Carbon emission reduction: News and technology

[pErvinalia]

Go back to your cave, Brian!

[JimC]

We need to act on many fronts, including the political, but technological advances are also a vital part of the overall human response to our global dilemma...

[pErvinalia]

Wait till the developing world develops and their energy usage sky rockets.

[Brian Peacock]

Go back to your cave, Brian!

"Ugh! Ugh ugh ugh ugh! Ugh!"

[Brian Peacock]

We need to act on many fronts, including the political, but technological advances are also a vital part of the overall human response to our global dilemma...

Not saying otherwise.

[Tero]

Who knew? People with plug in hybrids just keep driving after battery is out.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... 1760594503

[Brian Peacock]

The rate of increase in CO² emissions continues to rise. Therefore ...

Shipping emissions levy shelved as countries bow to US pressure

Under intense pressure from Donald Trump’s government, countries have postponed plans to force shipowners to start paying for the damage they do to the climate.

US officials were accused of “bullying” and “intimidation”, as nations met in London for what should have been the rubber-stamping of a decision made months ago to place a small levy on the greenhouse gases from global shipping.

Instead, after four days of intense wrangling, the US efforts appeared to pay off in a decisive vote late on Friday afternoon at the International Maritime Organisation headquarters in London.

A majority of countries present voted to put the plans for an emissions pricing mechanism on hold for a year. While this means the measure survives, and could still be imposed, it also gives the US and its allies – including Russia, Saudi Arabia and other petrostates – an opportunity to step up their pressure on other countries to ditch the charge...

[Brian Peacock]

Just to head-off the inevitable opprobrium from some quarters, I agree that over the last five years there's been some meaningful and relatively rapid changes towards more sustainable systems, tech and policies with an overtly positive climate impact. Good. However, as welcome and as needed as those changes are, the rate and scale of change falls rather short of what is needed for the World to meet Paris-agreed climate and carbon goals by 2030; goals we absolutely need to meet if we're serious about protecting our societies and the environment from climate impacts already baked into the planetary systems that support life on Earth - and upon which the welfare of current and future generations entirely depend.

It sometimes feels like our economy and politics has deliberately forgotten why virtually every nation on Earth worked so hard on, and made such a significant commitment to, the Paris agreements. Perhaps it's all the mircoplastics in the water, or they're just suffering from a kind of climate Alzheimers...

Depending on who you ask, governments collectively subsidised the fossil sector to the tune of c.$7 trillion last year - about 6% of global GDP. That's what statisticians call "a very large number"(!), but if it's easier you can think of it as roughly $800 million in subsidies per hour, or $13 million every second.

While there's no specific commitment to phase out fossil sector subsidies in Paris (by 2030, or any other time), signatories did agree to counting reductions in subsidies as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - so at least the positive climate impact of reducing/removing subsidies is formally acknowledged. Subsequently, many countries adopted policies to "transition away" from subsidising fossil in their updated COP commitments - most significantly with regards to coal, and to a lesser extent to oil and gas also. Implementation on the other hand... well, don't get me started on that, eh?

The vast majority of governmental fossil subsidies eventually go towards maintaining reduced retail pricing - which one might argue is not a bad thing for the 'real economy', particularly when it comes to the energy and fuels we all consume, either directly or indirectly through what we use and buy. While govts do also effectively subsidise things like fossil exploration, extraction, processing and distribution -- sometimes directly, but mostly indirectly through taxation regimes and 'research' grants etc -- the major fossil players turn towards the financial sector for investment in heavy costs like plant and infrastructure. Some studies suggest that this has resulted in bankers affording fossil another $7 trillion of finance since Paris - which is only about $1.5 million per minute btw!

The point I'm labouring to make here is that while govts have the ability, and should of course do everything they can, to reduce subsidising civilisation-killing economic, production and retail systems, through an unfortunate combination of self-serving incompetence, slothful indecision, and the deliberate abrogation of legal obligations, they have, at present, a somewhat limited ability to 'encourage' the private investment sector to do the same.

No major banks have yet committed to stop funding new oil, gas and coal, research finds

No major bank has yet committed to stop funding new oil and gas fields or coal capacity, research has found.

Most banks that have recently updated their climate policies have weakened them, according to the research by the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre (TPI) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

The centre analysed 36 of the largest banks by market capitalisation and total assets, and found “banks are still at an early stage of their transition with decarbonisation targets that cover a limited set of sectors and business activities.”

The researchers evaluated banks’ climate policies using 77 sub-indicators grouped into 10 areas, called the net zero banking assessment framework (NZBAF).

They found 95% of the scores remained unchanged year on year, and those banks that had shifted had weakened their policies. On average, banks score on only 18% of the 77 sub-indicators and the best-performing bank scores on about one-third of the sub-indicators.

The report said banks have “weakened their disclosures in areas such as net zero commitments, financing conditions for high-emission sectors and fossil fuel policies”. Some banks either fully withdrew or weakened their net zero commitments, substituting firm language such as “commitment” or “target” with less precise wording such as “ambition” or “aspiration”.

Algirdas Brochard, banking project lead at TPI, said: “Given banks’ central role in the economy and their far-reaching influence on climate, their slow progress on the climate transition coupled with the recent dissolution of the Net Zero Banking Alliance suggest that the objectives of the Paris agreement are slipping further out of reach.” ...

[pErvinalia]

It's almost as if capitalism can't solve this problem.

[JimC]

It's almost as if capitalism can't solve this problem.

Say it ain't so!

[pErvinalia]

MacDoc will be along soon to tell us...

[Brian Peacock]

It's almost as if capitalism can't solve this problem.

So what's your solution?

[pErvinalia]

Back to the caves!

[Brian Peacock]

[Brian Peacock]

Blummin' yet more woke yoghurt-knitters with hand-wringing doomsdayism and completely unrealistic expectations...

Renewable energy investment should come from defence budgets, say retired military leaders

Investment in renewable energy should be counted under defence expenditure, says a group of retired senior military personnel, because the climate crisis represents a threat to national security.

They have called for increased spending on low-carbon power as a way of making the UK and other European countries more resilient to threats from Russia and other potential aggressors.

Nato members have pledged to spend 3.5% of GDP on their armed forces, weapons and other “core” items of defence spending, plus a further 1.5% on “critical infrastructure”, such as civil preparedness.

Low-carbon energy should be included in the 1.5% pledge, the group of military experts argued in a letter to European heads of government seen by the Guardian.

“We must end our dependence on foreign oil and gas,” they wrote. “A reliance on fossil fuels makes our countries less secure. It leaves us susceptible to huge price spikes during times of conflict – as we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine.”

They added: “To help unlock the investments needed to achieve energy sovereignty, and ensure we stop handing over billions of dollars a year to the Kremlin, we urge you to push for spending on renewable and low-carbon energy to be counted as part of the Nato 1.5% target.”...