The Illusions of the Green Economy By James Reed

“John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate has said that the shift to a Green Economy would entail “a bigger economic transformation” than the Industrial Revolution. Like most of the capitalist-based globalist Left, he seems to think that there will be massive growth from the transition. In principle there is a case for a GDP increase. But, the clanger is that doing so will involve vast ages of de-industrialisation, and China and the rest of Asia are not listening to the climate change bs, as documented below. So all of this in nothing more than a Leftist quest to destroy the West, dressed up in climate apocalypse. Really, it is far too late for doing everything Kerry and furry friends advocate.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/01/kerry-green-economy-will-be-bigger-than-the-industrial-revolution/?utm_source=gnaa

“John Kerry, the US special envoy on climate, is predicting that the shift to a green economy would entail “a bigger economic transformation” than the Industrial Revolution, according to a report.

“​​The fact is we’re looking at the creation of the largest market in the history of the world,” he said ​Monday, according to Fox Business.

“This will be a bigger economic transformation that is right there at our disposal — bigger than the Industrial Revolution if we will start to seize it, and there are millions of jobs to be created​,” Kerry said at an event with the ​​European Bank for Reconstruction and Development​.​

Kerry, a former Democratic senator from ​Massachusetts and presidential candidate in 2004, added that “there is a massive amount of money to be made because there are 4.5 to 5 billion energy users in the world today.”

 

W​hile Democrats, like Kerry, claim that millions of jobs will be created and the economy will be ​energized if climate packages like the Green New Deal are implemented, critics predict catastrophic job losses, long-term economic damage and loss of family income. 

The Green New Deal, proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), would aim for net-zero emissions by 2050. 

The White House has also said the “existential threat” of global warming could be an economic opportunity, despite offering scant details on specifics.

“​Climate change poses an existential threat, but responding to this threat offers an opportunity to support good-paying, union jobs, strengthen America’s working communities, protect public health, and advance environmental justice,”​a White House statement released in April said.

“Creating jobs and tackling climate change go hand in hand — empowering the U.S. to build more resilient infrastructure, expand access to clean air and drinking water, spur American technological innovations, and create good-paying, union jobs along the way​,” it touted. ​

In January, Kerry admitted that the US reducing its emissions to zero wouldn’t make much of a difference in the global climate change fight while pushing domestic manufacturing of electric cars and solar panels in favor of energy production.

 “He knows Paris alone is not enough,” Kerry told reporters at a White House press briefing, referring to President Biden re-entering the US in the Paris Climate Agreement in one of his first acts as president.

“Not when almost 90 percent of all of the planet’s global emissions come from outside of US borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn’t solved,” Kerry conceded.

He then claimed that energy workers had been “fed a false narrative” about what environmental policy would do to their livelihoods, insisting people faced with economic displacement would “have better choices” and can “go to work to make the solar panels.”

“They’ve been fed the notion that somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense,” Kerry said. “No, it’s not. What’s happening to them is happening because of other market forces already taking place.”

 

Coal plants have been closing over the last 20 years. So what President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, and they can be the people who go to work to make the solar panels.”

To reduce gas emissions by 2050, the world would have to undergo a sweeping transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like solar and wind, as well as make huge advances in technology to make buildings, home appliances and vehicles energy-efficient, the International Energy Agency said in a May report. 

Part of this transition, the report said, would require a substantial increase in the quantities of critical minerals like copper, cobalt, manganese and rare earth metals needed for electric vehicles and other technology. 

But the US does not mine these materials and is dependent on importing them — mainly from China, the world’s main supplier.

Data compiled by Fox Business shows that China is responsible for processing 40 percent of the world’s copper, 60 percent of its cobalt and 35 percent of its nickel.

Demand for those minerals would skyrocket under the climate plans pushed by Biden and Ocasio-Cortez.”

As I said, China, the world’s greatest emitter, is not listening to all this climate change bs. Even if the mainstream academic position on climate change was true, china would still push ahead with economic growth, as it has a quest for world domination.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree

“China’s National People’s Congress meetings, which ended earlier this month, were shrouded in both a real and figurative haze about how strong its climate ambitions really are and how quickly the country can wean itself from its main source of energy — coal.

During the Congress, air pollution returned to Beijing with a vengeance, hitting the highest levels since January 2019, as the economy hummed out of the pandemic. Steel, cement, and heavy manufacturing, predominantly backed by coal power, boosted China’s carbon dioxide emissions 4 percent in the second half of 2020 compared to the same pre-pandemic period the year before. At the same time, the goals in the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan on energy intensity, carbon intensity, and renewables were hazy as well, little more than vague commitments to tackle carbon dioxide emissions.

Coal remains at the heart of China’s flourishing economy. In 2019, 58 percent of the country’s total energy consumption came from coal, which helps explain why China accounts for 28 percent of all global CO2 emissions. And China continues to build coal-fired power plants at a rate that outpaces the rest of the world combined. In 2020, China brought 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power into operation, more than three times what was brought on line everywhere else.

A key risk to China maintaining a `moderately prosperous society’ remains a lack of energy to drive its economy.

A total of 247 gigawatts of coal power is now in planning or development, nearly six times Germany’s entire coal-fired capacity. China has also proposed additional new coal plants that, if built, would generate 73.5 gigawatts of power, more than five times the 13.9 gigawatts proposed in the rest of the world combined. Last year, Chinese provinces granted construction approval to 47 gigawatts of coal power projects, more than three times the capacity permitted in 2019.

China has pledged that its emissions will peak around 2030, but that high-water mark would still mean that the country is generating huge quantities CO2 — 12.9 billion to 14.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually for the next decade, or as much as 15 percent per year above 2015 levels, according to a Climate Action Tracker analysis.

This continued reliance on coal highlights the dichotomy between China’s overriding goal of fostering economic growth to lift the living standards of its 1.44 billion people and the country’s desire to cut CO2 emissions. In recent months, China’s leadership has signaled a move toward deeper decarbonization by reiterating its Paris Agreement pledge of a 2030 emissions peak and by vowing to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, the latter goal outlined by leader Xi Jinping last September to much global fanfare.

Whether China can flatten its carbon emissions in the next decade remains to be seen, and its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060 depends heavily on increasing reliance on renewable energy and nuclear power, as well as major technological advances in areas such as carbon capture-and-storage. At this point, China’s coal dependence threatens both its long-term decarbonization plans and global efforts to limit temperatures increases to 1.5-degrees Celsius (2.7 F).

In the short term, the Communist Party’s chief concern remains how to grow the economy by around 6 percent per year. And, as identified in its latest Five-Year Plan, one of the top risks to China’s aim of maintaining a “moderately prosperous society” remains a lack of energy to drive its economy.

“Energy security in the Chinese context primarily means coal,” said Li Shuo, a climate policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia. “So how do you reconcile these two narratives? I don’t think the plans that have been announced have given us a clear answer.”

Analysts say that a number of actions in the coming decade could signal how serious China is about reducing its CO2 emissions. One is whether the central government sets an absolute — and steadily declining — cap on CO2 emissions, and another is whether Beijing sticks to its pledge to stop setting an explicit five-year GDP target, which has long locked provincial and local governments into a development-first mentality.

Beijing’s central economic planning for the next five years highlights China’s indecision regarding how fast to make its low-carbon shift, Li says. It also sends mixed signals to provincial and lower government officials about whether decarbonization, the economy, or energy security should be the top priority.

Additionally, a struggle is underway between the coal sector and government forces pushing for a more rapid transition away from coal-fired power. In recent months, both the environment ministry and top Communist Party leadership reprimanded the National Energy Agency for approving too much coal-fired power too fast. President Xi delivered a widely publicized speech before the country’s top financial planners on March 16 in which he said the years leading up to 2025 would be critical to ensuring that China’s emissions peak by 2030. Many analysts saw this as a sign that the country’s leadership is unhappy with provincial and local government planners who have approved the increased coal-power rollout.

Despite China’s growing drive to expand wind and solar power, the target for non-fossil fuel sources, including renewables and nuclear energy, as part of the total energy mix is a modest 20 percent over the next five years.

 

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210630-asian-coal-plant-drive-threatens-climate-goals-report?utm_source=gnaa

 

“Five Asian countries are responsible for 80 percent of new coal power stations planned worldwide, with the projects threatening goals to fight the climate crisis, a report warned Wednesday.

China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam are planning to build more than 600 coal plants, think-tank Carbon Tracker said.

The stations will be able to generate a total of 300 gigawatts of energy -- equivalent to around the entire electricity generating capacity of Japan.

The projects are being pursued despite the availability of cheaper renewables, and they threaten efforts to meet the Paris climate deal goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the study said.

"These last bastions of coal power are swimming against the tide, when renewables offer a cheaper solution that supports global climate targets," said Catharina Hillenbrand Von Der Neyen, Carbon Tracker's head of research.

"Investors should steer clear of new coal projects."

Experts see phasing out coal, which produces greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, as key in battling a climate crisis whose impacts -- ranging from species extinction to unliveable heat -- are expected to accelerate markedly.

But many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, long reliant on the fossil fuel to power their booming economies, have been slow to act, even as Europe and the United States accelerate their transitions to cleaner energy.

Asia-Pacific consumed over three-quarters of all coal used globally in 2019, according to BP's statistical review of world energy.

- 'Coal no longer makes sense' -

China, the world's biggest coal consumer and greenhouse gas emitter, tops the list of countries planning new coal plants, according to Carbon Tracker.

It has 368 power stations in the pipeline with 187 gigawatts of capacity, the think-tank said -- despite a pledge by President Xi Jinping that China will become carbon neutral by 2060.

India, the second-biggest coal consumer, is planning 92 plants with about 60 gigawatts of capacity, according to the London-based think-tank, which focuses on the impact of the energy transition on financial markets.

Indonesia is planning 107 new plants, Vietnam 41, and Japan 14, it said.

Despite climate concerns, governments continue to pursue coal projects due to reasons ranging from lobbying, to efforts to support the industry, and concerns about security of electricity supply, the think-tank said.

But building new plants no longer makes economic sense, as the falling cost of renewables such as solar and wind means they will become cheaper than coal in most parts of the world.

Hillenbrand Von Der Neyen called on governments to use post-coronavirus stimulus spending to "lay the foundations for a sustainable energy system".

"Coal no longer makes sense, financially or environmentally," she said.

She needs to tell all that to China and the rest of Asia. They are not listening now.

 

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Thursday, 28 March 2024

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