COP26 in Glasgow

[Jim Hunt]

I've just stumbled across this report from COP26:



"Jonathan Pie" at The World's End. Including "interviews" with Ed Miliband, George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas.

Six pints later, Pie now fully understands the urgency of the existential crisis facing humanity, and, to the horror of his long-suffering Producer Tim, he decides to convey his new-found knowledge live to the nation.

[kassy]

Nice sets.

Also:

Activists hit out at government for allowing new oilfield weeks after Cop26 climate summit

One campaign group leader said she sees "little to no benefit for UK energy customers or taxpayers", and that "the only winners are the oil firm behind the project”.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/oilfield-plan-north-sea-abigail-oil-gas-310437/

And some criticism:

West accused of ‘climate hypocrisy’ as emissions dwarf those of poor countries

Average Briton produces more carbon in two days than Congolese person does in entire year, study finds

In the first two days of January, the average Briton was already responsible for more carbon dioxide emissions than someone from the Democratic Republic of the Congo would produce in an entire year, according to analysis by the Center for Global Development (CGD).

The study, which highlights the “vast energy inequality” between rich and poor countries, found that each Briton produces 200 times the climate emissions of the average Congolese person, with people in the US producing 585 times as much. By the end of January, the carbon emitted by someone living in the UK will surpass the annual emissions of citizens of 30 low- and middle-income countries, it found.

Euan Ritchie, a policy analyst at CGD Europe, said his work was prompted by the “climate hypocrisy” of western countries, including the UK and the US, that have pledged to stop aid funding to fossil fuel projects in developing states.

“At Cop26 there was lots of hand-wringing by rich countries about the extent to which aid and other development finance should finance fossil fuels in poorer countries,” said Ritchie. “The hypocrisy of this caught my attention.”

...

Several countries, including some developing countries, and finance institutions have signed up to a pledge to end public support for international fossil fuel projects. The same countries will be able to continue to develop fossil fuels at home. The US has at least 24 pending fossil fuel projects representing more than 1.6 gigatons of potential greenhouse gas emissions, while the UK is licensing new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

The CGD research used World Bank data of per capita carbon emissions for each country, spread out over a year, to calculate the point at which a British or US citizen’s energy use surpassed that of someone living in a low- or middle-income country. About 940 million people, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to electricity.

...

The Energy for Growth Hub, an international research network, estimates that if 48 countries in Africa, excluding South Africa and several north African nations, tripled their electricity consumption through use of natural gas, the resulting carbon emissions would be less than 1% of the global total.

...

“The video gaming industry in California is using more energy than entire African countries,” she said. “There’s this idea that in California we can’t live without video games, or air conditioning, but we are worried about Africans moving up and consuming. It’s really important for us as Africans to establish that our development is non-negotiable. All of those decades of exploitation and being left behind – that is owed to us.”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/28/west-accused-of-climate-hypocrisy-as-emissions-dwarf-those-of-poor-countries

If we were serious in the west we should consider an energy diet.

[interstitial]

“At Cop26 there was lots of hand-wringing by rich countries about the extent to which aid and other development finance should finance fossil fuels in poorer countries,” said Ritchie. “The hypocrisy of this caught my attention.”

It sounds to me like the author is arguing we should fund fossil fuel projects in poorer countries until they "catch up". This is not hypocrisy at all but a realization that we need to stop supporting fossil fuels. Those funds should be spent on renewable projects.

[kassy]

Actually his point is a little more nuanced:

The Energy for Growth Hub, an international research network, estimates that if 48 countries in Africa, excluding South Africa and several north African nations, tripled their electricity consumption through use of natural gas, the resulting carbon emissions would be less than 1% of the global total.


That means improvements for a whole lot of people at very little cost.
Actually that could come from our western reductions if we are going at a quick enough pace.

Of course the main point is that it is simply hypocritical to stop investing into fossil fuel projects that could help so many people at little cost (if you look at total or historical emissions) while we keep opening up gas and oil field and we happily frack at home.

We should get serious about our energy diet because we use so much of the pie in the west.
In the EU we just labelled gas plants as green , terms and conditions apply but still...

On the large scale of things it is much more important that we replace coal and as much gas as possible. Demand should be driven down by accelerating the improvement of homes and buildings. Not just let every nation set some subsidy target but invest in it on a EU scale. This will need tons of labor so train people and collect best practices so we can do it more efficiently.

PS: Of course it would be much better if we straight up offered to help them skip the FF stage , there is some 100 billion of unused pledged money somewhere. 

[gerontocrat]

The UK hosted COP26 and now many of us fear the UK Government has lost its way & will dump net-zero into the too-hard basket

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/09/campaigners-fear-net-zero-could-be-a-casualty-of-boris-johnsons-weakness
Campaigners fear net zero could be a casualty of Boris Johnson’s weakness
Analysis: The government’s stance on coalmines, oilfields, transport and green investment is causing increasing worry

Green campaigners are increasingly concerned that the push for net zero emissions has been undermined by a series of recent government actions.

Ministers and government bodies are considering extending a coalmine in Wales and a new one in Cumbria, have approved a new oilfield in the North Sea and the expansion of the airport at Bristol, and are making cuts to public transport services.

These decisions have come while the Treasury is reported to be seeking ways to cut the green levies from fuel bills, which would reduce support for home insulation for poor households, and as some rightwing commentators have clamoured for increased gas production as a solution to soaring energy prices.

Jamie Peters, the campaign director at Friends of the Earth, said: “The government are saying one thing and then doing something completely different in a string of recent decisions, and the climate emergency is too important to be treated this way.

“Their approach to net zero demonstrates either a lack of understanding or a lack of interest in how climate breakdown will affect people here in the UK.”

The Abigail oilfield licence was approved by the Oil and Gas Authority last month, despite a UK-commissioned report from the International Energy Agency last year that found no new oil and gas exploration could take place if the world was to limit global heating to 1.5C. Similarly, the extension of a coalmine at Aberpergwm in Wales is now under consideration, as is the licence for a new mine in Cumbria that would supply coking coal.

After international outcry last year, the government called an inquiry on the Cumbrian plans. That meant a pause while ministers hosted the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow, but the issue is still live and is expected to be resolved soon.

Mark Jenkinson, a local Conservative MP who has campaigned for the mine, has called green campaigners “climate terrorists” and is a member of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, a group of about 20 MPs and peers who want to curb or reverse the government’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions.

As president of Cop26, the UK has a continuing duty to ensure its resolutions are met, until Egypt takes over as president of the next round of talks this November. That means asking other countries, some of which have large fossil fuel industries, to come up with national plans to reduce their emissions.

That will become more difficult if the UK appears to renege on its domestic carbon-cutting plans. Peters said of the recent decisions: “No reasonable person can say that this adds up to a government that understands the scale of action needed. The [net zero] strategy should be strengthened, and rewritten if necessary, to recognise the realities of the climate and ecological emergency. That means no new coal, no new roads, no new airports, and this must be the backbone of everything Whitehall does: it’s not an incidental nice-to-have.”

Transport remains another sore point. Rail fares are rising while public transport plans have been scaled back with cuts to rail services and buses. Norman Baker, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “The government claims it wants public transport to be the ‘natural first choice for all who can take it’ but funding cuts to the rail and bus network will make public transport more expensive, less convenient, less reliable and ultimately less attractive to millions of people who have a choice to drive.”

Hopes for a green recovery from the pandemic, which could create jobs in areas from home insulation and renewable energy generation to tree-planting and building flood defences, were also dealt a blow by the levelling up strategy, which relegated green investment to the bottom of its long list of priorities.

Ed Matthew, the campaigns director at the climate change thinktank E3G, said this was a mistake, as an insulation programme alone could help to reduce energy bills, create jobs, improve the health of people in cold homes, and reach net zero.

He said: “As energy bills go through the roof due to the rocketing cost of gas, it is worth remembering that the most energy-leaking housing stock in western Europe is in the north of England. Fixing it would slash energy bills and emissions while boosting the economy of the north. Failing to put that at the heart of this levelling up strategy is a spectacular own goal.”

With Boris Johnson’s premiership hanging by a thread, and his potential rivals courting the right wing of his party, there is widespread concern among green analysts and campaigners that the push for net zero could become a casualty of his weakness.

Doug Parr, the policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “For all the government’s claims to be climate leaders their weak record on delivery in key sectors leaves you pondering just where is this leadership? Recent developments raise real questions about delivering on the promises we made to the international community in Glasgow last November.”

He added: “The government has felt quite at home making grand climate statements on the international stage but with Cop26 over, the focus needs to move on. Attention has to turn to the real graft needed to deliver drastic emissions cuts here at home.”

[NeilT]

The current crisis in the UK government is showing signs of being highly orchestrated.  Clearly someone wants to change the current government.  Whether it is revenge or an attempt to roll back the CO2 curtailment initiatives is not yet known.

That being said, the UK is at record levels of debt since the end of WWII, thanks to covid, has a crisis in energy due to the current gas price crisis and has massive energy price rises coming to consumers this year.

Renewables can't help because you can't build a new wind farm in 3 months.  You can, however, reactivate a coal power station which is only mothballed and feed it with coal mined in country at controllable prices.

Reality is where good intentions meet fiscal limits.

Change is where time and consistent policy modify reality.

The climate lobby wants change without time and policy without reality.

It doesn't work.  Both sides need to work to get it done.

[interstitial]

I think the problem is many climate campaigners only focus on banning fossil fuels and not on displacing them. In an energy crises most of the public will vote to ease the pain in the short term despite the long term climate consequences. In the long term most of the public wants to address climate change. You can't build a wind farm in 3 months but you can built it in two years. Focus on building the renewables that will eliminate the need for the last coal plant. The coal plant owners will close it when it is not needed to meet demand. Net zero is a longer term goal right now nearly everyone is slow walking the effort to reach 80% carbon free. We can not reach the longer term goals if we never reach the shorter term goals.


Environmentalists have been attacking oil for decades and losing ground with increased consumption year after year.  Now with sales of EV's starting to increase we will soon see peak demand for oil. In Norway gas stations are closing pumps. The only thing that has had any success is providing an alternative to fossil fuels not banning them.  It seems stupid that I have to say this but the more new renewables we build the lower future emissions will be. Fossil fuel interests understand this and do everything they can to stop new renewable energy projects. How have oil companies responded to recent talks about increased efforts to reduce emissions? Mostly they respond by attacking EVs. They understand there will be plenty of demand for oil as long as EVs do not catch on.


We should all focus on displacing fossil fuels rather than banning them. That is why we have failed so far. The transition will continue only as fast as we displace fossil fuels.

[kassy]

Everybody needs energy so the only option is to replace fossil fuels and also reducing use by improving buildings.

None of this is new.

Here is a recent example:

In 2013, David Cameron promised to “cut the green crap” from energy bills, removing previous levies on bills which funded renewables and insulation for deprived households.

Recent Analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has now shown that households could have saved a combined £1.5 billion in the next financial year if the levy hadn’t been dropped and insulation had continued to be installed at the same rate as a decade ago.

In 2012, around 2.3 million homes added new insulation, but since 2013 this has collapsed to just around 230,000 homes, the ECIU said.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/environment/four-reasons-why-net-zero-is-a-solution-not-a-problem-for-the-energy-crisis/

There are limits to what we can do as individuals. Despite all the blah blah fossil fuels still get a lot of subsidies and tax breaks. A succesfull program for home improvement was gutted.

We should not see this as some problem in the focus of climate campaigners but see what it is. Our government saying one thing and then continuing with BAU and doing stuff that is good for donations or future prospects.

We can not just wait for markets to take care of things. So subsidies need to be switched to green fuels. There needs to be a plan to upgrade all the houses What to do for homeowners who cannot pay for it themselves? After decades of inaction all this needs to be sped up.

[NeilT]

The UK builds about 200,000 to 240,000 new homes a year.  It is now illegal to build a home in the UK without insulation, both loft and walls.

So to say that "only" 230,000 homes were insulated in the UK is just like saying "we built 230,000 new, insulated, homes".

The government does everything but give money away today.  Including insisting on an energy rating for the home which reduces value.

Rather than throwing away public money, I'd rather the government levied a charge on every house sold without insulation and then mandated that the new owner insulate the home using the  money from the charge as a grant and then adding whatever else they need onto their mortgage.  I'd also mandate that the mortgage companies have to add the additional insulation money to the mortgage without capping the amount lent.

But that's just me.

We are stuck where we are and actions are being taken on short term issue.  The irony is that the UK is in the middle of building out enough wind to take away most of the gas peak price issues and enough Nuclear to keep the grid balanced.

The problem is that it is not Here Now and the energy price crisis is.  It is not that we're not building for renewables.  We are, at the fastest pace we have ever done.  It is just not fast enough.

[kassy]

COP26: No countries have delivered on promise to improve climate plans

In Glasgow, 196 countries promised to "revisit and strengthen" their plans for curbing emissions, but there is little sign of this happening before the next talks in November

...

One of the headline promises of the Glasgow Climate Pact was that this year, 196 countries would “revisit and strengthen” their plans for curbing emissions by 2030. Without stronger action plans, the target of keeping below 1.5°C of warming will be out of reach.

Sharma said that the UK government is looking at ways to strengthen its 2030 national climate plan, but to date, no countries have formally submitted a blueprint that goes further than what they promised before or at COP26.

...

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2320379-cop26-no-countries-have-delivered-on-promise-to-improve-climate-plans/

Well that helped.

[vox_mundi]

Department of Energy to Dole Out $3.5 Billion for Carbon Removal Hubs
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/19/23131286/energy-department-3-5-billion-carbon-removal-hubs

The Department of Energy (DOE) just launched a new $3.5 billion program to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it away. The program focuses on developing four “hubs” across the country focused on direct air capture, the technology that draws CO2 out of the air.

Each of the hubs is ultimately supposed to be able to capture and store at least a million metric tons of CO2. That’s a massive endeavor. Currently, all the direct air capture facilities in the world only have the capacity to capture about 0.01 million metric tons of CO2.

Today, the DOE filed a Notice of Intent — a kind of official “heads-up” — that says that they’ll be making a funding announcement related to those hubs “in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2022.” At that point, companies can apply for funds to develop projects that will “contribute to the development” of those hubs. The funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last year and is supposed to be deployed between 2022 and 2026.

For projects to be eligible for the funding, they have to meet certain criteria. They need to be able to permanently store the CO2, rather than using it in products like fizzy drinks. That ensures that the greenhouse gas doesn’t quickly wind up in the atmosphere again. The DOE is also barring any projects that would use the captured CO2 to produce more fossil fuels. That excludes the oil and gas industry’s “enhanced oil recovery,” a technique that involves shooting captured carbon dioxide into the ground to force out hard-to-reach oil reserves.

The exact locations of the hubs haven’t been decided yet, but the government hopes that by lumping different projects together into hubs, they can cut costs and scale up quickly. Ideally, different facilities would be able to share the same infrastructure — i.e., pipelines to transport the captured CO2 to somewhere it can be stored nearby.

The plan is for at least two of the hubs to be located in “economically distressed communities in the regions of the United States with high levels of coal, oil, or natural gas resources.” Some advocates from communities already surrounded by a lot of polluting facilities, however, are wary about carbon removal projects burdening them with even more industrial infrastructure. The DOE said in its announcement that it would consult communities that might be affected.

... Taking all that into consideration, it looks like the Gulf Coast could be a prime candidate for such hubs since it has a long history with oil, gas, and petrochemicals. On top of that, there’s already speculation that oil and gas companies are eyeing the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico as a place to deposit captured CO2. We’ll likely learn more about the project in the funding announcement later this year.

-------------------------------------------

... the poor get poorer and the rich get richer

--------------------------------------------

1 million tons down and 999,999 million tons to go

[kassy]

COP26: Are nations on track to meet their climate goals?

...

Emissions:

What's been done?

Countries were given a deadline of September to submit new plans - but currently only 11 countries out of 196 have done so.

However, recent analysis suggests that China has seen a continuous reduction in emissions since summer 2021. This could have a significant impact as it is responsible for 27% of the world's emissions.

...

What's been done?

There are are now 34 countries considering new coal plants, compared with 41 at the beginning of last year.

China, the biggest user of coal, agreed to stop funding "all overseas coal-fired power projects completely".

However, India - the next largest consumer of coal - announced in April that it was increasing production of coal power and reopening 100 plants.

...

Methane - worsening situation
What was agreed?

A scheme to cut 30% of methane emissions by 2030 was agreed by more than 100 countries.

The big emitters - China, Russia and India - are yet to join, although China did agree in a deal with the US to work on the issue.

Why does it matter?

Methane is currently responsible for a third of human-generated warming.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61494531

[vox_mundi]

Scientists: Global Warming Cannot be Stopped Without CO2 Traps
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-scientists-global-co2.html

Reducing the consumption of fossil fuels is not enough to prevent the world's average annual temperature from rising by >2C above pre-industrial levels. Russian scientists at NUST MISIS are convinced that global climate change cannot be stopped without the development of technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the air. The results of their study are presented in Thermal Engineering.

... Scientists from NUST MISIS, the Moscow Power Engineering Institute and the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have analyzed key trends in global energy and climate indicators, and concluded that although the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are unattainable, there is no reason for apocalyptic sentiment.

However, the authors of the study are confident that without the development of such technologies, the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century will not be achievable.

... In achieving full carbon neutrality, the so-called carbon capture technologies ("carbon traps") will help: the ocean, living biota (forests) and geological formations capable of capturing and retaining carbon dioxide. However, natural resources in this sense are limited, so achieving global carbon neutrality exclusively by natural capacity by 2050 doesn't seem feasible.

V. V. Klimenko et al, Will Energy Transition Be Capable to Halt the Global Warming and Why the Climate Change Projections are so Wrong?, Thermal Engineering (2022)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0040601522030065

[kassy]

So kids, here is the homework....

[gerontocrat]

Some headlines....COP26 morphs into COPOUT26 and COP-FLOP27

Bloomberg
Tense Mid-Year Climate Talks Raise Concerns of COP27 Flop
The divide between rich and poor nations widened after two weeks of fraught negotiations in Germany.

The Guardian
UN climate talks end in stalemate and ‘hypocrisy’ allegation
Adviser says European nations are sourcing fossil fuels abroad but failing to help developing countries

Bank group accused of exploiting loopholes and ‘greenwashing’ in climate pledge
‘Net zero’ global alliance of financial institutions, begun at Cop26, can still invest in coal and other fossil fuels

[Freegrass]

Some headlines....COP26 morphs into COPOUT26 and COP-FLOP27

Bloomberg
Tense Mid-Year Climate Talks Raise Concerns of COP27 Flop
The divide between rich and poor nations widened after two weeks of fraught negotiations in Germany.

The Guardian
UN climate talks end in stalemate and ‘hypocrisy’ allegation
Adviser says European nations are sourcing fossil fuels abroad but failing to help developing countries

Bank group accused of exploiting loopholes and ‘greenwashing’ in climate pledge
‘Net zero’ global alliance of financial institutions, begun at Cop26, can still invest in coal and other fossil fuels

In all honesty, I think everyone is busy with some other problems right now, and the poor countries will just have to wait until the global economy is in safer waters again... Too much going on right now in the world that's creating a lot of uncertainty...

Let's see if we can prevent a big famine first and the collapse of the global economy...

On a positive note: The world realizes now that fossil fuels are not a safe bet anymore...

[trm1958]

Freegrass, I think that waiting is going to be very long…

[kassy]

In all honesty, I think everyone is busy with some other problems right now, and the poor countries will just have to wait until the global economy is in safer waters again... Too much going on right now in the world that's creating a lot of uncertainty...

Let's see if we can prevent a big famine first and the collapse of the global economy...

On a positive note: The world realizes now that fossil fuels are not a safe bet anymore...

That first line is stupid, then again it also displays a fine understanding of current realpolitik...So yes that is probably what we will do some more but time is running out. Plus we also need to stop  global warming because that can cause both things by itself.

It seems that the world also realizes it wants more since we are making LNG terminals and further purchases in Europe and the US still wants to frack some more.

We do have to decline our emissions before 2025 so we are running out of time.

The Bonn discussions got stuck for a part because the richer nations don´t want to be on the hook for damages so they really don´t want to commit to any payout formula.

They should break up the money into different funds and we should have one that is specifically for building green solutions in these countries. This is just not for solar farms but a whole range of things. In many countries huge gains can be made by reforming garbage collection and having them separate compostable materials from the other stuff and then treating them separately. This removes methane from the waste piles and it can employ people. And there are many more things we could do.

Now it is all stuck on some discussion about lump sums. And whatever they agree on if ever does not matter if we still kick the can further down the road because soon it will bounce back.

I think the idea for COP27 is stuff we can actually agree to do , so more practical measures. It will be interesting to see what comes out of that. 

[Freegrass]

In all honesty, I think everyone is busy with some other problems right now, and the poor countries will just have to wait until the global economy is in safer waters again... Too much going on right now in the world that's creating a lot of uncertainty...

Let's see if we can prevent a big famine first and the collapse of the global economy...

On a positive note: The world realizes now that fossil fuels are not a safe bet anymore...

That first line is stupid, then again it also displays a fine understanding of current realpolitik...So yes that is probably what we will do some more but time is running out. Plus we also need to stop  global warming because that can cause both things by itself.
<snip>

It is realpolitik indeed that I was expressing. What gutted me the most is that suddenly they will make it obligatory in Europe to install solar panels on large rooftops. Not because of the climate, or Greta, or the student protests, but because of Putin's war... It's like they still don't get it how serious the problem really is. It's really disheartening... That's why I'm a fan of GH2, and said the things I said about it on the GH2 thread, that greed and capitalism will have to save us, because our morality consists of making as much money as possible...

I keep thinking about the story I heard about Easter Island. They kept cutting down the trees to build more statues, even though they knew it was killing their world... (I heard this story is disputed, but I like to believe it's true). People are just dumbasses... We keep killing ourselves. We keep polluting our own habitat. We're the dumbest and most greedy animal on this planet...

[kassy]

Not a fan of that simple version , in a way it is projection. Good parable though.

But there is a lot of world beyond the islands but global warming works in a different way. It is everywhere all the time.

I often get the idea people have a hard time getting their head around how bad it is going to be. It is going to be like this or warmer every year. It is going to be worse when the next El Nino hits.
By then we will probably figure out that we would prefer to be be below 1,5C nevermind whatever target we are hitting at 2100.

A further point we are not all the dumbest and most greedy animal. Many people do nice stuff but some others do play the dumb and greedy game. Wealth concentrates under random conditions but after that you can skewer them if you have enough wealth or power. They think in very different terms because they play but they don´t garden.

[gerontocrat]

An article from Yale Connections on chances of the US meeting its Paris / Cop26 emission reduction commtments.

US citizens reading this should not regard it as an attack on the USA. The same story with variations can be applied to Europe, China, India and most other big emitters. I am posting it as this article specifies the main actions to be undertaken to achieve reduction targets, most of which can be applied elsewhere.

The article is probably correct not to mention that Biden's administration lacks the power to legislate the necessary carrots and sticks to make it happen, has approved / promoted increases in fossil fuel production and is likely to be a Lame Duck Presidency after the November 22 elections.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/06/what-it-would-take-for-u-s-to-meet-its-paris-commitment/
What it would take for U.S. to meet its Paris commitment
Short answer: A whole lot. Technically feasible, model results agree … but only with herculean clean technology deployments.

The Biden administration in April 2021 dramatically ratcheted up the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledge under the Paris target, also known as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).

The Obama administration in 2014 had announced a commitment to cut U.S. emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. The Trump administration formally withdrew the country from the Paris agreement in late 2020, but the Biden administration, upon taking office in January 2021, swiftly reversed that move and subsequently pledged to cut U.S. emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Based on current emissions trends and climate policies, however, the U.S. is not on track to meet even the Obama administration’s commitment, let alone its new and far more ambitious NDC. With two-thirds of the time between 2005 and 2030 having passed, national emissions today are only about 15% lower than the 2005 levels. In fact, carbon pollution rates had been rising during the Trump administration’s tenure until the COVID pandemic struck.

With eight years remaining before the looming 2030 deadline, authors of a new study in the journal Science examine how seven energy system model scenarios envision the U.S.’s ramping up efforts to meet its NDC. In short, achieving its commitment would require efforts to dramatically accelerate the deployment of solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles (EVs), trees, heat pumps, insulation, and measures to significantly curb the emissions of other potent greenhouse gases like methane.

What it would take to meet the Biden pledge
The U.S. released 6.6 billion tons (gigatons, or Gt) of carbon dioxide (CO2)-equivalent greenhouse gases in 2005, about 5.6 Gt in pre-pandemic 2019, and has pledged not to exceed 3.3 Gt of emissions in 2030. That objective means the U.S. needs to reduce its annual emissions a further 2.3 Gt in the next eight years. The Science study incorporated the results of seven separate energy system modeling scenarios that tried to project how the U.S. could achieve that goal:

A scenario designed and directed by the Environmental Defense Fund using the Rhodium Group’s version of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s National Energy Modeling System (NEMS);
An analysis by the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability, World Resources Institute, and Rocky Mountain Institute using the Joint Global Change Research Institute’s Global Change Analysis model (GCAM);
A scenario from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory using its own model in collaboration with models from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Energy Exemplar;
An analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council using a model developed by Evolved Energy Research;
A scenario by the Electric Power Research Institute using its own model; and
Two analyses by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using its own model integrated with one from NREL.

Consistency among model scenarios
The various model scenarios were fairly consistent in projecting that close to half of the needed reduction – about 1.1 Gt – should come from the electricity sector. That effort would require installing an average of about 60 gigawatts (GW) of combined solar and wind energy per year from now through 2030. For comparison, about 33 GW of wind and solar were installed in the U.S. in both 2020 and again in 2021. That’s approximately double the amount of national renewable energy installations in 2015, and the rate would need to approximately double again on average over the subsequent eight years to put the U.S. on track to meet its Paris commitment. At the same time, 90 to 100% of American coal power plants would need to retire by 2030.

The models were similarly aggressive in projecting the contribution to the needed emissions cuts from transportation, estimating that this sector would have to reduce its annual greenhouse gases by about 600 million tons (Mt) by 2030 (nearly a quarter of the total emissions cuts needed). More than 80% of U.S. transportation sector emissions come from road transport – cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, buses, and heavy-duty trucks – all of which could be electrified. Switching to EVs would dramatically reduce transportation emissions, especially as the electric grid continues to decarbonize.

Reaching the models’ target would require that EV popularity grow from 4% of U.S. annual new car sales today to 34 to 100% (the model average was 67%) in eight years. Based on current policies, EVs are projected to reach around 35 to 40% of new car sales in 2030, and the Biden administration has set a target of boosting that figure to 50%.


Annual EV share of new car sales in the U.S. through 2021 (yellow) and in the growth required in the seven model scenarios to meet the 2030 national NDC. Source: Bistline et al. (2022), Science.

The models were consistent in finding that the next-largest emissions cut would likely need to come from potent greenhouse gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs, which are primarily used for cooling in refrigeration and air conditioning units). Those emissions would need to decrease by around 460 Mt of CO2-equivalent by 2030, representing 18% of the reductions required to meet the NDC.

Land sinks would need to sequester about 200 Mt more CO2 in 2030 than they do today (about 8% of the total cuts needed). Nearly all annual natural carbon sequestration in the U.S. currently comes from tree growth in forests and urban settings. Other approaches to achieve more permanent carbon dioxide removal are being developed, but in the near-term, reforestation and afforestation are the most promising ways to boost American natural carbon sequestration.

Finally, emission reductions from building electrification (primarily transitioning from fossil fuel heating to electric heat pumps) and efficiency (e.g., improving insulation) would need to amount to about 125 Mt per year by 2030 to meet the U.S. NDC, according to the average of the model scenarios. Those cuts would represent about 5% of the overall emissions reductions needed.


Proportion of emissions cuts needed in each sector by 2030 to meet U.S. NDC, according to the average of model scenarios. Created by Dana Nuccitelli based on data from Bistline et al. (2022), Science.

U.S. Paris commitment technically achievable … with a big BUT
All of the individual sectoral goals outlined above are technically achievable. But based on current policies, energy systems models agree that U.S. emissions will decline only modestly between now and 2030, likely falling at least halfway short of its NDC.

The deployment of solar panels, wind turbines, and EVs could be accelerated through the expansion of existing tax credits such as those included in the House’s Build Back Better legislation last November, but since stalemated in the U.S. Senate. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV)  has been negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, which could potentially lead to passage of the tax credit expansions sometime this summer.

On the question of potent greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to soon adopt stricter methane regulations for the oil and gas industry, and Manchin says he remains open to the possibility of including a methane pollution fee in a budget reconciliation package. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee also recently advanced to the Senate floor the international Kigali Amendment, which would phase out HFCs.

The amount of carbon sequestered by U.S. lands has remained steady over the past 15 years, but the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law last year included reforestation legislation that could help boost that number. Recent studies from the National Academy of Sciences and published in Science Advances and Global Change Biology conclude that by maximizing its land sinks, the U.S. potentially could increase its annual natural CO2 sequestration by about 1 Gt. The bipartisan infrastructure package also included $3.5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program to help low-income households weatherize their homes. That funding could help weatherize about 500,000 homes – a good start, but only a fraction of a percent of all homes in the U.S.

In short, America’s NDC remains within reach, but meeting it would require substantial efforts to accelerate the deployment of solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, trees, heat pumps, and insulation, and for the oil and gas industry to reign in its methane leakage problem. Without additional legislative efforts like the tax credits being negotiated by Manchin and Schumer, the U.S. will fall well short of its 2030 climate commitment.

As the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded, the Paris targets remain technically within reach, but political will remains a substantial roadblock in their path.

[oren]

All this just to meet the Paris commitments, which are insufficient.
Certainly feasible, but surely will not happen fast enough due to a myriad of political reasons.
Hope-inspiring.

[NeilT]

Set a low target and fail to achieve it.

Where did 2005 come from anyway?  It was my Understanding that from Kyoto onwards the target barrier was 1990 and emissions reductions targets were to use 1990 as the baseline.

If Biden loses next time round, the next Republican president is likely to just withdraw again.

I must admit hearing all these Democratic Congresscritters lambasting the UK for "abandoning our International obligations", sounds a little trite in the light of how the US treats international treaties and obligations as something they can take or leave as suits them.

It irks a bit.

[gerontocrat]

Invest in fossil fuels now and we will meet our climate ledges later.
I guess the list of climate pledges actually honoured since whenever is quite short.

https://energynow.com/2022/06/g-7-to-allow-fossil-fuel-financing-if-climate-pledges-are-kept/
G-7 to Allow Fossil-Fuel Financing If Climate Pledges Are Kept

Jun 28, 2022
(Bloomberg)Group of Seven nations are set to allow some exceptional public financing of overseas fossil-fuel projects to continue provided that the investments are consistent with prior climate-change agreements, according to people familiar with the matter.
The final text of the leaders’ statement, due to be published Tuesday at the conclusion of a three-day summit in Germany, will temporarily allow public investments in gas projects in limited circumstances given the current energy crisis.

At the same time, it will reaffirm that commitments such as those agreed on at the COP26 climate summit in November need to be stuck to, the people said.

The agreement is a compromise after days of intense negotiations among diplomats as some G-7 countries race to replace Russian energy, with Europe in particular struggling to secure alternative sources of gas.

Summit host Germany was pushing to allow investments in gas, and has warned that Russia’s moves to limit supply risk a Lehman-like collapse in the energy markets, with Europe’s largest economy facing the unprecedented prospect of businesses and consumers running out of power.

‘No backtracking’
“On paper there is no backtracking from the COP26 commitment, but the ultimate proof lies in the real investment choices that G-7 countries will make over the next weeks and months,” said Luca Bergamaschi, executive director of the climate change think tank ECCO.

Germany has responded to the cuts by reviving coal plants and providing financing to secure gas supplies from countries such as Qatar, while continuing with its long-standing plans to phase out nuclear energy. The World Nuclear Association, an industry lobby group, is urging the G-7 to boost access to nuclear technologies.

The summit conclusion is a step back from a commitment G-7 ministers made in May, when they acknowledged for the first time that fossil-fuel subsidies were incompatible with the Paris Agreement and would end international public finance for gas projects by the end of 2022. However, back then they also acknowledged that investment in the LNG sector was a necessary response to the current crisis “in a manner consistent with our climate objectives and without creating lock-in effects.”

The International Energy Agency has said that no new oil and gas projects should be developed if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

[interstitial]

Set a low target and fail to achieve it.

Where did 2005 come from anyway?  It was my Understanding that from Kyoto onwards the target barrier was 1990 and emissions reductions targets were to use 1990 as the baseline.

If Biden loses next time round, the next Republican president is likely to just withdraw again.

I must admit hearing all these Democratic Congresscritters lambasting the UK for "abandoning our International obligations", sounds a little trite in the light of how the US treats international treaties and obligations as something they can take or leave as suits them.

It irks a bit.

so Biden doubled the pledged reduction from the Obama administration 52% reduction from 2005. That is a significant goal.
Yes the US is not doing enough so we should not be pointing fingers but we are not the only ones who need to do more.

[Rodius]

Set a low target and fail to achieve it.

Where did 2005 come from anyway?  It was my Understanding that from Kyoto onwards the target barrier was 1990 and emissions reductions targets were to use 1990 as the baseline.

If Biden loses next time round, the next Republican president is likely to just withdraw again.

I must admit hearing all these Democratic Congresscritters lambasting the UK for "abandoning our International obligations", sounds a little trite in the light of how the US treats international treaties and obligations as something they can take or leave as suits them.

It irks a bit.

so Biden doubled the pledged reduction from the Obama administration 52% reduction from 2005. That is a significant goal.
Yes the US is not doing enough so we should not be pointing fingers but we are not the only ones who need to do more.

We really need to stop pointing fingers.

Focus on the local, give politicians a reason to do something (they do love to stay in power), and only purchase items that have carbon footprints to force the market to adapt.

No buying petrol, power from renewables only, ride a bike, these things done by many people owuld force the markets to adapt or go out of business.

If only enough people would do it.....

[SteveMDFP]

If only enough people would do it.....

I'm all in favor of thoughtful consumer choices.  But relying on consumer choice won't budge the needle much.  Policies that, for example, tax unwise choices will motivate even climate deniers to modify their behavior.  I do think that taxing emitters and refunding the proceeds to the populace could get enacted.  Everybody wins, except the emitters.

[NeilT]

No buying petrol, power from renewables only, ride a bike, these things done by many people owuld force the markets to adapt or go out of business.

This is easy to say, exceptionally difficult to do except in a very few circumstances.

No buying petrol.  In other words no going anywhere in a vehicle.  OK if you live in a city.  When I worked in Zurich I cycled.  I was less than 2 miles from work and although the last bit was up a rather steep hill it was viable.  Then I went to work in Munich, I was living 5 miles from work.  I found that 5 miles of cycling was virtually impossible for me on a daily basis.  It was not until I had my heart attack that it became evident why.  So I wound up back in the car.

Only buy renewable electricity?  This depends on a supplier offering renewable.  Even then a supplier can be a "renewable" supplier, but that does not mean the power coming down the cable is renewable.  There is only one set of cables coming down my street, connecting to the homes.  The upstream power comes from one source, the company selling it to you may be a "renewable energy" supplier but it doesn't mean they are supplying renewable energy to your home.

It is all very well assuming that everyone lives in a city with lots of choices.  But that is not necessarily true.  The gas box that was installed in our house wall without our permission has never been used.  We took that decision more than a decade ago.  OK my reasons were different from my wife but I didn't want to be burning gas when I could source local renewable for my heating.  Not everyone has that choice.

It is all too easy to say "you didn't do enough" but governments are there to provide the options for us to consume. That's why we have governments.

Where we do fall down is where governments do provide us with solutions to reduce our consumption and we do not take them up.  Usually the best take up is when we pay the least amount, or nothing, but we make money out of it.  Where the government provides a reduction in costs, there is far less take-up because people don't actually want to invest in transition to renewables.

This is no real surprise.  My son took advantage of a Scottish deal to replace his oil fired central heating with a biomass pellet burner.  It cost £16,000 to buy and install, he had to pay more than half of that.  His sister, in the last year, bought a replacement gas boiler of equivalent capacity.  She paid £3,000 installed.  I bought a pellet burner earlier this year to make my heating more manageable, far more powerful than my son's £16,000 boiler.  It cost me €3,500.  I will install it in place of the log burner.

It is very easy to say "you are not doing enough".  But that is almost always from a very specific viewpoint which is usually quite vertical.

Yes people could do more.  But, at the same time, they need choices which are not government slush funds making millionaires out of installation companies.

There is movement, a lot of movement, but it is still not enough to move the general population.

[gerontocrat]

I don't think I will have to change the projections of increased concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in my graphs for a good few years yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/30/us-supreme-court-epa-decision-devastating-humanity
The US supreme court just made yet another devastating decision for humanity
Peter Kalmus

The EPA ruling means it may now be mathematically impossible through available avenues for the US to achieve its greenhouse gas emissions goal


'The myth of American exceptionalism will offer no protection from deadly heat and climate famine.’ Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

In a 6-3 decision, the openly partisan and undemocratic court ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by fossil-fuel-producing states against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The decision strips power from regulatory agencies and advances the Republican goal to end government oversight. In particular, it eliminates one of the only remaining avenues for systemic federal climate action: using the Clean Air Act to phase out fossil fuel power plants. As a result, it may now be mathematically impossible through available avenues for the US to achieve its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which is anyway feeling dangerously unambitious in light of recent climate disasters.

In an era of crises, global heating increasingly stands out as the single greatest emergency humanity faces. Global heating is driving extreme heat, drought and flooding in the US and around the world. It’s driving wildfire and ecosystem collapse, and may already be contributing to famine and warfare. Crucially, this is all worsening day by day, and it will continue to worsen until we end the fossil fuel industry.

The scientific consensus is that global carbon dioxide emissions must peak now (ie, between 2020 and 2025), and no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be built, if we are to preserve a two-thirds chance of keeping mean global heating below 2C. In my opinion, our current level of mean global heating of 1.3C is already obviously unsafe; 1.5C, which we are on track to reach in the early 2030s, would be catastrophic; and 2C, which we are on track to reach mid-century, could make global civilization as we know it impossible.

These are the stakes of this supreme court decision, which adds another layer on to already daunting strata of blocks to climate action. More than a quarter of members of Congress are still hard climate deniers. These 139 Republican members (more than half of the Republican total, including Mitch McConnell) have accepted $61m so far in direct contributions from the fossil fuel industry, not including “indirect” support. Many other members of Congress also accept fossil fuel money, including Democrats; indeed, the politician who takes the most is Joe Manchin, and four of the top 10 are also Democrats.

In the White House, we have a president who has recently put fossil fuel expansion and lower gas prices at the top of his agenda, who barely mentioned climate in his first State of the Union address, who approved far more new drilling permits during his first year than Trump, and who has deep ties to the fossil fuel industry. Internationally, we have annual meetings which have failed us for 26 years, perhaps because they have been deeply compromised by the fossil fuel industry.

Conflict of interest, lobbying, bribery … whatever you choose to call it, it amounts to the already rich further enriching themselves at enormous cost to humanity and the rest of life on Earth, and it extends all the way to the justices themselves. This is the intersection of a social system designed to concentrate wealth like a gravitational singularity (we call it “capitalism”) and fossil fuel power. For example, billionaire Charles Koch, who runs the world’s largest privately held fossil fuel corporation, not only directly pushed for this decision, he campaigned to install the three new Republican justices in the first place. Rupert Murdoch has spent decades creating a worldwide climate denial media empire that includes Fox News. And fossil fuel executives have colluded for decades to prevent climate action with full knowledge of the consequences.

Without a livable planet, nothing else matters. As the Earth’s capacity to support life continues to degrade, millions, eventually billions of people will be displaced and die, fascism will rise, climate wars will intensify and the rule of law will break down. The myth of American exceptionalism will offer no protection from deadly heat and climate famine.

In the US we now live under the sway of robed, superstitious fools hellbent on rolling back basic civil liberties and rejecting scientific facts. Carl Sagan, warning against this sort of anti-science, wrote: “The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.” The consequences of ignoring scientists for too long are coming home to roost.

We desperately need a government working to stop Earth’s breakdown rather than accelerate it, but petitions or pleas to “vote harder” will not make this happen. Due to capture by the ultra-rich, our only option is to fight. To shift society into emergency mode and end the fossil fuel industry, we must join together and do all we can to wake people up to the grave danger we are in. We must engage in climate disobedience. I believe that the tides could still turn, that power could shift suddenly. But this can only happen when enough people join the fight.

Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution

[NeilT]

This leaves the carrot and not the stick.

The largest expansion of Solar in the UK happened when government subsidies made it almost free to install and came with an annual give away of energy earnings to the home owner.

When the scheme closed UK solar crashed.

If the US government really wanted to it could put $1tn into directly funded solar and wind. There would be an immediate massive hike in renewable energy and an immediate corresponding drop in fossil fuel usage.

Scotus could not challenge it as it is the right of the federal government to use their tax receipts as they see fit.

The energy infrastructure could then be sold on to business after a period and it would continue from there.

The problem is always that the activists want regulation to stop something. In a market economy the fastest way to stop something is to make it economically irrelevant.

Obama understood this and sowed the seeds of many of the initiatives in the US now threatening the fossil lobby.

I see this latest act as an extreme move from a losing lobby which fears irrelevance.

The huge problem with fixing this is the extreme unpopularity of the current Biden Presidency and the Democrats themselves.  The last analysis I read on the mid terms was incredible, almost every metric was at a historical low and the article finished by saying that it was unlikely for Biden to make historical losses because he was already so low that these ratings could not damage him in the way it damaged, for instance, Clinton.

Roe v Wade may change this, but it may not, the country is quite divided by the decision and states Biden took from Trump in the last election have strong views on it and not necessarily against.

Come November we will see what Biden can do, but the way he is going so far, he is spending more effort paying back his supporters than he is on climate.

[interstitial]

as I understand it scotus did not say they can not regulate CO2 what they said was congress needs to pass a law giving them the authority to regulate CO2. Attempts at passing bills to regulate CO2 have failed so far.

[interstitial]

I agree that activists spend too much effort on regulation and not on getting things done. Build more renewable energy and transmission now.

[NeilT]

I agree that activists spend too much effort on regulation and not on getting things done. Build more renewable energy and transmission now.

Regulation might work.  But making fossil fuels costly and irrelevant Will work.