Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
At Oil Change International, Hannah McKinnon writes—“Grand Coalitions” with Big Oil and Gas Won’t Solve the Climate Crisis:
Over the course of the last year and a half, we have been pushing the International Energy Agency (IEA) to stop giving cover to the oil and gas industry and model a fossil fuel phase-out that’s fully in line with our climate goals. As the world’s foremost energy modeller, their scenarios – most notably those in the annual flagship World Energy Outlook (WEO) – shape countless political and financial energy decisions each year.
In response to mounting criticism for its climate shortfalls, the IEA, lead by Dr. Fatih Birol, have clearly identified their solution to these critiques: a public relations effort that bears a striking resemblance to the spin coming from the oil and gas industry itself. This post takes a closer look at the IEA’s new spin, and why it’s a dangerous distraction from real solutions.
Governments lean on IEA scenarios to justify approvals for major new fossil fuel infrastructure. The fossil fuel industry points to them to insist that their oil, gas, or coal will indeed be “in high demand” for decades to come. And investors use them to validate the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into new fossil fuel development annually.
So it is a very big problem that the scenario that the IEA chooses to feature in the WEO is one that tracks towards 3°C of warming and their climate scenario veers off course from meeting the Paris Agreement goals. It doesn’t hit net zero until 2070, 20 years too late according to the best science.
In 2019, for the first time, the IEA’s public release of the World Energy Outlook was met with serious scrutiny in the press. In fact, almost all mainstream media questioned the IEA on climate, and an ever-growing group of experts, academics, investors, influencers, and diplomats called the IEA out for the second time in a year for failing to step up on climate:
“We urge you to do better. We fully understand that the IEA does not intend to define policy or investment decisions, but the fact is that the WEO is the globally authoritative publication on energy and energy infrastructure and it is used to inform significant investment and political decisions worldwide. As the WEO can become a self fulfilling prophecy, it carries a major responsibility that goes way beyond that of other publications that are merely descriptive. The IEA cannot be derelict of this responsibility.”
– Excerpt from letter to Dr. Birol from energy experts and influencers. [...]
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education.”
~~Bob Black, The Abolition of Work & Other Essays, (1986)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2006—Why We Can't Wait... And Why We Must:
Historically, Americans are reluctant to say going to war was a mistake. At no time during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 did a majority of Americans express that view. U.S. troops had been in Vietnam for more than three years before a thin majority said in 1968 that the war was a mistake. The figure peaked at 61% in 1971, the year President Nixon began to pull out U.S. troops in large numbers and turn over combat operations to the South Vietnamese. The last U.S. combat troops left in 1973. After the Vietnam War was long over, the number of Americans considering it a mistake climbed to a high of 71% in 1990.
The fact that the American public has doubts about the war now in such a short period of time is remarkable... (Internets, si... Wurlitzer, no) but that doesn't mean (as in the election of 2004) that the public is ready to withdraw. It will happen. I think Iraq is already lost and the endpoint is inevitable. But 2006 may well be a very realistic timetable.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: It’s the last day of opening arguments. How will Republicans fill their time? Joan McCarter joins us in speculating. And in caucus bashing! Can the Chief Justice call witnesses? How to distinguish Trump's politics/policy mix from legal ones, past or future.