Paris Climate Accord In Shambles; Countries Ignore Promises In Favor of Coal

[klnOmega]

http://business.financialpost.com/o...da-standing-with-paris-as-everyone-else-bails

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the newest poster boy for the worldwide global warming crusade, and justifiably so. No nation’s leader more cares for the planet, judged by the climate metric, than Canada’s own.

It is becoming a lonely battle, however. Unlike Trudeau, whose signature on the Paris climate agreement meant something — he has been nothing if not diligent in imposing climate action on provincial premiers — most signatories are ignoring, if not altogether abandoning Paris commitments, undoubtedly because voters in large part put no stock in scary global warming scenarios.

This week it was Australia’s turn to desert the cause, when it rejected its Clean Energy Target (CET), a much-anticipated 200-page-plus proposal that would have forced electricity utilities to rely on renewables and other low-emission sources for a substantial percentage of their production, all in aid of meeting the country’s Paris commitment to dramatically cut carbon use by 2030.

CET proponents argued that renewables have become competitive in cost and are reliable, a claim greeted with guffaws. Australia’s confidence in climate gurus took a hit when South Australia, a state 40-per-cent larger than Texas that went on a renewables building binge, suffered a series of six major blackouts, including one last September that blacked out the entire state. Unlike coal and gas, which can be called upon when needed to meet varying demand, wind and solar power breed vulnerability because they can’t be dispatched — they produce if and when the wind blows and the sun shines.

Ironically, in rejecting the Clean Energy Target, the Australian government accepted the proponents’ claim that renewables have become competitive in the free market — it is thus eliminating by 2020 the subsidies renewables have been receiving, as well as eliminating the requirement that utilities rely on renewables. Instead, to prevent more of the blackouts that have shaken the country, the government adopted a National Energy Guarantee that requires power companies to rely mostly on “dispatchable” sources such as coal and gas.

The government is “hell-bent on destroying renewable energy,” charged Australia’s Labor opposition party. It’s a “complete victory for the coal industry,” fumed South Australia’s Labor premier. And, of course, they’re right, notwithstanding the lip service the government pays to meeting its 2030 Paris carbon-emissions goal. With renewables boasting ever-lower costs, MPs argue with a straight face, the government would be prudent to wait until 2025 or later to address Paris, when renewables presumably will be irresistibly inexpensive. The renewables industry, based on government projections, estimates the government’s approach could result in “virtually no new wind and solar projects in the country between 2020 and 2030.”

The climate-change cause took a second blow this week with national elections in Austria, which saw two conservative parties with no interest in climate change — it wasn’t even an election issue — come in first and second, making them likely to form a pro-carbon coalition government. And a third blow came in neighbouring Germany, where a leak revealed the environment ministry was hopelessly behind in meeting its carbon targets, and fearing a “significant blow to Germany’s climate policy” and “a disaster for Germany’s international reputation as a climate leader.” Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party took a drubbing in national elections, in good part because her “Energiewende” (energy transition) policies had doubled electricity prices. Merkel may now be unable to form a government without the support of the libertarian Free Democratic Party, which demands an end to renewables subsidies.

While Trudeau’s Canada is shunning coal to live up to Paris, the rest of the world is embracing it: for every coal plant retired in 2015 and 2016, five others are being built. Three-dozen countries that were applauded in Paris for taking the anti-carbon pledge are now upping their construction of coal plants. While growth in renewables development tumbles, coal soars, with capacity slated to increase by 43 per cent.

Trudeau now stands almost alone in sincere support of Paris. The populist backlash — a revulsion at top-down governments laden with jet-setting politicians landing in posh places to preach restraint to the masses — has swept America with Trump’s election, Great Britain with Brexit, much of Europe, and Australia. In the process, global warming enthusiasts are being swept out. Canada is an outlier, to date immune to this populist wave. To date, oblivious to the lessons learned elsewhere.

Cliffs:
-Big renewable energy bill in Australia, designed to ensure Australia met Paris Climate Accord targets, fell apart after a series of blackouts. Bill has been replaced with the National Energy Guarantee, which transitions energy companies to relying primarily on coal and gas.
-Austrian national elections are lead by two conservative parties like to form a pro-Carbon coalition.
-Germany is falling drastically short of its Paris Climate Accord targets, and Merkle's energy policies, which have doubled the cost of energy in Germany, are overwhelming disfavored by voters
-"for every coal plant retired in 2015 and 2016, five others are being built."
-"Three-dozen countries that were applauded in Paris for taking the anti-carbon pledge are now upping their construction of coal plants. While growth in renewables development tumbles, coal soars, with capacity slated to increase by 43 per cent."


What was all that talk about the US no longer being a world leader after pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord? Because it sure as hell seems like Trump is leading the way, and everyone else is following.

 

[mb23100]

Only a moron would be happy about this

 

[Rod1]

Only a moron would be happy about this

Or a partisan hack.

 

[bobgeese]

I'm shocked...


It's almost like it was a bunch of countries looking for handouts.

 

[Pwent]

I'm shocked...


It's almost like it was a bunch of countries looking for handouts.

^this

the accords were a joke and a way to ask for money under the guise of fixing climate change. they cost us WAY too much money for the effect that theyre """hoping""" to achieve

if you want to fight climate change, the money would be better spent elsewhere

 

[TheStruggle]

So does this mean everyone is going to die now?

 

[klnOmega]

Only a moron would be happy about this

You were wrong, deal with it. Trump's criticism of the Accord was exactly this--there is nothing that forces countries to meet their targets. Its exactly what he said would happen...everyone would sign up, pat themselves on the back, ask the US to cut them all checks, and then return home and ignore all their promises.

 

[mb23100]

You were wrong, deal with it. Trump's criticism of the Accord was exactly this--there is nothing that forces countries to meet their targets. Its exactly what he said would happen...everyone would sign up, pat themselves on the back, ask the US to cut them all checks, and then return home and ignore all their promises.

I never said it wasnt. It would have been nice had they kept their promises and reduced carbon emissions though

 

[klnOmega]

I never said it wasnt. It would have been nice had they kept their promises and reduced carbon emissions though

At what cost are they expected to meet them? Australia is dealing with major blackouts. Germany's energy costs are skyrocketing. Do you really want to world to pay out the ass and live in the dark to force a technology that isn't there yet?

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

Currently, all human life is sustained by the conversion of fuel to energy.

If the environmentalists get their way, and massive disruptions to our energy output are achieved, millions of people will die.

Areas will not receive the economic development they would have otherwise received, medicines that would have otherwise been manufactured and delivered would never be created, food will not be created that would have otherwise been created. That's a lot to ask people to sacrifice for a theory that has no definitive evidence, or even a standard of falsifiability.

 

[Pwent]

http://business.financialpost.com/o...da-standing-with-paris-as-everyone-else-bails



Cliffs:
-Big renewable energy bill in Australia, designed to ensure Australia met Paris Climate Accord targets, fell apart after a series of blackouts. Bill has been replaced with the National Energy Guarantee, which transitions energy companies to relying primarily on coal and gas.
-Austrian national elections are lead by two conservative parties like to form a pro-Carbon coalition.
-Germany is falling drastically short of its Paris Climate Accord targets, and Merkle's energy policies, which have doubled the cost of energy in Germany, are overwhelming disfavored by votes
-"for every coal plant retired in 2015 and 2016, five others are being built."
-"Three-dozen countries that were applauded in Paris for taking the anti-carbon pledge are now upping their construction of coal plants. While growth in renewables development tumbles, coal soars, with capacity slated to increase by 43 per cent."


What was all that talk about the US no longer being a world leader after pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord? Because it sure as hell seems like Trump is leading the way, and everyone else is following.

>Germany is falling drastically short of its Paris Climate Accord targets, and Merkle's energy policies, which have doubled the cost of energy in Germany, are overwhelming disfavored by votes

means this is 100% true
|
V

You were wrong, deal with it. Trump's criticism of the Accord was exactly this--there is nothing that forces countries to meet their targets. Its exactly what he said would happen...everyone would sign up, pat themselves on the back, ask the US to cut them all checks, and then return home and ignore all their promises.

if it wouldnt make me vomit, i would pull up all those articles/posts/threads about how germany/Merkel was going to be the new leader of the modern world because Trump was pulling out of the accord. I can't understand the amount of liberal who lie about Germany/Europe so that they can hold the US to a standard that doesnt exist

I remember this one though because the wording is lol
The story of "Climate Chancellor" Angela Merkel
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/making-climate-chancellor-angela-merkel

 

[Pwent]

So does this mean everyone is going to die now?

it means that australians and austrians hate polar bears and want them to drown or something

 

[Fawlty]

How to be a Trumpfer #235:

Big up the fuck out of every Pyrrhic victory

 

[xcvbn]

How the fuck is Canada gonna be the authority on climate change when they're the 5th largest exporter of oil?

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Only a moron would be happy about this

Or a partisan hack.

Maybe true. I also think only a moron or a partisan hack could think it was a good treaty in the first place. So there's something here for everyone.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

Hard for Trudy to take the spotlight when he's pushing fracking this hard.

 

[TheStruggle]

How to be a Trumpfer #235:

Big up the fuck out of every Pyrrhic victory

But are we all going to die tho?

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

How to be a Trumpfer #235:

Big up the fuck out of every Pyrrhic victory

Lol. I've seen that. How exactly is this particular situation a pyrhhic victory though?

 

[Fawlty]

Lol. I've seen that. How exactly is this particular situation a pyrhhic victory though?

Well, it wouldn't appear to be one if you think international cooperation in moving toward renewables & lowering carbon emissions is a bad idea.

 

[Rod1]

Maybe true. I also think only a moron or a partisan hack could think it was a good treaty in the first place. So there's something here for everyone.

It wasnt a treaty.