IN CLIMATE
If you’re following the news, you’ll know that (P)resident Biden is today hosting a global climate summit, in which his bid is a 50 percent cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Most of the incompetent news stories typically neglect to report that the Biden target is set to the baseline year of 2005, which was conveniently about the highest year for U.S. emissions. (The Paris Climate Accords, incidentally, didn’t select a baseline year, but allowed each signatory nation to select their own baseline—including some future “business as usual” projection that might not come to pass in any case—against which to make a pledge. Let that sink in for a minute. The U.S. chose 2005, even though Obama signed the accord in 2015.) Since we’ve reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 15 percent since 2005—thank you fracking!—we’re already about one-third of the way to Biden’s target, and without a signing ceremony on the White House lawn!
There’s lots of nonsense to observe today, including the fact that the hard core climatistas are not satisfied:
Question: Will the climatistas who dumped the cow manure clean it up when they are done chanting? Will the media follow up and report if they don’t? (Past Earth Day rallies in Washington have left heaping piles of trash.)
Among the many things to be said about the issue, if you believe the conventional view of the matter, the real action is in the developing world. Even John “Long Face” Kerry says so in this 17-second video:
The Paris Climate Accord held out bribes for the developing world starting at $100 billion by the year 2020. How many of those pledges came through? Heh. The Puffington Host reports:
The Paris Agreement included a $100 billion U.N.-administered Green Climate Fund to help poorer countries pull their people out of poverty with clean energy investments. Nearly six years later, the fund is barely one-tenth of the way to being fully financed.
The U.S. initially pledged $3 billion, but only handed over $1 billion by the time Obama left office. Trump canceled all future payments. This month, Biden asked Congress for $1.2 billion to pay into the fund. That’s still far below the remaining $2 billion Obama promised. . .
Maybe (P)resident Biden will throw in a few billion in his infrastructure package.
What do people in poorer countries need most? Cheap energy, and lots of it. But the World Bank and other global finance institutions are cutting off funds and loans for any fossil fuel energy—and also dams—in the developing world. In this age of “de-colonizing” everything, dare are anyone call this eco-imperialism?
Hence it was a pleasant surprise to see Nature magazine, otherwise totally in the bag for the climatista agenda, publish this article yesterday:
Blanket bans on fossil-fuel funds will entrench poverty
By Vijaya Ramachandra
Last week, seven European countries pledged to stop important support for fossil-fuel projects abroad. They join the United States and other European countries in stopping funding for energy infrastructure projects in poor countries that depend on coal, gas and oil. This blanket ban will entrench poverty in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, but do little to reduce the world’s carbon emissions.
Africa accounts for around 17% of the world’s people but less than 4% of annual global carbon emissions. It is not fair for rich countries to fight climate change at the cost of low-income countries’ development and climate resilience. . .
The fossil-fuel infrastructure that already exists in Africa is carbon-intensive and serves its wealthiest countries. South Africa and several North African countries together hold two-thirds of the continent’s electricity-generation capacity. The other 48 countries have a capacity of only 81 gigawatts between them, out of a total of 244 gigawatts across Africa and 9,740 gigawatts for the world. The average Ethiopian consumes only 130 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, about the amount the average person in the United States consumes in 4 days. . . (Almost 600 million Africans lack reliable access to electricity.)
Rather than banning fossil fuels in development projects, the European Union, United States and World Bank should adopt funding criteria that consider economic growth alongside climate impact.
Most of the legacy emissions causing global warming came from rich countries, which still rely on fossil fuels. It would be the height of climate injustice to impose restrictions on the nations most in need of modern infrastructure and least responsible for the world’s climate challenges.
My hunch is this perspective will be completely ignored in this week’s climate summit.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/todays-climate-hootenaney.php
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