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The Danish climate minister closing down the nation’s oil and gas industry
- shafyy 6y agoWhile this is better than doing nothing, I don't think it's enough. We're passed the phase where we should do stuff on 30-year timelines. It's just not going to cut it. Yes, I know that they can't just shut down the oil industry overnight - but governmenst need to set incentives more aggressively to move away from oil and coal energy, non-electric transportation and using animals in food production. At the same time, they need to stop subsidizing these (the EU is spending a quarter of their budget for direct livestock farm subsidies). Such a course might seem expensive and disruptive, but the alternative (business-as-usual) will be significantly more expensive and disruptive.
- docdeek 6y ago>Jørgensen claims his government’s existing actions have already brought Denmark a long way. “We need to reduce by 20 megatons between now and 2030, and we’ve already reduced by five. We have 10 years to do it, and in one and a half years, we’ve done a fourth of that,” he said. On the right track, though experience suggests that there’s always a lot of low hanging fruit that is ripe for picking. It’s rare that the last quarter of improvement comes anywhere near as quickly as the first quarter.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tjansen 6y ago"over-reliance on technical solutions" This drives me crazy. While closing down the oil industry should be a goal, all solutions that the public would accept (and aren't worse than climate change itself) will be technical solutions, not sacrifice. The lockdown gave us a good glimpse at how effective sacrifice it. It's not enough.
- solstice 6y agoNot everything is a technical solution foremost: new laws prohibiting the import and sale of certain polluting equipment and/or incentivising people to buy lower-carbon equivalent are primarily political/economic/social solutions. If they are well-designed (which isnt easy, I give you that) reasonable people can accept them. Your point about sacrifice probably stands
- slickrick216 6y agoNot only is sacrifice an insufficient toll but it’s an unfair one. Who’s getting sacrificed for whom. Are we just going to tell thousands at a danish scale and millions at a global scale tough luck but at least you’ll have a shot at eeking out a subsistence level livelihood for your family. The smallest minority on earth is the individual and a civilisation that exists on the basis of overt human sacrifice isn’t one I and many others will abide by. This sounds a bit melodramatic but I’ve seen the toll it’s taken on family members this year who’ve lost a year of turnover in their small business. If the powers that be continue to throw these people under the bus they will have a fight on their hands and then we won’t even fix climate change probably the other way around.
- ichbinwiederda 6y agoI understand what you are saying, but you can make the same argument for why littering should be allowed. Banning littering is also sacrifice. Very likely technical solutions alone won't cut it. My issue with sacrifices is that they often punish the wrong people. For example, let's say there is a carbon tax on flights (very likely to happen soonish). People who travel for work and for other necessities should not incur the same penalty as tourists who travel purely for pleasure.
- tokai 6y agoIt's literally nothing. It's too little and too late, and nobody can guarantee that it isn't reversed before '50. The oil companies can still search for and extract oil right up til the deadline. So if there's enough money to be made lobbying will remove this deal. Jørgensen loves to big himself up with a lot of hot air and very little impact.
- jeofken 6y agoWith this comment I request a link or other reply, explaining how climate change or global warming is due to man, and how to judge the validity of models predicting that. I’m a reasonably intelligent programmer who is OK with maths and stats, and am trying to curiously learn but of course am sceptical of grand claims. Many thanks to anyone trying to enlighten me wrt the truth
- drummersbrother 6y agoA decent overview may be found at https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/download/#full https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/download/#full , which is the IPCC's special report 15.
- jeofken 6y agoThank you for replying. It’s a 650 page document, and I must say I admire you for having read through the quite wordy prose therein. I can’t commit to reading it all through to understand how to model whether human action warms earth, and how to understand the accuracy of any such model. The document appears to be aimed primarily at rulers of states, and to be in a big part about how rulers could create “global equality” and the like. In which of these chapters can I read to learn how to model whether mans industry is warming the earth up or not? 1: Framing and Context 2: Mitigation Pathways Compatible with 1.5°C in the Context of Sustainable Development 3: Impacts of 1.5oC Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems 4: Strengthening and Implementing the Global Response 5: Sustainable Development, Poverty Eradication and Reducing Inequalities
- cinntaile 6y agoFind out what the consensus is, read the papers that are referenced to support this position.
- AntiImperialist 6y agoChaos theory. Everything we do can potentially alter the universe in very big ways. So, every human action is potentially affecting the climate. Having said that, nobody can predict what actions will lead to what kind of effects. It's simply not possible to predict that. Whoever is saying that is making it up. There are pollution concerns when we do things at scale. There have been lots of toxins added to the environment ONLY because of large scale use by humans. This is real. The main idea behind global warming is the CO2 being a greenhouse gas and hence trapping more heat, leading to more vaporization of ocean and releasing water vapor, which is also another greenhouse gas. This has been repeated forever but it is mostly theoretical. It shouldn't be very difficult to experimentally show how much CO2 traps how much of suns radiation and how it changes as CO2 concentration rises and falls... but this has not been done and is not presented, which leads me to believe that this claim is bogus. If you forget "climate change" and "global warming" and look at what countries say and do from economic lens, things become much more clearer. It was the late 90s and it seemed that the oil was running out so something had to be done. There were two sides. One was going to develop new technologies which would make existing technologies like solar and wind more efficient. Another was to attack war-torn parts of the world which have oil reserves and take their oil. You know which idea they went with. The Cleantech idea was taken to China for manufacturing but China just copied the technology and made it better. Now, it is the biggest producer of wind and solar equipment. Meanwhile, the U.S. came up with fracking, a new technology that made it possible to get oil that was not considered before. While expensive, it opened up the possibility for the U.S. to become energy independent. So, the Middle East, Europe and China got very concerned because the market prices would drop at best, and U.S. could outcompete them altogether at the worst. So, the Climate Change narrative is mostly run from outside the U.S. at this time, mostly to get the U.S. to stop fracking. Denmark is running out of their oil reserves by 2047. If you look at Denmark's economy, it may seem very diversified. Well, it is not. They do a lot of things but everything is indirectly subsidized by their oil money. Norway is in a similar situation. Without oil, they're are worse off than Italy and Spain economically, not to mention the shitty weather. So, they'll do everything to try to avoid that.
- maxrobot 6y agoDoes anyone realise that the oil industry does not just provide us with fuel. Pharmaceutical's also use petroleum based products [1]. Anyone who thinks we can simply stop using oil is simply ignorant. That is not to say that we shouldn't use renewable energy for fuel but the narrative of we should stop everything 100% is highly irritating. Happy to hear is anyone has different opinions :) [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154246/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154246/
- rob74 6y agoI think most of the readers here are aware of that. Plus there's a ton of other applications, like plastics, other chemicals etc. But this article is not about that - this is about one country deciding to get out of oil production. I guess they have discussed this at lenght and decided that, all factors considered, it makes more sense for them to stop oil production, decarbonize their economy as far as possible, and import the oil that they will still need.
- brazzy 6y agoYes, pretty much every educated person realizes that. When people say "stop using oil", it really means stop using it for fuel because that is the vast majority of usage, and if we eliminate that then what's left is not a significant problem. The worldwide demand could probably be satisfied by a handful of drilling rigs instead of the thousands we have now.
- internet_user 6y agoCO2 is not a significant problem compared to quite literally millions upon millions tons of persistent, bio-accumulating chemicals that are dumped into the rivers and oceans by large polluters. That is to say: actual poison. They love setting people on quixotic quest against fairly harmless CO2 while they continue dumping actual toxic poison into ecosystem.
- enchiridion 6y agoAfter the whole debacle with recycling, I am more inclined to believe this is true.
- AntiImperialist 6y agoClimate minister? Please! Their oil reserves have been projected to run out in 2047 [1]. So, they decide that they're going to close the oil industry by 2050, obviously because of their "deep concern for the environment". I understand that people care for the environment, but I hope people do understand the economics and politics behind these things, right? [1] https://ing.dk/artikel/teknologisk-spredehagl-skal-klemme-sidste-olie-ud-nordsoeen-186689 https://ing.dk/artikel/teknologisk-spredehagl-skal-klemme-si...
- klausjensen 6y agoIt is mostly virtue-signalling... Part of the same plan is that Denmark needs to be CO2 neutral in 2020 - but not without using fossil fuels. This just means Denmark will be capturing CO2 using storage and planting trees. This is not my claim, it is right there in the proposal from the Danish govt. So Denmark WILL consume oil in 2050 - but now it has to come from abroad. So Denmark gets poorer as a result - and have to consume oil that other countries have produced anyway - but at least it feels and sounds good now!
- samfisher83 6y agoDenmark has about 6 million people. That is about the size of Atlanta. There are small operators in the US who make as much oil as Denmark. To really make a dent in greenhouse gases you need US, China, India, etc. to come to the table.
- KozmoNau7 6y agoSomeone has to take the first step, however small it may seem in the greater context.
- rocgf 6y agoPlease stop. Seriously, this kind of mentality can only be detrimental to the effort to curb climate change. Every single discussion on the topic inadvertently ends up in the same few debates about numbers. Denmark has taken a decision against its own economic interest, same as Norway before it (and maybe others). This is a decision worthy of a lot of respect.
- internet_user 6y agoNo respect until they sanction polluting nations. It's all just empty quixotic platitudes until then.
- ThomPete 6y agoWhy is it worthy of respect to go against your own interest? By making energy energy more expensive all you have done is taking a step further towards ex keeping 1 billion people in energy poverty because you are making it more expensive for them. Denmark have invested heavily in wind over the last 40 years, as a replacement yet it only covers 8% of it's energy needs. We don't need to curb climate change, we just need to control the consequences of it which we have done historially using fossil fuels. The idea that the climate before the industrial revolution was some perfect equilibrium and that our emissions are a grave danger to the world is simply not historically true. What is true is that what used to be a dangerous storm today can be a setting for a romantic dinner because humans have been able to invent ways to control the consequences of climate leading to much fewer people dead from it.
- yummybear 6y agoAs a dane, I'm slightly offended by all the posts dismissing this as something that doesn't really matter. We were the first country to legalize porn, and homosexual civil unions, and although we're not the biggest country, I think it made an impact. Maybe the actual savings in terms of CO2 isn't the largest, and maybe the closing could've been more aggressive - but I still think it sends an important message to other countries who are larger producers of oil.
- roenxi 6y agoA rough guideline, being the first country to let people do something successfully is a lot more impressive than being the first to ban something. If Denmark manages to thrive after banning fossil fuels, then that will be the time to be impressed.
- perfunctory 6y ago> to let people do something let people do heroin for example. would be very impressive. much more impressive than banning slavery.
- roenxi 6y agoIf people just banned slaves for moral reasons, they'd have come back eventually for economic ones. Slavery started to fade away through the 1800s. This wasn't because people suddenly realised the slaves weren't having fun, or suddenly after millennia of religion someone decided to take the 'be nice to people' dogma seriously. Neither of those things take centuries to figure out. The change was the industrial revolution that let relatively ordinary people create enormous amounts of wealth if left with their freedom. Slavery is a great example of liberating people to do things being much more impressive than bans. Banning slavery was a big step that sped the whole process up by a few decades, but the writing was on the wall once it became obvious just how much wealth a motivated free person could create. > let people do heroin for example. would be very impressive. Yeah, it would. Countries should have some faith in their people to figure out what a mistake looks like without the police arresting people. I'd applaud any government that can get to that level of enlightenment.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoDenmark is bigger than you ever imagined https://www.businessinsider.com/denmark-is-unbelievably-massive-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/denmark-is-unbelievably-mass...
- thysultan 6y agoThis is like awaiting for Moore's law for your apps to run faster. 30 years is a lifetime in post-y2k tech years.
- Bostonian 6y ago"The deal is binding on all future governments." A government can always undo the actions of a previous government.
- gruez 6y agoYeah how does this work? Wouldn't it require the equivalent of a constitutional amendment in the US?
- gok 6y ago…by 2050, when it's already expected that their reserves will be exhausted. Oh, and this excludes Greenland, which is still expanding production.
- sajithdilshan 6y agoIf only all the politicians were brave and ambitious like that.... Hats off to the Danes
- hannob 6y agoFor everyone commenting that denmark is "too small to matter" - please keep in mind that denmark basically kickstarted the modern wind energy industry. Cheap wind energy is one of the major pillars of hope for the energy transition.
- throwaway201103 6y agoI didn't know that Denmark was the "biggest oil producer in the EU" I would have guessed Norway. Also changes the perspective on the progressive social welfare programs for which Denmark is often lauded to know that they are financed by fossil fuels and climate destruction.
- cjblomqvist 6y agoIt's because Norway isn't in EU, and neither the UK. Denmark is a really small oil producer. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-top-oil-producing-nations-in-europe.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-top-oil-producing-na...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- spenrose 6y agoHighest recommendation for this short e-book on Denmark's transition: https://justingerdes.atavist.com/quitting-carbon?promo https://justingerdes.atavist.com/quitting-carbon?promo Many lessons for how economies can reconfigure themselves.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- educaptor 6y agoDenmark has been positioning itself as a frontrunner fighting climate change, but its oil production had presented a dilemma. Now this dilemma is being solved. Good for them.
- vzaliva 6y agoIt looks like there will be a new season of "Occupied" TV drama :)
- homarp 6y agocame here to post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied :) Occupied (Norwegian: Okkupert) is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that depicts a fictional near future in which, due to catastrophic environmental events, Norway's Prime Minister has stopped the country's oil and gas production. Russia, with support from the European Union, occupies Norway to restore its oil and gas production, in response to a Europe-wide energy crisis.
- FpUser 6y ago>"...The deal is binding on all future governments..." I'm not sure how does that work. What is the point of any government if it can not change laws to accommodate whatever situation might arise.
- jmnicolas 6y agoThe way I see it there are 2 possibilities: it's either ideological or they know oil is running out and there will be not much left by 2050.
- Tiktaalik 6y agoThis is what real climate leadership looks like; actually having the courage to assert that you're going to halt on big emissions sources. Meanwhile in Canada you have the government claiming it's a climate leader because it'll plant trees and ban plastic straws meanwhile expanding development of oil sands. It's completely disingenuous. Software engineers with any experience in profiling should know how to make big gains on a problem quickly. Find the biggest problems and cut those down to size. Fiddling at the edges isn't gonna get us there.
- jlos 6y agoWhile I don't disagree with the Canadian government's messaging being disingenous, 7% of the entire Canadian GDP came from just resource extraction in Alberta (not to mention the ancillary industries surrounding oil and gas). Recently, that made it the largest industry in the country, even ahead of banking and financial services. [0] Compare that to Denmark which employs about 2000 people in resource extraction [1] [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/oil-and-gas-gdp-growth-may-data-statscan-1.4768508 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/oil-and-gas-gdp-growt... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Denmark#:~:text=Denmark%20imports%20around%2012%25%20of,energy%2C%20not%20just%20electricity).&text=Coal%20and%20all%20other%20fossil,20%25%20of%20the%20electricity%20production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Denmark#:~:text=Denm...
- jlos 6y agoThe story here is Denmark's tremendous job in utilizing renewables for energy consumption [0]. The country's economy has almost no stake in oil and gas revenues. - About 2,000 persons worked in the oil and gas extraction sector in 2016, and another 1,000 persons in extraction of gravel and stone, or in total about 0.1% of total employment in Denmark" [1] Compare this to Alberta whose oil and gas section employs about 145,000 people and has a similar population size (Denmark: ~ 5 million; Aberta: ~4 million)[2] It seems the journalists here, instead of keying in on the success in moving to renewables, have spun a sensible and uncostly decision for Denmark into a politicized headline which would be extremely costly elsewhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Denmark#:~:text=Denmark%20imports%20around%2012%25%20of,energy%2C%20not%20just%20electricity).&text=Coal%20and%20all%20other%20fossil,20%25%20of%20the%20electricity%20production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Denmark#:~:text=Denm.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Denmark#Natural_resource_extraction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Denmark#Natural_res... [2] https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/industry-profiles/mining-and-oil-and-gas-extraction/#:~:text=Gross%20domestic%20product%20(GDP)%20measures,a%204.1%25%20increase%20from%202013.&text=12.6%25-,The%20mining%20and%20oil%20and%20gas,employed%20135%2C800%20people%20in%202016 https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/industry-profiles/mining-and....