badgolferman
2024-09-17 15:22:08 UTC
Yet the only year that matters for climate realism is 2006, the year of
the great cross-over, when China’s emissions of carbon dioxide overtook
those of the United States. This helps explain why China wielded its
veto three years later at the Copenhagen climate summit. By 2019,
America’s carbon dioxide emissions had fallen by 875 million metric
tons from their 2005 peak. Over the same period, China’s rose by 3,511
million metric tons. Twelve years of falling American carbon dioxide
emissions were erased by three years of rising Chinese emissions.
This leads to a reality check about America’s climate policy as
practiced by Presidents Obama and Joe Biden. In terms of the amount of
human-induced carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, what America
does or does not do is of decreasing significance. The emissions math
nullifies the claim of solipsistic climate activists that unless the
U.S. drives its emissions towards zero, various forms of climate
catastrophe will be visited on Americans. But here’s the rub: even
though America’s emissions account for a rapidly declining proportion
of global emissions, the negative economic impact of climate policy on
the U.S. economy, on jobs, and on Americans’ standard of living is
growing.
The U.S. could learn from the example of Britain, the poster child of
climate leadership. It was the world’s first major economy to adopt
binding emissions reduction targets when parliament passed the Climate
Change Act in 2008. Initially, the Act required an 80 percent reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In 2019, the target was raised to
100 percent by 2050, a target that the Biden administration also
adopted in 2021. As in the U.S., the prime target for decarbonization
is electricity generation, to be achieved in Britain through a mix of
cap-and-trade; huge subsidies for wind and solar power, funded by
consumer levies rather than by the taxpayer; and anti-coal regulations,
a strategy also adopted by the Obama and Biden administrations.
As a laboratory for net zero, Britain’s experiment with renewable
energy provides unambiguous evidence that wind and solar increase the
cost of electricity. Although the cost of coal and natural gas used in
Britain’s power stations was flat between 2009 and 2020, residential
electricity rates in Britain soared by 67 percent, to 17.9p (23.4¢) per
kilowatt hour (kwh) – 75 percent more than the average 13.5¢ per kwh
American household paid in 2020. These increases were driven by a near
tripling of environmental and social levies and increased spending on
the infrastructure needed to connect far-flung wind farms to where
people actually live and work.
Although American coal consumption peaked in 2005, China’s coal
consumption had already surpassed that of the United States by 1985.
Since its 2005 peak, U.S. annual coal consumption has fallen by 500
million tons – and China’s risen by 1,245 million tons. The coal
America did not burn, China is burning instead. For every one ton of
coal that America stopped burning, China burnt an additional
two-and-a-half tons.
In terms of policy, China is energy realism on steroids. Its
bureaucrats are even having second thoughts about renewable energy.
Writing in the Financial Times in July, contemporary historian Adam
Tooze sees a “worrying” gap between the pace of China’s investment in
renewable energy in recent years and its plans for the future. “Whereas
China’s solar and wind industry installed almost 300 GW of new capacity
in 2023, its National Energy Agency envisions a future build-out of
barely more than 100 GW a year.” One reason for the slowdown, Tooze
suggests, is that China’s energy bureaucrats point to the need for
“more smoothly operating pricing systems to make a renewable system
reliable.” If true, it would show that China’s communist bureaucrats
have a surer grasp of the damaging economics of wind and solar energy
than their Western counterparts.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2024/09/16/the_un_and_the_biden_administration_want_net_zero_for_the_uswhile_china_opts_for_energy_realism_1058716.html
the great cross-over, when China’s emissions of carbon dioxide overtook
those of the United States. This helps explain why China wielded its
veto three years later at the Copenhagen climate summit. By 2019,
America’s carbon dioxide emissions had fallen by 875 million metric
tons from their 2005 peak. Over the same period, China’s rose by 3,511
million metric tons. Twelve years of falling American carbon dioxide
emissions were erased by three years of rising Chinese emissions.
This leads to a reality check about America’s climate policy as
practiced by Presidents Obama and Joe Biden. In terms of the amount of
human-induced carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, what America
does or does not do is of decreasing significance. The emissions math
nullifies the claim of solipsistic climate activists that unless the
U.S. drives its emissions towards zero, various forms of climate
catastrophe will be visited on Americans. But here’s the rub: even
though America’s emissions account for a rapidly declining proportion
of global emissions, the negative economic impact of climate policy on
the U.S. economy, on jobs, and on Americans’ standard of living is
growing.
The U.S. could learn from the example of Britain, the poster child of
climate leadership. It was the world’s first major economy to adopt
binding emissions reduction targets when parliament passed the Climate
Change Act in 2008. Initially, the Act required an 80 percent reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In 2019, the target was raised to
100 percent by 2050, a target that the Biden administration also
adopted in 2021. As in the U.S., the prime target for decarbonization
is electricity generation, to be achieved in Britain through a mix of
cap-and-trade; huge subsidies for wind and solar power, funded by
consumer levies rather than by the taxpayer; and anti-coal regulations,
a strategy also adopted by the Obama and Biden administrations.
As a laboratory for net zero, Britain’s experiment with renewable
energy provides unambiguous evidence that wind and solar increase the
cost of electricity. Although the cost of coal and natural gas used in
Britain’s power stations was flat between 2009 and 2020, residential
electricity rates in Britain soared by 67 percent, to 17.9p (23.4¢) per
kilowatt hour (kwh) – 75 percent more than the average 13.5¢ per kwh
American household paid in 2020. These increases were driven by a near
tripling of environmental and social levies and increased spending on
the infrastructure needed to connect far-flung wind farms to where
people actually live and work.
Although American coal consumption peaked in 2005, China’s coal
consumption had already surpassed that of the United States by 1985.
Since its 2005 peak, U.S. annual coal consumption has fallen by 500
million tons – and China’s risen by 1,245 million tons. The coal
America did not burn, China is burning instead. For every one ton of
coal that America stopped burning, China burnt an additional
two-and-a-half tons.
In terms of policy, China is energy realism on steroids. Its
bureaucrats are even having second thoughts about renewable energy.
Writing in the Financial Times in July, contemporary historian Adam
Tooze sees a “worrying” gap between the pace of China’s investment in
renewable energy in recent years and its plans for the future. “Whereas
China’s solar and wind industry installed almost 300 GW of new capacity
in 2023, its National Energy Agency envisions a future build-out of
barely more than 100 GW a year.” One reason for the slowdown, Tooze
suggests, is that China’s energy bureaucrats point to the need for
“more smoothly operating pricing systems to make a renewable system
reliable.” If true, it would show that China’s communist bureaucrats
have a surer grasp of the damaging economics of wind and solar energy
than their Western counterparts.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2024/09/16/the_un_and_the_biden_administration_want_net_zero_for_the_uswhile_china_opts_for_energy_realism_1058716.html
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"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief
in freedom itself." ~ Milton Friedman
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief
in freedom itself." ~ Milton Friedman