Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to former UN climate chief and Paris Agreement architect Christiana Figueres, coal exporting Australia is not acting with integrity when it comes to global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
Christiana Figueres blasts Australia’s “suicidal” position on climate change
Christiana Figueres who was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016, has slammed Australia’s “suicidal” position on climate action saying it conveys “a lack of integrity”.
“The climate wars that have been going on in Australia for over a decade now are just – honestly they are such a suicidal situation because Australia… holds such promise with renewable energy,” she said during a recorded session for the Australasian Emissions Reductions Summit, which began online today.
Now the director of the global climate movement Mission 2020, Figueres said she had never shied from speaking about her frustration with Australia’s haphazard stance to a pressing emergency.
“I’ve been pretty vocal about my frustration for so many years of a completely unstable, volatile, unpredictable stand and position on climate change in Australia.”
“There is no other country that has as much sun potential as Australia,” she added.
…
Rather than extend itself on Paris Agreement commitments, Morrison has instead suggested that Australia’s overachievements on Kyoto Protocol targets could be used as credits– a position Figueres simply branded “cheating” .
“It is just a total lack of integrity and not something that does Australia proud,” she said.
…
Read more: https://womensagenda.com.au/climate/christiana-figueres-blasts-australias-suicidal-position-on-climate-change/
I agree with Figueres about Australia having a two faced position on Climate Change.
The Australian government could end coal exports overnight with a single act of parliament. But instead of coming clean about wanting an important carbon intensive industry to continue and grow, or supporting the climate skepticism of President Trump on the international stage, Australian politicians maintain a transparent fiction that they care about climate change, both at home and abroad.
Figueres’ comment that Australia has lots of “sun potential” is just plain wrong.
What is missing from Australia is copious quantities of clean fresh water to wash the solar panels or collectors.
The dust which accumulates in Australia has to be seen to be believed. In the dry inland the dust sticks to everything, thanks to static electric charges which accumulate when the dust is blown by the wind. Covering even a sizeable fraction of Australia’s deserts with solar systems would require cleaning water on a scale which we simply don’t have.
Update (EW): Fixed a couple of typos (h/t Leo Smith)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I have a cracking idea . . .
simply install a parrallel striped film across the top of each collector and use some of the spare electricty (and a small van-der-graph genny) to alternately charge then earth the strips to drag the dust off the panels, and offset the last strip onto a bare wire overhanging the side, then earth the last strip . . and. . . Hey presto, all dust drops to the desert floor.
Special bonus is if you crank up the voltage real high we can even turn them into Ozone generators.
Grant cheques to my home address please.
The dust is also abrasive. There are efforts to create such solutions, including electrostatic cleaners and using soft brushes, but so far nobody seems to have completely escaped the need to give the panels a regular wash.
Perhaps Christina can be grounded for us.
yup
6ft oughta do it.
if she was anywhere near me Id wallop the daft bitch upside the head
as an aussie female this bint gives me the irrits
You know why people don’t like sand? It’s coarse and rough and irritating… and it gets everywhere.
And once it is everywhere it doesn’t just sit around because of static. All the stripped film is going to do is reduce the effectiveness of the panel (cause it’s a film), reduce the useful power output (anything you are using on site is something you are not selling) and make something else that needs maintaining, but probably wont be.
Also the sand eventually turns you evil and you wake up one day slaughtering younglings with a light sabre. True!
“… When you look back at how we started with wood and charcoal and coal, then gas, and then renewables, you can see a constant decrease of carbon value and a constant increase in efficiency of burning … a shift away from fossil fuels to highly efficient renewables is a natural one …” (Christiana Figueres 2015).
A common fallacy, the first part is correct the second part is not, adoption of so-called renewables is a regressive step.
So-called renewables wind and solar cannot be rated without including the cost of energy storage to be comparable with legacy sources.
Existing legacy energy sources are an order of magnitude more efficient that solar PV, solar thermal and wind when the cost of storage is included:
Solar PV in regions of moderate insolation are a net energy sink.
The “cost of storage” should be ‘energy cost’ of storage.
If Figueres things Australia is is not acting with integrity, it would be interesting to hear her views on the Scottish Nationalist Party.
https://www.politico.eu/article/scotland-nationalists-rethink-their-love-of-north-sea-oil/
“The Scottish National Party (SNP) burst onto the British political scene in the early 1970s campaigning under the punchy separatist slogan of “It’s Scotland’s Oil” — a reference to the vast reservoirs of oil and gas recently discovered beneath the North Sea waters around Aberdeenshire.”
“In a speech to the Oil and Gas UK conference in 2017, [Sturgeon] noted that the North Sea may contain up to 20 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves. “Our primary aim – and I want to underline and emphasis this – our primary aim is to maximise economic recovery of those reserves,” she said.”
“At the SNP’s annual conference in April 2019, [Sturgeon] declared a climate emergency, lauded the recent spate of climate strikes led by high school students, and pledged that Scotland would “live up” to its responsibilities in the battle against global warming. ”
“Ahead of next autumn’s COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Sturgeon’s ambitious carbon reduction targets have even earned praise from global environmental campaigners like Al Gore.”
The cabal have had a brilliant idea to combine China Kung Flu and Climate change™ calamities to force unwanted change and limit freedoms.
They have been rather disappointed in peoples reticence to embrace the new world order as shown in recent surveys like The European Perceptions of Climate Change Project (EPCC). When people were asked “what do they think is the most important issue facing their country in the next 20 years?” climate change™ was only mentioned by 2% of respondents in the UK, by 3% of the respondents in Germany, and by 6% of the respondents in France.
So nobody really believes in the hyped threat which is encouraging.
This will not do though.
The media (propaganda machine) has been informed to start soft selling these ideas, as they do all bad ideas.
Here are some examples from my own countries media today (everyday):
The Parisian
Global warming: effects “already perceptible and deadly”
According to 120 world-renowned researchers, the rise in mercury increases mortality on the planet, in particular due to more frequent heat waves …
Le Monde
No country is immune to the adverse health effects of climate change
Heat-related deaths among those over 65 have increased by 54% over the past two decades, reaching nearly 300,000 deaths in 2018, …
Orange News
As like Covid-19, no country is immune to climate change
Health systems are ill-prepared to deal with the growing dangers of climate change and no country is immune… (interesting use of the word immune here)
Liberation
Health and climate change, converging crises
Heat waves,air quality and growing inequalities, climate change is putting a strain on our health.
Non stop BS from here on in.
She is called not Figures, but Figueras.
Amongst other things…
Thanks, spellcheck catches me out every time I write about her :-).
When she called it “cheating”, I pictured a little girl stomping her feet in anger when the other kids on the playground don’t play by her rules.
Ironically, that picture isn’t far from the truth.
Meanwhile back in the USA…( what’s left if it)…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cctv-video-georgia-poll-workers-sparks-election-fraud-outrage
Who are the people in the video. Will they be brave enough to be there again, where people will recognize them, for the senate vote?
Chubby guy in the red shirt is easily recognizable, and he has some explaining to do. (As does pony tail girl).
Chubby guy had put on his jacket in pretense to leave; then takes off jacket in preparation of getting back to work; then talks on phone to get the all clear; then gets to work on the number of votes that will fit into three suitcases. Check the phone call number and see if it goes to the guy in the hat that left to cover the doors…. (but the response will be “I called to tell him to stick around because we found a batch of uncounted stuff” … but why then was it an incoming phone call? … “oh ya, he called me to tell me he was leaving and I filled him in on the situation and asked him to cover the doors and wait instead of leaving).
Again, will these workers be their for the runoff vote? Why not?
Meanwhile back in the USA…(what’s left of it)…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cctv-video-georgia-poll-workers-sparks-election-fraud-outrage
So once the Marxist/Socialists destroy Capitalism by cutting off its’ energy supply who’s going to finance their ideology? Trickle up poverty eventually runs out of other people’s money.
Being idiot idealists, they haven’t figured this out, and never will.
U.S. out of the UN, UN out of the U.S., NOW.
To all those critics of Scott Morrison, I say “Not bad”
Figures is an elite climate-warrior bureaucrat, who does not know anything about reality.
The Wall Street elites are salivating at a Biden win. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
However, more wind and solar would not reduce CO2 as much as touted, plus they produce very EXPENSIVE, GRID-DISTURBING electricity.
Wind and Solar Subsidies Provide a Bonanza for Wall Street
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-more-wind-and-solar-the-higher-the-electric-rates
This URL shows wind and solar prices per kWh would be at least 50% higher without direct and indirect subsidies. They would be even higher, if the costs of other items were properly allocated to the owners of wind and solar projects, instead of shifted elsewhere. See below section High Levels of Wind and Solar Require Energy Storage.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/economics-of-tesla-powerpack-and-powerwall-systems
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/large-scale-solar-plants-require-large-scale-battery-systems
http://www.usu.edu/ipe/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/UnseenWindFull.pdf
This URL shows about 2/3 of the financial value of a wind project is due to direct and indirect subsidies, and the other 1/3 is due to electricity sales.
http://johnrsweet.com/Personal/Wind/PDF/Schleede-BigMoney-20050414.pdf
– Indirect subsidies are due to federal and state tax rebates due to loan interest deductions from taxable income, and federal and state MARCS depreciation deductions from taxable income.
– Direct subsidies are up-front federal and state cash grants, the partial waiving of state sales taxes, the partial waiving of local property, municipal and school taxes. See URLs.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/excessive-subsidies-for-2200-kw-field-mounted-solar-system-in
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf
Any owner, foreign or domestic, of a wind and/or solar project, looking to shelter taxable income from their other US businesses, is allowed to depreciate in 6 years almost the entire cost of a wind and solar project under the IRS scheme called Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System, MARCS. The normal period for other forms of utility depreciation is about 20 years.
Then, with help of Wall Street financial wizardry from financial tax shelter advisers, such as BNEF*, JPMorgan, Lazard, etc., the owner sells the project to a new owner who is allowed to depreciate, according to MARCS, almost his entire cost all over again. Over the past 20 years, there now are many thousands of owners of RE projects who are cashing in on that bonanza.
Loss of Federal and State Tax Revenues
The loss of tax revenues to federal and state governments due to MARCS was estimated by the IRS at $266 billion for the 5y period of 2017 – 2021, or about $53.2 billion/y.
The IRS is required to annually provide a 5y-running estimate to Congress, by law.
The next report would be for the 2018 – 2022 period
The indirect largesse of about $53.2 billion/y, mostly for wind and solar plants^ that produce expensive, variable/intermittent electricity, does not show up in electric rates. It likely is added to federal and state debts.
Most of the direct federal subsidies to all energy projects of about $25 billion/y also do not show up in electric rates. They likely were also added to the federal debt.
Most of the direct state subsidies to RE projects likely were added to state debts.
The additional costs of state-mandated RPS requirements likely were added to the utility rate base for electric rates.
* BNEF is Bloomberg New Energy Finance, owned by the pro-RE former Mayor Bloomberg of New York, which provides financial services to the wealthy of the world, including providing them with tax avoidance schemes.
^ In New England, wind is near zero for about 30% of the hours of the year, and solar is minimal or zero for about 70% of the hours of the year. Often these hours coincide for multi-day periods, which happen at random throughout the year, per ISO-NE real-time, minute-by-minute generation data posted on its website. Where would the electricity come from during these hours; $multi-billion battery storage, insufficient capacity hydro storage?
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68227.pdf
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/tax-equity-investors-break-their-silence-on-tax-bill#gs.GDbC2YIS
Warren Buffett Quote:
“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/12/even-warren-buffet-admits-wind-energy-is-a-bad-investment
Two things.
First this article is published by The Woman’s Agenda. One might be cynical enough to suggest that a site with that name doesn’t really care what Christina has to say, and is more excited that she isn’t a man. But only if one was cynical.
The other observation is that she talks about the ‘potential’ of solar power. Not the ‘reality’ of solar power, the ‘potential’.
Sadly government type figures in planning positions love to talk about potentials and possibility. I actually had one explain to me that I was failing to appreciate a problem correctly because my professional background was in Engineer and we dealt with probabilities. They were in planning. They dealt with possibilities.
(we also deal with observations, but don’t let that get in the way of someone senior in the public service)
So while an engineer might observe existing examples and calculated something was a bad idea, a planner would talk about the possibilities of the problems being overcome leading to the possibility of a brave and stunning new market.
Sigh.
Too damn true. It should be remembered that she is the daughter of a former President of a South American country (I don’t remember which), and her brother subsequently became president. In other words, she is the daughter of wealth, power and privilege. If her deluded fantasy ever came about, you could bet money that she would ever give up her privileged status and all that goes with it.
The Spanish are experts at maintaining solar PV output under difficult conditions. such as night time. I’m sure they could provide a similar solution to mitigate dust.
I’m surprised Comrade Christina can even spell ‘integrity’. Given her compulsive intellectual dishonesty she clearly has no idea what it means.
Should we believe anything Figueres says? She wrote a book called “The Future We Choose” where on page 55 she demonstrates she (or her co-author Tom Rivett Carnac) does not know the difference between “energy” and “electricity”. She writes “already more than 50% of the energy in the UK comes from clean power” The UK generated 50% of its electricity from wind and solar for a few months. Electricity is 13.6% of its energy (2018), so 50% is 6.8% of total energy, and that only for a few months.
And she organised the Paris Climate Agreement? Why believe anything she says?