Reposted by NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT
April 2, 2021
By Paul Homewood
A summary of the Net Zero news:
Yesterday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan warned that without the annual support of hundreds of billions from the rich West, COP26 would fail. Developing countries would need around $ 400 billion a year in climate finance assistance to switch to low-carbon development pathways, but developed countries would not have delivered the $ 100 billion a year climate finance promised under the Paris Agreement.
Now India has fought and called the West’s Net Zero targets for 2050 a “pie in the sky”. India’s energy minister said poor nations want to keep using fossil fuels and rich countries “can’t stop it”.
According to both the UK and US governments, at the UN climate summit in November, all countries should set net zero emissions targets similar to those of western countries. The fundamental problem with this expectation is that it violates the Paris Climate Agreement, which consolidates the United Nations’ key principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and skills”. This principle recognizes that developing countries have different skills and different responsibilities in reducing carbon emissions.
In a recent interview, the Indian climate negotiator Chandrashekhar Dasgupta made it clear that the West’s Net Zero agenda undermines the principle of justice and the “common but differentiated responsibility” of industrialized and developing countries. This position also explains why India is demanding that richer countries set “negative net emissions targets”.
India: net zero targets are pie in the sky
Sharp divisions have emerged between major global emitters in a series of meetings aimed at making progress on climate change.
India lambasted the CO2 reduction plans of the richer world and called long-term net zero targets “Pie in the Sky”.
Their energy minister said poor nations want to keep using fossil fuels and rich countries “can’t stop it”.
China, meanwhile, declined to attend another UK-organized climate change event.
Trying to advance 197 countries on the critical global issue of climate change is not a job for the faint of heart, as the UK is currently discovering. […]
India, the fourth largest emitter in the world, doesn’t seem interested in joining the club.
“2060 sounds good, but it’s just that it sounds good,” India’s Minister of Power Raj Kumar Singh told a meeting organized by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
“I would name it, and I’m sorry to say, but it’s just a cake in the sky.”
To the discomfort of his colleagues, Mr. Singh picked up developed countries where per capita emissions are much higher than India.
“You have countries whose per capita emissions are four, five or twelve times as high as the world average. The question is when are they going to come down. “
“What we are hearing is that we will become carbon neutral by 2050 or 2060, 2060 is a long way off, and if people are emitting at the speed they are emitting the world, they will not survive. So what are you going to do in the next five years? The world wants to know. “
Meanwhile, China continues to push coal power forward:
Despite its commitment to zero net carbon emissions by 2060, China continues to burn more coal than any other developed nation and relies on fossil fuels to meet the nation’s growing demand for electricity.
According to a report released Monday by UK energy and climate research group Ember, China accounted for 53% of global coal electricity in 2020 – nine percentage points more than in 2015 when China joined the Paris Agreement.
“Despite some progress, China is still struggling to contain growth in coal production,” said Muyi Yang, Ember’s senior electricity policy analyst. “[F]The increasing demand for electricity in China continues to be satisfied by burning coal.
China’s electricity consumption has increased 33% since 2015. According to the International Energy Agency, the demand of the Chinese steel and cement industry – supported by the high infrastructure investments of the state – is one of the main drivers of the power consumption industry in addition to the increasing automation of production.
https://fortune.com/2021/03/29/china-coal-energy-electricity-xi-jinping-2020-ember/?mc_cid=c2340d257d&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
And the climate change agenda slips in France when Macron is stuck between a rock and a tough place!
All politicians have left Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique en Marche (LREM) because of the president’s lack of commitment to environmental and social issues. The French leader has failed to stick to his famous 2017 slogan “Make our planet great again”, which sparked anger from both the opposition and his own party.
Jennifer De Temmerman, a MP and former LREM member, said the president’s engagement was “up close”.
She said to Politico: “It’s all communication, smoke and mirrors. He teaches others, but in reality his actions in France are unsuccessful. “
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to demonstrate against the president’s climate protection law, which environmental activists say does not deviate enough from Macron’s promise to change the world.
Ms. De Temmerman said: “We were expecting a major bill, a landmark bill that does not meet our expectations.
France’s High Climate Council, a body set up by the French President himself to advise on climate policy, said the measures would “not fill the gaps in France’s transition to a low-carbon country.
They added that the bill will only deliver “between half and two-thirds of the cuts needed between 2019 and 2019 [40 percent] Target for 2030 ”.
Those who once supported the French president’s green ambitions now recognize the “contradictions” in his policies.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1416701/Emmanuel-Macron-climate-change-bill-France-lrem-mps-quit-Paris-protests?mc_cid=c2340d257d&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
It strikes me that the world has actually made little progress since Copenhagen in 2009 (if that is the right word!). Back then, developed countries had to agree to give developing countries the right to increase emissions and give them hundreds of billions of dollars. Very little of that money has actually appeared.
Fast forward, and developing countries are still increasing emissions and asking for ever bigger sums of money. Meanwhile, the West is realizing that the transition to a low-carbon world will be extremely painful.
There is no doubt that the usual fudges will be made at COP26 in Glasgow (rumor has it that it could be postponed again due to the pandemic). There will be vague promises from poorer countries to “do something” a few decades in the future. These will of course be absolutely worthless and no more binding than their Paris promises.
The BBC will announce that the world has been saved (before reading the fine print in a few years). And a year later, Prince Charles will warn us that we only have X years to save the planet!
The same age!
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