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When will CO2 emissions peak?

2019
0 (0%)
2020-2024
9 (14.5%)
2024-2029
16 (25.8%)
2030-3039
6 (9.7%)
2040-2049
17 (27.4%)
2050-2099
5 (8.1%)
2100-хххх
9 (14.5%)

Total Members Voted: 54

Author Topic: When will CO2 emissions peak?  (Read 22887 times)

Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #100 on: August 12, 2019, 09:47:24 PM »
<snipped>

EVs are already cutting into demand for ICEs.  Within 10 years, EVs are projected to outsell ICEs.
Where and by whom?
Terry

It actually happened in Norway earlier this year.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/world/norway-zero-emission-vehicles-trnd/index.html

Quote
CNN) — Electric vehicles outsold gas and diesel models in Norway for the first time ever last month, accounting for 58.4% of all vehicle sales.

Norway is a leader in the adoption of zero-emission vehicles and the government has set an ambitious goal to stop selling new gas and diesel passenger cars and vans by 2025.

In March, 18,375 new cars were registered in the country and 10,732 of those were zero-emission vehicles, according to Norway's Road Traffic Information Council, or OFV. That's more double the number of zero-emission vehicles sold in March 2018.

Analysts are projecting it will happen by 2030 globally.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/16/694303169/as-more-electric-cars-arrive-whats-the-future-for-gas-powered-engines

Quote
"Probably in the mid-2020s time frame, it becomes comparable or cheaper to actually buy and operate an EV than an internal combustion vehicle," says Sam Abuelsamid, an auto analyst with Navigant.

Felipe Munoz, a global analyst at JATO, predicts electric vehicles will outsell conventional ones by 2030.

Other analysts say this change could be slower — but most agree it is coming.

Quote
It could also be motivated by consumer choices, argues Dan Neil, automotive columnist at The Wall Street Journal.

Electric vehicles "are such better machines than the machines they're replacing," he says, that consumers might choose to retire their gas guzzlers long before the end of the vehicles' useful lives.

"Just like plasma TVs," he says. "A lot of plasma TVs didn't see the useful end of their lives before they were replaced by much cheaper, but also much better, LCD screens."

Quote
The transformation of the auto industry is real, experts say — and happening much faster than skeptics would have predicted just a few years ago.


Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #101 on: August 12, 2019, 09:52:52 PM »
Bloomberg New Energy Finance also projects EVs outselling ICEs by 2030.

https://thinkprogress.org/gas-cars-electric-vehicles-battery-price-99d1f99ab987/

Quote
Plunging battery prices are bringing the age of gasoline-powered cars to an end faster than anyone expected, according to a new report from Bloomberg NEF (BNEF). That means peak oil demand will also arrive sooner than expected — which in turn means ambitious climate goals will be more affordable than previously thought.

“Sales of internal combustion passenger vehicles have already peaked, and may never recover,” BNEF’s Electric Vehicle Outlook 2019 finds.

Electric vehicle (EV) sales are now seriously eating into internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales — and that trend is projected to accelerate in the coming years.

Quote
Other findings in BNEF’s chart-filled report are equally astonishing. For instance, the EV adoption rate is so rapid that EVs will reach 50% of new car sales in both China and Europe around 2030 — at which point EVs will make up some 40% of new U.S. passenger vehicle sales.

Quote
In three years, EVs will actually be cheaper up front than combustion vehicles, which will make EVs the increasingly attractive option. After all, they are already superior to gasoline cars in many key respects: EVs have faster acceleration, lower maintenance costs, zero tailpipe emissions, and a much lower per-mile fueling cost than petrol cars , even when running on carbon-free fuel.

TerryM

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #102 on: August 13, 2019, 03:11:25 AM »

Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #103 on: August 13, 2019, 07:01:46 PM »
For Ken's eyes only


https://www.statista.com/statistics/343162/market-share-of-major-car-manufacturers-in-the-united-states/


And that was their best quarter ever.
Terry

It's paywalled.  I can't see the content.  Care to share?

Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #104 on: August 13, 2019, 07:27:58 PM »
In 2018, JP Morgan was projecting that EVs would grow to 30% market share in 2025 and 60% by 2030.

https://www.jpmorgan.com/global/research/electric-vehicles

Quote
Automakers are preparing to phase out cars powered solely by internal combustion engines (ICEs) as governments look to tackle fuel emissions. The growth in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) is climbing and by 2025, EVs and HEVs will account for an estimated 30% of all vehicle sales. Comparatively, in 2016 just under 1 million vehicles or 1% of global auto sales came from plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs).1

By 2025, J.P. Morgan estimates this will rise close to 8.4 million vehicles or a 7.7% market share. While this jump is significant, it doesn’t compare to the kind of growth expected in HEVs - cars that combine a fuel engine with electric elements. This sector is forecast to swell from just 3% of global market share to more than 25 million vehicles or 23% of global sales over the same period.1 This leaves pure-ICE vehicles with around 70% of the market share in 2025, with this falling to around 40% by 2030, predominantly in emerging markets.

Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #105 on: August 13, 2019, 07:47:44 PM »
The linked article discusses why projections for future EV market share vary so widely.

https://qz.com/1620614/electric-car-forecasts-are-all-over-the-map/

Quote
The only thing sure about electric cars is they will eclipse the internal combustion engine—one day. The timing, however, is the topic of fierce and wildly divergent speculation. At the moment, only one in 250 cars on the road is electric. Battery electric cars comprise 2.1% of new global auto sales (about 2 million passenger vehicles). Electric vehicle (EV) sales should hit 2.7 million in 2019 even as the broader auto market declines (paywall).

But guesses about the timing of gas guzzlers’ eclipse are all over the map. Quartz assembled several of the top projections to gauge the size of the discrepancy. Optimists such as Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) in its 2019 Electric Vehicle Outlook report see the total EV stock soaring to 548 million by 2040, or about 32% of the world’s passenger vehicles. Bears, such as ExxonMobil and the oil cartel OPEC, put that day far into the future. Exxon’s most recent predictions, the most pessimistic (or optimistic?), show the global stock of EVs reaching only 162 million by 2040. That’s 70% lower than BNEF’s base case.

Quote
Two assumptions make all the difference in EV adoption models, says Colin McKerracher, head of advanced transport for BNEF. The first is price parity. EV’s sticker price is expected to exceed conventional cars’ until the mid-2020s. Right now, electric vehicles are more expensive than conventional counterparts thanks to their pricey batteries and relatively small EV manufacturing capacity. No one is sure how far battery costs, the biggest expense in making EVs, can fall (they’ve already dropped 85% since 2010), and when EVs will achieve the same economies of scale as combustion engines have secured over the past century. The price of oil changes the total cost of ownership as well (New York City says EVs’ lower fuel and maintenance costs already makes them the cheapest option for its fleet).

The article assumes that EVs wont reach price-parity with ICEs until the mid-2020.  However, I've seen several sources that project that will happen in 2022 or even sooner.  Battery prices continue to decline and they're the major factor in the up-front cost of an EV.

Quote
The Energy Information Administration (EIA), America’s official source for energy statistics, has made one of the biggest adjustments to forecasts. Since its original one in 2011, the agency has raised its projections for EV stocks in the US by a factor of 20. Price played a big role. As recently as 2017, the EIA was predicting a $35,200 EV wouldn’t arrive until 2025. Several arrived last year.

The EIA is notorious for underestimating the installation rate of renewables too.  They make the same mistake that posters on this website frequently do, looking at the past few years when renewables were more expensive than fossil fuels and not looking at current or projecting future behaviors based on renewables being cheaper than fossil fuels.  In this case, it's gasoline powered cars versus battery electric vehicles.  When the costs for BEVs is cheaper than the cost of ICEs, the demand for ICEs is going to crash.

https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-gas-cars-cost-31a68bcdcee1/

Quote
Within a few years, electric vehicles (EVs) will be superior to gasoline powered cars in every respect.

In fact, leading experts now predict that EVs will soon have a lower upfront cost to go with their many superior attributes, which include a much lower operating cost and much faster acceleration.

But that means if you buy a new gas-powered car, SUV, or truck in the near future, you may find it increasingly obsolete and difficult to resell.

Quote
“During the reasonable service life of any vehicle I buy today, I expect the demand for IC-powered vehicles will drop to practically zero, equivalent to the current market penetration of flip phones,” Neil predicts in his column. “No one will want them.”

Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #106 on: August 13, 2019, 08:28:12 PM »
When EV's reach price parity with ICEs, an important factor affecting the demand for ICEs will kick in, the Osborne Effect.  The linked article explains the Osborne Effect and how it will impact the auto industry in the next decade.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/25/the-osborne-effect-on-the-auto-industry/

Quote
A perfect storm is brewing above the automotive industry. Three hardly grasped phenomena are working together. Just like a real storm, when the conditions align in the best/worst way, we get a devastating superstorm. These phenomena (or events) are the Osborne effect of delayed demand, the technology (cost) curve of battery prices and other technology, and the S-curve that describes market acceptance of new technologies.

These phenomena are often observed and not very difficult to understand in theory, but our mind is not wired to comprehend the implications. Our mind visualizes simple linear development, direct cause and effect. Together, these three create chain reactions of exponential and logarithmic trends and our mind is simply not able to understand the consequences.

Quote
At some point relatively soon, the car market will move from having about a dozen viable electric cars to one in which there will be three dozen of them. Most of the new cars will be a better value proposition than what is now on the market. These new entrants will garner a lot of press coverage and word-of-mouth buzz.

The effect will likely be that fully battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will not just be something that only the nerds and very early adopters know about. It will become real for a large portion of the public. Realizing that far better cars are just around the corner, they just have to wait a few more moments for them.

Waiting for the next version of the product you want to buy is called the Osborne effect. According to Wikipedia: “The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company’s announcing a future product prematurely.”

It's a long article that also describes technology cost curves and shows how quickly electric drivetrains are dropping in price. The article than combines the Osborne Effect with the technology cost curves to get the following graph:



Quote
A rule of thumb for S-curve disruptions of the market is that it will take about as long to reach 1% as it will take to go from 1% to the top of the curve. That first part is often not shown, but for those following the market for years, and realizing that we crossed the 1% threshold in 2018, it is included. If anybody is not scared of this graph, read on to enter a nightmare scenario.

The demand for fossil fuel cars is the red line, the wildfire of public perception. The blue line is the carmakers’ reaction to the demand. It is way too optimistic — carmakers can’t scale this fast — but the function I use for S-curves draws it like this. Also, Elon Musk and Cathie Wood (CEO of ARK Invest) mentioned even more optimistic numbers for 2023 in a recent podcast.

Auto sales have been down this year.  Is it the beginning of the Osborne Effect?

https://www.best-selling-cars.com/international/2019-latest-international-worldwide-car-sales/

Quote
January to June 2019: During the first half year of 2019, car sales were lower in all major car markets in the world with the exception of Brazil where sales increased by 11%. The Japanese car market was flat while the US and Russian markets contracted by around 2%. In the European Union new passenger vehicle registrations were down by 3% but remained at relatively high levels. In India, new car sales during the first six months of 2019 were down by a tenth while China remained the world’s largest new car market despite a 14% contraction.


TerryM

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #107 on: August 14, 2019, 02:02:42 PM »
For Ken's eyes only


https://www.statista.com/statistics/343162/market-share-of-major-car-manufacturers-in-the-united-states/


And that was their best quarter ever.
Terry

It's paywalled.  I can't see the content.  Care to share?


Ouch
pulling it up again lead me to a paywall!


What it showed was a chart of

"Selected automakers' U.S. YTD market share in 2nd quarter 2019, by key manufacturer"
These began with
1  -General motors at 16.58%
2  -Ford Motor Company at 14.44%
3  -Toyota Motor Corporation at 13.75%

followed eventually by

13 - Tesla at 1.2%

From some of the charts floating about it's likely that some believed that Tesla held a much larger share of the American and of course the World markets.


When seen against other auto companies (sometimes referred to as failing or failed ICE companies) it's evident that the 1.2% share has a way to go before it becomes a major player.

The 12 companies that sold more cars into the American market as far as I know have recently been or are now profitable. Tesla by comparison has never had a profitable year, so we're comparing the number of cars that others can sell at a profit against the number of cars that Tesla has sold dumped at a loss.

I'm sorry re. change to a paywalled site. I eventually located a copy that I'd kept open or I'd have been locked out myself.

It had been a bar chart that was much more impressive than my synopsis.
A damn shame that it's gone because it provided a quick visual to point out the relative size of the American market's players.
Terry

Klondike Kat

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #108 on: August 14, 2019, 02:57:31 PM »
The combined hybrid/electric vehicle market share was just over 9% in 2013.  That has risen to about 11.5% today.  Not quite the meteoric rise that some predicted.

FrostKing70

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #109 on: August 14, 2019, 03:21:28 PM »
Unfortunately, low oil prices allow most people to make a short term economic decision to continue to buy ICE vehicles.   The change is coming, but slowly.

petm

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #110 on: August 14, 2019, 03:57:38 PM »
You should hear the rhetoric here in America. Any progress that was made toward environmental awareness up to 2016 is now rolled back by a decade at least. I doubt electrics will be anything more than a niche market for another 30+ years.

Sciguy

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #111 on: August 14, 2019, 07:22:37 PM »
For Ken's eyes only


https://www.statista.com/statistics/343162/market-share-of-major-car-manufacturers-in-the-united-states/


And that was their best quarter ever.
Terry

It's paywalled.  I can't see the content.  Care to share?


Ouch
pulling it up again lead me to a paywall!


What it showed was a chart of

"Selected automakers' U.S. YTD market share in 2nd quarter 2019, by key manufacturer"
These began with
1  -General motors at 16.58%
2  -Ford Motor Company at 14.44%
3  -Toyota Motor Corporation at 13.75%

followed eventually by

13 - Tesla at 1.2%

From some of the charts floating about it's likely that some believed that Tesla held a much larger share of the American and of course the World markets.


When seen against other auto companies (sometimes referred to as failing or failed ICE companies) it's evident that the 1.2% share has a way to go before it becomes a major player.

The 12 companies that sold more cars into the American market as far as I know have recently been or are now profitable. Tesla by comparison has never had a profitable year, so we're comparing the number of cars that others can sell at a profit against the number of cars that Tesla has sold dumped at a loss.

I'm sorry re. change to a paywalled site. I eventually located a copy that I'd kept open or I'd have been locked out myself.

It had been a bar chart that was much more impressive than my synopsis.
A damn shame that it's gone because it provided a quick visual to point out the relative size of the American market's players.
Terry


While Tesla dominates the electric vehicle market in the US today (with about 67% of EVs sold in the US), many companies are designing EVs that will launch within a few years.

And the market share of EVs is growing rapidly as the following article shows.

https://thedriven.io/2019/08/09/tesla-model-3-dominates-us-electric-vehicles-sales-growth-in-2019/

Quote
Overall, the US EV market increased by 23% compared to the first half of 2018, with 72% of all plug-in sales being pure battery electric.

Quote
While the premium-priced Model S and X certainly broke the mould for the auto industry as a whole, it would seem that the more affordable Model 3 is simply out of the league of other electric vehicle models in its class.

Its introduction to the US market by Tesla in July 2017, it has driven growth of the American EV market ever since, with 140,000 units sold in the USA in 2018.

However, while 2018 saw a distinct jump in EV sales in the US (from 1.2% market share and approximately 200,000 sold in 2017 to 2.1% market share and about 358,000 units sold in 2018), EV-Volumes predicts that 2019 will not see a similar increase.

blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #112 on: August 14, 2019, 08:00:26 PM »
I doubt electrics will be anything more than a niche market for another 30+ years.

Honestly curious. Why would that be?

I think it is clear that long term fossil fuel will increase in price. Peak oil is a thing if we talk 3 decades. On the other hand, you have research showing there will be massive increases in efficiency when it comes to renewables. Electric power will, compared to fossils, only become cheaper. How will it be possible to afford an ICE car?

petm

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #113 on: August 14, 2019, 08:09:09 PM »
I doubt electrics will be anything more than a niche market for another 30+ years.
Honestly curious. Why would that be?
No data in this case. Just based on my perception of sentiment in the States (as I implied). I agree that if it becomes much cheaper to get an EV than an ICE, the obvious would happen. But will it? I've been hearing talk of peak oil for several decades now...


blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #114 on: August 14, 2019, 08:33:04 PM »
Quote
But will it?

Well, renewables are getting cheaper. Fossils not!

gerontocrat

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #115 on: August 14, 2019, 08:37:33 PM »
I doubt electrics will be anything more than a niche market for another 30+ years.
Honestly curious. Why would that be?
No data in this case. Just based on my perception of sentiment in the States (as I implied). I agree that if it becomes much cheaper to get an EV than an ICE, the obvious would happen. But will it? I've been hearing talk of peak oil for several decades now...


This is what I think is going on.

There is physical peak oil and price peak oil.

Physical Peak Oil is all about annual production capacity, avoiding the over-extraction that happened in the US especially in the 20s and 30s.

Talk about it appeared 10 or so (?) years ago. An analyst looked at known depletion rates of existing world oil fields and applied that as well to estimates of technically recoverable deposits to estimate future maximum annual production levels. Made sense at the time.

But along came new technology to exploit the Tar Sands and fracking of the Texas Permian et al. Now there are questions on whether those additional unconventional resources are close to maximum  annual production levels, which combined with depletion of conventional fields could reduce overall production capacity. If there is confirmatory data about this, I guess its kept under wraps.

The Peak Price of Oil is the demand / supply equation. EVs when adopted on a large scale would certainly be a negative price push.

LNG
I think it is Shell who have made it policy to shift from oil and concentrate on LNG. Adoption of **Solar and Wind are the threats to LNG prices. There is enough LNG in the ground to fry the world several times. BUT, there are rumours on LNG production from fracking in the USA - too many wells, too quick extraction - Physical Peak LNG a threat to Trump's World Energy Dominance (part of the Masters of the Universe Foreign Policy?) ?
EDIT ** plus utility-scale batteries

All this gets hidden by noise - Wars & Rumours of Wars.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2019, 08:43:58 PM by gerontocrat »
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blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #116 on: August 14, 2019, 08:45:17 PM »
But along came new technology to exploit the Tar Sands and fracking of the Texas Permian et al. Now there are questions on whether those additional unconventional resources are close to maximum  annual production levels, which combined with depletion of conventional fields could reduce overall production capacity. If there is confirmatory data about this, I guess its kept under wraps.

I agree with what you said Gerontocrat and want to add, the low hanging fruits are gone. Oil production will be more expensive in the future. You always have to drill deeper or move mountains or whatnot.

Today it's done due to the massive subsidies. Who knows how long people allow this to happen. And then the oil industry goes poof anyway.

petm

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #117 on: August 14, 2019, 09:15:36 PM »
All good points, both. There is a lot of uncertainty and missing information. Gerontocrat's point about new sources / extraction technologies and Blumenkraft's about low hanging fruit are connected. The low hanging fruit of traditional extraction may be almost picked (except for thus-far protected areas -- including in the Arctic -- that are not immune from pilfering from the likes of Trump), but who knows how much additional LNG or other yet-to-be discovered sources there are?

Hopefully none. Fingers crossed.

petm

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #118 on: August 21, 2019, 04:12:09 AM »
Quote
No way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity alongside mitigated climate change

Timothy J. Garrett
(Submitted on 3 Oct 2010 (v1), last revised 6 Jan 2012 (this version, v3))

In a prior study, I introduced a simple economic growth model designed to be consistent with general thermodynamic laws. Unlike traditional economic models, civilization is viewed only as a well-mixed global whole with no distinction made between individual nations, economic sectors, labor, or capital investments. At the model core is an observationally supported hypothesis that the global economy's current rate of primary energy consumption is tied through a constant to a very general representation of its historically accumulated wealth. Here, this growth model is coupled to a linear formulation for the evolution of globally well-mixed atmospheric CO2 concentrations. While very simple, the coupled model provides faithful multi-decadal hindcasts of trajectories in gross world product (GWP) and CO2. Extending the model to the future, the model suggests that the well-known IPCC SRES scenarios substantially underestimate how much CO2 levels will rise for a given level of future economic prosperity. For one, global CO2 emission rates cannot be decoupled from wealth through efficiency gains. For another, like a long-term natural disaster, future greenhouse warming can be expected to act as an inflationary drag on the real growth of global wealth. For atmospheric CO2 concentrations to remain below a "dangerous" level of 450 ppmv, model forecasts suggest that there will have to be some combination of an unrealistically rapid rate of energy decarbonization and nearly immediate reductions in global civilization wealth. Effectively, it appears that civilization may be in a double-bind. If civilization does not collapse quickly this century, then CO2 levels will likely end up exceeding 1000 ppmv; but, if CO2 levels rise by this much, then the risk is that civilization will gradually tend towards collapse.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1010.0428
https://www.ecoshock.org/2014/07/the-big-picture-like-it-or-not.html




DrTskoul

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #119 on: August 21, 2019, 05:34:09 PM »
But along came new technology to exploit the Tar Sands and fracking of the Texas Permian et al. Now there are questions on whether those additional unconventional resources are close to maximum  annual production levels, which combined with depletion of conventional fields could reduce overall production capacity. If there is confirmatory data about this, I guess its kept under wraps.

I agree with what you said Gerontocrat and want to add, the low hanging fruits are gone. Oil production will be more expensive in the future. You always have to drill deeper or move mountains or whatnot.

Today it's done due to the massive subsidies. Who knows how long people allow this to happen. And then the oil industry goes poof anyway.

Just to note sth ( from Forbes) but that information is available everywhere...

Quote
The top six “subsidies” included in the $10-$18.5 billion estimates are as follows:

Master Limited Partnerships ($3.9 billion “subsidy”) – Ending the MLP “subsidy” would result in MLP’s being considered corporations that must be taxed before their distributions are passed along to shareholders. Therefore, any MLP income would be taxed at the corporate level and then again at the dividend level. Distributions to shareholders would be impacted substantially. Preventing double taxation is not a subsidy. MLPs also exist for Real Estate and other industries. Furthermore, the “subsidy” affects people across the spectrum from Pensioners, 401ks holders, to widows and orphans – hardly a “subsidy” for the oil and gas industry.

Intangible Drilling Costs ($3.5 billion “subsidy” – low estimate is $780 million) – Intangible Drilling Costs are essentially the cost of drilling a new well that have no salvageable value. Currently, most exploration companies are allowed to deduct 100% of the costs in the year they are incurred with the majors able to deduct 70% of the costs immediately with the remaining 30% amortized over 5 years. In what world would money spent that may or may not be recovered be capitalized as an asset?

Royalty Payment Reductions on Federal Lands ($2.2 billion “subsidy”) While paying no royalties on some offshore plots and reduced royalties in some regions might be considered a break by many. The incomes derived from operations are taxed at the same levels as any other income – hardly a “subsidy”.

Depletion Allowance ($1 billion subsidy – low estimate is $900 million) The depletion allowance allows companies to treat reserves in the ground as a capitalized asset that may be written down by 15% per year. The government only allows the “subsidy” for independent producers. Integrated oil companies such as Exxon, BP etc. are not allowed the exemption. Companies across the US are allowed a depreciation deduction for taxation purposes. The oil & gas industry should not be an exception.

Domestic Manufacturing Deduction ($1.7 billion per year – low estimate is $574 million) – Congress passed the tax break in 2004 to encourage manufacturing companies to maintain their operations in the US. The tax break has been extended to oil & gas companies and allows them to deduct 9% of their income from operations. Critics charge that companies would not leave for a lower tax rate. Ever looked at how much cheaper it would be to operate a refinery in another country? Furthermore, the tax break extends to companies across multiple business segments – not just the oil & gas sector.


Foreign Tax Credit ($900 million) The tax break allows US companies to deduct taxes paid in foreign countries from profits when the money is returned to the US. Of all the tax breaks, calling the Foreign Tax Credit a subsidy for the oil & gas industry has to be the most egregious. The US Federal Government allows any corporation doing business outside of the US the same exception.

Several “subsidies” totaling an additional $3 billion combine to complete the $18.5 billion estimate.

In addition to the $18.5 billion in “subsidies” states also grant an additional $3 billion in tax breaks to the oil & gas sector that can be considered subsides. Politicians and political pundits tend to lump state and federal subsidies together. Shockingly, nobody holds them accountable for their misstatements. In addition to the “subsidies” given to oil & gas company operations, politicians attempt to lump in an additional $16 billion in consumption incentives to the oil & gas industry. Consumption incentives range from direct subsidies to low income households for heating oil to tax breaks for farmers, and the US military. It seems that these should be classified as breaks for farmers and the military rather than to oil & gas industry. To somehow get to the $52 billion total, activists then lump in the military costs to defend shipping lanes and pipelines in the Middle East.

Now let’s analyze what the oil & gas sector pays in taxes. In 2012 the top two corporations paying federal taxes in the US were ExxonMobil and Chevron paying a combined total of $45.2 billion. On average, the industry pays a 45% tax rate when all state, federal, and foreign taxes are totaled up. By comparison the Healthcare Industry pays a total rate of 35% and the Pharmaceuticals pay an estimated rate of 21%. Based upon these numbers it’s hard to believe which business sector is criticized the most for “subsidies”.

I only see a couple of subsidies that are not claimed by other industries too..although I am sure mining of all shorts has similar ones.

So which are the massive subsidies that oil and gas industry has ??

blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #120 on: August 21, 2019, 06:00:27 PM »
First of all, DrTskoul, why don't you link the source? It sounds awfully like FF propaganda to me.

Anyway, here are some numbers:

Quote
A 2016 IMF working paper (not necessarily representing the views of the IMF) included the costs of environmental externalities in their definition of subsidies and concluded that global fossil fuel subsidies were $5.3 trillion in 2015, which represented 6.5% of global GDP.

Link >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#Environmental_externalities



You might also read this section >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#Fossil_fuel_subsidies



Quote
$400bn in global fossil fuel consumption subsidies, twice that for renewables

Link >> https://energypost.eu/400bn-in-global-fossil-fuel-consumption-subsidies-twice-that-for-renewables/



Quote
Just 10% of fossil fuel subsidy cash 'could pay for green transition'

Link >> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/fossil-fuel-subsidy-cash-pay-green-energy-transition



Quote
Update On Recent Progress In Reform Of Inefficient Fossil Fuel Subsidies That Encourage Wasteful Consumption

https://www.oecd.org/fossil-fuels/publication/update-progress-reform-fossil-fuel-subsidies-g20.pdf


DrTskoul

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #121 on: August 21, 2019, 06:17:09 PM »
I found it by searching at google from forbes.com

What are the environmental externalities of agriculture, forestry, building construction? Why aren't those counted for those sectors ? Do you think they are smaller ?  FF demand and use does not happen in vaccum or forced on to people.  The whole system of modern life is entangled with energy use. And usually the cheaper source wins.  Make FF more expensive and other sources will be used instead, preferably renewable. In the mean time if a tax subsidy is available to many companies why do FF ones have to be exempt from those? You want to count externalities as cost do it for all...




blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #122 on: August 21, 2019, 07:18:36 PM »
Yes, do it for all, i agree! This is why i'm in favor of a $150 (+15%/year) carbon tax transferred directly into subsidies for renewables. This is how you accelerate the energy transition.

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #123 on: August 21, 2019, 07:36:43 PM »
Forbes allows any person to become a 'contributor' and post pretty much anything they want to. Just because an article appears on their website does not mean it's any good at all.

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #124 on: August 21, 2019, 08:24:54 PM »
That may be so, but I have seen similar numbers to what Dr T has posted.  They look accurate to me.

blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #125 on: August 21, 2019, 08:33:57 PM »
Forbes allows any person to become a 'contributor' and post pretty much anything they want to. Just because an article appears on their website does not mean it's any good at all.

The 'contributor' is what i'm interested in. I guess it's some guy from a think tank financed by Koch industries. ;)

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #126 on: August 21, 2019, 10:43:41 PM »
And even if they do peak, how long before any substantial reduction?
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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #127 on: August 22, 2019, 05:22:00 AM »
^^
Not terribly encouraging.
BTW
When the green and the yellow reach say 75% of the mix, I'll begrudgingly accept that EV's should be subsidized because they'll be a positive force to reduce GHG.
Eliminating coal is also needed.
Terry

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #128 on: August 22, 2019, 01:06:10 PM »
Yes, do it for all, i agree! This is why i'm in favor of a $150 (+15%/year) carbon tax transferred directly into subsidies for renewables. This is how you accelerate the energy transition.

It has to be transferred back to the people....otherwise it is a very regressive tax. Poor and middle class spend higher percentage of their income to energy use.

Klondike Kat

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #129 on: August 22, 2019, 01:43:16 PM »
Yes, do it for all, i agree! This is why i'm in favor of a $150 (+15%/year) carbon tax transferred directly into subsidies for renewables. This is how you accelerate the energy transition.

It has to be transferred back to the people....otherwise it is a very regressive tax. Poor and middle class spend higher percentage of their income to energy use.

Good point.  One of the oft quoted oil subsidies is the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).  This program provides funding for low income homes to meet certain energy needs.  It amounts to around $3 billion annually in the U.S. for indirect payments to the poor.  Calling this program a subsidy, and lumping with all the others is quite misleading.

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #130 on: August 22, 2019, 03:23:26 PM »
I am not impressed by that biased Forbes text, which appears to be written by an oil lobbyist.

Quote
Depletion Allowance ($1 billion subsidy – low estimate is $900 million) The depletion allowance allows companies to treat reserves in the ground as a capitalized asset that may be written down by 15% per year. The government only allows the “subsidy” for independent producers. Integrated oil companies such as Exxon, BP etc. are not allowed the exemption. Companies across the US are allowed a depreciation deduction for taxation purposes. The oil & gas industry should not be an exception.
That is complete nonsense.  In other industries the asset is built up by investment, and then allowed depreciation. That causes expenses to be deferred for tax purposes.
Here we have the investment treated as expense, the asset ia magically acquired with no tax implication, and then the loss from its depreciation is suddenly deductible. It's a crying-out-loud subsidy and let no one be suckered.

Example:
I build a factory, with $1B cost. Building expenses are not deductible, but the asset depreciates over a number of years.
I drill an oil field for $1B. The expense is deductible. I then claim the field is worth $1B based on its reserves, and expense its depreciation although I have never bought it, accounting-wise.

Quote
Domestic Manufacturing Deduction ($1.7 billion per year – low estimate is $574 million) – Congress passed the tax break in 2004 to encourage manufacturing companies to maintain their operations in the US. The tax break has been extended to oil & gas companies and allows them to deduct 9% of their income from operations. Critics charge that companies would not leave for a lower tax rate. Ever looked at how much cheaper it would be to operate a refinery in another country? Furthermore, the tax break extends to companies across multiple business segments – not just the oil & gas sector.
The refinery is a misleading argument. We are talking about domestic drilling operations, which you can't operate elsewhere. Such a tax break should only be given (if at all) to companies actually choosing their manufacturing location.
Besides, oil&gas is not manufacturing, it's extraction.
Total sham, a pure tax gift to such companies.

SteveMDFP

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #131 on: August 22, 2019, 03:46:45 PM »

The refinery is a misleading argument. We are talking about domestic drilling operations, which you can't operate elsewhere. Such a tax break should only be given (if at all) to companies actually choosing their manufacturing location.
Besides, oil&gas is not manufacturing, it's extraction.
Total sham, a pure tax gift to such companies.

While I agree with your post in general, this point should be clarified.  Oil refineries are, indeed, considered manufacturing.  Until just a few years ago, export of crude out of the US was prohibited.  The oil lobby changed that, and now the US exports crude to offshore refineries.  This raised costs for US consumers while reducing the US manufacturing base of employment.

It would be best to reinstate the crude export ban and forbid this particular manufacturing from tax breaks.  FF industry would cry foul, but they shouldn't get the tax break as long as their product causes harm to the environment that they're not otherwise having to pay for.  When they pay a fair carbon fee, then they can get this tax break.

blumenkraft

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #132 on: August 22, 2019, 10:26:50 PM »
Yes, do it for all, i agree! This is why i'm in favor of a $150 (+15%/year) carbon tax transferred directly into subsidies for renewables. This is how you accelerate the energy transition.

It has to be transferred back to the people....otherwise it is a very regressive tax. Poor and middle class spend higher percentage of their income to energy use.

Every government must protect the poor, of course. And if a carbon tax affects the poor, there needs to be compensation. Here i agree 100%.

As for the middle class, it's not expensive to consume less - on the contrary. Actually, this is the whole point of a carbon tax. We need to bring CO2 consumption down.

petm

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #133 on: August 23, 2019, 01:18:40 AM »
Less consumption is not politically possible under our current economic system.

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #134 on: August 23, 2019, 01:19:25 AM »
Less CO2 emissions per unit of consumption however is...

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #135 on: August 23, 2019, 06:32:25 AM »
Less consumption is not politically possible under our current economic system.

Sorry to disagree petm.
I think: When the 'middle class' and the poor would live, or strife to live, like me (very low consumption, no direct emissions, high-quality local (food)products), consumption does a nosedive and a change in politics and the economic system follow.

The economic system is not fixed, it is fabricated by lying and manipulating neo-liberalistic capitalism.
The perverse addiction to profits and grown-ups' life of accumulation must end. Why profits? Stop with more, more, more.
People power! Or... is there no people power? Are people like blind sheep? Have people no capacity for self-determination? In that case I do agree with you petm. :)
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Tor Bejnar

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #136 on: December 18, 2019, 09:08:48 PM »

Liebreich: Peak Emissions Are Closer Than You Think – and Here’s Why
December 17, 2019 - By Michael Liebreich [Wikipedia link]
Senior Contributor - BloombergNEF
Quote
...
I believe the new decade will see us hit peak energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and start to see a modest but meaningful decline. Just to be clear, we will not see the sort of decline demanded by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a 20% cut by 2030 to keep temperature rises to 2C, a 45% cut to remain under 1.5C – but I would guess at a drop of around 5%.
...
He write, "not enough", but this projection, if realized, is much better than BAU's 'Who cares about emissions - our great grand kids will fix it if it turns out to be a problem."
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

gerontocrat

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #137 on: December 18, 2019, 09:55:31 PM »

Liebreich: Peak Emissions Are Closer Than You Think – and Here’s Why
December 17, 2019 - By Michael Liebreich [Wikipedia link]
Senior Contributor - BloombergNEF
Quote
...
I believe the new decade will see us hit peak energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and start to see a modest but meaningful decline. Just to be clear, we will not see the sort of decline demanded by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a 20% cut by 2030 to keep temperature rises to 2C, a 45% cut to remain under 1.5C – but I would guess at a drop of around 5%.
...
He write, "not enough", but this projection, if realized, is much better than BAU's 'Who cares about emissions - our great grand kids will fix it if it turns out to be a problem."
We know that in Europe and the USA it's goodbye to coal over the next 10 years or even less.
But what about India & China ? "There's the rub" (Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy). A lot of very rich people with very large investments and debts bound up in coal.

It is also likely that in Europe and the USA natural gas consumption will start to hit headwinds - but how strong?
It is also likely that in Europe and the USA  EV sales will at least hurt ICE sales significantly by 2030.

With luck Africa & South America (Brazil?) will hit the Solar + Wind trail big-time.

So yes, I can see Peak CO2 emissions as early as next year - as a maybe, (even though Michael Liebreich 's relentless optimism is very trying, and I reckon +2o is pretty much a guarantee now).

Caveats on how high temperatures will go:-
Ice loss climate feedbacks (AWP).
Carbon Sinks
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NeilT

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #138 on: December 18, 2019, 11:11:02 PM »
Unlikely to be any time soon.

Quote
Africa’s population is among the fastest growing and youngest in the world. One-in-two people added to the world population between today and 2040 are set to be African, and the continent becomes the world’s most populous region by 2023, overtaking China and India.

More than half a billion people are added to Africa’s urban population by 2040, much higher than the growth seen in China’s urban population in the two decades of China’s economic and energy boom. How Africa meets its growing energy needs is crucial for the continent’s economic and energy future, as well as for global trends.

Growing urban populations mean rapid growth in energy demand for industrial production, cooling and mobility. With the growing appetite for modern and efficient energy sources, Africa also emerges as a major force in global oil and gas markets. The projected growth in oil demand is higher than that of China and second only to that of India as the size of the car fleet more than doubles (the bulk of which have low fuel efficiency) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is increasingly used for clean cooking. Africa’s growing weight is also felt in natural gas markets as the continent becomes the third-largest source of global gas demand growth over the same period.

https://www.iea.org/reports/africa-energy-outlook-2019
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gerontocrat

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #139 on: December 18, 2019, 11:17:21 PM »
On 2nd thoughts I have to agree with NeilT that Africa may be the place where certainly oil & gas demand will grow for some years to come, even if the people want to go to renewables. Not so sure about coal.

Money & politics rule, OK?

 
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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #140 on: December 18, 2019, 11:19:10 PM »
So that means 2.5 degrees is pretty much guaranteed now, which means tipping points and feedbacks are guaranteed, which means...

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #141 on: December 18, 2019, 11:24:33 PM »
We need to stop lambasting the western world for not reducing enough and get mobilised to help Africa to use renewables rather than fossil fuels.  Using 1st world technology to reduce their emissions before they begin.

The problem is that almost all focus from the major economies is inward looking to meeting their targets and virtually nobody is looking outwards to the future and trying to get a wave of renewables in Africa to precede the population explosion.

Hard to know how to address that one.
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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #142 on: December 19, 2019, 06:20:19 AM »
Our CO_2 reductions have first to cancel out the increases in extra emissions from permafrost (1.1-2.2GT CO_2/a), forest fires (.25GT CO_2/a 2019) etc.
4% per year reduction will not be enough to get to -45% by 2030 for <1.5C.
2% per year reduction will not be enough to get to -20% by 2030 for <2C.

Others may disagree but I think 1.5C will likely be crossed in the next decade. We're already at 1.2C GMST, so the carbon budgets for <1.5C and <2C seem very optimistic.

How degraded will the biosphere be in 2030? Will emissions from permafrost have doubled? Will other tipping points and cascading ecosystem collapses have been set off? 10 years is a long long time in this accelerating biocatastrophy.
Will there still be trees left in e.g. Australia and California to burn in 2030?

Without using creative accounting, when will rich countries' carbon footprint peak?


We need to keep lambasting the western world for their unwillingness to reduce emissions. Sjeez. Ask Greta.
Rich people need to stop consumeristing. It's like trying to get terminal junkies off of their blind addiction. I see the apocalyptic cold turkey looming.
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NeilT

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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #143 on: December 19, 2019, 10:10:39 AM »
Great, go for it and we'll come back to Africa when it is a bigger problem than China.

BTW, did anyone ever believe we would make 1.5C?  I always thought it was an artificial target to motivate countries when we passed it.
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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #144 on: December 19, 2019, 02:03:14 PM »
Well this is all not new so we could have started earlier and made that goal but we did not care enough.

The tragedy is that if you want to have a good overshoot target then 1C would have been nice but that was ´too expensive´. Still if we had stopped the warming at around 1,5 C after missing 1 C that would have been so much better that whatever we will end up with now.

Long ago the whole idea was to safe arctic ice, Greenland and Antarctica and prevent the permafrost from becoming a source. Arguably all 4 have failed.

If the world could actually unite on action helping the poorer countries go straight to renewable energy would be a no brainer and you can connect the grids. Build a huge solar farm in the Sahara and tie it to the European grid for example.
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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #145 on: December 19, 2019, 02:08:11 PM »
Great, go for it and we'll come back to Africa when it is a bigger problem than China.

BTW, did anyone ever believe we would make 1.5C?  I always thought it was an artificial target to motivate countries when we passed it.
Does anyone believe that it will pause at 2.0C?


I think that every country capable of moving their citizens above poverty levels will add to the problem. China is already there, India is rapidly moving in that direction, Africa is mainly in chaos.


The success Africa will have in rising from poverty is still in doubt. If they're successful before we've developed technologies that can seperate prosperity from GHG emissions, our best efforts within our own borders and continents won't be enough.


Africa may escape king coal as some regions skipped over telephone land lines. If we can't provide clean substitutes for ffs to Africa, we're dooming all of our children.
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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #146 on: December 19, 2019, 03:17:14 PM »

If the world could actually unite on action helping the poorer countries go straight to renewable energy would be a no brainer and you can connect the grids. Build a huge solar farm in the Sahara and tie it to the European grid for example.

Which would see the developing world leapfrog the developed world and then force them into following suit.

Better for the biosphere, better for the developing nations and far more sure than what we are doing.

However we are where we are.  The developing world following in the carbon footprint of the developed world and the climate heading for a roasting.

Meanwhile the protesters do a No CO2 dance on the doorstep of countries which are doing something and ignore countries which are not doing anything because they wind up in the "too difficult" bucket.
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Re: When will CO2 emissions peak?
« Reply #147 on: December 19, 2019, 04:22:06 PM »
Unsurprisingly there's little to get excited about from Boris Johnson's Queen's Speech today setting out his legislative agenda post Brexit.

We know he has other fish to fry (fishing rights in UK waters will be addressed!) but there's nothing at all of substance relating to the primary need to address the need to hit even the existing soft IPCC targets.

With the UK hosting COP26 in Glasgow next year I'd hoped for a little more recognition of the issue and some material commitment to some of the low hanging fruit like residential property insulation which would, in addition, create thousands of new jobs in the now Tory "Red Wall. Maybe more will follow as the details emerge but the "imperatives" of the short term seem once again destined to stymy progress towards addressing the existential crisis we face. Don't look to any leadership from the UK Government in 2020.

Kind words and a modicum of cash for some more research to kick the can further down the road is as good as it will get.

I hope I'm wrong.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/19/queens-speech-what-is-in-boris-johnson-2020-programme

"Climate and environment
The science, space and research bill sets out plans to boost funding for research to tackle the UK’s contribution to climate change. An environment bill will set legally binding targets and environmental principles, including a commitment to improving air quality and banning the export of polluting plastic waste to countries outside the OECD. There will be tougher sentences for animal cruelty, which will extend the current maximum sentence from six months to five years. It will also be enshrined in law that animals are sentient beings and the government has a duty to protect them from harm."
« Last Edit: December 19, 2019, 04:28:29 PM by silkman »