I see the fossil fuel, MIC and animal ag industrial elites who place profit over people at any cost are the very same people who place US hegemony and dominance over people (including American ones) at any cost.
Hi guys, great post - that one went 'straight to the pool room'. (Aussie idiom for "It's a keeper!")
Just for fun I listen to a bit of a Doomer podcast called "Planet Critical". (Typical "renewables can't do the job" Degrowth / back to the land vibe.)
But this next episode was way outside my knowledge area - and basically stated our Democracies are utterly powerless before a free trade system policed by the World Bank's ICSID.
At first I thought it all sounded a bit "Tinfoil hat" - as I've heard too many "World Bank" conspiracies from back in the day. But then I remembered how much "State Capture" has featured in other recent environmental and climate literature - but I thought that was more about a system of vastly wealthier lobbying, Corporate jobs for the old boys who did favours for them in government, and all the usual stuff.
But the difference with ICSID? It seems to have some kind of legal 'teeth' - even though (so the podcast claimed) the Arbitration happens behind closed doors and is sometimes conducted by people who are not even lawyers - let alone judges able to decide matters between the rights of Multinational Corporations and Democratically elected governments! Jeffrey Sachs has had a go at them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Settlement_of_Investment_Disputes#Criticism
Anyone know about this stuff? Is ICSID a valid procedure that is sometimes misused - or too open to corruption right from the very start, from its very inception and design?
I agree with Andrew Dessler that the fossil fuel industry cares more about its business opportunities to create wealth by drilling, transporting, and selling oil and gas than it does about competing in a market against renewable energy technologies. Rather than compete, it will fund authoritarian-leaning Republicans and push misinformation to stop the clean energy transition. See my Substack article, "Vote to save clean energy jobs, factories, and innovations." https://cleantechadoption.substack.com/p/vote-to-save-the-clean-energy-jobs
Some say there are 3 types of politician in Washington; they all want war with China but 2 of the groups prioritise war with Russia or Iran beforehand. They all put MIC profit first over people and the environment.
Of course powerful industries with huge lobbying power such as fossil fuels and animal ag/pharma/agrochemicals are rigging the market.
However leftists and climate scientists seem to think that Pharma, who also have huge lobbying power, don't do this. They ridicule anyone, Doctor or scientist, who dares to question the evidence for the 'covid' measures or vaccines. They think that the doubling of Pharma executives personal fortunes was OK because they valiantly saved lives.
I don't believe we can come anywhere near net zero by 2050, not in the US and worldwide. There is too much that has to be done in the next 25 1/2 years. Fossil fuels will be necessary until we transition to provide food, transportation, and shelter. Yes, we must abandon fossil fuels. But we should not starve or impoverish 8 billion people in the process. There are many Asians and Africans who want to increase their energy consumption in the next 50 years.
Quoting Vaclav Smil:
"In terms of final energy uses and specific energy converters, the unfolding transition would have to replace more than 4 terawatts (TW) of electricity-generating capacity now installed in large coal- and gas-fired stations by converting to non-carbon sources; to substitute nearly 1.5 billion combustion (gasoline and diesel) engines in road and off-road vehicles; to convert all agricultural and crop processing machinery (including about 50 million tractors and more than 100 million irrigation pumps) to electric drive or to non-fossil fuels; to find new sources of heat, hot air, and hot water used in a wide variety of industrial processes (from iron smelting and cement and glass making to chemical syntheses and food preservation) that now consume close to 30 percent of all final uses of fossil fuels; to replace more than half a billion natural gas furnaces now heating houses and industrial, institutional, and commercial places with heat pumps or other sources of heat; and to find new ways to power nearly 120,000 merchant fleet vessels (bulk carriers of ores, cement, fertilizers, wood and grain, and container ships, the largest one with capacities of some 24,000 units, now mainly running on heavy fuel oil and diesel fuel) and nearly 25,000 active jetliners that form the foundation of global long-distance transportation (fueled by kerosene)...
The reality is, we are yet to discover viable alternatives to hydrocarbons in crucial industries such as fertilizers, plastics, steel, and cement. Imagine a world without these essentials! This underscores the immense challenges we face in our transition to a sustainable future.
My concern is that some, perhaps even you, are placing their hopes on degrowth as the path to achieving net zero. However, the world is not likely to willingly downsize. This raises the alarming possibility of an authoritarian government attempting to enforce it, potentially leading to a dystopian future reminiscent of 1984.
Stop demonizing the oil companies - they make modern life possible.
I am retired but worked in the energy industry for 38 years oil & gas, renewable energy, deployed fuel cells at ~40 of my employers facilities. As long as it is either/or we are never going to get to where we need to be in the time we have to get there. It is not either/or, it is all of the above. I live in Texas. You get no argument from me that right wing of the Republican Party in Texas lets ideology (good ‘ole Texas natural gas) get in the way of common sense and good policy. At the same time, I found the “green lobby” if you will too often times to be equally frustrating. They just cannot seem to get out of their own way. We are never going to successfully challenge climate change on solar, wind and batteries alone. It is nothing less than a fantasy to believe otherwise. Natural gas has a place in the mix as a transition source of the many technologies needed to support on again, off again renewables and short-term storage. The less than enlightened Texas Legislature does not have a franchise on tunnel vision policy prescriptions impeding an all-encompassing fight to save the planet.
Your premise seems to be that, absent the nefarious influence of the fossil fuel companies, there would be a smooth glidepath to complete the energy transition, leading to Net Zero in the near future, with abundant cheap energy for all.
This is simply delusional. I'm not aware of any study that claims that Net Zero can be accomplished without a combination of multiple trillions of dollars' capital investment plus development and deployment of as-yet-unknown technology for large-scale carbon capture. If you know of any pathways that aren't so dependent, please let me know.
You also seem to assume that there is widespread popular support for dramatic decarbonization of the economy, which is only being thwarted by the fossil fuel companies. I've never seen any indication that most voters in the US are willing to pay any significant cost to decarbonize. Again, if you think things have changed in this regard, please let me know.
I don't discount the capacity of US voters to fool themselves completely on their own hook, without reinforcement from for-profit disinformers. Yet the pernicious influence of the decades-long disinformation campaign by fossil fuel interests, to forestall collective interference in their revenue streams, is a matter of public record. As recently as 2008, the US Republican Party acknowledged the need for collective (i.e. government) intervention aimed at decarbonizing our economy. That was when the GOP sold itself lock, stock and barrel to fossil fuel producers and investors (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html). Since then no Republican politician has remained in office after publicly supporting a rational decarbonization policy.
The Democratic Party isn't innocent of taking fossil fuel money, but it at least acknowledges the need for collective action. The first successful federal legislation to be enacted was the "Inflation Reduction" Act of 2022, 34 years after James Hansen's announcement that anthropogenic global warming was underway. The IRA barely passed, on strict party lines. To protect even the IRA's modest emissions reductions, and eventually move beyond them, all climate realists can do is vote Democratic in every election, at least until some Republican candidate publicly endorses meaningful national climate action.
Interesting reasoning. Andrew's premise was "fossil fuels are shredding our democracy." If this means anything, it means that fossil fuels (I presume he means fossil fuel companies) are preventing our normally functioning democracy from enacting the policies he considers vital. You extend this reasoning to include the Republican party.
If voters really favored "meaningful climate action" (I'm not sure what you mean by this), and if they considered this to be an important priority, then Democrats (or Republicans) could easily win office by supporting "meaningful climate action" as their priority. Very few politicians I'm aware of have done so. The ones who were most prominent, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, promote a "Green New Deal" with no specifics on climate action, but extravagant language about empowering marginal communities or expanding diversity, or other such things. The Green New Deal is really a conventional lefty wish list disguised as a Green wish list.
I'll offer an alternative interpretation: Most voters would like to decarbonize the economy, all other things being equal. But they aren't enthusiastic about paying much higher prices for electricity, or being forced to buy electric cars, or paying much higher taxes to subsidize green toys for the rich. And, no politician I'm aware of has proposed a course that could mostly (let alone completely) eliminate carbon emissions within the next century. The academic studies I've read (the Berkeley 2035 report and the Princeton Net Zero report) emphasize enormous costs to implement, assuming that large scale carbon capture can be developed and deployed.
So, for the sake of discussion, what would you count as "meaningful climate action"? How much would carbon emissions have to be reduced, and on what time scale, to be "meaningful"? How much would the US reduce warming by achieving this target? What's the likelihood that other rich countries would take corresponding action? How much would it cost to implement worldwide? Or, alternatively, why would poor countries be willing to commit to such targets, rather than using fossil fuels to achieve a rich world standard of living?
"For the sake of discussion"? This isn't the Argument Clinic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLlv_aZjHXc). So much has been written, on this blog and elsewhere, about what collective intervention in the US and global energy market can achieve how much emissions reduction, how fast. Multiple policy options are available to our collective will. You know how to find reliable information about them, that draws on expert consensus. You don't need my inexpert interpretation!
I'm not responsible for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm hardly enthusiastic about every proposal from the left-most faction of American politics. My own options at present are limited to choosing between one party that acknowledges the necessity of decarbonizing the US economy as expeditiously as politically possible; and a rival party that adopted a climate-science denial plank no later than 16 years ago, as documented in the NYTimes article I cited. Jeezus. It's not a hard choice!
Yes, much has been written, and it isn't always consistent. It's hard to keep track, but as best I can tell, the progression of positions has been approximately:
1995: Must reduce emissions by 20% by 2015, as a start
2005: Must reduce emissions 80% by 2050, in order to keep warming to 2C
2015: Must reduce emissions 100% by 2030, in order to keep warming to 1.5C
Today: Must achieve Net Zero by 2050, in order to keep warming to 2C
I may be missing some of the positions in between, and I doubt that any of these positions were uniformly accepted at any point. I didn't want to falsely impute any of them to you, so I asked, for the sake of discussion, what you would consider "meaningful climate action." I asked, because it's not really possible to dispute a statement with no clear meaning.
If you don't have a specific position, that's fine, but then I can't really explain why I find it unnecessary or impractical.
If your idea of "meaningful climate action is "must achieve Net Zero by 2050", I'll point out that this is a political position, not a scientific one. The consequences of continued warming laid out in IPCC reports are not particularly alarming - much less alarming than the consequences of rapid and complete decarbonization. It's true that many people, including the IPCC's press department, say "Scientists say we must achieve Net Zero by 2050 in order to limit warming to 2C", but this begs the question: Why do we need to limit warming to 2C? And the further question: Would the consequences of preventing the warming be worse than the consequences of allowing the warming? I could go on to point out that most emissions are coming from countries who aren't even uttering platitudes about achieving Net Zero, so the whole exercise is academic. Further warming is coming regardless of what the US does, so the most relevant question is how best to prepare for it and adapt to it.
If you're interested in resurrecting old NYT articles, one of my favorites is
https://web.archive.org/web/20110218065849/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/18/world/scientists-say-earth-s-warming-could-set-off-wide-disruptions.html (accessed through the Wayback Machine, because it's currently behind the NYT paywall). The scientific claims in this article are mostly qualitative and relatively modest, as are the scientific claims in the IPCC working group reports today. If you're inclined to be alarmed about the issue, you can find justification in this article. If you're inclined to see the issue as a challenge, but probably not more severe than the pollution problems we've already dealt with, you can find justification for that view as well.
Over the last two years, the International Energy Agency has reported the surprising finding that, thanks to the development of modular, mass-produced low-carbon and clean energy technologies -- solar photovoltaics, wind generators, heat pumps, batteries and electric vehicles -- the world is projected to hit peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions during this decade. Perhaps as soon as in 2025.
Nobody saw this coming this soon. This is because economies of hardware mass production of advanced, 21st Century systems are beating the economies of scale of 20th Century fossil energy systems.
Achieving worldwide peak CO2 emissions is a specific goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Another specific goal of the Paris Agreement, that is now also within reach (within perhaps 2-3 decades) is achieving a balance of anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks. The Paris Agreement objective was to accomplish this something during the second half of the 21st Century, but now we might get there closer to the middle of the century.
Overall, this says that we are succeeding. We are developing innovative solutions to the economic problem of global decarbonization.
Of course, there's still more that needs to be done. We need to continue to innovate, developing and deploying additional clean energy and clean fuel sources/technologies (e.g., hydrogen, fuel cells, bioenergy with carbon removal/use). But if we do it aggressively enough, and if the natural carbon sinks continue to remove CO2 at rates that are directly proportional to atmospheric CO2 levels, we could see atmospheric levels falling below 400 ppm, perhaps to something more like 350 ppm, around the end of the century.
There's great hope for the future. Global warming isn't baked in. But we have to continue to press forward with innovative, low-carbon and clean energy technologies.
I agree with what you're saying, although I think you're overestimating the rate that the natural carbon cycle will remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Nevertheless, I think we can keep warming to 2 deg C if we can solve the political roadblocks, which will only get stronger as we start to phase out fossil fuels.
As the fossil fuel industry shreds Democracy. Canada & Russia is committing war crimes against our planet . To this day and for the past 65 years Canadian and Russian hydro industry, in winter, is dumping warmed summer waters of their former rivers into the Arctic bays and oceans. All winter this same scam is pumping unlimited, heat trapping water vapor into surrounding atmosphere and down river all the way to the Arctic Ocean .
Another reason that the fossil fuel industry keeps on pushing for/building more units is that they make more profit from fossil fuel investments. Mainly BECAUSE they don't pay for their carbon emissions.
Is this really true: "For a grid that’s mainly fossil fuels, every kW of renewable power (RE) you add displaces a kW of expensive and dirty fossil fuel power.?"
Isn't it correct that "every KW of renewable power (RE) you add plus the cost of whatever backup storage is needed displaces a KW of expensive and dirty fossil fuel power"? For a reliable grid, the total use minus the amount from FF must surely be replaced by RE generation plus storage?
The article includes road costs as fossil fuel costs and assumes that they drop when transportation is electrified. That must assume that road miles drop in addition to electrifying vehicle use. Is that accurate?
Are the RE subsidies included in the cost of RE?
Is the cost of expanding the electric grid included in the cost of electrification?
Yes, Is this really true: "For a grid that’s mainly fossil fuels, every kW of renewable power (RE) you add displaces a kW of expensive and dirty fossil fuel power.?" see https://youtu.be/ZYfD1Z_zkfc?si=dLlFeGHiLSjQEavQ&t=1477 (it starts the exact point of the talk, but watch the whole thing)
If you're talking about the Berkeley 2035 study, subsidies are obviously included and so is the cost of transmission enhancement.
Who coud disagree that all this pro-fossil fuel activism is despicable?
Nevertheless ...
I suspect that had fossil fuel lobbying never existed, it would still be an uphill struggle to get Congress to pass a tax on net emissions of CO2. Is it fossil fuel lobbying that prevents environmentalists from advocating for taxation of net emissions of CO2 and for that the be the position of the US at COP?
That's an interesting thought experiment. I suspect that, had fossil fuel lobbying not existed, Congress would not be so opposed to taxation of CO2. Fossil fuel lobbying is, I would argue, one of the main reasons our political system is so dysfunctional.
As a lifelong self-identified environmentalist who took a bunch of Economics courses back in the day, I advocate a US national carbon fee and dividend with border adjustment tariff, as proposed by Citizen's Climate Lobby: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/. It's true carbon taxes/fees aren't politically popular in the US. I agree with Andrew: fossil fuel lobbying is the main reason for this. The principle objection to carbon taxes is that lower-income consumers pay a larger share of their incomes on fuel than wealthier folks do, making a bare producer fee that's included in the price of fuels a regressive tax. The dividend provision of Carbon Fee and Dividend addresses this, but imagine the resulting downward income redistribution being approved by the current US Congress!
Well, "the main reason" is perhaps exaggerated. Prof. Dessler said "one of the main reasons." That's more accurate. I do know that I often see "carbon taxes are regressive!" as a response, when I've just discussed the dividend provision of CF&D at some length.
Fair enough, but my sense is that fossil fuel lobbying is not even one of the main reasons for the lack of support for taxation of net CO2 emissions. Taxation is not taht populate even with "environmentalists" and I do not think their lack of support is because f fossil fuel lobbying.
As one of those "environmentalists", I'm opposed to carbon taxes that don't offer any compensatory benefit for at least a majority of voters (all stick, no carrot), are regressive, or don't effectively deter offshoring our emissions. Dividing up the revenue equally among everyone with a Social Security Number, say, so that those who use less fossil carbon than the national average within the dividend period actually make money, should make CF&D attractive to progressives. And the fact that with a 100% dividend the government doesn't get any (revenue neutrality), should make it more attractive to conservatives. The tariff protects domestic industry, by internalizing the climate cost of imports. The revenue stays in private hands, available to capital markets for re-investment in less carbon-intensive goods and services.
I suspect, though can't prove, that much of the knee-jerk opposition to any kind of carbon tax is kept in play by bespoke propaganda commissioned by carbon capitalists, to delay having to internalize their climate cost of production.
As my initial note said, I'm OK with the dividend idea or whatever helps gets a tax on net CO2 emission passed.
Although with fossil fuel cost spread throughout the economy I doubt that it is much more regressive than sales tax, for example and a lot LESS regressive than some other measures such as subsidies for EV and rooftop solar. Yet no one every objects to THEM on distributional grounds.
It’s an enterprise that places profit over people at any cost
I see the fossil fuel, MIC and animal ag industrial elites who place profit over people at any cost are the very same people who place US hegemony and dominance over people (including American ones) at any cost.
It is exactly like this. Nice article!
Hi guys, great post - that one went 'straight to the pool room'. (Aussie idiom for "It's a keeper!")
Just for fun I listen to a bit of a Doomer podcast called "Planet Critical". (Typical "renewables can't do the job" Degrowth / back to the land vibe.)
But this next episode was way outside my knowledge area - and basically stated our Democracies are utterly powerless before a free trade system policed by the World Bank's ICSID.
https://youtu.be/zsrP162n1S4?si=g8Yr7UfCTaj97VZe
The author interviewed wrote "Silent Coup" https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/silent-coup-9781350269989/
At first I thought it all sounded a bit "Tinfoil hat" - as I've heard too many "World Bank" conspiracies from back in the day. But then I remembered how much "State Capture" has featured in other recent environmental and climate literature - but I thought that was more about a system of vastly wealthier lobbying, Corporate jobs for the old boys who did favours for them in government, and all the usual stuff.
But the difference with ICSID? It seems to have some kind of legal 'teeth' - even though (so the podcast claimed) the Arbitration happens behind closed doors and is sometimes conducted by people who are not even lawyers - let alone judges able to decide matters between the rights of Multinational Corporations and Democratically elected governments! Jeffrey Sachs has had a go at them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Settlement_of_Investment_Disputes#Criticism
Anyone know about this stuff? Is ICSID a valid procedure that is sometimes misused - or too open to corruption right from the very start, from its very inception and design?
I agree with Andrew Dessler that the fossil fuel industry cares more about its business opportunities to create wealth by drilling, transporting, and selling oil and gas than it does about competing in a market against renewable energy technologies. Rather than compete, it will fund authoritarian-leaning Republicans and push misinformation to stop the clean energy transition. See my Substack article, "Vote to save clean energy jobs, factories, and innovations." https://cleantechadoption.substack.com/p/vote-to-save-the-clean-energy-jobs
Electrification will *accelerate* the ecocide.
Doing less is a better way forward.
Some say there are 3 types of politician in Washington; they all want war with China but 2 of the groups prioritise war with Russia or Iran beforehand. They all put MIC profit first over people and the environment.
Of course powerful industries with huge lobbying power such as fossil fuels and animal ag/pharma/agrochemicals are rigging the market.
However leftists and climate scientists seem to think that Pharma, who also have huge lobbying power, don't do this. They ridicule anyone, Doctor or scientist, who dares to question the evidence for the 'covid' measures or vaccines. They think that the doubling of Pharma executives personal fortunes was OK because they valiantly saved lives.
Pharma have been regulating and creating markets, controlling politicians and keeping us purposefully fat, sick and on drugs for decades! https://jowaller.substack.com/p/how-power-couple-pharma-regulation
Jo
Yep, everything is about money and not what is good or right for our planet
I don't believe we can come anywhere near net zero by 2050, not in the US and worldwide. There is too much that has to be done in the next 25 1/2 years. Fossil fuels will be necessary until we transition to provide food, transportation, and shelter. Yes, we must abandon fossil fuels. But we should not starve or impoverish 8 billion people in the process. There are many Asians and Africans who want to increase their energy consumption in the next 50 years.
Quoting Vaclav Smil:
"In terms of final energy uses and specific energy converters, the unfolding transition would have to replace more than 4 terawatts (TW) of electricity-generating capacity now installed in large coal- and gas-fired stations by converting to non-carbon sources; to substitute nearly 1.5 billion combustion (gasoline and diesel) engines in road and off-road vehicles; to convert all agricultural and crop processing machinery (including about 50 million tractors and more than 100 million irrigation pumps) to electric drive or to non-fossil fuels; to find new sources of heat, hot air, and hot water used in a wide variety of industrial processes (from iron smelting and cement and glass making to chemical syntheses and food preservation) that now consume close to 30 percent of all final uses of fossil fuels; to replace more than half a billion natural gas furnaces now heating houses and industrial, institutional, and commercial places with heat pumps or other sources of heat; and to find new ways to power nearly 120,000 merchant fleet vessels (bulk carriers of ores, cement, fertilizers, wood and grain, and container ships, the largest one with capacities of some 24,000 units, now mainly running on heavy fuel oil and diesel fuel) and nearly 25,000 active jetliners that form the foundation of global long-distance transportation (fueled by kerosene)...
The reality is, we are yet to discover viable alternatives to hydrocarbons in crucial industries such as fertilizers, plastics, steel, and cement. Imagine a world without these essentials! This underscores the immense challenges we face in our transition to a sustainable future.
My concern is that some, perhaps even you, are placing their hopes on degrowth as the path to achieving net zero. However, the world is not likely to willingly downsize. This raises the alarming possibility of an authoritarian government attempting to enforce it, potentially leading to a dystopian future reminiscent of 1984.
Stop demonizing the oil companies - they make modern life possible.
Clean energy is still a pipe dream, it's not ready.
I am retired but worked in the energy industry for 38 years oil & gas, renewable energy, deployed fuel cells at ~40 of my employers facilities. As long as it is either/or we are never going to get to where we need to be in the time we have to get there. It is not either/or, it is all of the above. I live in Texas. You get no argument from me that right wing of the Republican Party in Texas lets ideology (good ‘ole Texas natural gas) get in the way of common sense and good policy. At the same time, I found the “green lobby” if you will too often times to be equally frustrating. They just cannot seem to get out of their own way. We are never going to successfully challenge climate change on solar, wind and batteries alone. It is nothing less than a fantasy to believe otherwise. Natural gas has a place in the mix as a transition source of the many technologies needed to support on again, off again renewables and short-term storage. The less than enlightened Texas Legislature does not have a franchise on tunnel vision policy prescriptions impeding an all-encompassing fight to save the planet.
Your premise seems to be that, absent the nefarious influence of the fossil fuel companies, there would be a smooth glidepath to complete the energy transition, leading to Net Zero in the near future, with abundant cheap energy for all.
This is simply delusional. I'm not aware of any study that claims that Net Zero can be accomplished without a combination of multiple trillions of dollars' capital investment plus development and deployment of as-yet-unknown technology for large-scale carbon capture. If you know of any pathways that aren't so dependent, please let me know.
You also seem to assume that there is widespread popular support for dramatic decarbonization of the economy, which is only being thwarted by the fossil fuel companies. I've never seen any indication that most voters in the US are willing to pay any significant cost to decarbonize. Again, if you think things have changed in this regard, please let me know.
I don't discount the capacity of US voters to fool themselves completely on their own hook, without reinforcement from for-profit disinformers. Yet the pernicious influence of the decades-long disinformation campaign by fossil fuel interests, to forestall collective interference in their revenue streams, is a matter of public record. As recently as 2008, the US Republican Party acknowledged the need for collective (i.e. government) intervention aimed at decarbonizing our economy. That was when the GOP sold itself lock, stock and barrel to fossil fuel producers and investors (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html). Since then no Republican politician has remained in office after publicly supporting a rational decarbonization policy.
The Democratic Party isn't innocent of taking fossil fuel money, but it at least acknowledges the need for collective action. The first successful federal legislation to be enacted was the "Inflation Reduction" Act of 2022, 34 years after James Hansen's announcement that anthropogenic global warming was underway. The IRA barely passed, on strict party lines. To protect even the IRA's modest emissions reductions, and eventually move beyond them, all climate realists can do is vote Democratic in every election, at least until some Republican candidate publicly endorses meaningful national climate action.
Interesting reasoning. Andrew's premise was "fossil fuels are shredding our democracy." If this means anything, it means that fossil fuels (I presume he means fossil fuel companies) are preventing our normally functioning democracy from enacting the policies he considers vital. You extend this reasoning to include the Republican party.
If voters really favored "meaningful climate action" (I'm not sure what you mean by this), and if they considered this to be an important priority, then Democrats (or Republicans) could easily win office by supporting "meaningful climate action" as their priority. Very few politicians I'm aware of have done so. The ones who were most prominent, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, promote a "Green New Deal" with no specifics on climate action, but extravagant language about empowering marginal communities or expanding diversity, or other such things. The Green New Deal is really a conventional lefty wish list disguised as a Green wish list.
I'll offer an alternative interpretation: Most voters would like to decarbonize the economy, all other things being equal. But they aren't enthusiastic about paying much higher prices for electricity, or being forced to buy electric cars, or paying much higher taxes to subsidize green toys for the rich. And, no politician I'm aware of has proposed a course that could mostly (let alone completely) eliminate carbon emissions within the next century. The academic studies I've read (the Berkeley 2035 report and the Princeton Net Zero report) emphasize enormous costs to implement, assuming that large scale carbon capture can be developed and deployed.
So, for the sake of discussion, what would you count as "meaningful climate action"? How much would carbon emissions have to be reduced, and on what time scale, to be "meaningful"? How much would the US reduce warming by achieving this target? What's the likelihood that other rich countries would take corresponding action? How much would it cost to implement worldwide? Or, alternatively, why would poor countries be willing to commit to such targets, rather than using fossil fuels to achieve a rich world standard of living?
"For the sake of discussion"? This isn't the Argument Clinic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLlv_aZjHXc). So much has been written, on this blog and elsewhere, about what collective intervention in the US and global energy market can achieve how much emissions reduction, how fast. Multiple policy options are available to our collective will. You know how to find reliable information about them, that draws on expert consensus. You don't need my inexpert interpretation!
I'm not responsible for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm hardly enthusiastic about every proposal from the left-most faction of American politics. My own options at present are limited to choosing between one party that acknowledges the necessity of decarbonizing the US economy as expeditiously as politically possible; and a rival party that adopted a climate-science denial plank no later than 16 years ago, as documented in the NYTimes article I cited. Jeezus. It's not a hard choice!
Yes, much has been written, and it isn't always consistent. It's hard to keep track, but as best I can tell, the progression of positions has been approximately:
1995: Must reduce emissions by 20% by 2015, as a start
2005: Must reduce emissions 80% by 2050, in order to keep warming to 2C
2015: Must reduce emissions 100% by 2030, in order to keep warming to 1.5C
Today: Must achieve Net Zero by 2050, in order to keep warming to 2C
I may be missing some of the positions in between, and I doubt that any of these positions were uniformly accepted at any point. I didn't want to falsely impute any of them to you, so I asked, for the sake of discussion, what you would consider "meaningful climate action." I asked, because it's not really possible to dispute a statement with no clear meaning.
If you don't have a specific position, that's fine, but then I can't really explain why I find it unnecessary or impractical.
If your idea of "meaningful climate action is "must achieve Net Zero by 2050", I'll point out that this is a political position, not a scientific one. The consequences of continued warming laid out in IPCC reports are not particularly alarming - much less alarming than the consequences of rapid and complete decarbonization. It's true that many people, including the IPCC's press department, say "Scientists say we must achieve Net Zero by 2050 in order to limit warming to 2C", but this begs the question: Why do we need to limit warming to 2C? And the further question: Would the consequences of preventing the warming be worse than the consequences of allowing the warming? I could go on to point out that most emissions are coming from countries who aren't even uttering platitudes about achieving Net Zero, so the whole exercise is academic. Further warming is coming regardless of what the US does, so the most relevant question is how best to prepare for it and adapt to it.
If you're interested in resurrecting old NYT articles, one of my favorites is
https://web.archive.org/web/20110218065849/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/18/world/scientists-say-earth-s-warming-could-set-off-wide-disruptions.html (accessed through the Wayback Machine, because it's currently behind the NYT paywall). The scientific claims in this article are mostly qualitative and relatively modest, as are the scientific claims in the IPCC working group reports today. If you're inclined to be alarmed about the issue, you can find justification in this article. If you're inclined to see the issue as a challenge, but probably not more severe than the pollution problems we've already dealt with, you can find justification for that view as well.
As an engineer, I see the glass as half full.
Over the last two years, the International Energy Agency has reported the surprising finding that, thanks to the development of modular, mass-produced low-carbon and clean energy technologies -- solar photovoltaics, wind generators, heat pumps, batteries and electric vehicles -- the world is projected to hit peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions during this decade. Perhaps as soon as in 2025.
Nobody saw this coming this soon. This is because economies of hardware mass production of advanced, 21st Century systems are beating the economies of scale of 20th Century fossil energy systems.
Achieving worldwide peak CO2 emissions is a specific goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Another specific goal of the Paris Agreement, that is now also within reach (within perhaps 2-3 decades) is achieving a balance of anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks. The Paris Agreement objective was to accomplish this something during the second half of the 21st Century, but now we might get there closer to the middle of the century.
Overall, this says that we are succeeding. We are developing innovative solutions to the economic problem of global decarbonization.
Of course, there's still more that needs to be done. We need to continue to innovate, developing and deploying additional clean energy and clean fuel sources/technologies (e.g., hydrogen, fuel cells, bioenergy with carbon removal/use). But if we do it aggressively enough, and if the natural carbon sinks continue to remove CO2 at rates that are directly proportional to atmospheric CO2 levels, we could see atmospheric levels falling below 400 ppm, perhaps to something more like 350 ppm, around the end of the century.
There's great hope for the future. Global warming isn't baked in. But we have to continue to press forward with innovative, low-carbon and clean energy technologies.
I agree with what you're saying, although I think you're overestimating the rate that the natural carbon cycle will remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Nevertheless, I think we can keep warming to 2 deg C if we can solve the political roadblocks, which will only get stronger as we start to phase out fossil fuels.
As the fossil fuel industry shreds Democracy. Canada & Russia is committing war crimes against our planet . To this day and for the past 65 years Canadian and Russian hydro industry, in winter, is dumping warmed summer waters of their former rivers into the Arctic bays and oceans. All winter this same scam is pumping unlimited, heat trapping water vapor into surrounding atmosphere and down river all the way to the Arctic Ocean .
Another reason that the fossil fuel industry keeps on pushing for/building more units is that they make more profit from fossil fuel investments. Mainly BECAUSE they don't pay for their carbon emissions.
Do you consider Vaclav Smil to be a fossil fuel shill?
See https://open.substack.com/pub/robertbryce/p/vaclav-smil-calls-bullshit-on-net-zero?r=8p0vc&utm_medium=ios
not everyone is a shill. sometimes they're just wrong.
Maybe you should try to point out where he is error.
Net zero may indeed be hard — we actually have no idea. But the focus on net zero is misleading, as I discuss here: https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/is-renewable-energy-cheaper-than
Is this really true: "For a grid that’s mainly fossil fuels, every kW of renewable power (RE) you add displaces a kW of expensive and dirty fossil fuel power.?"
Isn't it correct that "every KW of renewable power (RE) you add plus the cost of whatever backup storage is needed displaces a KW of expensive and dirty fossil fuel power"? For a reliable grid, the total use minus the amount from FF must surely be replaced by RE generation plus storage?
The article includes road costs as fossil fuel costs and assumes that they drop when transportation is electrified. That must assume that road miles drop in addition to electrifying vehicle use. Is that accurate?
Are the RE subsidies included in the cost of RE?
Is the cost of expanding the electric grid included in the cost of electrification?
Yes, Is this really true: "For a grid that’s mainly fossil fuels, every kW of renewable power (RE) you add displaces a kW of expensive and dirty fossil fuel power.?" see https://youtu.be/ZYfD1Z_zkfc?si=dLlFeGHiLSjQEavQ&t=1477 (it starts the exact point of the talk, but watch the whole thing)
If you're talking about the Berkeley 2035 study, subsidies are obviously included and so is the cost of transmission enhancement.
Who coud disagree that all this pro-fossil fuel activism is despicable?
Nevertheless ...
I suspect that had fossil fuel lobbying never existed, it would still be an uphill struggle to get Congress to pass a tax on net emissions of CO2. Is it fossil fuel lobbying that prevents environmentalists from advocating for taxation of net emissions of CO2 and for that the be the position of the US at COP?
That's an interesting thought experiment. I suspect that, had fossil fuel lobbying not existed, Congress would not be so opposed to taxation of CO2. Fossil fuel lobbying is, I would argue, one of the main reasons our political system is so dysfunctional.
That too is true! Extremists bring out the worst in each other.
As a lifelong self-identified environmentalist who took a bunch of Economics courses back in the day, I advocate a US national carbon fee and dividend with border adjustment tariff, as proposed by Citizen's Climate Lobby: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/. It's true carbon taxes/fees aren't politically popular in the US. I agree with Andrew: fossil fuel lobbying is the main reason for this. The principle objection to carbon taxes is that lower-income consumers pay a larger share of their incomes on fuel than wealthier folks do, making a bare producer fee that's included in the price of fuels a regressive tax. The dividend provision of Carbon Fee and Dividend addresses this, but imagine the resulting downward income redistribution being approved by the current US Congress!
I've no objection to "fee" instead of "tax."
Neither do I have any objection to returning the tax revenue as a "dividend"
I do not think that the unpopularity of the fee-dividend is mainly the result of fossil fuel lobbying.
Well, "the main reason" is perhaps exaggerated. Prof. Dessler said "one of the main reasons." That's more accurate. I do know that I often see "carbon taxes are regressive!" as a response, when I've just discussed the dividend provision of CF&D at some length.
Fair enough, but my sense is that fossil fuel lobbying is not even one of the main reasons for the lack of support for taxation of net CO2 emissions. Taxation is not taht populate even with "environmentalists" and I do not think their lack of support is because f fossil fuel lobbying.
As one of those "environmentalists", I'm opposed to carbon taxes that don't offer any compensatory benefit for at least a majority of voters (all stick, no carrot), are regressive, or don't effectively deter offshoring our emissions. Dividing up the revenue equally among everyone with a Social Security Number, say, so that those who use less fossil carbon than the national average within the dividend period actually make money, should make CF&D attractive to progressives. And the fact that with a 100% dividend the government doesn't get any (revenue neutrality), should make it more attractive to conservatives. The tariff protects domestic industry, by internalizing the climate cost of imports. The revenue stays in private hands, available to capital markets for re-investment in less carbon-intensive goods and services.
I suspect, though can't prove, that much of the knee-jerk opposition to any kind of carbon tax is kept in play by bespoke propaganda commissioned by carbon capitalists, to delay having to internalize their climate cost of production.
As my initial note said, I'm OK with the dividend idea or whatever helps gets a tax on net CO2 emission passed.
Although with fossil fuel cost spread throughout the economy I doubt that it is much more regressive than sales tax, for example and a lot LESS regressive than some other measures such as subsidies for EV and rooftop solar. Yet no one every objects to THEM on distributional grounds.