Ed note: As COP28 wound down, the African Energy Chamber issued this communication.
“African producers have not and will not agree to phasing out fossil fuels. Unlike the rest of the developed world, the continent has not yet had the chance to transform its economies through oil and gas. In order to develop, grow and address concerns such as energy poverty and industrialization, oil and gas will need to remain central for years to come.”
Oil and gas will play an instrumental role in Africa’s economy for decades to come, and as such, African producers will not agree to any phase-out of these resources.
Despite the fact that over 600 million people are still without access to electricity and over 900 million people lack access to clean cooking in Africa, the continent’s COP 28 negotiators are caving into pressure from the West, stating that Africa is open to a phase-out approach regarding fossil fuels.…
“Today the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin. We are still reluctant to believe that our worst nightmares of a global ecological collapse could come true; much depends on how quickly we can recognize the danger. [- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (1992)]
“Every night on the TV news is like taking a nature hike through the Book of Revelation,” Al Gore told the New York Times last year. The Times reporter noted: “The past few weeks have him even more worried than usual.” Really?
Gore’s rhetoric today is toned toward hope that new technology will save the day. “We know how to fix this,” Gore told the Times:
…We can stop the temperatures going up worldwide with as little as a three-year time lag by reaching net zero.
The saturation effect, the nonlinear, logarithmic relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing and increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), is an important scientific point for the climate debate. Diminishing returns is not as well known as it should be because of a media blackout on its negative implications for CO2 mitigation (reduction) efforts.
The log relationship means that the warming from a doubling of CO2 is not repeated at a tripling but at a quadrupling. This diminishes the fear of future increases that are in severe diminishing returns. This is an optimistic point to not sweat CO2 buildup this century or even next. And if global greening is applauded, the opposite of worry is reasonable.
An Example
I asked Randal Utech to do the math on the diminishment of CO2 forcing today (420 parts per million) versus in the late 1980s (at 350 ppm) when the climate debate took off.…