Greens erupt as fossil fuel ‘phaseout’ is dropped from proposed climate deal
“COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said. But organizers of the summit in Dubai urged nations to be flexible and compromise.
COP28 climate summit President Sultan al-Jaber, who also leads the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company, claps during a session Monday in Dubai. | Rafiq Maqbool/AP
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The prospect of a deal to end fossil fuels faded on Monday in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, when organizers of the U.N. climate summit released a draft proposal that merely suggested reducing them instead.
That outcome would fall far short of the demands that environmental groups, the U.S., the European Union and vulnerable island nations had laid out before the COP28 summit in Dubai, with some activists saying the talks would be a failure if they did not call for phasing out the production of coal, oil and natural gas.
The draft “really doesn’t meet the expectations of this COP in terms of the urgently needed transition to clean sources of energy and the phaseout of fossil fuels,” U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said during a fractious, closed-door meeting late Monday night and early Tuesday, which POLITICO listened to via an unsanctioned feed.
The gig is up on sustainable energy, even for the staunchest of supporters. Before the discussion begins on those who are having to scramble to get ready for winter, China and India are laughing. They are expanding coal mining and coal power plants and are the worlds largest polluters. Still, the weenies who bought the (money laundering) Global Warming story are going to pay the most this winter.
Despite the fanfare surrounding wind and solar, the world’s dependency on fossil fuels is increasing. Last week, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said that the world is now “transitioning to coal.”
Saad al-Kaabi, Energy Minister of Qatar, says, “Many countries particularly in Europe which had been strong advocates of green energy and carbon-free future have made a sudden and sharp U-turn. Today, coal burning is once again on the rise reaching its highest levels since 2014.”
They are right. Global coal demand will reach an historic high in 2022, similar to 2013’s record levels. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “Global coal consumption is forecast to rise by 0.7 percent in 2022 to 8 billion tons…. Coal consumption in the European Union is expected to rise by seven percent in 2022 on top of last year’s 14 percent jump.”
Coal will continue to be a sought-after energy source as “rising gas prices after 2030 will make existing coal-fired generation more economic,” the IEA says. Global energy demand will grow by 47 percent from now through 2050, and oil is expected to be the major source of energy.
Analysts are projecting “a huge gas-to-coal fuel transition in power and industrial sectors” of Europe. Yes, not gas to renewables, but gas to coal. In fact, the European Union’s coal consumption grew 16 percent year-on-year for the first half of 2022. European countries imported 7.9 million tons of thermal coal in June, more than doubling year-on-year. Annual coal imports are expected to reach 100 million tons by the end of the year, the highest since 2017.
Even in the most developed economies of the West like Germany and the UK, fossil fuels continue to dominate as the only dependable source of energy. Germany is set to become the third highest importer of Indonesian coal in 2023, ranked just below coal-guzzling China and India.
AP says, “Coal, long treated as a legacy fuel in Europe, is now helping the continent safeguard its power supply and cope with the dramatic rise in natural gas prices caused by the war.” Rather than wind or solar, it is coal that is keeping the lights on in Europe.
So the Greens lied to us about the nuclear power plant issue!
The Greens assured us again and again that it would not make sense to continue operating the nuclear power plants. We would have “no electricity problem,” said Economics Minister Robert Habeck, Environment Minister Steffi Lemke and Green Party leader Ricarda Lang, like a mantra. But that was a lie that was spread against the advice of experts: This is proven by 166 documents from the environment and economics ministries, which environment minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) had to hand over to the Die Welt am Sonntag and the Cicero on application [both are behind a paywall].
Explosive: Robert Habeck and his Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection refused to hand over the documents, which they are legally obliged to do! He wanted to cover up what Welt was able to prove anyway: the Greens lied to us in the nuclear debate — and neutralized experts who wanted to tell the truth.
The files show how Habeck and company put their crude anti-nuclear ideology above the security of supply in Germany: Against the advice of their own experts. Experts in Habeck’s ministry “obviously” considered the continued operation of the remaining nuclear power plants to be the right, sensible decision — Habeck ignored them. Just like the Ministry of the Environment, which apparently let a letter from the BMWK [Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection] experts go straight into the wastepaper basket, ignoring the words of the experts as well. When the head of the “Society for Reactor Safety”, which is close to the ministry, criticized the phase-out of nuclear power, he was quickly muzzled by State Secretary for the Environment Christian Kühn (Green Party) and was no longer allowed to comment.
Ever since signing the Paris climate agreement, Vietnam has shown interest in reducing its dependency on fossil fuels, introducing in recent years a slew of measures to cut consumption.
However, in what is considered to be a major U-turn, Vietnam’s government announced last month that it will increase coal imports for the next 13 years.
Critics of fossil fuels, including most mainstream media, are out of sync with the world’s energy realities. They are consistently premature in their celebrations of the emission-reduction promises of developing nations like Vietnam only to see commitments yield to the need to meet growing energy demand with coal, oil and natural gas. Even developed economies like Germany and the UK have ditched — or suspended — grandiose plans for “carbon-free” utopias to fend off social unrest or economic collapse.
In a new strategy drafted to develop the coal sector, Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade says that it will increase annual coal imports to as much as 83 million tons during 2025-35.
This decision is a marked departure from ambitious emission-reduction plans that the country seemed keen to embrace, thus delivering another blow to the international campaign against fossil fuels.
Vietnam’s consumption of coal has increased rapidly in the last decade largely to generate electricity — from 27.8 million tons in 2011 to 38.77 million tons in 2015 and 53.52 million tons in 2021. Demand for coal is projected to peak at 125-127 million tons in 2030, mainly due to growing needs in power generation and in the cement, metallurgy and chemical industries.
For countries like Vietnam, there is no option but to increase fossil fuel consumption in the coming decades. Coal, oil, and gas together represent the most affordable, dependable, and abundant source of energy. In fact, a majority of the world’s primary energy comes from these fuels.
The favored technologies of climate alarmists — wind and solar — cannot meet energy needs of large populations. What little electricity they do produce is intermittent and expensive. So, developing countries cannot reduce fossil fuel consumption without a significant compromise in power reliability and economic growth. The consequences of energy shortages due to the anti-fossil fuel stance is greater in developing countries where poverty is still rampant.
Coal consumption correlates closely to Vietnam’s growth in gross domestic product (GDP). The doubling of consumption between 2011-21 tracks with a steady increase in the rate of growth over the same period.
#NBADJT
Also, it must suck that Trump said this would happen if they relied on Russian oil.
The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals. There is no climate emergency, say the authors, who are drawn from across the world and led by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever. Climate science is said to have degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science.
The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this has been about money from the beginning. Like all political maneuvering, you create a crisis that only you can fix.
Europe bought it and is now held hostage by Russia, as a former president predicted. The USA is desperately trying to hamstring our economy with false claims about the climate. Look behind it to find the source of these falsehoods, money, power and control.
(from Moonbattery)
THE STUDY
The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals.
The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
Having discarded the use of empirical evidence, pseudo-scientific priests of the climate cult who are paid by Big Government to prop up global warming ideology rely on models. These models find whatever they are designed to find, and according to the WCD, “are not remotely plausible as global policy tools.”
I had to work with climatards who bought into Carbon poisoning the atmosphere, to the point of them wanting to tax it a dollar a pound. They and their co-founder went under. I knew for lack of facts. They were always begging us for money so there you have your real reason. They and the other green analysts would gladly jet to the conferences all around the world, like their hero’s who fly private jets to climate conferences.
“More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yield of crops worldwide.”
The Declaration also observes there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying natural disasters, as the liberal media hysterically shrieks.
“There is no climate emergency,” the Declaration goes on. “We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050,” it says, adding that the aim of global policy should be “prosperity for all” by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times.
CONVINCING THE CLIMATE WORSHIPERS
There is no telling someone who to worship. We all worship something and those people selected both money and the Earth. Good luck with that one. It ranks so far down the list with ordinary people that even scaring them isn’t working. The statue of Liberty isn’t under water, Greenland ice is growing, Florida is still here and there is no change in the water level at Plymouth Rock.
I don’t try to convince them because you can’t talk to someone who has declared their hill to die on.
EUROPE STEPPING ON IT’S OWN DICK
Here is a list of their progress down the toilet of energy shortage because of green polices and environmental policies by their government. – Courtesy of WUWT.
Very low French nuclear availability (EDF recently scaled back its output guidance for 2023 to 300-330TWh and is now facing cooling issues that are impacting an already weak 2022 availability)
Historically low hydro storage levels from Scandinavia to Iberia (given widespread drought conditions)
Thermal plant closures across Western Europe (across ageing coal, nuclear & gas plants)
Fuel supply logistics driven by a combination of very low Rhine water levels (e.g. impacting barge coal delivery to German power stations) & logistical issues driven by the Russian conflict
Periods of low wind & solar output where the factors above are driving a deficit in residual generation.
The combination of these factors is pushing the power crisis onto centre stage.
Power crisis now driving the gas crisis
Europe is short molecules of gas across the next 3 years. Given lack of any material supply response across this period (in the absence of a return to higher Russian flows), there are three demand side reduction options to balance the market:
Industrial demand (already facing destruction of ~15% so far in 2022 due to higher prices)
Power sector demand
Residential & commercial demand (the sector that governments are most likely to try and protect in case of rationing).
Normally very high gas prices would incentivise reduced demand from the power sector. But going forward Europe is now short electrons as well a molecules. And the marginal source of incremental electrons comes from burning molecules.
In other words in order to keep the lights on, Europe has no alternative but to burn more gas, aside from intervention to reduce power demand which may also be coming.
A 2020 scientific analysis revealed that “models overpredict warming in every target observational analog, in most cases significantly so, and the average differences between models and observations are statistically significant.”
Scientist Ross McKitrick calls out errors of modelers that exaggerate future temperature increases.
“I get it that modeling the climate is incredibly difficult, and no one faults the scientific community for finding it a tough problem to solve,” writes McKitrick. “But we are all living with the consequences of climate modelers stubbornly using generation after generation of models that exhibit too much surface and tropospheric warming, in addition to running grossly exaggerated forcing scenarios.” (Forcing is the mechanism by which greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere.)
I earlier quoted the 97% of scientists agree there is global warming. I put this near the end because no one believes it, even those claiming that lie. It’s useful life is over and has been exposed.
Just to show how much the rest of the world and the top polluters care about this issue, look at China and India. Good job there Nancy.
China Scraps (Already Scant) Climate Cooperation Over Pelosi Taiwan Visit
The Chinese Communist Party was very displeased with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) well-publicized visit to Taiwan reaffirming the United States’ commitment to the island’s continued independence from mainland China. To demonstrate its displeasure—in addition to the usual rattling of sabers, sending of new naval ships into the area, flying jets into Taiwanese airspace, and test-firing missiles into the sea around the island—China announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in the fight against climate change. Heaven forbid!
China played the rest of the world’s leaders like a drum during the negotiations for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. In an agreement that included no mandatory reductions except what countries imposed on themselves, all China would concede was that it expected its emissions to peak by 2030, maybe 2035. Climate negotiators and leaders of environmental NGOs hailed this as a historic step. Climate realists such as I asked: Peak at what level? Chinese Communist Party leaders smirked behind their hands at their PR coup. Our question has gone unanswered to this day.
This is all supported by working people who pay excessive taxes and unnecessarily high energy bills. Some employed in the fossil fuel industry pay with loss of livelihoods. The price for the poorest among us — particularly in the developing world — may be lives lost through further impoverishment and early death.
Some climate warmists may be ignorant of science’s corruption. However, others cynically take advantage of it for money and power. At some point, this facade will collapse because of the lack of reality behind it. Nonetheless, we are obligated to do what we can to accelerate the falsehood’s dismantlement if only to honor sacrifices made by others in the name of truth.
In the 16th century, Martin Luther freed millions from the tyranny of a corrupt church by refusing to recant what he knew to be true. He managed to avoid torture and death by fire for his alleged heresies. Others were not so fortunate.
Yet our obligation is deeper than memorializing the past. As biographer Eric Metaxas writes: “In the end, what Luther did was not merely to open a door in which people were free to rebel against their leaders but to open a door in which people were obliged by God to take responsibility for themselves.”
Those who recognize the wrong can do no other than to point it out. And so we do.
The rest of the money was laundered to Hunter, Joe, Hillary, Nancy, Schumer, Obama, Congress and the other millionaires not suffering during inflation. The middle class got buggered. They are the 1% they want us to hate.
Look at Steven Miller 4 meme’s below for the bookend to this next one.
And Peppermint Patti Psaki was so proud of her lie last year.Mauricio Godoy can understand this one.And he does anything the opposite of what Trump did for our Nation for spite, and it turned to shit.Except at election time when the politicians lie and promise free money, insurance, tuition, phones, mortgages…
It always ends with this when you listen to the current administration. It started with Wilson, FDR, BJ Clinton, both Bushes, Obama and Joe. If you think they have your interests in mind, you are sadly mistaken.
I’ve stayed away from talking about Biden, like I stayed away from Trump. I’m not going to try to change anyone’s opinion of either, nor will I change mine. Politics is poison, so I’ll talk economics instead (OK, I’ll make a few sarcastic points because, that’s why).
I do see how this problem can easily be solved.
Today, the President announced that he’s opening up the strategic oil reserve to bring down the prices. This is little more than a band aid to a problem rather than a solution. That reserve was meant for a crisis, of which we are not in right now. By crisis, I mean an attack, an actual climate disaster like a hurricane or a non man made disruption in fuel production.
When taking office, he shut down production of fossil fuels via the Keystone Pipeline, Fracking and other independent (of other countries) production of oil. All was done in the name of sustainable sources and devices like electric cars. What is not said is that the generators of electricity are fossil fuel based, even for a Tesla. Also not said is we are not ready for decades to leave oil as a base for our energy and electricity needs.
Irony, hypocrisy and sarcasm, all in one.
The cynical me steps back and looks at the executive orders signed and it seems that Biden is just against anything the previous president did. Lots of presidents do that. One of them was energy independence. Recently, he asked the Saudi’s to produce more for us, although we have the ability to be the largest producer and exporter. They thumbed their noses at us.
To me, if you produce more, the price would go down. It seemed to work a couple of years ago and there is no reason not to have it work again. Stop the restrictions on fracking (which helped reduce our carbon footprint btw), get rid of the restrictions on fracking and get rid of the bureaucratic laws against our being energy independent and the price goes back down. It has nothing to do with production anywhere else, other than driving down the price worldwide.
It would be a step in the right direction of inflation reduction.
Tapping the strategic oil reserved leaves us with our pants down in the case of an actual emergency.
I’m pretty sure most who have an IQ above a grain of rice could see this and know I’m stating the obvious.
Do I expect this to happen? Not a chance. I lived through lines during the Carter years and expect the same to happen until production returns. It’s simple economics.
It’s time to put pettiness aside and do what is right for the people of the country. It’s not getting better than it was. Cutting fuel costs would be a good start.
Delusions of Adequacy 