The United Nations indicates that a critical threshold for global warming is coming within the next decade and that nations need to make an immediate and drastic shift away from fossil fuels to prevent the planet from overheating dangerously beyond that level. The report’s aim is to provide vast new powers for the United Nations and billions of dollars in investment in their preferred energy sources. This is nothing new as the United Nations reported the same claim five years ago and five years before that. Even Greta Thunberg removed her tweet from five years ago where she commented “Climate change will wipe out all of humanity” in five years.
According to the U.N. report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global average temperatures are estimated to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels sometime around “the first half of the 2030s.” Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, many nations agreed to “pursue efforts” to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Back then, the United Nations” IPCC asked industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gases roughly in half by 2030 and then stop emitting carbon dioxide by the early 2050s.
The United Nations’ IPCC is now calling for all countries to move faster and wealthy countries to reach net zero by 2040 despite no catastrophic activities hitting earth since it started reporting on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Many Americans can remember Vice President Al Gore’s predictions of floods overpowering school buildings that frightened children over two decades ago despite nothing of the sort happening. Book sales and the movie did well, though.
According to the report, governments and companies would need to invest three to six times the roughly $600 billion they now spend annually on “clean energy” in order to hold global warming at 1.5 or 2 degrees. They do not specify from where these trillions of dollars annually are supposed to come, nor do they guarantee it will do anything other than hike energy prices. However, developing countries do not have the funds to pursue exotic energy systems and the issue of what industrialized nations owe to those countries has been under discussion at global climate negotiations where Western nations have been pushing developing nations to take action.
While China, by far the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is investing in wind and solar plants, it recently issued permits for 168 coal-fired power plants of various sizes. China set a goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2060, but it large fleet of over 1000 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants can operate efficiently for 40 or more years. China uses 53 percent of the world’s coal. India, the world’s third largest emitter, is aiming to reach net zero by 2070, but it too is building coal-fired power plants and developing mines.
Western countries are transitioning from reliable coal, natural gas and nuclear power to unreliable and intermittent wind and solar power that rely on the sun and wind; shifting to electric vehicles and electric heat pumps in buildings, which will require even more intermittent wind and solar power with expensive battery backup; taxing methane emissions from oil and gas operations that are minimal but increase prices for consumers; and removing lands from energy development all under the guise of curtailing climate change. This year, President Biden has even revoked the lease to produce critical minerals (copper, nickel and cobalt) at a mine in Minnesota needed for electric vehicles that would help develop that manufacturing industry in the United States. That means no mining is relevant in the United States, which just makes the United States more dependent on China who dominates the supply changes for critical minerals.
Winding down coal, oil and gas projects would mean job losses and economic dislocation, directly and directly. Higher energy prices make manufacturing less viable in those countries where energy policies make prices skyrocket. Workers from those traditional industries cannot all transition to the new energy landscape as electric vehicles need fewer employees to manufacture and maintain because of fewer parts and wind and solar power stations require fewer employees for installation and operations. The hundreds of billions of dollars spent to adapt to the U.N. edicts have only resulted in higher prices for U.S. consumers as average residential electricity prices have risen by 15 percent and average gasoline prices have risen 44 percent (over $1 a gallon higher) since Biden took office and implemented his energy and climate policy.
Conclusion
The IPCC released its synthesis report this week from the six it issued previously on climate change since 2018. It indicates that the world needs to accelerate the transition to “green energy” and transform agriculture and eating habits if it has any chance of making the necessary cuts in emissions to reach the IPCC temperature goal. This has been its mantra for years and despite its warnings, no catastrophic events have occurred on earth.
Western countries have been applying pressure on all nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions but instead of dropping they have grown globally. In 2022, global carbon dioxide emissions from energy, the largest component of greenhouse gas emissions, are expected to increase by around 1 percent, emitting about 36.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels–slightly more than the previous record in 2019. In the United States, however, carbon dioxide emissions are expected to be around 3 percent less in 2022 than they were in 2019. Since 2005, the United States has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by about 17 percent.
While the United States is making headway, China, the largest emitter of carbon dioxide and India, the third largest emitter, are both building new coal-fired power plants and mines to fuel them that will add to these emissions for the foreseeable future as they have operating lives of 40 or more years. Both countries see reliable and affordable electricity as necessary to grow their economies and ensure quality living standards for their people.
While the reports from the United Nations urge Americans to live with less, Americans are already seeing escalating prices of energy begin to eat away at their quality of life. This is part of the reason President Trump withdrew from the Paris Accord, which is not even a Treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate, as such agreements are required to be under the Constitution. President Biden reentered the Accord and is now pursuing the policies which seek to do the U.N.’s bidding.
