters!
It is a question of getting pipes to distant communities. It may be too expensive.
Yup, when smelting the steel and building the pipeline would take more fuel than several years worth of fuel flowing through the pipe to its destination….the usefulness to humanity moves past questionable…..
You should have been in Saudi Arabia (Eastern Province) before the gas collection program. Now that would have bugged you to no end…
You could build a house next to the well head and run pipes from the flare to your dwelling.
John Bell,
So how about connecting an engine to the gas pipe. Engine drives a compressor and cooling units. The liquefied natural gas product can then be trucked to where it’s needed. That help?
Kind regards,
Bro. Steve
No, it costs too much. See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/22/explaining-natural-gas-flaring-to-the-new-york-times-explanatory-reporters/
WORLD AND US PRIMARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND CAPITAL COST
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/world-total-energy-consumption
World energy consumption is projected to increase to 736 quads in 2040 from 575 quads in 2015, an increase of 28%, according to the latest from the US Energy Information Administration. EIA.
See URL and click on PPT to access data, click on to page 4 of PowerPoint
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/
Most of this growth is expected to come from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, and especially from countries where demand is driven by strong economic growth, particularly in Asia.
Non-OECD Asia, which includes China and India, accounted for more than 60% of the world’s total increase in energy consumption from 2015 through 2040.
PARIS AGREEMENTS
China, India, and other developing Asian countries, and Africa, and Middle and South America need to use low-cost energy, such as coal, to be competitive.
They would not have signed up for “Paris”, if they had not been allowed to be more or less exempt from the Paris agreements
Obama agreed to commit the US to the Paris agreements, i.e., be subject to its financial and other obligations for decades.
However, he never submitted the commitment to the US Senate for ratification, as required by the US Constitution.
Trump rescinded the commitment. It became effective 3 years later, one day after the US presidential elections on November 3, 2020.
If the US had not left “Paris”, a UN Council likely would have determined a level of RE spending, say $500 billion/y, for distributing to various poorer countries by UN bureaucrats.
The Council would have assessed OECD members, likely in proportion to their GDPs.
The US and Europe would have been assessed at 100 to 150 billion dollars/y each.
The non-OECD countries likely would continue to be more or less exempt from paying for the Paris agreements.
CAPITAL COSTS; 50% RE by 2050
World capital expenditures, CAPEX, for renewable energy, RE, were $2,652.2 billion for 2010-2019, 10 years
World CAPEX for RE were $282.2 billion in 2019.
World CAPEX for RE would be $25,409 billion for 2019 – 2050, 32 years.
US CAPEX for RE were $494.5 billion for 2010 – 2019, 10 years.
US CAPEX for RE were $59 billion in 2019.
US CAPEX for RE would be $7,181 billion for 2019 – 2050, 32 years
The above CAPEX numbers relate to having only 50% RE in the primary energy mix by 2050, a very narrow focus.
The Bill and Melinda Gates funded Stockholm Environment Institute. Just sayin….
I just read an article on Bloomberg about the difficulty that the EU is having trouble pushing through its new carbon reduction targets. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-03/eu-leaders-poised-for-clash-over-new-climate-goal-at-key-summit I find it painful to read because in my mind when I hear “ambition” as its tied to carbon emissions, I think “ruthless” as its the poorest countries that pay the heaviest burden. The you read about “business certainty” which I consider to be a euphemism for guaranteed profitability. So all the flowery eco-speak in the article becomes “ruthlessly impose a heavy burden on the poorest countries so green industry can be guaranteed profitability”. Apparently countries have learned the true meaning of eco-speak and are acting in their own best interests.
I tried to read the article you linked. I really tried.
I had trouble with it though. Once I read that the community is setting goals for reducing carbon emissions the cognitive dissonance in my head rose to red zone levels. Painful.
The words “Fessenheim“ and “absurdly premature decommission” kept clanging loudly in my poor brain.
The people in charge of the world are dangerous pretenders.
I rthink, it’S a good choice 😀
I wonder if CNN and the rest of the Green Blob are just getting started. Note the use of the word “choosing”. The Green Blob really seems to dislike allowing choice when we’re at another of their (in)famous tipping points. If they aren’t getting their way, choice may be eliminated.
Except for abortions.
Most countries are run by sane leaders who would otherwise be idiots to pay more for unreliable energy. This is the whole point. Most countries are not penalized by BS like the Paris accords, the GND and other such nonsense. Only countries whose economies would be harmed by ‘green’ are targeted, especially the US. If we actually did get off of oil, its price would crash and we would be at an even greater disadvantage. This is the blue meat of Biden’s ‘America last’ agenda.
CO2: With the new Biden Admin., poor countries will have a great opportunity to get western $ to build out solar and wind. They will also get the Chinese to build coal-fired plants. Then they can just ground the “renewable” power until John Kerry swings by.
shaping the climate’s future
Anybody who thinks in that way is seriously deranged.
they risk locking the world into a climate disaster by investing more heavily in fossil fuel industries — such as power, aviation, and car manufacturing
Completely and utterly deranged.
I don’t believe that ‘producing’ fossil fuels is the problem. It is burning them that gets the Alarmists panties in a wad…
You can’t produce them without burning them…same for all energy sources…
Just remember that China is building 50 GW of coal plants a year domestically. I think the total US domestic coal fired generating capacity is ~250 GW.
Don’t worry, China has promised to stop by 2030.
Don’t worry, if your country wants a new coal plant, China will be happy to provide on easy terms. Worried about your credit? Bad Credit? Bankruptcy? No Credit? Do worry Honest Xi is dealing!
According to the trolls, 50GW is down from 51GW, which proves that China is about to start closing existing coal plants.
I hear China is ready to launch another pandemic, instead.
Their significant economic backing to the Dominion effort apparently wasn’t enough.
Fossil fuels are the Sophist’s choice. Only imbeciles, liars, and thieves choose “renewables”, as they do nothing but harm the economy. Climate Liars can’t help but lie 24/7 about energy and about the economy. It is part of their DNA, which in their case stands for Doofus Nincompoopus Assaholeus.
Bruce,
I don’t consider fossil fuels to be the Sophist’s choice. Have you been the victim of auto-correct? The sophist would choose windmills based on a bunch of mistaken assumptions.
Sophist
a person who reasons with clever but fallacious arguments.
Fallacious
based on a mistaken belief.
I was going more with the original meaning of sage, or wise one. They were teachers of excellence: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sophists/
Plato, Socrates, and others later defiled the meaning to their own purposes.
Would nuclear power also be the wise choice?
The decadal increase in global average temperature is 0.09 degrees per decade. On current trends that means an increase of about 0.8 degrees by 2100, well under the 1.5 degree target.
Mission accomplished.
You forgot to add in the 0.2 degree per decade downward adjustment to the baseline past temperatures.
That’s because NONE of that warming comes from human released CO2
YOU HAVE PROVEN THAT. !!
Everything on this planet operates in cycles. There is the carbon cycle, the water cycle, etc. Burning fossil fuels is just another way of ‘cycling’ them. They, along with just about every other element, is returned to the basic elements they are composed of, and made available for further recycling. This is a GOOD thing, and has been occurring for about 5 billion years, so far, and will continue far into the foreseeable future. Man is but one small cog in this process. The earth will still be here, LONG after man has disappeared from the planet.
What is it they say at funerals –
“dust unto dust”
What is it they say at funerals –
“dust unto dust”
Too many useful idiots in positions of influence and power abetted by media propaganda but consistently their reality checks bounce. It won’t take long after the people start feeling the consequences of energy deprivation while watching other countries take advantage of fossil fuels before the revolution begins.
Couldn’t they turn that Flare Gas into nitrate. On site. In situ.
Nitrate contains a lot of the energy in the gas and is really easy to store and move around and is quite useful stuff. Like the Ruskies do in Siberia
Eat it (works well mixed with pork & beef) and reduces your blood pressure/hypertension. (Maybe not the ammonium version)
The very same nitrate ‘system’ inside of us that Vigara works upon also
Or turn it into soot and mix it into the local dirt.
Soot is an impossibly good soil conditioner and the dirt surrounding those flares certainly needs *something*
Otherwise I’d assert that burning it like that is one of the dumb/stoopid/idiot ways us humans are going to consign ourselves, for perpetuity, to a *very* Cold Place
It can also be used to create big booms.
From my limited experience the flaring of gas is limited to the development of the well and doesn’t last long. Looking at the photograph you can see that the flare is mounted on wheels so it can be moved from wellsite to wellsite.
I believe there are many oil fields that flare the gas because there is no infrastructure to transport it to market. Dave Middleton would be able to comment on this.
The ICE will be the dominant transportation powerplant for decades to come simply because of physics: it has an energy density of at least 40 times the next competitor and can be refuled in 5 minutes from 17,000 stations just in the US. The price point for new models is the lowest of the lot, it is generally available, and is socially acceptable. BAT (basic affordable transportation) models can be purchased for as little as $500.
Realistic views of future CO2 emissions:
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/quantifying-futility-2020-estimate-of-future-co2-emissions/
An excellent way to undermine Western economies is to render their power generation unreliable and expensive. That objective of Green thinking is progressively being achieved by Government policy throughout the Western world.
The current, 2019 EU(28) CO2 emissions are 3,300,000,000 tonnes or less than 10% of current Global CO2 emissions.
However as soon as the Underdeveloped world gets access to centralised power any viable (say 20%) CO2 reduction for the EU at 700,000,000 tonnes/annum would be entirely swamped by the inevitable additional CO2 emissions elsewhere in the World. In the context of the inevitable massive expansion of CO2 emissions from the Underdeveloped world, any CO2 reduction efforts in the EU(28) or just in the UK alone would simply be acts of massive self-harm and clearly futile.
As Professor Richard Lindzen said at a UK parliamentary hearing in 2014:
“Whatever the UK decides to do will have no impact on your climate, but will have a profound impact on your economy. You are trying to solve a problem that may not be a problem by taking actions that you know will hurt your economy.”
Unsurprisingly, Russia, China and India are mocking the way Western governments have been induced by their “Green thinking and Virtue Signalling” to promote their policies of abject self-harm at great National cost and to no perceptible benefit. This is amply supported by Western “useful idiots”, (Lenin’s term).
The “Green” movement has already succeeded in eliminating Fracking throughout Europe and Germany now has a dependency on Russian Gas exports via the Nordstream pipelines, which can be cut off any time at Russia’s whim. The Developing and Eastern worlds are certainly not going to be meekly following the deranged example of the “virtue signalling” West.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05062019-china-and-india-will-watch-the-west-destroy-itself-oped/
The flip side to this recommendation is the hidden agenda that a reduction in atmospheric CO2 causes a proportional reduction in workdwide foodstuff production. These people are smart enough to know this but they choose population reduction through famine rather than celebrate humanity. I’d tell you what I thought of such people in more flowery prose but it would probably get me suspended.
“Stockholm Environment Institute, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Overseas Development Institute (ODI), E3G and the UN Environment Programme.”
This is the legacy of one man, the late Canadian commie billionaire Maurice Strong, plus Kyoto, UNFCC/ IPCC. He started in Stockholm in 1960 with a conference. He died peacefully in Beijing where he had retired. His estate owns a zillion acre ranch in Colorado with a village (Baca Grande) of pre-interviewed followers who were taught and inspired by the great man.
https://www.manitou.org/foundation/history/
Maurice, a highschool dropout was a genius, making his early fortune in the Canadian mining industry. I wonder what’s up in BG these days.
“We’re at a turning point on climate change.”
Isn’t it the case since billions years ?
By the way, since we have been in a warming phase, a turning point means that we are entering a cooling phase, isn’t it ?
So, if the AGW assumption is true, why bother with CO2 emission ?
The 2020 Production Gap report authors live in some bizarre world disconnected from the real world the rest of us live in. As Dr. Roy Spencer reminds us every month when he publishes his UAH Global Temperature Update:
Until recently it was +0.13/decade, but regardless of the extra 0.01C/decade, the salient point is that, if the trend continues—and there is no reason to suppose it will since natural variation dominates global temperature—we can expect warming by 2100 that is only 1.4° C warmer than in 2000, not the crazy 3.7 to 4.8 of the RCP8.5 scenario that every climate “study” and breathless “news” about an imaginary apocalypse tells us. Why the huge difference? Because all the climate scaremongers always refer to predictions by the CMIP computer models, not measured temperature trends. Because you can manipulate computer models to say whatever you want.
Latest UAH report:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2020/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2020-0-53-deg-c/
My favorite graph from IPCC AR5, plotting model projections of temperature against measured temperatures:
Incidentally, that +1.4C puts us in the range of the RCP2.6 scenario, the one no one worries about.
Hasn’t CNN also chosen fossil fuels over renewable energy? I am sure they use plenty. Why doesn’t CNN power all their studio and server infrastructure with renewable power that CNN could put on their buildings or in open areas they could purchase? Why not require all CNN employees to purchase and electric car and recharge it with rooftop solar panels? CNN could give employees money to offset these expenses.
All these people and corporations who think we need to move to an all electric and renewable power structure could start today. Let’s see some serious action here, CNN, not some token small solar cell on one building.
We will see what happens in Hamburg, when the 5 year old 1600 MW Moorburg coal plant will close in July 2021 and the reactor Brokdorf closes 31.12.21.
Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein lack of any powerplant able to produce the need of alone Hamburgs industry demand of 11 Mio MW/h.
Moorburg was built to back up wind and solar.
Source
All forms of green energy take as much energy to build as they pay back in their lifetime. Thus the more green energy you implement – the more fossil fuel you require.
This simple truth is easily verifiied by comparing the price of energy to the cost of building green energy devices. You will find for example that over its lifetime a solar panel produces enough energy to build 1 solar panel. In effect it is a parasitic device.
Lillies of the field .
They could either return to pre-Covid production levels that lock-in severe climate disruption, or they could set the stage for a managed wind down of fossil fuel production.
So, wind down energy usage (and the economy) even more than we have over the past year.
CNN: “most countries are still choosing fossil fuels over clean energy”
THIS ” clean energy” crap is a farce from the get-go anyway today … SOMEONE is burning plastic again in their fireplace on this cold December 3rd day in Tejas!! I could detect/smell it for some number of blocks as I rode my bicycle to the library to use the computer that I’m using to make this post.
This mad dash towards “clean energy” (and ever-increasing costs) forces some people to burn what they can find available to ‘ward off’ the cold …
Clean drivers. Gray energy. More like laundered energy through shared/shifted responsibility and an unprecedented cover-up. Well, politicians, regulatorss, corporations, investors, and environmentalists joined on a politically congruent axis.
In other news, most diners are still choosing steak (or your protein of choice) over wilted lettuce. Strange world we live in.
Didn’t I just read that leaves from the trees are falling earlier this year due to climate change? Yet, last year they were falling later in the year due to climate change. Oh, dear, this is all so confusing!
It does not really matter. Since some power plants in Denmark are burning wood, the climate crisis is over for now and for all time.
There’s none so blind as those who will not see.
The BBC was also high-fiving themselves the other day, claiming (and apparently believing) that China was on board with the silliness, and that the rest would follow. Their gleeful hubris has only increased since Saint Biden of the Thunberg is likely to be given the keys of the city. We need to fix something in our education system that encourages people to think that something impossible can be made to happen by simp;y passing enough draconian laws.
The new political method:
1. Invent a moral panic(climate change, covid 19)
2. Imply that ‘the people’ are somehow responsible for the supposed damage and death;
3. Suppress democratic assent so that governments can assume draconian power to deal with the behaviour of the people.
4. Embed the suppression into the desired new normal.
The common man must start to mobilise and tell the WEF and the UN that we do not want them running our lives.
Also Fossil Fuels (FF’s) are needed to for starters: Design, Mine/Muster requisite materials (Rare Earths, Concrete, Steel, FibreGlass etc., etc), Site-Clearance (Land & Sea), Commission, Maintain/FaultFind, Repairs & Spares provisioning, Decommissioning & eventually LandFill for all so called ‘Renewables’ (plus activities between); the Wind & Sun are renewable but not the extraction of their energy. RE is as environmentally damaging as any other forms of energy production for the National Grids. The only reason they exist is the new ClimateIndustry & reliance on FF’s
I worry most about the ‘western’ children frightened by climate alarmism and those in sub-Saharan Africa deprived of electricity by the World Bank