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G7 nations committing billions more to fossil fuel than green energy

291 points by ciconia 5y ago

toomuchredbull 5y ago
As a Canadian, even I am surprised by how shallow the rhetoric of our PM is in terms of "building back better" and green future. He basically helicoptered an insane amount of money on the population for rampant consumerism and bailed out companies indiscriminately whereas built basically no transit, no green infrastructure whatsoever.
- premium-komodo 5y ago
  When Trudeau repeated the WEF jargon "build back better", he was just signaling that he's on board to support the plans of German Bond-villain Klaus Schwab. I think once you understand that, you stop being surprised if he seems to lacks principle in some other area.
- alfl 5y ago
  Fellow Canadian, and can confirm: current Federal regime is all hat no cattle.
- RileyJames 5y ago
  You don't say ey, the situation is approximately exactly the same here in Australia. In fact, 'gas lead recovery' is the closest we have a to 'building back better'.
- tekstar 5y ago
  Our PM also walks behind the US and reiterates whatever climate target they state, like X % by 2030 and y % by 2050. I have seen exactly 0 plan on how to get there. I suspect he'll retire in 2029.
  - mgbmtl 5y ago
    Mostly carbon taxes, infrastructure investments, and small things like subsidizing electric cars (5k$), countered unfortunately by supporting pipeline constructions for Alberta. So for example, the federal is funding the suburban train system in Montreal, and the tramway in Quebec City. Those projects will have a huge impact. And the federal will not fund the absurd proposed 10 G$ tunnel that Quebec wants to build. Trudeau uses the excuse that "infrastructure programs do not fund roads, only public transport, it's not my fault if I don't want to support the program", but that's how it works: the federal mainly proposes policies that meet certain targets, and then provinces get funding in exchange for implementing those changes.
    - tekstar 5y ago
      Do you think those policies are anywhere on the scale necessary to meet the climate change goals he has set out?
      - imtringued 5y ago
        I don't know what his goals are but a sufficient CO2 tax can easily result in 20%-50% less CO2 emissions.
        rsj_hn 5y ago
        Sure, but those reductions will only be in the jurisdiction with the tax and will be matched by a corresponding increase in other jurisdictions. So if the goal is to migrate emissions to countries like China that don't have the tax, it's easy to do. If the goal is to reduce global emissions, then that's another matter entirely.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
        tekstar 5y ago
        I've been thinking about this, and if that CO2 tax results in that less CO2, who feels the brunt of it? What does it look like to people? Is everything 20-50% more expensive, so we buy less of it? Would be great to see the CO2 reduction, but I don't see our government going the route of forced austerity. I guess the idea is to then force low-carbon innovation to bring prices back down?
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  > He basically helicoptered an insane amount of money on the population for rampant consumerism. I take no issue with this. Keynes is right you need to prop back up aggregate demand, and keep people fed. > bailed out companies indiscriminately whereas built basically no transit, no green infrastructure whatsoever. That's the bad part. The demand-side stimulus should be indiscriminate because the supply-side policy should be extremely targeted. People buy whatever the good deal is, like an electric field pulls hardest on the stuff with the most charge. Its essential to to puppeteer the supply side so the environmentally good things are the good deals.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Yeah, one of the good things about just randomly throwing money at the crowd is that the crowd has a lot of brains and each brain can make the best possible decision for that person. There is no way a group of politicians is going to spend the money more efficiently. However, without a serious CO2 tax a lot of that money will be allocated to CO2 intensive consumption.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      Yup! Vigorously seek out and tax the externalities, helicopter money, and publicly administer natural monopolies (like transit, telecommunications, electricity, etc.). It's a great simple recipe; amazing how much ink we spill beating around the bush.
cbmuser 5y ago
“Green energy” needs fossile fuels such as natural gas as backup power plants. If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively, you must support nuclear power. France went the nuclear path and their energy sector causes 50 million tons of CO2 per year. Germany went the renewable path and their annual energy sector emissions are about 300 million tons of CO2. They were a bit less in both countries due to Covid-19 causing shutdowns of industries.
- silvester23 5y ago
  For now that may be true, does not mean it will stay that way forever. Although I agree that in order to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the short term, nuclear power seems like the best option right now.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  > "Germany went the renewable path and their annual energy sector emissions are about 300 million tons of CO2." Not really. They held on hard to gas and coal power. Of the latter, a disturbing amount is still based on lignite or brown coal, which is more accurately described as "somewhat combustible dirt". Germany is not nearly as dedicated to green energy as they would like the world to think. They shut down their nuclear sector due to fear, and primarily replaced it with more fossil energy. I do agree that nuclear power is something we should be more positive towards, but that does not invalidate renewable energy sources.
  - titzer 5y ago
    > They shut down their nuclear sector due to fear, and primarily replaced it with more fossil energy. The Wikipedia article [1] on Germany's energy production suggests that fossil fuel sources have fallen slightly and the reduction in nuclear has been replaced with renewables. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
- j_wtf_all_taken 5y ago
  > If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively, you must support nuclear power. Very strong statement but no evidence whatsoever. Germany's a bad example, we're (that is: the government during the last 16 years) doing a lot to keep really old crappy coal power plants running and slow the transformation towards renewables. And still, 50% of the electricity is produced by renewables.
dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
OK. What about non-G7 nations?
- dahjkol 5y ago
  They don't matter. Duh.
- rocknor 5y ago
  True, other large non-G7 nations like Australia and Saudi Arabia that also have very high consumption-driven emissions per capita should also be called out. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
McDyver 5y ago
The current consumerist economy is based on scarcity. Green energy (by definition, sustainable) should be anything but scarce, and therefore would allow "weaker" countries to be more self-reliant. This will never be allowed by countries that want to keep their "G"-whatever denomination
- sanxiyn 5y ago
  Energy may not be scarce, but energy collection devices and energy storage devices are.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    And the nature these "green" solar panels are built on is scarce too.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      No it isn't. In Germany for example we have 2.4 million hectares reserved for "energy crops", i.e. mostly large monocultures of corn and canola. If we instead used that area for solar panels, a large fraction of Germany's primary power consumption could be covered.
      - belinder 5y ago
        Forgive my ignorance but what happens during the night when there is no sun? Would the day produce enough to last throughout the night with batteries? Are there enough batteries?
        adrianN 5y ago
        When I say "most of the primary energy requirements are satisfied above" I mean averaged over a year, where a square meter of solar panel produces about 150Wp and has a capacity factor of 11%, i.e. a square meter of solar panel produces around 130kWh/a. 2.4 million hectares would produce around 3200TWh per year, Germany consumes around 4000 TWh per year. These are of course just rough ballpark estimates. You probably want to diversify into wind too to reduce storage requirements. IIRC wind also produces a bit more power per square meter in Germany than solar. Right now there isn't enough storage to cover the windstill nights, but there are no technical reasons why we can't store the power either in batteries, as Hydrogen or Methane, as heat, or, where geography permits, in pumped hydro (or a combination of different storage technology). It's just a bit expensive right now.
tchalla 5y ago
The article is a summary of an analysis and I can’t find the analysis linked in it. I don’t know why or how journalists find this an acceptable practice.
- yorwba 5y ago
  I don't think the analysis is publicly available for linking. I couldn't find it on any of the listed organizations' websites. Maybe they sent a copy directly to the Guardian? The closest thing I could find (covering the G7 summit and climate change) is this article published yesterday: https://odi.org/en/insights/delivering-a-successful-g7-summit-in-the-context-of-a-climate-emergency/ https://odi.org/en/insights/delivering-a-successful-g7-summi...
- thinkcontext 5y ago
  Here's the report https://learn.tearfund.org/resources/policy-reports/cleaning-up-their-act https://learn.tearfund.org/resources/policy-reports/cleaning...
- voqv 5y ago
  Here's the report [0] IMHO the analysis is muddied by the fact that most G7 countries decided to bail out their major Airlines during the pandemic. In case of Germany and Italy, those billions of spendings count towards a "fossil fuel commitment". [0] https://learn.tearfund.org/-/media/learn/resources/reports/2021-tearfund-consortium-cleaning-up-their-act-g7.pdf https://learn.tearfund.org/-/media/learn/resources/reports/2...
woutr_be 5y ago
Is there a chart to see how much they committed to both fossil fuel and green energy over time? These two numbers by itself don’t really tell me anything. But if let’s say fossil fuel commitment has gone down, while green energy goes up, then that’s a different, more positive story.
adamsvystun 5y ago
This article is a little misleading when it includes aviation industry bailouts as "fossil fuel commitments". Not only this is an indirect connection, but also there is no green air travel (for now). Regardless of your opinion on the necessity of the bailouts, the thought behind them was not to further tip the scales towards fossil fuel, but to help out the aviation industry in their country.
- dahjkol 5y ago
  I wonder if blimps or zeppelin is the future for "green" aviation
  - adamsvystun 5y ago
    I think electric airplanes are still the more probable future. My understanding of the current problem is that the weight to energy ratio in electric batteries is still too high for useful flights. But this ratio is improving year by year, and very soon we will be near the number where electric aircrafts will be competitive with fossil fuel ones on some types of flights.
    - oblio 5y ago
      The energy density of kerosene absolutely destroys Amy battery tech we have and kerosene is used up, therefore making the aircraft lighter over time, further increasing range. Mainstream commercial electric aviation is probably a half a century away (provided we don't actually discover something even better that supercedes it).
    - benhurmarcel 5y ago
      As far as I'm aware, there is no significant effort on battery-powered airliners in the industry. The only significant bets are on hydrogen and biofuels.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I would love to see some real investment into them once again, for energy efficiency they can't be beat
thendrill 5y ago
If we cared about the environment we would just stop buying coffee, chocolate and bananas.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Exhibit A demonstrating how climate lobby has abysmally failed in educating the public. Buying bananas has no relevance to climate. Minimise eating meat, minimise use of cars and planes, and get a green energy supplier. That cuts your carbon footprint by half (depending where you are and what you do) Other measures don't do much
  - nob0dyasked 5y ago
    Stop breathing and that will reduce C02 emissions! That's the most important thing in life!
  - alva 5y ago
    > Buying bananas has no relevance to climate Can you explain why? All the bananas in my UK supermarket are flown from Africa. > minimise use of cars and planes
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      Sorry, should have included the link and explanation: basically growing food is energy intensive, but transporting food by ship is actually very efficient. This results in a paradox where locally grown food, if it needs additional lights, spraying, ploughing, etc. is worse for the environment than food grown in perfect climage and transported to you. https://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/ https://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-loca...
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        Some sources e.g. http://www.fao.org/world-banana-forum/projects/good-practices/carbon-footprint/en/ http://www.fao.org/world-banana-forum/projects/good-practice... assert that ~2/3 of banana GHG footprint is caused by transportation and storage, including things like refrigeration on ship. It's probably still more efficient (both money-wise and GHG-wise) than growing bananas locally in UK; now that would need a lot of extra energy; but on the other hand it would be more efficient to eat food that normally grows locally in your climate instead of bananas.
gregwebs 5y ago
This graph is a great reality check: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy Humanity has never displaced an existing energy source with a new one. Instead total energy usage grows. Our only success with fossil fuel usage reduction is that coal usage is no longer growing. Growing wind, solar, and nuclear by 10x from the 2019 levels reported in that data set would put them (as a combination) on par with one of the three big existing fossil fuel sources. But this can only decrease fossil fuel usage if increased energy usage does not take up all those gains as it has always done in the past. I do think though that reducing fossil fuel usage could be possible now only because of the shifting demographics of the world (most of the world is starting a population decline). The counter argument is that a large portion of the world will continue to grow economically (increases energy usage) and become wealthy enough to start air conditioning and otherwise dramatically increase energy usage.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  Well Germany is closing down their nuclear power plants, under excuses of damage and recent Chernobyl series. While actively funding Nord Stream 2. So there goes your green EU. If we are to survive climate change we would have to cull all politicians and dirty industry leaders. They have so much power over the world and don;t give a fuck about next generation. After all they all will be able to afford ticket to Elysium.
  - La1n 5y ago
    > under excuses of damage and recent Chernobyl series. Actually it has been a way longer process starting in 2000/2001[1], with Fukushima having a significant impact.[2] It doesn't seem the Chernobyl series was responsible. [1] https://www.terradaily.com/2003/031114130333.jlvf6wjx.html https://www.terradaily.com/2003/031114130333.jlvf6wjx.html [2] http://bos.sagepub.com/content/67/4/14.abstract http://bos.sagepub.com/content/67/4/14.abstract
    - kuxv 5y ago
      I always wondered why was Germany concerned about the events in Fukushima as that was caused by the earthquake/tsunami. Is that a common phenomenon in Germany?
poxwole 5y ago
Well you couldn't find a bigger collection of hypocrites than a G7 summit except perhaps at WEF summit
williesleg 5y ago
Dino juice.
0x_rs 5y ago
From my limited knowledge in the field, "traditional" nuclear power plants are usually very likely to incur in cost overruns (a recent example being [0]), supplemental to an already significant expense and a very long term investment that most politicians do not seem to be very fond of. In the past few decades modular, entirely self-contained and passively safe designs have been often in discussion as more and more systems are devised, but I don't feel much interest towards a mass adoption to at the very least represent a fraction of the current worldwide power generation (above the tiny percentage nuclear sits on at the moment). Is it merely a matter of economics and ineffectivenes of the price/lifetime power generation, compared to more traditional systems? It's not as if other nuclear concepts cannot also take advantage of a good portion of spent fuel—that so far has been of significant concern and only one project seems will be successful at in the short-future [1]—such as traveling wave reactors, or breeder designs in general (I do understand most of the research and real-life applications have been less than effective). Due to continuous power generation couldn't such systems also reduce the need for the much dreaded fossil backup, assuming sufficient capacities? [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/edf-lifts-cost-of-french-nuclear-reactor-by-14-to-13-6-billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/edf-lifts... [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/finlands-spent-fuel-repository-a-game-changer-for-the-nuclear-industry-director-general-grossi-says https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/finlands-spent-fuel-rep...
- Frost1x 5y ago
  >nuclear power plants are usually very likely to incur in cost overruns (a recent example being [0]), supplemental to an already significant expense and a very long term investment that most politicians do not seem to be very fond of. I'd be interested to see a good fair accounting of all the externalized costs non-nuclear energy is able to pass off. Global warming is clearly one of them. The thing about nuclear energy is that danger and risk is inherently concentrated, so externalizing these costs isn't really an option. You can't go pouring spent fissile waste into the air and pouring buckets into the ocean (unless you're Japan, apparently). People have seen the dangers with Chernobyl and the like. People know enough to know it's dangerous stuff they can't take care of themselves. If you have an oil spill, well it's nasty but people are familiar with oils in their engine, natural gas, gasoline, ash, and all that. People kind of understand it and know a little bit of exposure typically won't kill them. You can pour motor oil on your hand and you're mostly going to be just fine (do it a lot and often and maybe not). Pour fissile waste material over your hand and depending on radiation, you might die just by getting close or get cancer from short term exposure. People see the danger and you can't externalize that. Other materials you can sort of shrug off because long term effects you can get away with externalizing in our society. Let consumers, governments, and others pickup all the debt you're generating that no one is accounting. So I think we need real fair cost assessments before we can handwaive away which energy sources are costly and understand the variance in these types of costs, especially if we're going to live in this world where economics and utilitarianism seems to rule the world.
whatever1 5y ago
Here we go again. If we do not fix the demand side of the problem, the supply will be there for us, regardless of how much we try to penalize the western oil companies. To fix the demand side we need technological advances and help from regulation. BUT. Regulation itself cannot solve the problem. That is the elephant in the room. Regulations come and go, and they are bound by borders, but once a technology has been discovered there is no going back. Tesla's 250 mile car and charging network in 2010 was the reason that gasoline will die in the US, not the 7k tax incentive on a 60k car.
valprop1 5y ago
This short 30 second video on YouTube shows how average temperature increased globally since 1880. The irony to me is that every nation is witnessing negative impacts of global warming and climate change and yet we chose to do so little. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX4qHgDlZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX4qHgDlZM
FridayoLeary 5y ago
It's simple. Fossil fuels work, are absolutely reliable and they make the world spin. Renewables, for all their vast potential, do not. And at the end of the day, the major world decisions are made based more on financial interests then on social/political ones. That's why i believe that following global trade and markets will give you a more reliable outlook on the world than following News sites.
- ganzuul 5y ago
  Your thinking is an exacting demonstration of the short-sightedness that is about to render our species extinct.
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    > about to render our species extinct Cut down on food wasting. Actually, why not cut down on all wastage, i think almost unbelievable gains will be rapidly made against poverty and towards the environment.
    - ganzuul 5y ago
      To do that we need to put an end to market capitalism in favor of planned economy. Apparently Walmart has a model that works at the required scale.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        The "market capitalism" solution is to put a price on bad things.
        ganzuul 5y ago
        That's fine. The problem is the price is too low so people keep paying it.
- imtringued 5y ago
  That's an argument in favor of switching to natural gas yet many countries don't do so. Natural gas also tends to be more expensive than renewables so you can afford to shut the gas plants down when renewables are available. Compare that to coal where the coal plant pushes renewables off the grid because it cannot throttle fast enough.
andrepd 5y ago
Honestly I consider that properly pricing externalities might be the #1 priority we need to change right now. Nevermind all the castastrophes and loss of freedom brought by capitalism. Without charging private interests the true costs of their activity, allowing them to pocket the profits and spread the losses, markets are not even in theory optimising for utility / social good. A Georgist approach to this would probably alleviate many of the most pressing problems of global neoliberal capitalism.
tejohnso 5y ago
Of these G7 nations, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan have all nationally declared a climate emergency.
dehrmann 5y ago
If there was a lesson from covid, it's that governments need to step in where markets fail--markets aren't interested in maintaining a strategic n95 mask (or oil) stockpile. Government subsidies on fossil fuels, like subsidies on food production, should be seen as "buying" stability and resiliency. This doesn't mean green energy shouldn't be subsidized at more dollars per watt (or mile) than oil, just that oil subsidies still have a role.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5y ago
Solar panels will use up all the sun and then the plants will die
lenkite 5y ago
Well, the current US president shut down oil and gas drilling leases from US public lands. There was a lot of fanfare around this. 2020 was the first year the US exported more petroleum than it imported on an annual basis. But due to the sudden federal approved decline in 2021, US will now import more oil in 2022. https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/2/17/us-will-import-62-more-crude-by-2022-due-to-domestic-production-declines-says-eia https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/2/17/us-will-import-62-mo...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
LatteLazy 5y ago
It's a decade too late for mitigation. It's time for adaption. Let's start building flood defenses and all plan to move up hill and pole-ward.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Well you'll never satisfy climate apocalypse watchers. We've made real progress if you look at amounts of money and resources spent, but it will never be fast enough for them.

291 points by ciconia 5y ago

As a Canadian, even I am surprised by how shallow the rhetoric of our PM is in terms of "building back better" and green future. He basically helicoptered an insane amount of money on the population for rampant consumerism and bailed out companies indiscriminately whereas built basically no transit, no green infrastructure whatsoever.

premium-komodo 5y ago
When Trudeau repeated the WEF jargon "build back better", he was just signaling that he's on board to support the plans of German Bond-villain Klaus Schwab. I think once you understand that, you stop being surprised if he seems to lacks principle in some other area.
alfl 5y ago
Fellow Canadian, and can confirm: current Federal regime is all hat no cattle.
RileyJames 5y ago
You don't say ey, the situation is approximately exactly the same here in Australia. In fact, 'gas lead recovery' is the closest we have a to 'building back better'.
tekstar 5y ago
Our PM also walks behind the US and reiterates whatever climate target they state, like X % by 2030 and y % by 2050. I have seen exactly 0 plan on how to get there. I suspect he'll retire in 2029.
- mgbmtl 5y ago
  Mostly carbon taxes, infrastructure investments, and small things like subsidizing electric cars (5k$), countered unfortunately by supporting pipeline constructions for Alberta. So for example, the federal is funding the suburban train system in Montreal, and the tramway in Quebec City. Those projects will have a huge impact. And the federal will not fund the absurd proposed 10 G$ tunnel that Quebec wants to build. Trudeau uses the excuse that "infrastructure programs do not fund roads, only public transport, it's not my fault if I don't want to support the program", but that's how it works: the federal mainly proposes policies that meet certain targets, and then provinces get funding in exchange for implementing those changes.
  - tekstar 5y ago
    Do you think those policies are anywhere on the scale necessary to meet the climate change goals he has set out?
    - imtringued 5y ago
      I don't know what his goals are but a sufficient CO2 tax can easily result in 20%-50% less CO2 emissions.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        Sure, but those reductions will only be in the jurisdiction with the tax and will be matched by a corresponding increase in other jurisdictions. So if the goal is to migrate emissions to countries like China that don't have the tax, it's easy to do. If the goal is to reduce global emissions, then that's another matter entirely.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
      - tekstar 5y ago
        I've been thinking about this, and if that CO2 tax results in that less CO2, who feels the brunt of it? What does it look like to people? Is everything 20-50% more expensive, so we buy less of it? Would be great to see the CO2 reduction, but I don't see our government going the route of forced austerity. I guess the idea is to then force low-carbon innovation to bring prices back down?
Ericson2314 5y ago
> He basically helicoptered an insane amount of money on the population for rampant consumerism. I take no issue with this. Keynes is right you need to prop back up aggregate demand, and keep people fed. > bailed out companies indiscriminately whereas built basically no transit, no green infrastructure whatsoever. That's the bad part. The demand-side stimulus should be indiscriminate because the supply-side policy should be extremely targeted. People buy whatever the good deal is, like an electric field pulls hardest on the stuff with the most charge. Its essential to to puppeteer the supply side so the environmentally good things are the good deals.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Yeah, one of the good things about just randomly throwing money at the crowd is that the crowd has a lot of brains and each brain can make the best possible decision for that person. There is no way a group of politicians is going to spend the money more efficiently. However, without a serious CO2 tax a lot of that money will be allocated to CO2 intensive consumption.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Yup! Vigorously seek out and tax the externalities, helicopter money, and publicly administer natural monopolies (like transit, telecommunications, electricity, etc.). It's a great simple recipe; amazing how much ink we spill beating around the bush.

cbmuser 5y ago

“Green energy” needs fossile fuels such as natural gas as backup power plants. If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively, you must support nuclear power. France went the nuclear path and their energy sector causes 50 million tons of CO2 per year. Germany went the renewable path and their annual energy sector emissions are about 300 million tons of CO2. They were a bit less in both countries due to Covid-19 causing shutdowns of industries.

silvester23 5y ago
For now that may be true, does not mean it will stay that way forever. Although I agree that in order to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the short term, nuclear power seems like the best option right now.
KozmoNau7 5y ago
> "Germany went the renewable path and their annual energy sector emissions are about 300 million tons of CO2." Not really. They held on hard to gas and coal power. Of the latter, a disturbing amount is still based on lignite or brown coal, which is more accurately described as "somewhat combustible dirt". Germany is not nearly as dedicated to green energy as they would like the world to think. They shut down their nuclear sector due to fear, and primarily replaced it with more fossil energy. I do agree that nuclear power is something we should be more positive towards, but that does not invalidate renewable energy sources.
- titzer 5y ago
  > They shut down their nuclear sector due to fear, and primarily replaced it with more fossil energy. The Wikipedia article [1] on Germany's energy production suggests that fossil fuel sources have fallen slightly and the reduction in nuclear has been replaced with renewables. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
j_wtf_all_taken 5y ago
> If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions effectively, you must support nuclear power. Very strong statement but no evidence whatsoever. Germany's a bad example, we're (that is: the government during the last 16 years) doing a lot to keep really old crappy coal power plants running and slow the transformation towards renewables. And still, 50% of the electricity is produced by renewables.

dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago

OK. What about non-G7 nations?

dahjkol 5y ago
They don't matter. Duh.
rocknor 5y ago
True, other large non-G7 nations like Australia and Saudi Arabia that also have very high consumption-driven emissions per capita should also be called out. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...

McDyver 5y ago

The current consumerist economy is based on scarcity. Green energy (by definition, sustainable) should be anything but scarce, and therefore would allow "weaker" countries to be more self-reliant. This will never be allowed by countries that want to keep their "G"-whatever denomination

sanxiyn 5y ago
Energy may not be scarce, but energy collection devices and energy storage devices are.
- emteycz 5y ago
  And the nature these "green" solar panels are built on is scarce too.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    No it isn't. In Germany for example we have 2.4 million hectares reserved for "energy crops", i.e. mostly large monocultures of corn and canola. If we instead used that area for solar panels, a large fraction of Germany's primary power consumption could be covered.
    - belinder 5y ago
      Forgive my ignorance but what happens during the night when there is no sun? Would the day produce enough to last throughout the night with batteries? Are there enough batteries?
      - adrianN 5y ago
        When I say "most of the primary energy requirements are satisfied above" I mean averaged over a year, where a square meter of solar panel produces about 150Wp and has a capacity factor of 11%, i.e. a square meter of solar panel produces around 130kWh/a. 2.4 million hectares would produce around 3200TWh per year, Germany consumes around 4000 TWh per year. These are of course just rough ballpark estimates. You probably want to diversify into wind too to reduce storage requirements. IIRC wind also produces a bit more power per square meter in Germany than solar. Right now there isn't enough storage to cover the windstill nights, but there are no technical reasons why we can't store the power either in batteries, as Hydrogen or Methane, as heat, or, where geography permits, in pumped hydro (or a combination of different storage technology). It's just a bit expensive right now.

tchalla 5y ago

The article is a summary of an analysis and I can’t find the analysis linked in it. I don’t know why or how journalists find this an acceptable practice.

yorwba 5y ago
I don't think the analysis is publicly available for linking. I couldn't find it on any of the listed organizations' websites. Maybe they sent a copy directly to the Guardian? The closest thing I could find (covering the G7 summit and climate change) is this article published yesterday: https://odi.org/en/insights/delivering-a-successful-g7-summit-in-the-context-of-a-climate-emergency/ https://odi.org/en/insights/delivering-a-successful-g7-summi...
thinkcontext 5y ago
Here's the report https://learn.tearfund.org/resources/policy-reports/cleaning-up-their-act https://learn.tearfund.org/resources/policy-reports/cleaning...
voqv 5y ago
Here's the report [0] IMHO the analysis is muddied by the fact that most G7 countries decided to bail out their major Airlines during the pandemic. In case of Germany and Italy, those billions of spendings count towards a "fossil fuel commitment". [0] https://learn.tearfund.org/-/media/learn/resources/reports/2021-tearfund-consortium-cleaning-up-their-act-g7.pdf https://learn.tearfund.org/-/media/learn/resources/reports/2...

woutr_be 5y ago

Is there a chart to see how much they committed to both fossil fuel and green energy over time? These two numbers by itself don’t really tell me anything. But if let’s say fossil fuel commitment has gone down, while green energy goes up, then that’s a different, more positive story.

adamsvystun 5y ago

This article is a little misleading when it includes aviation industry bailouts as "fossil fuel commitments". Not only this is an indirect connection, but also there is no green air travel (for now). Regardless of your opinion on the necessity of the bailouts, the thought behind them was not to further tip the scales towards fossil fuel, but to help out the aviation industry in their country.

dahjkol 5y ago
I wonder if blimps or zeppelin is the future for "green" aviation
- adamsvystun 5y ago
  I think electric airplanes are still the more probable future. My understanding of the current problem is that the weight to energy ratio in electric batteries is still too high for useful flights. But this ratio is improving year by year, and very soon we will be near the number where electric aircrafts will be competitive with fossil fuel ones on some types of flights.
  - oblio 5y ago
    The energy density of kerosene absolutely destroys Amy battery tech we have and kerosene is used up, therefore making the aircraft lighter over time, further increasing range. Mainstream commercial electric aviation is probably a half a century away (provided we don't actually discover something even better that supercedes it).
  - benhurmarcel 5y ago
    As far as I'm aware, there is no significant effort on battery-powered airliners in the industry. The only significant bets are on hydrogen and biofuels.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I would love to see some real investment into them once again, for energy efficiency they can't be beat

thendrill 5y ago

If we cared about the environment we would just stop buying coffee, chocolate and bananas.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Exhibit A demonstrating how climate lobby has abysmally failed in educating the public. Buying bananas has no relevance to climate. Minimise eating meat, minimise use of cars and planes, and get a green energy supplier. That cuts your carbon footprint by half (depending where you are and what you do) Other measures don't do much
- nob0dyasked 5y ago
  Stop breathing and that will reduce C02 emissions! That's the most important thing in life!
- alva 5y ago
  > Buying bananas has no relevance to climate Can you explain why? All the bananas in my UK supermarket are flown from Africa. > minimise use of cars and planes
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Sorry, should have included the link and explanation: basically growing food is energy intensive, but transporting food by ship is actually very efficient. This results in a paradox where locally grown food, if it needs additional lights, spraying, ploughing, etc. is worse for the environment than food grown in perfect climage and transported to you. https://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/ https://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-loca...
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      Some sources e.g. http://www.fao.org/world-banana-forum/projects/good-practices/carbon-footprint/en/ http://www.fao.org/world-banana-forum/projects/good-practice... assert that ~2/3 of banana GHG footprint is caused by transportation and storage, including things like refrigeration on ship. It's probably still more efficient (both money-wise and GHG-wise) than growing bananas locally in UK; now that would need a lot of extra energy; but on the other hand it would be more efficient to eat food that normally grows locally in your climate instead of bananas.

gregwebs 5y ago

This graph is a great reality check: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy Humanity has never displaced an existing energy source with a new one. Instead total energy usage grows. Our only success with fossil fuel usage reduction is that coal usage is no longer growing. Growing wind, solar, and nuclear by 10x from the 2019 levels reported in that data set would put them (as a combination) on par with one of the three big existing fossil fuel sources. But this can only decrease fossil fuel usage if increased energy usage does not take up all those gains as it has always done in the past. I do think though that reducing fossil fuel usage could be possible now only because of the shifting demographics of the world (most of the world is starting a population decline). The counter argument is that a large portion of the world will continue to grow economically (increases energy usage) and become wealthy enough to start air conditioning and otherwise dramatically increase energy usage.

me_me_me 5y ago
Well Germany is closing down their nuclear power plants, under excuses of damage and recent Chernobyl series. While actively funding Nord Stream 2. So there goes your green EU. If we are to survive climate change we would have to cull all politicians and dirty industry leaders. They have so much power over the world and don;t give a fuck about next generation. After all they all will be able to afford ticket to Elysium.
- La1n 5y ago
  > under excuses of damage and recent Chernobyl series. Actually it has been a way longer process starting in 2000/2001[1], with Fukushima having a significant impact.[2] It doesn't seem the Chernobyl series was responsible. [1] https://www.terradaily.com/2003/031114130333.jlvf6wjx.html https://www.terradaily.com/2003/031114130333.jlvf6wjx.html [2] http://bos.sagepub.com/content/67/4/14.abstract http://bos.sagepub.com/content/67/4/14.abstract
  - kuxv 5y ago
    I always wondered why was Germany concerned about the events in Fukushima as that was caused by the earthquake/tsunami. Is that a common phenomenon in Germany?

poxwole 5y ago

Well you couldn't find a bigger collection of hypocrites than a G7 summit except perhaps at WEF summit

williesleg 5y ago

Dino juice.

0x_rs 5y ago

From my limited knowledge in the field, "traditional" nuclear power plants are usually very likely to incur in cost overruns (a recent example being [0]), supplemental to an already significant expense and a very long term investment that most politicians do not seem to be very fond of. In the past few decades modular, entirely self-contained and passively safe designs have been often in discussion as more and more systems are devised, but I don't feel much interest towards a mass adoption to at the very least represent a fraction of the current worldwide power generation (above the tiny percentage nuclear sits on at the moment). Is it merely a matter of economics and ineffectivenes of the price/lifetime power generation, compared to more traditional systems? It's not as if other nuclear concepts cannot also take advantage of a good portion of spent fuel—that so far has been of significant concern and only one project seems will be successful at in the short-future [1]—such as traveling wave reactors, or breeder designs in general (I do understand most of the research and real-life applications have been less than effective). Due to continuous power generation couldn't such systems also reduce the need for the much dreaded fossil backup, assuming sufficient capacities? [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/edf-lifts-cost-of-french-nuclear-reactor-by-14-to-13-6-billion https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/edf-lifts... [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/finlands-spent-fuel-repository-a-game-changer-for-the-nuclear-industry-director-general-grossi-says https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/finlands-spent-fuel-rep...

Frost1x 5y ago
>nuclear power plants are usually very likely to incur in cost overruns (a recent example being [0]), supplemental to an already significant expense and a very long term investment that most politicians do not seem to be very fond of. I'd be interested to see a good fair accounting of all the externalized costs non-nuclear energy is able to pass off. Global warming is clearly one of them. The thing about nuclear energy is that danger and risk is inherently concentrated, so externalizing these costs isn't really an option. You can't go pouring spent fissile waste into the air and pouring buckets into the ocean (unless you're Japan, apparently). People have seen the dangers with Chernobyl and the like. People know enough to know it's dangerous stuff they can't take care of themselves. If you have an oil spill, well it's nasty but people are familiar with oils in their engine, natural gas, gasoline, ash, and all that. People kind of understand it and know a little bit of exposure typically won't kill them. You can pour motor oil on your hand and you're mostly going to be just fine (do it a lot and often and maybe not). Pour fissile waste material over your hand and depending on radiation, you might die just by getting close or get cancer from short term exposure. People see the danger and you can't externalize that. Other materials you can sort of shrug off because long term effects you can get away with externalizing in our society. Let consumers, governments, and others pickup all the debt you're generating that no one is accounting. So I think we need real fair cost assessments before we can handwaive away which energy sources are costly and understand the variance in these types of costs, especially if we're going to live in this world where economics and utilitarianism seems to rule the world.

whatever1 5y ago

Here we go again. If we do not fix the demand side of the problem, the supply will be there for us, regardless of how much we try to penalize the western oil companies. To fix the demand side we need technological advances and help from regulation. BUT. Regulation itself cannot solve the problem. That is the elephant in the room. Regulations come and go, and they are bound by borders, but once a technology has been discovered there is no going back. Tesla's 250 mile car and charging network in 2010 was the reason that gasoline will die in the US, not the 7k tax incentive on a 60k car.

valprop1 5y ago

This short 30 second video on YouTube shows how average temperature increased globally since 1880. The irony to me is that every nation is witnessing negative impacts of global warming and climate change and yet we chose to do so little. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX4qHgDlZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX4qHgDlZM

FridayoLeary 5y ago

It's simple. Fossil fuels work, are absolutely reliable and they make the world spin. Renewables, for all their vast potential, do not. And at the end of the day, the major world decisions are made based more on financial interests then on social/political ones. That's why i believe that following global trade and markets will give you a more reliable outlook on the world than following News sites.

ganzuul 5y ago
Your thinking is an exacting demonstration of the short-sightedness that is about to render our species extinct.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  > about to render our species extinct Cut down on food wasting. Actually, why not cut down on all wastage, i think almost unbelievable gains will be rapidly made against poverty and towards the environment.
  - ganzuul 5y ago
    To do that we need to put an end to market capitalism in favor of planned economy. Apparently Walmart has a model that works at the required scale.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      The "market capitalism" solution is to put a price on bad things.
      - ganzuul 5y ago
        That's fine. The problem is the price is too low so people keep paying it.
imtringued 5y ago
That's an argument in favor of switching to natural gas yet many countries don't do so. Natural gas also tends to be more expensive than renewables so you can afford to shut the gas plants down when renewables are available. Compare that to coal where the coal plant pushes renewables off the grid because it cannot throttle fast enough.

andrepd 5y ago

Honestly I consider that properly pricing externalities might be the #1 priority we need to change right now. Nevermind all the castastrophes and loss of freedom brought by capitalism. Without charging private interests the true costs of their activity, allowing them to pocket the profits and spread the losses, markets are not even in theory optimising for utility / social good. A Georgist approach to this would probably alleviate many of the most pressing problems of global neoliberal capitalism.

tejohnso 5y ago

Of these G7 nations, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan have all nationally declared a climate emergency.

dehrmann 5y ago

If there was a lesson from covid, it's that governments need to step in where markets fail--markets aren't interested in maintaining a strategic n95 mask (or oil) stockpile. Government subsidies on fossil fuels, like subsidies on food production, should be seen as "buying" stability and resiliency. This doesn't mean green energy shouldn't be subsidized at more dollars per watt (or mile) than oil, just that oil subsidies still have a role.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5y ago

Solar panels will use up all the sun and then the plants will die

lenkite 5y ago

Well, the current US president shut down oil and gas drilling leases from US public lands. There was a lot of fanfare around this. 2020 was the first year the US exported more petroleum than it imported on an annual basis. But due to the sudden federal approved decline in 2021, US will now import more oil in 2022. https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/2/17/us-will-import-62-more-crude-by-2022-due-to-domestic-production-declines-says-eia https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/2/17/us-will-import-62-mo...

deleted 5y ago

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LatteLazy 5y ago

It's a decade too late for mitigation. It's time for adaption. Let's start building flood defenses and all plan to move up hill and pole-ward.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Well you'll never satisfy climate apocalypse watchers. We've made real progress if you look at amounts of money and resources spent, but it will never be fast enough for them.