On Tuesday, two of the world’s leading climate alarmists and advocates of renewable energy published an article in the Washington Post on the imperative to immediately end the building of ‘unabated’ coal-fuelled power plants. This is to fulfil the Paris climate goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. John F. Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, and Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, write with an urgency of purpose that reflects the supreme goal of ‘saving the planet’.
The article was written during the Climate Week NYC held over September 17-24, 2023, an annual event held in partnership with the United Nations and New York city. The event leads into the COP28 global climate summit in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December. The article is thus a signal statement to world leaders of key goals of the global environmental movement supported by governments in the ‘collective West’ represented by the US, EU and their allies.
The Kerry-Fatih statement can be cast alongside the latest typically over-the-top statement by UN secretary general António Guterres who said on Wednesday that “Humanity has opened the gates to hell… Horrendous heat is having horrendous effects. Distraught farmers watching crops carried away by floods. Sweltering temperatures spawning disease. And thousands fleeing in fear as historic fires rage.” Guterres’ “gates of hell” is the latest upping of the ante from his previous “era of global boiling” absurdity. Saving the planet from “the gates of hell” is comparable to Greta Thunberg’s “house on fire” speech to World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos in 2019 where she called on world leaders to “panic” over impending planetary doom.
What are we to make of this surfeit of hyperbolic statements by world leaders? What do leaders outside of the collective West think about them? And where do the interests of humanity — with seven of the world’s eight billion people living outside of the Western industrialized countries – figure in the scheme of things?
Assumptions and Claims of Messrs Kerry and Birol
The Washington Post article starts with commendation for “progress” in deployment of renewable energy, pointing out that India is “tripling the deployment of renewable energy sources”. This ‘good news’ introduction is immediately followed by a warning that the progress in deployment of renewable energy risks being undermined by the massive buildout of “dirty” coal power plants. They regret that “Even if not a single new coal plant were built anywhere in the future, the International Energy Agency has said that the emissions from the world’s existing coal fleet, if left unchecked, would be the death blow to the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting global warming to the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius in this century.”
The authors call for a stop to building coal power plants, pointing out that 80% of a staggering 500GW of additional coal power plants in the 2020s is in Asia, namely in the large countries such as China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. They assert that there are viable alternatives, “most notably wind and solar” but also geothermal and nuclear. They commend the US, EU, UK and Japan for working with Indonesia, South Africa and Vietnam on the “Just Energy Partnership” which promises $35 billion of financing to replace coal with ‘clean energy’ (which excludes natural gas). They praise India for deploying solar and wind at a “spectacular” pace. They also mention the United Arab Emirates’ $4.5 billion financing to support renewable energy in Africa.
The authors are keen on electrifying everything in transport, home heating and industries. They look forward to the “global stocktake” which will be a report card on progress in meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Fearing an alleged ‘tipping point’ in the global climate system if warming exceeds the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature increase threshold, they call for “political tipping point” for a cleaner and safer energy future. They end by claiming that “We can no longer afford to be silent about the literal canary in the coal mine.”
Setting the Record Straight
If physics and economics order the real world, the assumptions and claims made in the article are implausible and misleading if not absurd. To begin with their implicit claim of a climate tipping point at a politically-defined, arbitrary threshold (here and here) of 1.5 Celsius, this is taken as “settled science.” When the best meteorological models can barely predict the weather a few days into the future, we have global leaders shouting from the rooftops for a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels in two or three decades. Fossil fuels, if one needs reminding, currently provide over 80% of global energy needs using technologies developed over two centuries of technological progress.
In celebrating the tripling of renewable energy in India, the average reader would miss two basic facts that provide the necessary context. First is that high percentage growth rates from a very small base mean little. While renewable energy (which includes wind, solar, geothermal and biomass) in India grew by over 15% over the decade 2012 – 22, total power generation grew by 5.5% according to BP data. This makes for an impressive media headline but it should be noted that renewable energy constituted approximately 11% of total power generation.
Second, whenever data on renewable energy is cited by advocacy organizations such as the IEA, it almost always refers to capacity not actual generation. However much renewable energy capacity grows, it is the actual generation of electricity that matters. The sun sets and cloud cover interrupts irradiation during the day while the wind blows until it doesn’t. Furthermore, power generation is only a fraction of total energy demanded. In 2022, renewables barely covered 6% of India’s total energy needs.
The authors’ assertions that solar and wind energy are viable substitutes for coal power are grossly misleading. Given the prohibitive costs of grid-scale battery storage, intermittent weather-dependent power is parasitical on the existing grid as system operators need to continually balance intermittency with dispatchable power from coal and natural gas-based power generators. Furthermore, the additional high-voltage transmission lines to connect renewable power generators to distant demand centres add to system costs of renewables.
In the real world outside the echo chambers of renewable energy advocates, Germany is dismantling a wind farm to make way for a coal mine, the UK’s latest auction for offshore wind failed to get a single bid and the first ever auction for the right to develop offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico was a flop attracting only two bidders, in a blow to the Biden administration’s green ambitions. Rural communities are stalling the expansion of US utility scale solar farms as their installations blight the countryside. Meanwhile, latest data show that sales of EVs to private motorists in the UK have slumped and news of falling prices and piling inventories have cast a pall over the hyped-up industry in the US.
What Do Other World Leaders Think?
In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday that he would help households already suffering from the cost of living crisis by rejecting the “unacceptable costs” of net zero as he scaled back a string of flagship environmental policies. According to The Telegraph, Mr Sunak will delay the ban on new petrol car sales from 2030 to 2035, push back the ban on new oil boiler sales from 2026 to 2035 and increase heat pump grants to £7,500. He cancelled plans for households to use up to seven bins for recycling. The Prime Minister also said he would not introduce new taxes to discourage eating meat or flying nor would he mandate drivers to car-share. Mr. Sunak has merely kicked the can down the road and reiterated his commitment to net zero yet admits that he risks losing the consent of the British people.
In a recent interview with Politico, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner “slammed politicians in Brussels for seeking to enact stricter clean energy rules for buildings, warning that such plans could spark a dangerous voter backlash and fuel the rise of the far right.” He warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the need to “pause” new EU legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions during a time of economic stagnation caused in part by high energy costs. This follows the furore over earlier announced plans by the Greens to ban new gas heating devices beginning next year in favour of expensive heat pumps. The resurgence of AfD party on the right has been at the expense of the Green party which has plunged in popularity and put the ruling coalition in disarray as a result of increasingly burdensome climate change policies.
Speaking at a forum organized by local media in the lead-up to the recent G20 summit hosted by India, Union Power Minister R.K. Singh responded to criticisms of the country’s large and growing carbon dioxide emissions: “If you have an economy that is growing at 7%, electricity from coal will also grow… We will meet the energy requirement for our growth because we have a right to grow. The hypocrisy of developed countries is amazing.” He also emphasized the very low per capita emissions relative to those of the developed West and the impracticality of replacing coal with solar and wind technologies.
Amin Hassan Naser, President and CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producing company, gave a sober and competent account of the world energy scene at the 24th World Petroleum Congress on Tuesday. He said, “I see many shortcomings in the current transition approach that can no longer be ignored. To begin with, until recently the dominant narrative was based on an aggregation of unrealistic scenarios and assumptions. The result has been an equally unrealistic target energy mix and timeline… And so far the reality on the ground is that despite concerted efforts to move to alternatives, global coal consumption is at record levels, exceeding 8 billion tons, with demand still robust.”
Kerry and Birol, occupying powerful positions with great responsibilities, commit an injustice to the aspirations of the 7 billion people of the Global South. The institutions they represent, the US government and the IEA, betray lofty claims of representing America’s and humanity’s welfare and good energy policy. They, like their fellow climate catastrophists on the ‘net zero’ bandwagon António Guterres and Greta Thunberg, are doing us great disservice.
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