Tilak Doshi Contributor
I analyze energy economics and related public policy issues.
With the dust having barely settled after the UN climate body issued its “code red” climate change report on Monday, the Biden White House urged OPEC and its allies to boost oil output to tackle rising oil prices. In a “jarring contradiction”, just two days after the UN’s IPCC published its 6th Assessment Report warning of a point of no return in its climate crusade to quickly banish the use of fossil fuels worldwide, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan criticized big oil producers including Saudi Arabia for what he said were “insufficient crude (oil) production levels”. “At a critical moment in the global recovery, this is simply not enough,” Sullivan said in a statement.
The Jarring Contradiction of Imploring OPEC While Yielding to Climate Zealots
In British parlance, this is a massive own-goal, while Americans might call it a self-own. From day one in office, President Biden did everything to punish US oil and gas producers in the name of “fighting climate change”. He unleashed a series of executive orders that was meant to reverse his predecessor’s strategy of “energy dominance”. At a stroke of the presidential pen, the Biden Administration revoked permits for the Keystone XL pipeline to transport oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refiners; suspended oil leasing in Alaska; halted oil and gas leases on federal land; and cynically invoked the Endangered Species Act to block energy resource development on private lands in the West.
Yet, what does President Biden do when US gasoline prices hit their highest levels since 2014? He implores the OPEC+ group of oil producers (which includes Saudi Arabia and its allies as well as Russia) to open the oil taps. Bob McNally, a former George W. Bush administration official and one of Washington’s most influential consultant in energy affairs had this to say: “The Biden administration is under enormous political pressure due to inflation, with galloping gasoline the most publicly visible and vexing.” Scott Angelle, a former Republican lieutenant governor of Louisiana and secretary of natural resources puts it more bluntly: “The White House doubles down on favoring OPEC production while giving the middle finger to American energy jobs, American energy consumers, climate advantaged American production.”
Liberal commentators try to explain away the inconsistency of the US position. Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former energy and climate adviser in the Obama administration, said “I don’t see anything inconsistent in expressing concern over the pace at which OPEC+ is bringing oil back to the market and pursuing strong climate policy for the long-term.” But hard-headed analysts would likely suggest that this sounds perilously like the classic story of the heroin-addict asking for a last fix before cleaning up his act tomorrow.
Model Predictions and Practical Politics
But let’s step back a bit and start from Monday’s UN report. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said it was nothing less than “a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable”. The Biden administration and the EU, primary funders of the UN climate bureaucracy, are in lock step with this message. US climate envoy John Kerry, asserting Greta Thunberg-like that we have “9 years left” to avoid a global climate catastrophe, is now on record stating that the US is considering carbon tariffs on China which is the world’s largest carbon emitter by far. This is despite the risk of intensifying already fraught trading relations. The EU, international leader in all things green, has already stated its intentions of imposing a “carbon border adjustment tax” on energy intensive imports coming into force from January 2026.MORE FOR YOUSuddenly Worried About Gas Prices, Biden Wants OPEC+ To Produce More Oil‘Green Bitcoin Mining’: The Big Profits In Clean CryptoWhat’s Next For Historic Infrastructure Bill And Green Energy?
Yet in the practical world of politics, the Biden administration’s dysfunctional posture of imploring Saudi Arabia, Russia and other producers to increase oil production while doing its best to obstruct its home-grown oil and gas industry to satisfy the climate zealots of the Democratic party is not exceptional. Germany’s ban on fracking while increasingly depending on Russian natural gas imports is par for the course. Perhaps the news out of the UK, poster child for climate ambition, is most revealing. In a “fiery Whatsapp tirade” seen by The Sun, angry Tory MPs expressed their mounting concern over the electoral cost of pursuing green policies just three months before Mr Johnson hosts the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow. As the true costs of “net zero (emissions) by 2050” pushed by the UN climate body and allies in the climate industrial complex become increasingly evident to British voters, Prime Minister Boris Johnson may well scale back ambitions for the Glasgow COP26 climate conference in November. According to an ITV report, the chances of keeping global warming to 1.50C above pre-industrial levels “had now virtually disappeared” and instead a “senior figure advising the UK government” argued that 20C would be a good outcome.
The Rest of the World Speaks
How is this seen in the rest of the world? China – which is ramping up its coal use to meet surging demand — is opposed to committing to the 1.50C goal and objects to any changes to the Paris Agreement which requires little of developing countries for many years hence. China’s chief climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua stated that while “some countries are pushing to rewrite the Paris Agreement… We have to understand the different situations in different countries, and strive to reach a consensus.” Both China and India, along with other leading developing countries such as Brazil and Indonesia, have argued consistently that industrialised nations were able to get wealthy before carbon emission reductions were called for and that developing economies cannot be expected to make sacrifices that would put their legitimate aspirations for economic development at risk. Only eight of the G20 countries have submitted more ambitious climate targets, as they are expected to do every five years under the Paris agreement. China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Australia are among the countries yet to do so.
If one were a betting sort of person, the choice between predicted outcomes represented by two key individuals in the high-stakes game of the alleged “climate crisis” is an eminently fateful one. On the one hand is the hockey stick model-based prediction of an impending climate apocalypse by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the basis of which he demands countries to commit to the most profound transformation of the global economic system since the Industrial Revolution. On the other is the recent vow of Saudi Oil Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. He is investing in expanding his country’s production capacity and he intends to “drill every last (hydrocarbon) molecule” as developing countries — which account for over 80% of the world’s population — aspire for higher standards of living based on cheap and affordable energy. What would you bet on?
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I have worked in the oil and gas sector as an economist in both private industry and in think tanks, in Asia, the Middle East and the US over the past 25 years. I focus on global energy developments from the perspective of Asian countries that remain large markets for oil, gas and coal. I have written extensively on the areas of economic development, environment and energy economics. My publications include “Singapore in a Post-Kyoto World: Energy, Environment and the Economy” published by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (2015). I won the 1984 Robert S. McNamara Research Fellow award of the World Bank and received my Ph.D. in Economics in 1992.
Like the Border Crisis, another self-inflicted wound for the Biden Administration.
Like progressive stupidity on steroids.
Some are saying that covid passports will keep the majority of blacks in NYC out of restaurants, clubs and stores.
Isn’t that what the Democrats have always wanted I do?
Returning to their Jim Crow roots.
Then Covid would actually have had a benefit?
What surprises me is; there are people who expected something different.
Excellent article. Fossil fuels will carry humanity forward until nuclear takes over. Now we just need to ensure the fake “climate crisis” is not used as a political tool to control how we are allowed to use energy — as some are trying to do … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vb7JRK4Yko
Code red is a Freudian slip for the type of watermelon this really is; green on the outside red on the inside.
Shouldn’t you modify that watermelon analogy to read “. . . red on the inside left”? 😉
The Biden Administration thinks their supporters are too much into watching the Kardashians to notice. The truly scary thing is they might be right.
Kardashians!? Oh, Tom, you are SO last year! Ya gots ta get wit the Tik Tok crowd!
Caitlan?
Gronk’s GF.
Not that I enjoy watching the numerous debacles Biden is presiding over (energy being but one of many), but as a result for sure there will be a massive reaction against the Dems in the 2022. Take back the House, take back the Senate (both possible with retirements and redistributing) and Biden is neutered. Take back the WH in 2024 and maybe some of the Biden damage can be undone—Finish the border wall, deport the now arriving illegals (ramp up ICE), pass real immigration reform, release ANWR, maybe bring back Keystone. Inflation and Afghanistan unfortunately cannot be undone.
Let’s hope. But remember that Trump negotiated the US withdrawal with Taliban, and their solemn promise to infidels means nothing.
Biden did not reverse the Trump policy of US withdrawal from Afghanistan, unlike every other Trump policy he disagreed with.
So he must have agreed with it. There is no other explanation. He is the Commander in Chief, he owns the current withdrawal completely.
While he may have agreed with the Trump policy, the end game played out by the US military was an undeniable failure and a deadly farce for those involved.
No military leader would ever retreat and enable the opposition to rearm itself with munitions and weapons from your own advanced army.
Then there’s the matter of several billion in reserves held by the Afghan Central Bank, which will probably end up in Iran, Veneuzuela or in a smoking crater near your hometown.
The Afghan debacle was created by several decades of leadership which was divorced from the reality of the situation. In all that time, no one was ever fired for making the wrong decisions, spending trillions or losing thousands of lives.
The future does not look too bright for the US and what’s left of it’s allies.
There’s a difference between a troop drawdown and turning tail and running away.
I believe Trump was going to leave some American troops incountry, was going to keep control of Bagram airbase, which is where most of the air support for the Afghan army comes from, and was going to keep American intelligence assets in the country.
Biden comes in and says “We’re leaving” and off they go without even informing the Afghans.
The American military did not want to leave like this, and the NATO allies wanted to keep some troops there, but Joe Biden overruled them all for some reason only he knows.
Everything Biden does is wrong, and everything Biden does hurts the United States, and in this particular case, hurts millions of innocent Afghans whose only hope was the United States.
The enemies of the United States are delighted at the stupidity shown by the Biden administration, and allies of the United States are appalled at the abandonment of Afghanistan and are wondering is they are next to be abandoned.
We have a dangerous fool for a leader.
With a grownup in full possession of his mental faculties in the White House, maybe the Taliban would have kept their promise for more than 10 minutes. With Biden occupying the White House you can be certain that they entire world will be eating the United States’ lunch (and breakfast and supper).
It is not the intention of reducing troops to very low levels and withdrawal that is problematic….it is the unthinkable and ridiculous manner in which the policy has been implemented by the Biden Administration!
The one skill in which Democrats appear to be unsurpassed is; incompetence.
Leadership must reflect those led.
I caution you, if this administration were merely incompetent, chances are the policies and pronouncements put out would actually help this country and its citizens about half the time. Given the unbroken string of failures I must conclude the destruction is deliberate, and fully anticipated.
Yeah … d’ya think? Generally I try to apply Hanlon’s Razor; “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity“. I plead an exception where RINOs and Democrats are concerned. They really are out to mess up society for their own advantage.
Especially when it comes to U.S. national security. The Democrats are completely incapable of defending U.S. interests. They have proved it over and over again. Afghanistan is just the latest example.
How could they be? Where would they find the time away from reinforcing their own interests? There must be something odd about a party that attracts so many truly stupid people and I’m not being hyperbolic.
“The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it’s so rare.” – Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Moynihan was a real character … he’d know compitence.
You send the troops in, you pull the troops out, you send the troops in and you march them all about, it’s called KamalaBiden and there is no doubt, that’s what it’s all about!
David John, it seems that there is nothing new.
This old English nursery rhyme from the 18th century, believed to be about the Duke of York, second son of George III, who was keen on playing the soldier:
Oh, the grand Old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
Then marched them back again
When they were up they were up
When they were down they were down
And when they were only halfway up
They were neither up nor down.
Like Vikings treaties with England.
Trump set out certain requirements to be met before any substantial American withdrawal. Trump emphatically insisted that the drawdown not be the cause of the Taliban taking the country back over.
Trump said he told the Taliban leader personally (this, when Trump thought he would be reelected) that if the Taliban broke the agreement and attacked, that he, Trump would hit the Taliban harder than anyone had ever been hit by the United States, and that the first bombs would be dropping right on the Taliban leaders house.
Do you think Biden said anything like that to the Taliban leader? Of course, he didn’t and they wouldn’t have believed him anyway. But they would believe Trump.
Biden is currently on vacation refusing to answer questions about the horror show going on in Afghanistan.
Biden has millions of people’s blood on his hands because of his stupid, delusional view of the world. Biden was there when the vote was taken to pull out of South Vietnam, and there when the U.S congress refused to go to the aid of South Vietnam when North Vietnam attacked.
Biden was there when the aftermath of the Iraq war was turned over to him and Obama, and Obama put Biden in charge in Iraq and American troops were pulled out, which led to the rise of the Islamic Terror Army which then proceeded to rampage all over the Middle East displacing and k!lling millions more people, while Joe Biden sat there and watched them and did nothing downplaying the danger.
It was only when Trump took over that the Islamic Terror Army finally got some pushback. Trump took them down in a matter of months. Biden and Obama could have done the same thing. It was the same military both administrations had available to them. But one administration, Obama’s, failed to properly use the U.S. military to defend the nation’s interests, while Trump saw the problem and fixed the problem.
And now we have this human disaster that is, and will be taking place, in Afghanistan, just because the United States has a fool for a president who doesn’t understand human psychology. Three hundred thousand troops means nothing if those troops feel like they have been abandoned and have no where to turn. That’s where South Vietnamese troops were then, and that’s where Afghanistans troops are now. They feel they have been thrown to the wolves. And they have been.
Think of all the suffering you are causing to innocent women and children in Afghanistan right now, Joe. Joe has proven over time that the suffering of the little people holds no sway over him. I can’t say enough bad things about him.
Without a doubt, Joe Biden is the Worst President Evah! and he’s only been in office for eight months.
Joe Biden should be impeached and removed from Office as soon as possible.
The problem with ANWR relase in 2025 is there will be little incentive for a major oil exploration company, Shell Exxon-Mobile, etc to invest the capital in developing ANWR, just to face the risk of another Democrat President in 2029 shutting it down.
The real answer right now lies in Texas Permian Basin where the Biden Admin and EPA has little to no ability to throttle Texas oil and gas output from State and private leases. The methane regulations the EPA is imposing are likely to get throttled back in the courts for APA violations.
True, but the problem with not doing ANWR is that soon there won’t be enough North Slope oil flow to prevent the Alaskan pipeline from freezing up. The field is almost depleted, as was illustrated in my recent guest post on ‘peak oil’.
Shutting down the AP has long been one of the Greenblob’s primary goals in order to reduce US national security.
Reality strikes again.
Mark, china also just said that covid-19 originated in florida. Do you believe them? Or maybe they lie anytime (and every time) it is convenient for them? And some useful fool uses their lies to make comments?
MI is a lot like the warmunists, if something he reads or hears supports his delusions, its true.
I doubt his thoughts run that deep. He’s lonely, looking for attention and has discovered the best way is to annoy people. He reminds me somewhat of Jerry, in Edward Albee’s play, ‘The Zoo Story’. He regularly pleads with the moderators to ban him.
** STOP FEEDING THE ingraham TROLL **
“Ignore him. His statements look even dumber when nobody bothers to respond.” (from dhoffer)
Just like most politicans.
The Chicoms are now claiming they won more Gold medals at the Olympic games than the U.S. The U.S. was ahead by about three gold medals when the Olympics closed.
The Chicoms base their new “winning” numbers on incorporating gold medals won by people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and one other as being Chicom gold medals.
I imagine this distortion of the facts is mainly for domestic consumption because the rest of the world knows the truth, so it’s not like the Chicoms are thinking they can sell the world this obvious lie.
A display of foundational racism that ignores the modern Olympic tradition of competition based on country of residence. I suppose it would be enlightening for the USA to simply counter that viewpoint and claim all medals won by anyone who happens to have an ethnic group presence in the multiracial United States.
It isn’t just that Biden is senile & Harris is a half-wit, but the White House & the cabinet are the worst dregs left over from the Obama administration; all are total incompetents.
Fortunately we still have schadenfreude.😃
I wonder how long will Biden be President?
Does he forget to take his pills, or does he take too many?
Biden’s cognitive incompetence will be put on full display at the first serious international crisis, like China invading Taiwan’s outlying islands or some other thug like Putin taking more of Ukraine or threatening the Baltic nations.
Right now Jen Psaki talks for him, and Biden only “releases” statements or reads from pre-canned teleprompter speeches. He doesn’t take questions from hard-nosed reporters. First crisis and it will be obvious Joe’s in serious cognitive impairment territory when he can’t form a coherent sentence on his own.
The CNN Townhall with Biden and Don Lemon last month put Biden’s cognitive impairment that on full display. Joe’s strung together sentences were just rambling strings of English words that made no sense. It was painful to watch. But the media just ignored it.
The “hard-nosed reporters” just ignored it? Either the media include hard-nosed reporters, or, as I fear, they just go along to get along, assuming that the populace doesn’t notice.
“Biden’s cognitive incompetence will be put on full display at the first serious international crisis, like China invading Taiwan’s outlying islands or some other thug like Putin taking more of Ukraine or threatening the Baltic nations.”
Biden’s mental condition and his political positions might cause some of our enemies to miscalculate and do something rash.
The usurper, Zhao Bai Den, cancels the Keystone XL pipeline; while pushing Russia to build the Nordstrom pipeline to Germany that will make the Germans dependent on Russian goodwill for their energy supply! Why do we still finance NATO?
This Keystone Kop administration is happy to destroy thousands of high paying jobs in the energy sector, while printing money nonstop to drive the inflation rate up to record levels! If our leading global adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, were to install a Manchurian candidate over us to wound and weaken our country into a subject state; what would they do differently?
They would have to install political commissars in our military, and weaken it with Marxist agitprop like Critical Racist Theory and transgenderism… Oh, wait! Too late!!
Such draconian measures were not necessary. All they needed to do was fund the financially strapped MSM to increase their output of fake news … then release the US funded virus they’ve been saving for such an occasion. The rest could be left up to the morally bankrupt Democrats, greed and stupidity.
The only climate catastrophe I’m aware of is the disappointing English summer
The Met Office promised an end times heatwave and now its been cancelled Must be a modelling thing
Pimms on standby for next year…
It hasn’t been bad, Its been NORMAL.
Oh yes the Met Office comedy routine is becoming the new normal. “You’re going to get a heatwave, folks! Here it comes, it’s going to be a hot one! Nearly there, wait for it! Aaand there you have it – not very warm and rainy – did you enjoy it?”
Don’t feel too bad, we are having our second cool summer in a row here in northern Portugal. It is mid August, the traditional vacation month here, and folks are fleeing south where it is warm! Right now, 1230, it is 22C in the shade on my veranda.
Not mentioned in the article are Biden’s EPA re-imposing methane leakage regulations. These regulations have one goal in mind. They are meant to increase costs of natural gas whiledoing absolutely nothing to affect actual methane GHG levels.
These methane rules will slowly and assuredly increase the cost of natural gas this winter as utility suppliers restock storage supplies. This coming North American winter is going to be a more widespread and NorthEast US concentrated version of last Feb’s Texas freeze-out. Suppliers are going to run so low that curtailment of deliveries will be necessary to maintain minimum pipeline pressures. There will be black-outs this winter as generation stations shutdown in the NorthEast US from lack of gas supply, and the Democrats will blame the suppliers, not their stupid regulatory actions.
Socialism is creeping into our wallets.
“the Democrats will blame the suppliers, not their stupid regulatory actions”
The suppliers need to advertise that the reasons for lack of supply ls the governments stupid regulatory actions.
Can suppliers legally restrict the amount they supply to government sites ??? & prioritize supplying the plebs.
For whatever reason, almost all the utility companies, suppliers, and producers seem unendingly willing to take one (of a few dozen)for the cause. I hae no evidence why but threatening one’s family to gain submission is common in some circles.
“Code Red” is the IPCC’s “jump the shark” moment. Nowhere to go from here but downhill.
Happy Days!
Democrats and progressives have left the real world behind and are now living in computer models. And, according to the models, they are right every time!
OH, “self-own”. I wondered why people were saying “cell-phone”. I’d stay with “self-inflicted wound”.
So when is the world going to end? Around 1970 when I was 18 years old I was being told that by 2000 a billion people would be dead and the rest dying of famine and pollution.
2000? Luxury.. I disappeared in a cloud of blue steam in 1992..
You had blue steam? As a lad, in 1946, 15 years before I was born, I disappeared without so much as a puff of smoke.
And if you try to tell that to the young people today, they’ll never believe you.
It just requires a mindset change-
Warmth from the earth and air: could heat pumps replace our gas boilers? (msn.com)
We just have to think like Griff and Greta.
I’m not sure that “think” is quite the right word.
Cause electricity comes from a plug in the wall
The only code red I know of was ordered by the fictional Colonel Jessup. It resulted in the death of a soldier and the self-destruction of the Colonel.
What’s the meaning of code red as the UN uses it? They’ve ordered it? Who gets to die before the UN leadership self-destructs?
AR6 is simply Leftist propaganda to get Western countries to waste $100’s of trillions on the contrived and false CAGW hypothesis.
AR5 freely admitted that over the past century, there have been NO statistically significant global increasing trends of severity nor frequency of: hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, droughts, floods, tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hail…. Oops…
Moreover, over the past 100 years, US deaths from severe weather events have plummeted 95%… Oh, the humanity….
Yes, we’ve ENJOYED about 1C of beneficial global warming recovery since the end of the devastating effects of the Little Ice Age in 1850, of which, CO2 forcing contributed about 0.4C of the total…So what?
We’re about to suffer 30 years of global cooling when the 30-year PDO and AMO ocean cool cycles soon restart, as evidenced by current SSTs:
The scarier Leftist hacks make AR6 out to be, the bigger the blowback will be when 30 years of global cooling actually restarts in a few years and taxpayers realize Leftist governments wasted $10’s of trillions of their money for no reason whatsoever…
AR6 is “much sound and fury signifying nothing…”.
Destroy the ability to resist of those you wish to conquer, then take control easily.
Andy-san:
Woke Leftist pajama-wearing commie-wannabes haven’t destroyed anything other than their already sullied reputations…
Mother Nature is about to smack them upside their collective heads with global cooling which will end this stupid farce once and for all.
They already set themselves up to cover that. It will still be our fault if it happens.
Did Fascists order a Code Red?
Progressives aren’t concerned about fossil fuels, unless they create jobs for Americans.
What happens to any of this if China,encouraged by the disgrace of the US Afghanistan withdrawal,blockades Taiwan? The US response under Biden regime will be? Have the economists modelled that? The security of South China Sea will be crucial.
“What happens to any of this if China,encouraged by the disgrace of the US Afghanistan withdrawal,blockades Taiwan? The US response under Biden regime will be?”
You can bet that’s going through their minds right now.
Xi seems to be pretty reckless. Biden’s stupidity may prod him to take a chance, he might not otherwise have taken.
It’s dangerous to show stupidity to your enemies.
China promised NPR reports? Well that is indeed reassuring. Chuckle.
What is/are ‘pre-industrial levels’ we’re supposed to be so concerned to not exceed by more than 1.5 or 2°C, is there a figure, and if so, how was it determined?