"City councils across the United States have fallen hook line and sinker for the climate scare.
To date, 163 American cities have declared “climate emergencies.”
As of last October, 130 U.S. cities, with a combined population of 55 million, had officially joined the Cities Race to Zero, a UN-backed campaign to push urban leaders to develop and achieve so-called “net-zero” emission targets.
In 2017, Austin, Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland all pledged to be net-zero by 2050.
Mayors seem particularly susceptible to climate panic.
For example, Climate Mayors is a network of more than 470 U.S. mayors, representing 48 states and 74 million Americans, who are committed to demonstrating “climate leadership.”
In October of last year, the C40 network of mayors, “collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis,” doubled down on net-zero targets.
Portland, Seattle and Washington DC, all members of C40, pledged to be net-zero by 2050.
San Francisco even said it will be net-zero by 2040.
The majors of Los Angeles, New York City, Newburyport, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica and Washington D.C., all C40 members, went so far as to sign a pledge to make all new buildings “net-zero carbon” by 2030, and all buildings, old or new, be net-zero by 2050.
And then there is the promise by the mayors of Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh and Seattle to “divest from fossil fuel companies and champion investments in the green economy.”
They don’t indicate a target date for such an impractical financial initiative.
None of this makes any sense, of course.
Even if humanity were causing a climate crisis, there is no chance American cities could make much of an impact.
After all, developing countries now emit over two-thirds of global GHG emissions.
China's emissions more than tripled over the previous three decades and they now emit more greenhouse gases than the combined total of the entire developed world.
Developing countries made it clear several years ago that their efforts to reduce emissions to meet ambitious targets are contingent on the provision of over $100 billion per year in funding by the wealthier countries.
To date, there is no agreement on the apportionment of the payment obligations or the recipients’ rights.
In July 2021, the developing countries updated their demands for additional funding to finance mitigation, adaptation and what they consider “compensation” for the past emissions of the developed countries.
Included in their demands was an additional $80 billion per year in climate aid from the United States.
The report from developing nations published in July 2021 increased their overall demand to at least $750 billion USD per year from developed countries in the post-2025 period.
For these reasons alone, meaningful agreements on significant further climate cooperation seems unlikely.
Furthermore, according to United Nations data, the global population will grow by more than two billion people between 2018 and 2050, and almost all of this growth will be in Asia and Africa.
Europe and North America, which had only 15% of the world’s population in 2018, will see that share shrink to 11% by 2050.
A 2017 report by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) offered excellent analysis of the likely patterns of economic growth by region and country to 2050.
Among other things, the report found that the world economy could more than double in size by 2050, far outstripping population growth, due to continued technology-driven productivity improvements.
Further, emerging markets (E7) could grow around twice as fast as advanced economies on average.
(The E7 countries are China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey.
The G7 countries are the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada.)
As a result, six of the seven largest economies in the world are projected to be emerging economies in 2050 led by China, India and Indonesia.
The United States could drop to third place in the GDP rankings, and the European Union share of world GDP could fall below 10% by 2050.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in its 2021 International Energy Outlook report, projected the trends in global energy supply, demand and emissions to 2050.
Its economic projections broadly coincided with those of PWC.
Overall, the 2021 EIA Outlook projected world energy consumption to rise about 50% between 2021 and 2050, due almost entirely to strong economic growth, increased access to marketed energy and rapid population growth in the non-OECD countries.
World energy-related “CO2 equivalent” (CO2e) emissions (excludes emission changes from land use changes and forestry) are projected to grow in the OECD countries by about 5% and in the non-OECD countries by 35% between 2019 and 2050.
In other words, the EIA projects global CO2e emissions to grow from about 35 billion tonnes in 2022 to 43 billion tonnes in 2050.
This is a long way from the “net-zero emissions” targets that America’s mayors are imposing on their citizens.
If such emissions reductions were feasible, and if all OECD countries attained net-zero but emissions growth continued in the non-OECD as now projected,
by 2050 global emissions would be about 29 billion tonnes per year, only 16% below the 34.2 billion tonnes of global emissions in 2019.
With its ever-declining shares of global population and income, “the west” will not be able to constrain the aspirations, the energy use or the emissions of the emerging economic and population giants.
EnergyNow.ca reports:
“As of January 2021 there were 201 coal plants under construction globally [70% of which are financed by China], including 92 in China, 30 in India and 24 in Indonesia, according to Global Energy Monitor.
That’s in addition to 345 coal-fired power plants in the pre-construction phase, including 135 in China.”
Fossil fuels will continue to dominate world energy demand and global emissions will continue to rise, no matter what America’s cities do.
To get an idea of the disaster that awaits them all if they even come close to reaching their net-zero targets, readers are invited to read “A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD,” the report just released by the International Climate Science Coalition – Canada.
This report presents the repercussions of the City of Ottawa’s $57.3 billion plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
In contrast to their overarching vision, as defined in the City’s Climate Change Master Plan, to transition “Ottawa to a clean, renewable and resilient city by 2050,”
its current plans would transform Ottawa into a polluted, fragile and bankrupt city suffering from regular dangerous blackouts and business failures.
Why would America’s mayors want to inflict equally damaging plans on their own citizens?"
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Thursday, February 3, 2022
American Cities’ Climate Sacrifices Are for Nothing
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