© Watts Up With That?
With an energy cost crisis now striking Europe and to a lesser extent the U.S.,
some cracks have begun to appear in the "net zero" utopian dreams being pursued almost universally by Western politicians. Nevertheless, at this writing, the rapid elimination of use of fossil fuels, supposedly to fight
"climate change," remains official government policy throughout Europe, at the federal level in the U.S., in most blue American states, and as well in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Here in the U.S., although President Biden has ordered some temporary measures like release of some oil from the nation's strategic reserves, the full federal bureaucracy remains under orders from the top to force reduction in production and use of fossil fuels in every way it can devise. Meanwhile, states like New York and California have rapidly approaching legal deadlines for shuttering all fossil fuel power plants, prohibiting all automobiles other than electric ones, banning natural gas for heating and cooking, and otherwise quickly upending the last century of energy progress that has made our lives affordable and enjoyable.
We are supposed to believe that the official fossil fuel suppression policies will stop "climate change" and "save the planet" through the mechanism of rapid aggregate reductions of emissions of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases." The rescue of the planet's climate will make worthwhile our sacrifices in the form of higher energy prices, increased taxes to support subsidies to renewable energy, and restrictions on lifestyle.
But in fact, that narrative is all so much hogwash. In the West, twenty plus years and trillions of dollars of subsidies for "green energy" schemes have achieved only some marginal reductions in the share of final energy consumption derived from fossil fuels. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, fossil fuel usage continues to soar. Leading the way is China, which has used the last two years of Covid distraction to have its emissions leapfrog to new records. In the overall picture, the Western obsession with decreasing emissions, despite enormous costs, does not have any impact that is even noticeable.
Two recently-issued reports paint the picture of a real world of ever-increasing fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions (although there was a minor Covid-induced downward blip in 2020). In March, the UN's International Energy Agency (IEA) issued its annual
Global Energy Review: CO2 Emissions in 2021. Also, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has released its Briefing Paper 58 titled
"China's Energy Dream," written by Patricia Adams. (Full disclosure: I am the President of the American Friends of the GWPF.).
Both reports underscore the complete absurdity of the ongoing green energy foolishness of the West.
Comment: Evacuations after more floods in New South Wales, Australia - up to 15 inches of rain in 24 hours