RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-doomsday-is-nigh-again-united-nations-environment-climate-change-fossil-fuels-11666989086?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Human beings, the wretches, continue to disappoint the savants at the United Nations, and never more than on climate change. The global body announced last week that despite all of the world’s climate sacrifices and trillions of dollars in renewable spending, we’re all still doomed unless mankind makes radical changes in lifestyles and standards of living.

The 2015 Paris climate agreement required countries to commit to reducing their emissions to keep the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It’s already warmed about 1.1 degrees. Not that the alms offered up by President Biden and European leaders will do much good.

According to the U.N. report, all climate policies currently in place will result in warming of 2.8 degrees. Most countries haven’t implemented policies to meet their emissions targets. But even if they did, temperatures would still rise by 2.6 degrees. And if Western countries meet their “net-zero” goals? The world would warm 1.8 degrees.

Ponder that. Even if Europe and the U.S. banish fossil fuels from the electric grid, ban gas-powered vehicles, and find a way to capture CO2 from factories, the world still wouldn’t avoid the U.N.’s climate doomsday. One reason is that China, which emits two-thirds more CO2 than Europe and the U.S. combined, has only committed to peaking its emissions by 2030.

Thus, the U.N. report says drastic changes in human behavior are needed. To take one example, about a third of emissions come from the global food system. According to the report, about seven gigatons in CO2 reductions—roughly equal to those from today’s global natural gas production—by 2050 will need to come from people eating less meat.

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=7648e06456

Often I have referred to the situation that the UK, Germany, California and others have set themselves up for as “hitting the green energy wall.” But now that the UK has actually gotten there and has begun to deal with the consequences, I’m not sure that “hitting the wall” is the best analogy. A better analogy might be “driving into the green energy cul-de-sac.” After all, when you hit a wall you can probably just pick yourself up and turn around and be on your way. In the cul-de-sac you are trapped with no evident way of getting out. You might be in there for a long time.

This is where the UK finds itself today. For well more than a decade, they have been aggressively and intentionally pursuing the green energy fantasy. The Net Zero emissions target was made mandatory by legislation in 2019. They have built hundreds of wind turbines and solar panels, while at the same time closing almost all of their coal mines and coal power plants. That has left them largely dependent on natural gas to back up the intermittent renewables. They have plenty of natural gas right under their feet in a large shale formation, but for years they dithered about allowing fracking to produce the gas, and then in 2019 they imposed a blanket moratorium on fracking. With production from their North Sea gas fields declining, they must buy gas on the European market. And although they don’t buy much gas directly from Russia, the European market has been driven to great heights by the cutoff of Russian supplies. Result: average annual residential energy bills in the UK, which were around £1000 as recently as earlier this year, went up to about £3000 this month, and have been projected to go as high as £5000 by this coming April absent some sort of government intervention.