[ "If all these plans materialize, they will either end up as
massive stranded assets or theyll lock the world into irreversible
warming."]
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RESPONSE TO GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS SO FAR? A PLANET-WRECKING FOSSIL
FUEL ‘GOLD RUSH’: ANALYSIS
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Kenny Stancil
June 8, 2022
Common Dreams
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_ "If all these plans materialize, they will either end up as massive
stranded assets or they'll lock the world into irreversible warming."
_
A tanker carrying shale gas from Houston, Texas arrives in North
Queensferry, Scotland on March 19, 2020. , (Photo: Ken Jack/Getty
Images)
PROGRESSIVES HAVE BEEN URGING governments to embark on an
accelerated global clean energy transition
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Russia's late-February invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing Western
sanctions unleashed chaos in energy markets around the world, but
policymakers have opted instead to expand fossil fuel infrastructure
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That's according to researchers from Climate Action Tracker, which
released a new report
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warning that this reaction threatens to lock in decades of
heat-trapping emissions at a time when the window to slash greenhouse
gas pollution and avert the most catastrophic effects of the climate
crisis is rapidly closing
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"So far, governments have largely failed to seize their chance to
rearrange their energy supplies away from fossil fuels," states the
report. "Instead, we are witnessing a global 'gold rush' for new
fossil gas production, pipelines, and liquefied natural gas (LNG)
facilities. This risks locking us into another high-carbon decade and
keeping the Paris agreement's 1.5°C limit out of reach."
Key findings of the analysis include:
* New planned LNG import facilities in the European
Union—especially in Germany, Italy, Greece, and the
Netherlands—could supply a quarter more gas to the E.U. than before;
* Canada plans to fast-track new LNG projects to increase exports;
* The United States has signed a deal to export additional LNG to
the E.U. Qatar and Egypt have signed similar deals with Germany
and Italy, respectively. Algeria has signed a deal to export
additional gas via pipeline to Italy;
* In Africa, old gas pipeline projects are being revived
(e.g. Nigeria) and countries with previously no fossil gas exports
(e.g. Senegal) are now encouraged to supply gas to Europe; and
* Domestic fossil fuel production has increased in the U.S.,
Canada, Norway, Italy, and Japan, and new long-term import contracts
are closed or extended in the United Kingdom, E.U., Germany, Poland,
and Italy.
"If all these plans materialize," the report warns, "they will either
end up as massive stranded assets or they'll lock the world into
irreversible warming."
Climate Action Tracker shared a graphic detailing what governments
should and shouldn't do in response to the global energy crisis.
The recommended measures include halting the expansion of fracked gas
infrastructure; discouraging domestic fossil fuel production; ramping
up renewable energy supplies, including by reinvesting revenue raised
through taxes on Big Oil's windfall profits; eliminating fossil fuel
subsidies and raising the price of carbon once oil and gas prices
fall; and incentivizing energy efficiency and electrification.
[Climate Action Tracker - the do's and don'ts of energy crisis
response]
A handful of governments, including the E.U. and the U.K., have
proposed increasing their renewable energy targets, but these plans
remain inadequate, the report says.
"Almost no government supports behavioral change," the report laments.
"Immediate and low-cost options to reduce energy demand and therefore
the need for Russian fossil fuels would include shifts in behavior,
such as encouraging slower driving by introducing/lowering speed
limits, home office policies, restricting car access to cities, or
turning down the heating in buildings."
"These options still seem to be very unattractive to governments," the
authors note. "We have only found governments recommending their
population to those behavioral shifts and few incentivizing it. So far
only New Zealand, [the] U.S. (California), Italy, Germany, and Ireland
have introduced new incentives for public transport."
In addition, "more emphasis on energy efficiency and electrification
[is] needed," says the report. "We find only a few countries putting
additional emphasis on energy efficiency and/or electrification as a
reaction to the current crisis. A push for heat pumps, electric cars,
[and] electrification in industry would be an adequate reaction, but
is currently underdeveloped."
Responding to the war in Ukraine by boosting the extraction and
international shipment of fossil fuels rather than replacing Russian
oil and gas supplies with green energy would represent a second missed
opportunity since 2020 to take decisive climate action while there's
still time to secure a livable future.
"After failing to focus on climate during Covid-19 recovery, many
governments look set to make the same mistake in the face of a global
energy shock," says the report. "Governments largely failed to make
decarbonization a focus in their post-pandemic economic recovery
packages, with only a small fraction of the billions spent dedicated
to accelerating the energy transition to bring down emissions."
"Instead, they missed a massive opportunity, spending the lion's share
of those packages on maintaining the status quo," the report adds.
"According to our analysis, governments are making the same mistake,
twice over."
_Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams._
* Global warming
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* Fossil Fuel
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* Energy crisis
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