EU Will Do 'as Much as Possible' To Drive Out Fossil Fuels, Climate Chief Says (reuters.com) 71
The European Union will do all it can to halt fossil fuel use as part of its "ambitious" position at the upcoming COP28 climate summit despite some differences among EU countries, the bloc's new climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said on Monday. From a report: "Our ambition is indeed to do as much as possible, also in terms of driving out fossil fuels," Hoekstra told journalists after a meeting with Spain's acting Energy Minister Teresa Ribera. The European Union's own green agenda is facing growing political resistance from governments and lawmakers concerned about the cost of the proposals for voters. European Parliament elections will be held next year as citizens throughout the bloc are facing cost of living pressures. "Our goal will be one of ambition for the COP, from every single aspect: mitigation, adaptation, renewables," Hoekstra said, even though "if you zoom out and look at the 27 member states, you might see differences." Hoekstra declined to give details on the EU negotiating mandate for the COP28. "In our view there is no alternative to driving out fossil fuel asap," he said. "The saying is that it takes two to tango. In this case, it takes almost 200."
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A problem is still a problem, even when with a bunch of retarded climate cultists around it suggesting the stupidest things while being lapdogs of the megacorporations that are mostly causing the problem.
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Theres only one person that can fix this and my moneys on a slightly odd teenager from sweden
A blast from the past! (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to Europe's preindustrial past but with a postindustrial population. Everyone start learning how to be a subsistence farmer.
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I thought it was math that was racist [newsweek.com]?
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I work in the fossil fuel industry. This sort of thing doesn't really phase me. I actually agree that there will need to be an eventual phase out of oil and gas for fuel. We will still need oil and gas for materials and fertilizer (probably for centuries to come). But his phase down is going to need to happen over many decades because there is no practical way to replace all fossil fuel use in the immediate future.
I suspect that those complaining about ideology are more ideologically motivated than they rea
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The issue is that burning fossil fuels keeps them cheap. If all that consumption went away then just extracting them for other uses would get more expensive.
It's going to remain strategically important for a while yet.
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The issue is that burning fossil fuels keeps them cheap. If all that consumption went away then just extracting them for other uses would get more expensive.
That seems to be the opposite of supply and demand. Supply isn't going to be significantly reduced as demand comes down. Oil fields do eventually tap out but that process will also slow down as demand comes down. A glut of supply + reduced demand invariably equals lower prices.
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A lot of oil production in the U.S. over the last decade comes from short-cycle wells that produce the vast majority of their oil and gas in the first 12-18 months. In order to maintain production, companies have to constantly drill new wells. If drilling completely stopped tomorrow, there'd be a drastic reduction in U.S. production over the next couple years. U.S. production more than doubled from the early 2010s for now due to tight oil production (enabled by hydraulic fracking and lateral drilling).
Abroa
Oversupply and Demand [Re:Ideology unhinged] (Score:2)
Long story short, oil production is likely to follow demand downward.
Well, yes, by definition. Oil companies don't produce oil for the fun of it, they produce it to meet demand. Production won't exceed demand.
If demand dropped because we stopped burning it, the price of oil would plummet because we would have an incredible oversupply of production. 95 million barrels of oil per day-- what the world produces today--is a lot of oil. The wells most expensive to operate would stop producing, of course, leaving production to the lowest cost producers. But we would have such an o
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If we suddenly stopped burning oil overnight a huge drop in price would absolutely happen. In fact, even the demand drop caused by the COVID lockdowns (which was far from a complete cessation) caused oil prices to be negative. But this isn't necessarily the case in the more realistic scenario of a slow decline over a period of decades.
Yes, we have a million producing oil wells in the U.S., but the vast majority are what are known as "stripper" wells that produce nominal amounts of oil. For shale wells, you
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Yes, we have a million producing oil wells in the U.S., but the vast majority are what are known as "stripper" wells that produce nominal amounts of oil. For shale wells, you get 95% of the total well production in the first 5 years.
OK. So, if demand drops to 10%, you get 95 percent of total well production over the first 50 years.
...after which, you operate those wells that aren't the "stripper" wells that are so quickly depleted. Even if they're only a "vast minority" of the wells, a vast minority of a million wells is still a lot.
And, maybe in a hundred years or so you'll have to drill some new wells. But even then, with a much smaller demand, you can pick and choose the lowest-cost sites, not the ones where you have to use every tr
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They do. The media mostly just reports sound bytes because that gets views and clicks, but that doesn't mean serious conversations aren't happening.
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What you say makes sense, however, it seems a large part of the climate change folks (at least the loudest ones) are almost whipped up into almost a cult like fervor and don't want to listen to reason.
They seem to think that if you set the date in the next 5-12 years when no mor
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As I said earlier, the media likes to highlight the loudest and least reasonable voices. That drives outrage, which gets clicks/views. Very few people truly represent those opinions. Some of them aren't truly serious- they just feel like they need to bring attention to the problem.
Re: Ideology unhinged (Score:2)
Fossil fuels for what fertilizer? We need green hydrogen for ammonia production. (One of the few things we do need it for.) Phosphorous is an element. What other fertilizer is there?
EU tarriffs. (Score:3, Insightful)
If they are going to do "as much as possible", they shouldn't be trying to put tariffs on Chinese EVs and green tech like solar panels and windmills.
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And make a Nuremberg trial for Merkel's and Scholz' governments. Electricity from coals kills a Hitler's worth of people every 3 years worldwide with short-term airborne pollution alone, never mind that tiny detail of released carbon -- thus the decision to replace a zero-emission source of energy with the worst kind of coal is nothing less than an omnicide (a genocide kills based on ethnic/etc basis, this is an omnicide because it kills without respect even to species).
Re:EU tarriffs. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is absolutely no point in the West going any further to reduce emissions. Chinese and Indian emissions are increasing much faster than we can reduce ours, so we're basically punishing ourselves with ever more "ambitious" (costly/impractical) measures bringing increasingly marginal returns, so they can pollute like crazy.
I am not interested in having my life made worse for nothing, which appears to be the goal of these summits.
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Or, stop buying from China altogether since they and India are responsible for most of the emissions and don't care about reducing them.
They are responsible for most of the emissions but I'd like to know where you got "don't care about reducing them" from? I'm pretty far from an apologist for China, drill through my post history if you want, and Modi's India is nearly as bad, but fun fact, climate change is going to fuck both of those countries over far worse than it's going to fuck over the Western World. Self-interest more than anything else means they have ample incentive to care about reducing them.
What neither country is willing to
Re: EU tarriffs. (Score:2)
Tell me you don't know anything about the Paris Accord without telling me you don't know anything about the Paris Accord.
China and Indua are well under their caps unlike most of the rest of the world.
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Or, stop listening to idiots on the internet and notice that China is actually 5 years ahead of their Paris goal, which was considered ambitious at the time.
China seems to be the go-to excuse, despite it having been debunked a million times, including several thousand times right here on Slashdot.
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They seem to be focused on making EU and US citizens "eat ze bugs", while allowing China, and India to go full tilt with whatever environmental destruction they feel like, if it nets them any cash at all. It isn't the EU and US that is putting the hole in the ozone layer, it is China.
Simple thing. If a place will not comply with environmental standards, tack a tariff onto their stuff, so they don't enjoy a manufacturing advantage over countries which do have environmental controls in place.
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Mass scrapping campaign (Score:1)
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And UNmoderated it again. (Score:2)
intended as sarcasm I think, but I moderated this flamebait because ...
And then commented in the same discussion, which undoes all your current moderations in that discussion (as well as prevent more).
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Or electric bicycle.
Yes, we've built our cities where you're basically under house arrest [medium.com] if you can't drive, so we will have to retrofit [amazon.com] our cities to make them walkable again like they were before WWII. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways
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because everyone lives in a city, or even a town.
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And as a European I am worried about the cost to the tax payer... They have that part covered, you see. Higher prices and higher taxes for everyone, but with generous income supplements for the lowest incomes, where the middle class will have to lower t
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The article is about Europe, not a out the US of awesomeness...
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How do you purpose to execute this grand plan of yours in liberal democracies where you'll be voted out of office the moment you suggest it?
Does democracy have to go to stop climate change? Can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, eh?
tax carbon emmissions (Score:4, Funny)
Historically almost every successful environmental initiative has come from the free market side of the right. Why? Because the rich are more adaptive. They can change jobs, methods of production or even move. The poor are more sticky. The EU is attempting environmental change in a way that minimizes disruption, pushes the cost on everyone (although in the long run it will be the poor who pay), won't allow flexibility or innovation and will ultimately fail.
There are many ways we can reduce emissions today that will save us money but they save the wrong people money so we won't do them:
Give rich households the ability to pay the spot market price for electricity and they will change their habits to consume electricity when it is cheap. (you can't do this for the poor because if they choose to use electricity at peak prices the left won't allow them to be billed - we saw this in Texas)
Require high albedo roofing materials to be available - they last longer, reduce heat island effects and save on both heating and cooling costs. Currently I can't install them because they don't match my neighbourhood.
Get rid of almost all zoning regulations. I know they are a good idea in general but in most of the western world they have become NIMBY tools to the point of no regulation being better than what we have.
Outlaw rent controls - Rent control pretty much killed all new building of purpose built rental apartments in Canada. Rental apartments are important since they allow people to live in a much less carbon intensive lifestyle. They also give people geographic mobility and the chance to move to places with better paying jobs. (OK, this last one helps the poor but they won't support it)
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Two words.
Fuck That.
I had a real hard time reading the rest of the way through your post.....
I'm thinking steak for dinner now.
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Tax carbon emmissions and let the free market figure out what the best way to reduce carbon emissions is.
Are your breathing tax payments current, citizen? We're here to examine your mask to ensure that none of your exhalations escape without being measured, so you can be taxed appropriately to your CO2 production.
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Who is the "our"? (Score:3)
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All Wopke Hoekstra is doing is talking his way into the chair of Climate Chief, saying all the things the EU members want to hear.
In the Netherlands, he is not seen as reliable. There was this issue after the last elections, where the big parties claim to start a new style of government (without all the lies). Hoekstra was leader of the CDA, and sometime during the negotiations to form a government, there turned up a note saying "Omtzigt; position elsewhere". Omtzigt was a CDA politician as well, but a crit
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For the polls:
https://www.peilingennederland... [peilingennederland.nl]
Ther are 150 seats, NSC is polling at 25 or higher, CDA is polling around 5.
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Don't blame me...I voted for Kodos!!!
Re: Who is the "our"? (Score:2)
The problem in pseudo-democracies with tens of parties is that it doesnâ(TM)t matter who you voted for, Kodos will always ally themselves with some other minority votes in order to cobble together a government that is worse off than letting the majority vote rule and then they all point the finger at each other when the sh*t hits the fan. Politics in the EU is fractured way worse than the US, they just paper over it with unstable government.
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In the Netherlands, he is not seen as reliable.
Who is? I've not heard of any country consider any of their politicians to be reliable.
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Things won't go well if the position of the negotiator does not reflect the position of those upon whose behalf they are supposedly negotiating.
There's no such thing as unanimous in a democratic world. That doesn't mean he doesn't represent a majority opinion of those who matter, which he does, even if he proposes EU regulations which get knocked back by Poland, Hungary and Italy, he would still be representing a majority opinion in the EU.
Everything Except Nuclear (Score:2)
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Given that Hoekstra comes from the oil industry, I am afraid it is all words and no deeds. Whether you want solar, wind, hydro or nuclear.
suicide pact (Score:1)
EU = European Utopians.
Yet they'll use COAL in perpetuity! (Score:4, Insightful)
How does that work?
Bullshit (Score:2)
In perpetuity? [Citation required]. Coal consumption in Europe has been linearly trending down for over over 35 years now (and likely longer, it's hard to find consistent official figures beyond that). Even with the small spike up in 2022 coal consumption is 1/3rd of what it was 30 years ago and shows no sign what so ever of slowing. If anything reduction of coal has accelerated since 2018 and if it weren't for the war driven spike coal consumption would be dropping at its fastest pace on record.
There's lit
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Do you understand ENGLISH?
They were pushing all green energy.
Yet that didn't work, and they can't get enough NG to cover their shortfalls.
So, what do they do?
They turn to COAL to make up the shortfall.
Propaganda & FUD (Score:2)
Social democracy has utterly failed, as predicted. Democracies are too vulnerable to capitalists & they eventually weedle their way in & f**k everything up unt
Funny ? Shell + McKinsey ! (Score:2)
Heard that one before (Score:1)
Deeds, not words.
How is the EU's energy production? (Score:2)
I know Europe doesn't like nuclear, but is there enough alternative non-fossil fuel burning energy production to meet the increased demand of all the fossil fuel devices that would theoretically go electric?
load of BS. (Score:2)
Politicians are their own worst enemies. Sadly, they are nations and populations worst enemies as well.
EU is looking to level the pricing, while claiming that this is about emissions. They are doing this ALL WRONG. They need to make it simple for companies to administer which it is not. Likewise, it needs to push ALL nations/states/companies to clean up their emissions.
Prosecute acts of fraud by FF corporate heads. (Score:2)
It's possible to ban cars now (Score:2)
Contradictions (Score:2)