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posted by
martyb
on Monday December 02 2019, @10:23AM
from the The-Department-of-Doooom-and-Hope dept.
from the The-Department-of-Doooom-and-Hope dept.
The emissions gap report for 2019 is out.
The report presents the latest data on the expected gap in 2030 for the 1.5°C and 2°C temperature targets of the Paris Agreement. It considers different scenarios, from no new climate policies since 2005 to full implementation of all national commitments under the Paris Agreement. For the first time, it looks at how large annual cuts would need to be from 2020 to 2030 to stay on track to meeting the Paris goals.
I find its contents are both worrisome and heartening. Carbon emissions are still growing worldwide, but the costs of carbon-neutral technologies are starting to compete with existing carbon-emissive technologies.
-- hendrik
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HELP! Man trapped in a human body!
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 04 2019, @11:12PM (1 child)
OK then, whatever.
Consider the title of the post is "2019 Emissions Gap Report". The point was made that if we stopped subsidising fossil fuels, their use would reduce.
America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies [theguardian.com] including:
If that is not very much, stop giving it to the oil companies and maybe build some roads or schools with it. After all, if the oil industry can't make a profit on exploration, why should taxpayer's fund it for them?
I found this bit about European subsidies [euractiv.com] which says:
So whatever the figure happens to be, it is entirely set up to make fossil fuels cheaper.
OK? That took 5 minutes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 05 2019, @01:30PM
I agree and would favor the elimination of all energy generation and consumption subsidies, including those for nuclear and renewable sources.
As to the $61 billion figure (valuation of 55 billion Euro in present day), note that it's already lost more than $20 billion from the "estimate" of the first link. They just can't stop sexing up the numbers.
There is a profound dishonesty here with the discussions of fossil fuel subsidies and externalities. Here, if it took only 5 minutes to find decent numbers for fossil fuel subsidies, then why the need for a shifty research methodology that generates a higher number? Why didn't that paper generate similar numbers for the subsidies for those other energy sources?
Let's look at a study [europa.eu] that did so. On page 262, they break down subsidies by energy source with "RES" being all renewable sources (hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc.). Fossil fuels are the expected 55 billion Euro in 2016 (and near constant through the previous decade through 2008) while RES is 75 billion (grew from 25 billion Euro in 2008).
That doesn't accurately describe the subsidy issue since fossil fuels are consumed for far more energy than renewables. Here [europa.eu], it is claimed that in 2016 there was fossil fuels consumption of 1093 million tonnes of oil equivalent while renewable sources generated 216.6 million tonnes of oil equivalent - including energy consumption of transportation. So we have roughly 50 Euro subsidies for one unit of fossil fuels consumed and 350 Euro per unit for renewable sources. The subsidy per unit of consumption is seven times higher for renewable sources compared to fossil fuels.
This is the basis of my defense of the assertion that elimination of fossil fuel subsidies would not result in a huge jump in the cost of fossil fuels.