It's an all-out fight to derail anything green
otherwise we won’t return “above average profits"; CEO of Exxon
From How not to Act in an Emergency by McKibben;
‘Last year’s spike was so scary that NASA’s Gavin Schmidt—Jim Hansen’s heir as keeper of NASA’s climate record—wrote in Nature this week that it raised the most profound possible implications.
‘It could imply that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated. It could also mean that statistical inferences based on past events are less reliable than we thought, adding more uncertainty to seasonal predictions of droughts and rainfall patterns.
Much of the world’s climate is driven by intricate, long-distance links — known as teleconnections — fuelled by sea and atmospheric currents. If their behavior is in flux or markedly diverging from previous observations, we need to know about such changes in real time.’
And now, with equal care, read the words of the biggest oil producer on earth, the CEO of Saudi Aramco, who was in Houston last week for the annual hydrocarbon festival known as CERAWeek.
“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions.”
That is to say, the powers that be want to abandon what the World Meteorological Organization, in their ‘red alert’ report called the “one glimmer of hope”: that renewable energy installations rose fifty percent last year.
Understand that the battle is fully joined. The fossil fuel industry—as Exxon CEO Darren Woods helpfully explained—is in an all-out fight to derail anything green, because it won’t return “above average profits.” They have plenty of allies: everyone noted Donald Trump threatening a “bloodbath” last week, but fewer noted the actual target of his wrath: electric vehicles (made in China).’ The Biden administration backed production EVs;
It won’t solve the climate crisis, of course—nothing will solve it. But accelerating momentum towards green energy is the likeliest card we have to play in a world where people seem unwilling to moderate their demands for mobility, and indeed for consumption of any kind.’
McKibben does come across as a bit of whiny wind bag, however, he makes the point well: that a bloody war is being waged by the fossil fuel giants and their political puppets not only against China and renewables but also against peace and anything green, lovely and hopeful. All for money.
PS
Accelerating towards green energy is simply increasing energy consumption.
Renewables may make up 50% of electric energy capacity in China as opposed to 25% in 2005, but the capacity itself has increased by 600%. To represent a transition the amount of energy produced would have to stay the same. Ideally it should be significantly reduced. Increasing energy production 6 fold is an energy addition not transition. In 2005 fossil fuels accouted for (75%) 381 GW of power generation and in 2023 fossil fuels accouted for (50%) 1278 GW of power generation. Three times as much fossil fuel use.
The production of renewable energy is also not zero emission.
And this only applies to the production of electricity, therefore Chinese military vehicles, aviation and shipping fuel consumption is not included.
And globally…
From Jackson Damian ‘Minimisers claim this ‘transition’ is well underway when, in fact, renewables still make up less than 20% of total energy use — and more than 50% of those are biomass i.e. burning wood mostly, now totally discredited given this process increases atmospheric CO2 way more than ‘replanting’ absorbs. The loud claims for solar and wind hide the fact these still make up only around 5% of the total and usually refer only to global electricity consumption, of which in 2023 they made up just 12%. The planned increases of these still won’t have a significant impact on total emissions; there is no prospect of them replacing fossil fuels for mining, heavy and manufacturing industry, construction and related transport. The hard truth is, under current net zero plans, renewables will remain for years ‘additional’ fuel sources that, at best, slightly reduce ongoing increases in emissions.’
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