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BP to slash green investment and ramp up gas and oil
- throwawaygmbno 2y agoWhich investment funds didn't completely cave? The ones where you can specifically exclude companies like BP? That seemed to really bother them
- tehjoker 2y agoI guess that's the new world of politics. Just pure power, no sugar coatings anymore. Liberalism is dead. It's socialism or barbarism, no in-between that retains a livable planet.
- soupfordummies 2y agoThe doomer take that I try to push out of my mind is that maybe the building's really burning now and they're trying to loot out all they can WHILE they still can, optics be damned.
- 4gotunameagain 2y agoThe only way to even attempt to thwart climate change was to make green technologies economically viable. We have gone a long way with that; but we are not there yet. This shift could very well be the last nail on the coffin. Another victim of the extreme politicisation of issues in the US. We couldn't have had a worse hegemon. Saddening.
- kaashif 2y ago> We couldn't have had a worse hegemon. Saddening. The other candidates for hegemon are worse IMO. The Soviet Union could have conceivably replaced the US as hegemon, and China might yet do so. Maybe the EU would be a better hegemon, but never really had the capabilities to take on that role.
- xbmcuser 2y agoWhy have a hegemon better there is none as that builds competition. And in my opinion for the world China might be a better hegemon as it is interested mostly in its own population happy and not interested in making the rest of the world in it's image.
- coffeebeqn 2y agoThe age of hegemony is over. At least until WW3 or a revolution in US or China.
- soupfordummies 2y agoWhy? MAGA?
- mrguyorama 2y agoAbsolutely not. The US is choosing to make an entirely unforced "error" (that part is up for debate) to withdraw from it's global dominance. China is watching with barely masked glee at their luck. With a minimum of work, they will thrive for a hundred years, even with their demographic downturn. China gained A LOT of street cred last Trump admin, and this time is so fucking bad (we voted with Russia against Ukraine in the UN) that even our allies are nervously looking at options. China has basically nobody to oppose them, nobody to stand up to their bullying behavior. Everything the US did through the mid to late 1900s, like coups and aggressive economic strategies and illegal wars to blow up some far away place are now strategies fully open to China. Start learning Mandarin I guess.
- pzo 2y agoRelated to this I'm surprised how expensive still Tesla Powerwall is: ~$10k for 13.5kWh. Even Segway these days sell cheaper Portable Power Station Cube that is modular and stackable (upto 5kWh but IMHO much better design and useful) for $1k for 2kWh - and segway it's still kind of premium brand. Not sure why Tesla still qualifies for 30% Federal Tax Credit if they been operating and getting this for a decade and didn't bring price down. Some people on youtube were buying Tesla Car battery and retrofit them to have equivalent of 5x such Powerwalls for the same price. It seems ironic that they made DOGE to reduce government spending but still running this tax credit that in Powerwall situation benefits only higher income class. All those greedy western companies doing EV cars and residential batteries IMHO deserve to be eaten by chinese competition.
- rishav_sharan 2y ago> economically viable Or just regulation. China and India are outperforming most of the developed nations in meeting their committed climate goals.
- 4gotunameagain 2y agoYou cannot possibly compare the climate goals of countries with vast swaths of pre-industrial populations to western ones. It would make more sense to compare the impact of Delhi to a US state for example.
- adrianN 2y agoWhy? The challenges are quite similar.
- CalRobert 2y agoIt’s only economically viable because we don’t price externalities correctly. It should be cheap and easy to live a bike ride away from work in a well insulated home. Instead we’ve priced things completely backwards
- lynx97 2y ago[dead]
- fulafel 2y agoI'd say "economically viable" is not useful pharsing. It's of course economically viable to slow down the climate catastrophe as the costs will be so vast also economically (in addition to humanly, morally, etc) and we have the policy tools to do it. But it's a collective action problem and it needs a lot of international trade coordination and govenrment regulation.
- adrianN 2y agoWind and solar are the cheapest forms of generating electricity that we currently have and consequently they are growing very quickly.
- roenxi 2y agoThis reads like something out of The Onion. The British Petroleum Company has to refocus on petroleum because they pivoted to something else and it turns out that that cheap energy is wildly profitable. Maybe the UK government will have to step in and refocus BP on windmills or something.
- hnlmorg 2y agoI don’t know which company you’re referring to because British Petroleum hasn’t existed for nearly 30 years.
- CalRobert 2y agoClearly they mean BP
- iamthemonster 2y agoFollowing the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo incident, Obama used the phrase "British Petroleum" consistently, despite the company having been called "BP" since the 2000 rebrand post BP Amoco. It was a deliberate, and successful, tactic that drew attention away from criticism of the federal government and regulator, who had so clearly been captured by the industry.
- dundarious 2y agoThis is a continuation of a trend for BP, nothing new. They started this bounce back to carbon fuels a few years ago. This is just a continuation of an existing trend that was already announced in public statements. It also has nothing much to do with recent electoral results. Given the choices at the ballot box in the US, there was no way to alter this -- better choices were not on offer. Neither candidate would have led the charge to do the necessary coordinating efforts to get the investments needed.
- huijzer 2y agoSimilar with Shell indeed. From what I’ve heard, Shell electric car chargers are very unreliable. I think it’s a bit like Kodak. They know solar is going to eat (a part) of their lunch, but if they invest in solar then the oil revenue goes down even faster. So they don’t.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago> Given the choices at the ballot box in the US, there was no way to alter this The choice between the president who invested hundreds of billions in green energy, or "drill, baby, drill"? There was a very clear choice.
- jmward01 2y agoThe false narrative that 'there wasn't a choice at the ballot box' needs to end. It is now abundantly clear that the two offerings in the US election were vastly different. Your vote matters and the candidates matter.
- dundarious 2y agoBiden was in favor of greatly expanded drilling. Harris barely articulated her positions, but it's best to assume she would be a continuation.
- mrguyorama 2y agoOh really because if you ask republicans at any point before November 5th they would absolutely assure you that ~~~Biden's~~~Harris's plan was to make it illegal to touch or extract oil, and that we were all going to live in a new dark age.
- bamboozled 2y ago"Fuck the future, we're just livin' for today's...profits" Still installing solar on all the buildings I own.
- lifeinthevoid 2y agoYip, I've also installed a heat pump and solar in my house, insulated well, removed my gas connection, etc. Not the most economically viable decision I guess, but it felt like the right thing to do.
- bamboozled 2y agoSame here, heat pump and massive DIY cellulose fiber insulation job. Gas has been disconnected. We quite comfortably sit in our house in our underwear with a very modest electricity bill. We're lucky because we have a stream near our heat pump unit which apparently feeds off the water vapor. Luckily it doesn't get quite cold enough here for the stream to freeze.
- coffeebeqn 2y agoA heat pump should be the cheapest single family house option in the long run though. I had gas heating for a while and that certainly adds up in the winter
- femto 2y agoThis makes perfect economic sense, without any environmental arguments. Rooftop solar now produces 11.2% of the electricity in the Australian market [1], as it's the cheapest source of electricity. That percentage is not a peak value, but averaged across the year. On some summer days, rooftop solar is effectively powering the entire grid and is having to be throttled. That 11.2% only includes the power that enters the market. It does not include power which houses generate and consume on-site, which does not pass through the meter, so the actual percentage is higher. [1] https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/australia-solar-2024-mb3086/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/australia-solar-2024-mb3...
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- webprofusion 2y agoThis is why being a discerning consumer matters on a global level, eventually. Vote with your wallet and take the financial hit if you have to. Your choices today will matter tomorrow, even if it only matters to your kids. If we all take the easiest path it will also be the slippery slope to the bottom.
- CalRobert 2y agoAlso worth trying to steer your career towards something meaningful. I get at least some satisfaction that I spend my days trying to make heat pumps better and cheaper
- IrishTechie 2y agoBill Gates calls it the ‘green premium’ which I thought was a good way of highlighting that a green option is often there for those able and willing to afford it.
- lynx97 2y agoIt's easy to demand this if you have enough resources/money to spare. Given that the wealth gap widens from year to year, this strategy does not work in the long run. People simply don't have that money to spare. The same issue already exists regarding cheap mass produced food. You only hear privileged people talking about more expensive choices, because they can. The bigger part of population buys the cheap food, because they have no other way to feed their family...
- jmward01 2y agoYour arguments are that it doesn't work in the short term, not in the long term. If you don't do this now then what is a choice of convenience eventually does turn into a choice of necessity. Wherever possible resist with your wallet. Resist with your words. Resist with your choices. Don't find ways to argue that you can't do something, find ways to do as much as you can.
- lynx97 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWhat climate change?