AEP Says Spending Trillions On Net Zero Will Make Us Better Off!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Patsy Lacey
AEP has totally lost the plot now!!
The International Energy Agency has switched sides. It has carpet-bombed the fossil incumbency that it once defended so doggedly.
The shibboleths of the last decade suddenly fall away. The economics of climate change turns upside down. The future headache becomes the risk of failed petro-states with collapsing revenue streams and an obsolete business model.
Slashing CO2 emissions and switching to renewable energy is not a ‘cost’ or a constraint on rising affluence: it lifts global GDP growth by 0.4pc a year over the course of this decade. World output is 4pc bigger in real terms by 2030.
That is the verdict of the IEA (with the IMF) in its encyclopedic roadmap on global energy on the way to a 1.5 degree world. Net zero by 2050 is the closest thing we have to catechism. The report is the bell that tolls for the fossil age. Not even natural gas escapes the cull.
“We have never seen anything like this before in the history of the IEA. There’s been a universal thumbs up from the climate community,” said Dave Jones from the anti-coal group Ember.
Net zero does not cost jobs: it replaces five million lost in oil, gas, and coal with eight times as many jobs for engineers, electrical experts, offshore operators, solar technicians, or lithium and rare earth miners, whether directly or indirectly.
His claim that the IEA has been a pawn of the fossil fuel industry is risible. It is actually a tool of governments, principally western ones, who are its members. For many years now, the IEA has been banging the drum for renewables, on the orders of those governments.
As for the idea that everybody will be better off without fossil fuels, maybe he would like telling that to householders who will soon have to fork out tens of thousands for heat pumps and insulation, see energy bills tripling and be forced to buy expensive electric cars that they may have difficulty charging up.
In his world, employing 40 million to replace the work of 5 million is sensible.
Meanwhile, the pragmatic governments of Asia will carry on ignoring the IEA.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Talk about refuting your own arguments! I cannot find words to describe how dumb AEP must be to declare that an 8-fold increase in energy jobs would go hand in hand with a decrease in costs.
If this is the level of critical thinking employed by our opinion formers, we have a long hard road ahead.
Just imagine how farming employment will rocket when they ban tractors. And not just on the farm. Think of all those little businesses in Sheffield’s east end making scythes.
From what I can see on my various news feeds and on good old youtube everthing on the farm will be done by ‘small robots’ (electric of course) so there will be plenty of time for scythe sharpening, unless that gets automated as well!
Do humans produce methane when they fart!!?
Well, it is most certainly flammable!
Mainly hydrogen, but some do.
It makes sense when you realise that those noble lithium and rare earth miners are actually poverty stricken kids.
In their preamble about the report, they state it was requested by the Chair of Cop 26, in other words, our government asked for it, knowing they can they can then quote it back to get the public to accept the destruction to come. “Listen to this expert International body confirming what we are telling you.”
Still can’t find Cloud Cuckoo Land on the world map.
When you do, you’ll find it has cities named Westminster and Washington DC but none called Beijing, Moscow or Riyadh.
Or even Berlin – Germany is rushing to phase out coal by 2038.
JF
What will determine the fate of fossil fuels will be the reaction of voters when the insane government net zero plans meet the harsh reality of heating your home, driving your car, lighting a fire and the cost of everything going up.
I think the backlash from the public, when it comes, might be pretty spectacular. Remember the fuel duty protests back at the end of the 1990s? Now imagine truck drives, car drivers, farmers and tractors together bringing the country to a halt by blocking roads, motorways and MPs driveways.
I am looking forward to the first knock on my door from the local police to try and arrest me for running my woodburner. And everyone else in my village.
TS: You are wrong – Joe Public doesn’t do unrest, his weapon is the ballot box. At present he is dis-armed, there is absolutely no one to vote for. Unless a new party emerges, which I am pessimistic about, this stuff is going to come to pass.
“Remember the fuel duty protests back at the end of the 1990s? Now imagine truck drives, car drivers, farmers and tractors together bringing the country to a halt by blocking roads, motorways and MPs driveways.”
I don’t need to imagine, I can remember ‘unrest’.
But not in the 1990s, it wasn’t much more than a couple of years ago, in Paris, and I wouldn’t bet that they won’t start again when lockdown is over.
And next year, an election year, will be interesting times.
“In his world, employing 40 million to replace the work of 5 million is sensible.”
Perhaps AEP thinks all those people will work for 1/8 of the salary?
The rare earth miners he mentions are likely child labour anyway, so perhaps that is where the cost saving comes from? Or transfer to third world countries. Not sure how many lithium or cobalt mines there are in the UK.
“Net zero does not cost jobs” No, it just self-evidently results in a huge (8-fold?) drop in productivity in the energy sector.
Well, all the mining, smelting, and manufacturing jobs will be in the developing countries rather than the West, and our salaries are indeed 8 or more times lower than in the developed world. Although, most of the oil and gas is also produced by developing countries, hence it being so cheap, so it’s unclear where the savings are to come from.
Regarding lithium extraction, there’s none in the UK, as far as I know. Although I think there was a proposal for a brine operation in Cornwall. Other European countries have reserves as well, and there’s active production in some countries like in Portugal or Finland.
And as for cobalt, higher demand will actually force artisanal mines to modernise (using Chinese investment probably), children digging ore by hand can’t possibly supply enough metal.
The man is certifiable!! His: ” ….in its (IEA) encyclop[a]edic roadmap on global energy on the way to a 1.5 degree world” is such a load of cobblers it beggars belief that he finds gainful employment (except with CCCs – climate change catastrophists in media).
Their roadmap is not ‘encyclop[a]edic’. (He couldn’t even spell that right) It’s more at the level of a scammer’s PR with a vested interest in selling you a bridge.
AEP may well have only been reporting the IEA’s findings but he did nothing to comment on them or critique them. The mark of a failed reporter.
Absolute Garbage of an article. I see the Telegraph has not allowed comments on this.
Not so, Harry. There are a lot of comments – about 95% think Ambrose a deluded idiot.
Does that mean that the DT is frightened of the volume of critical comment that would follow, or is it that they wish to protect Ambrose in favour of the cult, regardless of such a nonsensical article.
Neither, George: as I said to Harry, there are a lot of comments – about 95% think Ambrose a deluded idiot.
Surely 1 April has passed this year, so even were it even remotely true, it’d be long out of date!
“Net zero does not cost jobs: it replaces five million lost in oil, gas, and coal with eight times as many jobs for engineers, electrical experts, offshore operators, solar technicians, or lithium and rare earth miners, whether directly or indirectly.”
Yet another “expert” who doesn’t understand what NET-zero actually means… negative CO2 emissions in huge amounts! The Global CCS Institute has just reported that the world-wide geological storage of CO2 under pressure is now up to 250 million tons. That is a completely trivial amount… only about 3% of one part-per-million. The atmosphere won’t even notice the loss. The IEA leadership knows this but will not acknowledge it. Doesn’t fit the agenda?
Check out Climate Contrarian, (Jaime Jessop from CliScep): https://climatecontrarian.wordpress.com/2021/01/29/the-johnson-regimes-travel-ban-will-devastate-endangered-african-wildlife/
She links to this September 2019 Cambridge University report, funded by the government, produced in conjunction with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council:
Click to access REP_Absolute_Zero_V3_20200505.pdf
“We have to cut our greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050: that’s what climate scientists tell us, it’s what social protesters are asking for and it’s now the law in the UK. But
we aren’t on track.
We need to switch to using electricity as our only form of energy and if we continue today’s impressive rates of growth in non-emitting generation, we’ll only have to cut our use of energy to 60% of today’s levels.
We can achieve this with incremental changes to the way we use energy: we can drive smaller cars and take the train when possible, use efficient electric heat-pumps to keep warm and buy buildings, vehicles and equipment that are better designed and last much longer.
The two big challenges we face with an all electric future are flying and shipping. Although there are lots of new ideas about electric planes, they won’t be operating at commercial scales within 30 years, so zero emissions means that for some period, we’ll all stop using aeroplanes.
In addition, obeying the law of our Climate Change Act requires that we stop doing anything that causes emissions regardless of its energy source. This requires that we stop eating beef and lamb – ruminants who release methane as they digest grass – and already many people have started to switch to more vegetarian diets.”
Then along came Covid-19 and the Great Reset…
” ruminants who release methane as they digest grass ”
I wonder what the products are of natural decomposition of grass in the wild?
Meanwhile, home owners with yards are told to create compost piles and take brush cuttings to a regional composting facility, where it gets converted and sold for landscaping.
Here we pay to drop it off, then buy it back at $60 per ton.
https://www.co.kittitas.wa.us/solid-waste/composting.aspx
In the presence of oxygen the decay process mostly makes carbon dioxide. In anoxic (waterlogged) conditions, decay is greatly slowed, but produces methane. Hence the rather mad use of anaerobic digesters to supplement mains gas.
“already many people have started to switch to more vegetarian diets”
[citation needed]
And more . . . vegetarian involves no superlatives. You are or you aren’t. You can’t be ‘more’ vegetarian.
Wait for The Animal Welfare (Sentience) to pass into law. Then it will be illegal to butcher a cow or eat it. Obviously the ‘brain’ child of Princess Nutnut aka Carrie Symonds.
Evans Pilchard has a long history of writing total rubbish, I now need to find new vocabulary to describe this article.
The fault lies in editors’ own ignorance of the subject. If AEP can produce lots of copy it makes a lazy editor’s job easier. As dennisambler says above its all part of the pre-event window dressing which will make Cop 26 look worthwhile and relevent. I’m afraid that it is the editors that we should be educating. Educating to start with by saying that their columnists are commentators and not experts.
Not the editors, they are merely dancing to the tune of the multi-billionaires who have them by the Gairlochs. Our Press is no longer free?
JF
For the time being, western countries still have broadly free market economies. If living without fossil fuels made people better off, such fuels would have already become obsolete. No government coercion required, just the free market and basic self interest.
AEP forgot to add all those jobs created for child labour in the DRP and the slave labour in China. Tut, tut.
The IEA report tries to baffle any intelligent assessment by obfuscation. It uses 224 pages to ensure that no one will read it. The first section is “Summary for Policy Makers”. Sadly the policy makers probably wrote this as it is of a poor technical quality.
The entire basis for the “transition” is carbon taxes rising from £ 75/ t to £ 250 / t by 2050 to price out the fossil fuels, whose prices it actually notes are falling over the period. Apparently coal usage will fall from 5.2 GT/y to 2.5 by 2030 then zero by 2050: no one seems to have told the Chinese, Germans or Indians this tho’.
CCUS and electrolytic hydrogen are claimed to be proven technologies, Both are apparently available and CCUS is the magic bullet for gas…… Batteries will save the world with 3.5 TW by 2050 (allowing 4 h storage): full winter protection! Offshore wind prices will be 1/3 rd present prices in the cloud cuckoo-land of this IEA report.
Also, most of the “Peer reviewers” it lists with self-satisfaction are established climate-troughers.
The report is a prime example of using glossy pics and verbosity to cover up lack of knowledge and second rate science.
AEP is like the curates egg – parts of his work are highly questionable, usually those pieces he hasn’t researched. This latest piece could well come back to bite him.
The sad thing is that the Daily Telegraph feel they should publish such unbelievably foolish articles, They seem determined to follow the destiny of The Guardian. I wonder how many more sensible readers have cancelled their D.Telegraph on the back of such a childish contribution.
Sadly, as mentioned above, there is no political opposition to this great green cult and it seems to keep winning the war of words. It would be very interesting to see the results of a referendum on all the measures to achieve net zero. Many people simply have idea how bad it will get ( no cars, lights, heating, foreign travel etc). I have written to my (Labour) MP about all of this . No reply yet. I think we all know what it will say when it finally arrives.
Do humans produce methane when they fart!!?
I can feel my property value going up. It tingles.
https://www.sccommerce.com/buildings-sites
Get ’em while the best sites are still available.
‘it lifts global GDP growth by 0.4pc a year over the course of this decade. World output is 4pc bigger in real terms by 2030.’
Not too good with maths, is he?
‘The report is the bell that tolls for the fossil age. Not even natural gas escapes the cull.’
Au contraire. The fossil age (sic) will carry on. Without Britain. You are sofa king dead.
AEP goes out of his way to destroy the credibility the Telegraph. That said,AEP has zero credibility,and is still on a downward trajectory.
It all depends on how you look at things.
Coal, oil and gas aren’t going anywhere, these hydrocarbons have been part of the Earth’s make up since it formed.
Life on earth has used and recycled these hydrocarbons many times, they are the basis of life itself. So if we are daft enough to not use them for a while, it matters not a jot.
The climate change act will fail as these things do, and the much anticipated mess will keep us busy for a bit.
Meanwhile isn’t the weather awful.
Has AEP heard of the Parable of the Broken Window:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
CREATING wealth, that is, PRODUCTION, is different from the STOCK of wealth.
And he is supposed to have “covered world politics and economics” for the Telegraph, for thirty years, one does wonder whether he has.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Evans-Pritchard
I would like to subscribe to the Web edition of The Telegraph, but writers like AEP keep me from signing up. I will not support a paper that allow such tripe in their pages.
The whole thing is a joke. Make non-transition have no growth with high taxes and costs so that transition looks ever so slightly better.
It is simply false to claim that an unrestrained fossil fuel economy with no carbon taxes would grow slower. There is absolutely no way it could. And if transitioning was better we would just get on and do it. As we always have done. These are yet more lies, yet more subterfuge. And we know it’s lies because the unrestrained growth models release lots of CO2 because we are growing a great deal. Yet now apparently we won’t? Only because the comparison is with high tax, high constrained models.
For the children: A dreadful picture of bird chopping windmills. Tax dollars at work. See and weep.
https://tinyurl.com/eukzxfjt
Please share this terrible picture of the truth. Unlike AGW, this is real and we are paying for it.