COP28: We have a problem.
The headline: Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE oil executive leading COP28, says there is “no science” to support a phaseout of oil and gas.
From CNN, December 5:
Sultan Al Jaber, the oil executive who is leading the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, sent shockwaves through the gathering by claiming in the days before the UN-backed talks that there is “no science” that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to keep global warming under a critical threshold
From the New York Times, December 4:
Climate Summit Leader Tries to Calm Uproar Over a Remark on Fossil Fuels
Sultan Al Jaber, responsible for leading the world away from fossil fuels, had said there was “no science” to support a phaseout of oil and gas.
Axios, December 4:
COP28 president says there’s “no science” in fossil fuel phase-out calls
What he actually said, during a panel discussion, is just this: “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.”
Say that aloud. “There is no science out there—or no scenario out there—that says the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.” He added: “Please, help me, show me a road map for a phaseout of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”
António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, responded during the firestorm of criticism: “The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate. Phaseout. With a clear time frame aligned with 1.5 degrees.”
One man says the world can only avoid catastrophe if all fossil fuels are phased out by 2050. The other says he does not believe this can be done without giving up industrial civilization itself.
I think sane people would agree there are important questions here, and that a public discussion would be in everyone’s interests. Instead we get a public hue-and-cry. Apparently, this is what passes for journalism in the 21st century.
It seems there are quite a few people of progressive persuasion who cheer at the thought of the destruction of industrial civilization—at least the present civilization of developed countries. But I think we can agree that the developed world will not give that up without a fight. Not to mention that developing countries—with several times the population—will not willingly give up the race to acquire the same.
So the real question being raised is whether we have to choose between planetary disaster and civilizational suicide, or whether there is a better way off the horns of this dilemma.
The dilemma is real. The public discussion, not so much.
In reality, oil consumption in the high-income countries of the Western world has peaked and is declining—despite growing population and increasing GDP. And coal consumption has dropped by half since its peak in the early 2000s.
The situation with middle-income countries (which includes most of Asia) is the reverse. The total energy consumption from petroleum in these countries is growing strongly, and is now nearly that of high-income countries. But the energy consumed from burning coal in middle-income countries is even higher than from petroleum—and also growing strongly.
Added together, middle-income countries now consume much more energy from fossil fuels than do high income countries, and their consumption is growing as they become more and more wealthy.
This is not to point fingers, nor say who should be doing more. The point is to show the problem. The combined population of high-income countries amounts to around one and a quarter billion. The combined population of the middle-income countries is six billion, give or take, and it looks like their journey into fossil fuels is just beginning.
So Al Jaber has a point.
If the critics (apparently most progressives) think the answer is for the West to pay for the rest of the world to avoid fossil fuels, then they’re really not part of the discussion. Six billion people can not be carried on the productive capacity of one billion, not without the lives of everyone going to hell together.
I have no idea how this problem gets solved. But as they say, you can’t solve a problem until you admit you have one.
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