Dec 10, 2020 03:30 AM
Climate change: Have countries kept their promises? (data)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55222890
EXCERPTS: Agreed by 196 parties in the French capital in December 2015, the Paris climate deal aims to keep the rise in global temperatures this century "well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C." Every one of the signatories has had to lodge a climate action plan with the UN to spell out what steps they are taking to curb carbon. Overall, according to a new assessment from global consultancy Systemiq, low-carbon solutions have been more successful in this period than many people realise. The growth in coal for energy outside of China has declined significantly.
"We have to translate what we can do into what we will do," said Lord Nicholas Stern, from the London School of Economics (LSE). "But a big part of that is understanding what is happening and that's why I think this report is important. It will change people's perspectives of what is possible and translate that into action."
So the big picture might be improving, but what about individual nations? Just ahead of the five year anniversary of the deal, we look at how five key countries have lived up to their promises under the pact.
The UK. As well as being the world's fifth largest economy, the UK is the incoming president of the Conference of the Parties or COP, the main UN climate negotiating forum, which will take place in Glasgow in November 2021. [...See the 2nd article below...] Has the UK lived up to its promises? The answer to this is mostly yes...
Australia. Australia matters because not only is it one of the biggest sources of fossil fuels, it is also a country highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The country is now the world's largest exporter of coal and gas, according to a recent study. [...] Has Australia lived up to its promises? While it is set to hit a rather low 2020 target set under a previous global agreement, its actions under the Paris climate agreement are not measuring up, according to experts...
The EU. The EU represents about a fifth of the world's economy - and was responsible for around 9% of the global share of CO2 emissions in 2019, the third largest emitter. Climate change is seen as a key issue for Europe, because it's an international problem where acting together makes sense to many citizens. [...] Has the EU lived up to its targets? Again, the answer is mostly yes...
China. China is key to solving the global problem with climate change, because it is the world's biggest contributor to the root cause, CO2 emissions. As China's economy rapidly expanded over the past two decades, using coal as their main energy source, their emissions have overtaken the US and now comprise around 28% of the global CO2 output. [...] Has China lived up to its promises? Again the answer is mostly yes, but with some caveats...
The Philippines. The Philippines is one of the countries suffering the most from the impacts of climate change. Like many other developing economies, the country is very keen to use energy to bring people out of poverty and raise living standards. [...] Has the Philippines lived up to its promises? Up until the Paris Agreement, the Philippines had not had any international requirements to curb its carbon. But in the Paris pact, it committed to cut its emissions by 70% below "business as usual" by 2030. According to the Climate Action Tracker analysis, its actions to date are compatible with keeping warming well below 2C this century... (MORE - details)
(UK) The heat-pump revolution: extracting power from the people (behind the data)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/10...he-people/
EXCERPTS: . . . There are broadly two sorts of heat pumps: ground-source (GSHPs) and air-source (ASHPs). Both extract heat from outside homes - by boring into the earth, which gets warmer the deeper one goes, or by pulling heat from the air, which works even in freezing winters. Both are powered by a modest amount of electricity. But, apart from the fossil fuels partly bound up with the electricity generation, both also eliminate the CO2 that conventional gas boilers emit. And, given the right kind of home insulation, some types of heat pumps are, in principle, cheaper to run than boilers.
So, why haven’t consumers been making the switch? The cons are considerable. They are hugely costly to set up [...] At the moment there are very few engineers trained to perform the tricky installation. In fact, 90 per cent of UK heating-systems engineers cannot even properly put in and start modern condensing gas boilers, despite the fact that they have been mandatory for 15 years. There will have to be a huge uptick in training if we are to come anywhere near the CCC’s targets for heat-pump installations.
The ground-source pumps are a non-starter for most consumers as you would really need to own your own land to have one installed. For the air-source pumps, which are aimed at the retrofitting market, the running costs are actually higher than regular boilers. And compared with GSHPs, ASHPs are not nearly as durable or easy to maintain... Of course, current costs aren’t everything. New technologies tend to fall in cost over the years ... But the CCC’s new report forecasts only a snail’s-paced 30 per cent reduction in the cost of heat pumps over the next 30 years.
[...] The CCC insists that homeowners must ‘shift towards positive long-term behaviours’. It believes that a ‘lack of public awareness and support for low-carbon heating is arguably the single greatest consumer barrier to achieving Net Zero’. In other words, the problem with heat pumps isn’t their costs, but the ignorance of the plebs.
Indeed, apart from greenish homes that are off Britain’s gas grid, in June the CCC said social housing, where people tend to be poorer, should be prioritised for heat-pump installation. And, in the usual sinister, vague but high-handed style, it called for ‘enabling measures’ to ‘strengthen monitoring and compliance’ of these residents. The chances are that government and local authorities will be watching us more than ever.
Many critics of HMG’s heat-pump plans say they are unachievable - which is true. But achievability isn’t really the point of the CCC’s diktat. Chris Sharp, the CCC’s CEO [...] made clear that the CCC’s proposals are about ‘political posturing’ - ‘and there’s nothing wrong with that’, he added. The main political purpose Sharp was talking about was Britain’s need to impress other governments, particularly at next November’s international jet-in for greens, the United Nations’ Conference Of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow.
British governments have indulged heat pumps, as an example of the ‘micro-generation’ of energy, since the mid 2000s. And the CCC’s targets for pumps are just as pie-in-the-sky as the ones produced under New Labour.
What has changed is the political climate. When the New Labour government stupidly backed heat pumps back in 2006, it gave its report, Our Energy Challenge, the feelgood subtitle ‘Power from the people’. But when you look at the CCC’s most recent report, it continually references the wishes of the UK’s undemocratic ‘Climate Assembly’. More importantly, it insists that the greatest challenges for Net Zero are not finding new energy technologies, but changing ‘individual behaviours’. Green technocrats are indeed all about taking ‘power from the people’. (MORE - details)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55222890
EXCERPTS: Agreed by 196 parties in the French capital in December 2015, the Paris climate deal aims to keep the rise in global temperatures this century "well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C." Every one of the signatories has had to lodge a climate action plan with the UN to spell out what steps they are taking to curb carbon. Overall, according to a new assessment from global consultancy Systemiq, low-carbon solutions have been more successful in this period than many people realise. The growth in coal for energy outside of China has declined significantly.
"We have to translate what we can do into what we will do," said Lord Nicholas Stern, from the London School of Economics (LSE). "But a big part of that is understanding what is happening and that's why I think this report is important. It will change people's perspectives of what is possible and translate that into action."
So the big picture might be improving, but what about individual nations? Just ahead of the five year anniversary of the deal, we look at how five key countries have lived up to their promises under the pact.
The UK. As well as being the world's fifth largest economy, the UK is the incoming president of the Conference of the Parties or COP, the main UN climate negotiating forum, which will take place in Glasgow in November 2021. [...See the 2nd article below...] Has the UK lived up to its promises? The answer to this is mostly yes...
Australia. Australia matters because not only is it one of the biggest sources of fossil fuels, it is also a country highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The country is now the world's largest exporter of coal and gas, according to a recent study. [...] Has Australia lived up to its promises? While it is set to hit a rather low 2020 target set under a previous global agreement, its actions under the Paris climate agreement are not measuring up, according to experts...
The EU. The EU represents about a fifth of the world's economy - and was responsible for around 9% of the global share of CO2 emissions in 2019, the third largest emitter. Climate change is seen as a key issue for Europe, because it's an international problem where acting together makes sense to many citizens. [...] Has the EU lived up to its targets? Again, the answer is mostly yes...
China. China is key to solving the global problem with climate change, because it is the world's biggest contributor to the root cause, CO2 emissions. As China's economy rapidly expanded over the past two decades, using coal as their main energy source, their emissions have overtaken the US and now comprise around 28% of the global CO2 output. [...] Has China lived up to its promises? Again the answer is mostly yes, but with some caveats...
The Philippines. The Philippines is one of the countries suffering the most from the impacts of climate change. Like many other developing economies, the country is very keen to use energy to bring people out of poverty and raise living standards. [...] Has the Philippines lived up to its promises? Up until the Paris Agreement, the Philippines had not had any international requirements to curb its carbon. But in the Paris pact, it committed to cut its emissions by 70% below "business as usual" by 2030. According to the Climate Action Tracker analysis, its actions to date are compatible with keeping warming well below 2C this century... (MORE - details)
(UK) The heat-pump revolution: extracting power from the people (behind the data)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/10...he-people/
EXCERPTS: . . . There are broadly two sorts of heat pumps: ground-source (GSHPs) and air-source (ASHPs). Both extract heat from outside homes - by boring into the earth, which gets warmer the deeper one goes, or by pulling heat from the air, which works even in freezing winters. Both are powered by a modest amount of electricity. But, apart from the fossil fuels partly bound up with the electricity generation, both also eliminate the CO2 that conventional gas boilers emit. And, given the right kind of home insulation, some types of heat pumps are, in principle, cheaper to run than boilers.
So, why haven’t consumers been making the switch? The cons are considerable. They are hugely costly to set up [...] At the moment there are very few engineers trained to perform the tricky installation. In fact, 90 per cent of UK heating-systems engineers cannot even properly put in and start modern condensing gas boilers, despite the fact that they have been mandatory for 15 years. There will have to be a huge uptick in training if we are to come anywhere near the CCC’s targets for heat-pump installations.
The ground-source pumps are a non-starter for most consumers as you would really need to own your own land to have one installed. For the air-source pumps, which are aimed at the retrofitting market, the running costs are actually higher than regular boilers. And compared with GSHPs, ASHPs are not nearly as durable or easy to maintain... Of course, current costs aren’t everything. New technologies tend to fall in cost over the years ... But the CCC’s new report forecasts only a snail’s-paced 30 per cent reduction in the cost of heat pumps over the next 30 years.
[...] The CCC insists that homeowners must ‘shift towards positive long-term behaviours’. It believes that a ‘lack of public awareness and support for low-carbon heating is arguably the single greatest consumer barrier to achieving Net Zero’. In other words, the problem with heat pumps isn’t their costs, but the ignorance of the plebs.
Indeed, apart from greenish homes that are off Britain’s gas grid, in June the CCC said social housing, where people tend to be poorer, should be prioritised for heat-pump installation. And, in the usual sinister, vague but high-handed style, it called for ‘enabling measures’ to ‘strengthen monitoring and compliance’ of these residents. The chances are that government and local authorities will be watching us more than ever.
Many critics of HMG’s heat-pump plans say they are unachievable - which is true. But achievability isn’t really the point of the CCC’s diktat. Chris Sharp, the CCC’s CEO [...] made clear that the CCC’s proposals are about ‘political posturing’ - ‘and there’s nothing wrong with that’, he added. The main political purpose Sharp was talking about was Britain’s need to impress other governments, particularly at next November’s international jet-in for greens, the United Nations’ Conference Of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow.
British governments have indulged heat pumps, as an example of the ‘micro-generation’ of energy, since the mid 2000s. And the CCC’s targets for pumps are just as pie-in-the-sky as the ones produced under New Labour.
What has changed is the political climate. When the New Labour government stupidly backed heat pumps back in 2006, it gave its report, Our Energy Challenge, the feelgood subtitle ‘Power from the people’. But when you look at the CCC’s most recent report, it continually references the wishes of the UK’s undemocratic ‘Climate Assembly’. More importantly, it insists that the greatest challenges for Net Zero are not finding new energy technologies, but changing ‘individual behaviours’. Green technocrats are indeed all about taking ‘power from the people’. (MORE - details)