Currently, a number of parties have descended on Sharm el-Sheikh for COP 27. This is the 27th “Conference of the Parties” to deal with climate change. Everybody, by now, should be aware that a major contributor to climate change is the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we have to reduce emissions. In the previous 26 conferences various pledges were made to reduce such emissions, but what has happened? According to Nature, CO2 emissions are set to reach a record high of 37.5 billion tonne in 2022. So much for a controlled reduction of emissions. In my opinion, the biggest effect from such conferences is the increased emissions due to getting all the participants to them. In this context there are apparently over 600 fossil fuel lobbyists at this conference. So the question then is, why has so little been achieved?
My answer is the politicians took the easy way out: to be seen to be doing something they implemented a carbon trading scheme. This allows money to flow, and the idea was that economics will make people transition to non-fossil-based energy by raising the price of the fossil fuels. To make this look less like a tax, they then allowed the trade of credits, and politicians issued credits to “deserving causes”. There were two reasons why this had to fail: the politicians had the ability to sabotage it by issuing credits to those it favoured, and secondly, there are no alternatives that everyone can switch to. Therein lies the first problem. Price does not alter activity much unless there is an alternative, and in most cases there is no easy alternative.
The second one is that even if you can develop alternatives, there is far too much installed capacity. The economies of just about every country are highly dependent on using fossil fuel. People are not going to discard their present vehicles and join a queue to purchase an electric one. They are still selling new petroleum-powered vehicles, and a lot of energy has been invested in making them. Like it or not, the electricity supply of many countries is dependent on coal-fired generation, and it costs a lot to construct a new plant to generate electricity. No country can afford to throw away their existing generation capacity.
In principle, the solution for electricity is simple: nuclear. So why not? Some say it is dangerous, and there remains the problems of storing wastes. It is true that people died at Chernobyl, but that was an example of crass incompetence. Further, in principle molten salt reactors cannot melt down while they also burn much of the waste. There is still waste that has to be stored somewhere, but the volume is very small in comparison. So why is this not used? Basically, the equipment has not been properly developed, the reason being that reactors were first designed so they could provide the raw material for making bombs. So, when the politicians recognized the problem at the end of the 1980s, what should have happened is that money was invested for developing such technology so that coal-fired power could be laid to rest. Instead, there was a lot of arm-waving and calls for solar and wind power. It is true these generate electricity, and in some cases they do it efficiently, however they cannot handle main load in most countries. Similarly with transport fuels. Alternative technologies for advanced biofuels were developed in the early 1980s, but were never taken to the next stage because the price of crude oil dropped to very low levels and nothing could compete. The net result was that technology was lost, and much had to be relearned. We cannot shut down the world industries and transport, and the politicians have refused to fund the development of alternative fuels.
So, what will happen? We shall continue on the way we are, while taking some trivial steps that make at least some of us, usually politicians, feel good because we are doing something. Unfortunately, greenhouse gas levels are still rising, and consider what is happening at the levels we are at. The Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is melting and the rate of melt is increasing because the protection from the Zachariae Isstrøm glacier that protected the coastal part of the ice stream broke off. Now, warmer seawater is penetrating up to 300 km under the ice stream. Global ocean levels are now predicted to rise up to a meter by the end of the century from the enhanced melting of Greenland ice. More important still is Antarctica. There is far more ice there, and it has been calculated that if the temperatures rose by four degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels up to two thirds of that ice could go.
Unfortunately, that is not the worst of the problems. If the climate heats, food becomes more difficult to provide. The most obvious problem is that most of the very best agricultural land is close to sea level, so we lose that. But additionally, there will be regions of greatly increased drought, and others with intense floods. Neither are good for agriculture. Yet there is an even worse problem: as soil gets hotter, it loses carbon and becomes less productive, while winds tend to blow soil away. So, what can we do about this? Unfortunately, it has to be everyone. We have to not only stop venting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but we have to work out ways to take it out. Stop and ask yourself, does your local politician understand this? My guess is no. Does your local politician understand what a partial differential equation means? My guess is no.
ianmillerblog 
Sadly, I think you’re right, Ian. It almost seems like we need to be ruled by authoritarian technocrats to take last-minute measures. Unfortunately, democracy is short-sighted and susceptible to manipulation by the greedy and unscrupulous.
It is unfortunate that getting people to vote for you involves giving things to them. Making them give something back loses votes.
I think the fundamental problem in the mishandling of the CO2 crisis is a lack of fair and open debate. Most climate activists have been manipulated into, or are manipulating into pro-fossil fuel positioning. Germany produces seven times more CO2 per unit of energy than France does… And that’s mostly due to the fact France uses nuclear, and Germany Neanderthal power (lignite, the most polluting coal, already in use 80,000 years ago).
Once I made a scandal by calling off the lead climate scientist at UC for astoundingly subtle pro-fossil fuel propaganda. Other Berkeley full professors were not amused, and tried to present my scorching critique as a “misunderstanding” of the gentleman’s true position. That made for funny dialogues, truth against establishment…. Here is the following written in 2014 after the death of Christophe de Margerie when his jet hit a snow plough on a Moscow runway at midnight, flipped on its back, caught fire, and skidded across. All four on board died.
Now the accidental death of any person is a tragedy, make no mistake, but as Patrice revealed in his post, this particular accident did raise some interesting aspects. Here’s a little of what Patrice wrote::
***
With 200 billion Euros in revenue, TOTAL SA is not far behind the French government budget. TOTAL’s profits are 14 billion Euros (“Soyons serieux!” laughed Margerie). It pays nearly no tax in France, having concentrated there its money losing refineries.
Other countries get nearly all their fuel from French refineries; TOTAL has also a green light to frack in Britain. So this is not just a French situation. TOTAL is one of the five great oil companies concentrating the fossil fuel firepower. Those companies have the best technology. Some of TOTAL’s specialties are very deep water drilling, and using steam to extract tar oil in Canada.
What was de Margerie doing at midnight? Flying back to France, after meeting with Putin and Medvedev, late at night.
That’s how these guys are: great fun. Putin was recently invited to Milan for a big time European meeting. He arrived several hours late to visit with Merkel, who was not amused. After keeping her up past midnight, he motored to Berlusconi’s mansion, and the two plutocrats reveled together until 4 am. (We don’t know how many female teenagers were in attendance to further their studies.)
The next European meeting was at 8am, and Putin showed up.
Supposedly Margerie had just told Medvedev and Putin to cool it with Ukraine. At least that’s the massaging message Margerie’s minions floated after his death.
Why was Margerie so important to the Russian dictators? Because the six “supermajor” oil companies have the advanced technology. After all, they recruit from the best universities in the world (that’s paid by taxpayers). TOTAL SA was the spearhead of high tech development for hydrocarbon production in Russia. Among other things, it’s helping to build a gas liquefaction plant in the far north, to load special ships with methane (something TOTAL does with Qatar, in the world’s largest such installation).
Once a ship is fully loaded, it has several times the explosive power deployed at Hiroshima (such a catastrophic accident has not happened yet, but it’s just a matter of time).
When citizen Lambda dies, Mr. Anybody, nobody official cares. When a major plutocrat dies, our leaders, even our socialist leaders, weep, and present the accident as a national, even international tragedy.
Is the death of a plutocrat worth that much more, that all this public weeping has to occur?
And, by the way, who and what has authorized Mr. Margerie to lead his own foreign policy? Who authorized him to make nice with thermonuclear dictators? To the point of allowing their survival?
Reblogged this on Patrice Ayme's Thoughts and commented:
I think the fundamental problem in the mishandling of the CO2 crisis is a lack of fair and open debate. Most climate activists have been manipulated into, or are manipulating into pro-fossil fuel positioning. Germany produces seven times more CO2 per unit of energy than France does… And that’s mostly due to the fact France uses nuclear, and Germany Neanderthal power (lignite, the most polluting coal, already in use 80,000 years ago).
Once I made a scandal by calling off the lead climate scientist at UC for astoundingly subtle pro-fossil fuel propaganda. Other Berkeley full professors were not amused, and tried to present my scorching critique as a “misunderstanding” of the gentleman’s true position. That made for funny dialogues, truth against establishment…. Here is the following written in 2014 after the death of Christophe de Margerie when his jet hit a snow plough on a Moscow runway at midnight, flipped on its back, caught fire, and skidded across. All four on board died.
Now the accidental death of any person is a tragedy, make no mistake, but as Patrice revealed in his post, this particular accident did raise some interesting aspects. Here’s a little of what Patrice wrote::
***
With 200 billion Euros in revenue, TOTAL SA is not far behind the French government budget. TOTAL’s profits are 14 billion Euros (“Soyons serieux!” laughed Margerie). It pays nearly no tax in France, having concentrated there its money losing refineries.
Other countries get nearly all their fuel from French refineries; TOTAL has also a green light to frack in Britain. So this is not just a French situation. TOTAL is one of the five great oil companies concentrating the fossil fuel firepower. Those companies have the best technology. Some of TOTAL’s specialties are very deep water drilling, and using steam to extract tar oil in Canada.
What was de Margerie doing at midnight? Flying back to France, after meeting with Putin and Medvedev, late at night.
That’s how these guys are: great fun. Putin was recently invited to Milan for a big time European meeting. He arrived several hours late to visit with Merkel, who was not amused. After keeping her up past midnight, he motored to Berlusconi’s mansion, and the two plutocrats reveled together until 4 am. (We don’t know how many female teenagers were in attendance to further their studies.)
The next European meeting was at 8am, and Putin showed up.
Supposedly Margerie had just told Medvedev and Putin to cool it with Ukraine. At least that’s the massaging message Margerie’s minions floated after his death.
Why was Margerie so important to the Russian dictators? Because the six “supermajor” oil companies have the advanced technology. After all, they recruit from the best universities in the world (that’s paid by taxpayers). TOTAL SA was the spearhead of high tech development for hydrocarbon production in Russia. Among other things, it’s helping to build a gas liquefaction plant in the far north, to load special ships with methane (something TOTAL does with Qatar, in the world’s largest such installation).
Once a ship is fully loaded, it has several times the explosive power deployed at Hiroshima (such a catastrophic accident has not happened yet, but it’s just a matter of time).
When citizen Lambda dies, Mr. Anybody, nobody official cares. When a major plutocrat dies, our leaders, even our socialist leaders, weep, and present the accident as a national, even international tragedy.
Is the death of a plutocrat worth that much more, that all this public weeping has to occur?
And, by the way, who and what has authorized Mr. Margerie to lead his own foreign policy? Who authorized him to make nice with thermonuclear dictators? To the point of allowing their survival?
The point about the lobbying of oil companies is fair, except they have known about this problem for the past fifty years, and they know what some of the solutions involve, and they aso know that they make more money by digging up oil. They are part of the problem because they put making money ahead of development,n then now they bleat to politicians arguing the world’s economies will fall over if they do, which is partly true. They have to be made to perform better, or be replaced
.
Who is the “they” you wrote about? I am not trying to be flippant, I’m really not sure.
My dad converted from very successful oil geologist (he discovered Saharan oil in Algeria and Senegalese oil) to Uranium, while being detached by TOTAL. At that point, nuclear industry was viewed as the solution to the CO2 crisis…
However the price of Uranium collapsed (early 1980s), due to political decisions all over Europe and US… By politicians. Using 3 mile island partial melt down incident as a fig leaf….”When the feedwater pumps tripped, three emergency feedwater pumps started automatically. An operator noted that the pumps were running, but did not notice that a block valve was closed in each of the two emergency feedwater lines, blocking emergency feed flow to both steam generators. The valve position lights for one block valve were covered by a yellow maintenance tag. The reason why the operator missed the lights for the second valve is not known, although one theory is that his own large belly hid it from his view.”
Nobody got killed or hurt…
Reactors which won’t melt down are easy to make, BTW…. Smaller, and, or, using obvious tricks…
My dad later reconverted into becoming an adviser for the UN financed fossil fuel extraction energy programs in Cameroon and then Kenya (where he barely survived an attempted kidnapping…)
The “they” are the seniors in the oil companies