It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, October 07, 2021
Toxic blend of "trust and power" makes Catholic Church hotbed for systemic child abuse
Issued on: 07/10/2021 -
In the wake of a major child sexual abuse investigation that counted 216,000 victims in France, spanning over seven decades, France 24 is joined by Marc Artzrouni, European Coordinator for SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests). Mr. Artzrouni expressed amazement and gratification that the damning report had such a profound and immediate impact. "I wasn't really expecting such an impact,' admits Mr. Artzrouni, "and I'm really glad the report is reverberating throughout the world and throughout the media." Additionally, he highlights a very disturbing pattern: "Very few countries have been unaffected by this. Very few countries where there is a Catholic presence have been unaffected by this." Offering a little historical perspective, Mr. Artzrouni points out that "this report goes back to the 1950's. It's highly probable that this has been going on for centuries in the Catholic Church."
The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage (French: Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage) is a novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade. Described as both pornographic and erotic, it was written in 1785. It tells the story of four wealthy male libertines who resolve to experience the ultimate sexual gratification
Is McDonald’s zero-emissions pledge more than just greenwashing?
REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON/FILE PHOTO
McDonald's wants to set more ambitious emission reduction goals.
McDonald’s wants to achieve net zero emissions globally by 2050.
The plans are vague, but the fast-food giant said it aims to reduce its emissions across restaurants, offices, and supply chains, according to a company press release today (Oct. 4). The details on how it will update targets will be released next year, as it works with Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a nonprofit that works with the private sector on setting emission targets, McDonald’s said in an email to Quartz.
Five of the six biggest fast-food chains announced this year they will set, or have set, science-based targets to reduce their emissions, up from just two companies last year, according to a report this year from investors network Ceres and nonprofit Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR). McDonald’s announcement follows a similar pledge from from Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, which also aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Chipotle, Domino’s, Restaurant Brands International (owner of Burger King and Popeyes), and Wendy’s have also made pledges. Restaurant Brands’s global target has not been approved yet by SBTi. Net-zero means the amount of greenhouse gas the companies produce are no more than the amount reduced via increased energy efficiency and actions such as planting trees.
McDonald’s also said it is working on implementing local solutions in renewable energy, regenerative farming, and sustainable packaging, according to the press release. For instance, the company said it plans to open a new burger restaurant in the UK this November to test solutions for reducing energy and water use, which will be a blueprint for new McDonald’s sites in the future. The restaurant will feature furniture made from recycled or certified materials by 2023 as well as packaging made with renewable, recycled, or from certified sources by 2024.
In recent years, the fast-food chain has made efforts to reduce its emissions. In 2018, McDonald’s became the first global restaurant company to set a so-called science-based target—or to formally outline how it will adopt greenhouse global emissions—approved by SBTi, to help keep global temperature from rising above 1.5%. The company also recently announced it plans to cut plastic out of Happy Meals toys and packaging by the end of 2025.
How the food industry is combatting climate change
In recent years, activist investors and nonprofit groups have stepped up pressure on fast-food companies to better manage their climate and water scarcity and to set greater reduction targets.
To meet its targets, McDonald’s has a lot of work to do. It’s one of the biggest buyers of food in the world and about 80% of its total emissions come from its supply chain, in particular, its use of beef, chicken, dairy, and other proteins. The company said it has been working with partners to develop more sustainable farming practices. Animal agriculture produces around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, driven by emissions from livestock and feed; meanwhile, feed for livestock is responsible for a third of annual global water consumption, according to sustainability groups.
Fast food companies still need to address water scarcity and pollution risks in their meat supply chains, according to Ceres and FAIRR. Efforts on how they plan to assess these risks have been limited in scale and scope, the sustainability advocates said. There has also been slow progress on disclosing their analysis of climate risk scenarios, they added.
The costs of climate change on the industry are also becoming more apparent. US livestock producers are facing 30% higher feed costs due to increasing droughts as well as storms damaging their livestock and land, according to the report, which has a direct impact on the farmers and various vendors that are vital to producing McDonald’s meals.
QUARTZ ESSENTIALS
Facts and figures to help you put this story in context.
The question will define the global economy for the next century. The IPCC estimates (pdf) we need to invest at least $1.6 trillion per year through 2050 to put the planet on a safe climate trajectory. We’re spending about 20% of that figure today. And that’s just for the energy sector. The climate economy means almost every aspect of our global system—agriculture, transportation, energy, construction—will need to be rethought and redesigned to reduce and then remove greenhouse gases from the equation. It’s the greatest challenge, and opportunity, of our time.
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California’s offshore industry under fire after oil spill
'This spill should be the end of offshore drilling in California'
Author of the article: Bloomberg News Robert Tuttle, Amelia Pollard and John Gittelsohn Publishing date:Oct 05, 2021 •
Environmental response crews cleaning up oil that flowed near the Talbert marsh and Santa Ana River mouth, creating a sheen on the water after an oil spill in the Pacific Ocean in Huntington Beach, California on Oct. 4, 2021.
PHOTO BY PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Cruising along the panoramic Pacific Coast Highway that hugs the curves of California’s shoreline, it’s the salty sea breeze that typically overtakes you. This week, it’s the stench of crude oil.
The state’s worst oil spill in almost 30 years means crude is washing ashore as “tar balls” or “patties,” a sticky mess that gets caught in the sand. It’s marring some of the world’s most renowned beaches, famed almost as much for the surf as for the multi-million dollar homes that dot the hills overlooking the ocean.
The mucky scene playing out across Southern California’s coastline is reigniting the debate over an offshore drilling industry that once helped make the Golden State one of the most prolific oil-producing regions in the world, churning out more than 1 million barrels a day at its height. Today, the output from old platforms that dot the region’s shores has dwindled to just tens of thousands of barrels a day, and the risk of leaks and oil spills has risen. The disaster has also drawn fresh scrutiny of aging offshore oil and gas infrastructure around the world, built decades ago back before fracking, horizontal drilling and shale made ocean drilling less economic.
The roughly 3,000 (126,000 gallons) barrels of crude that have poured into the ocean near Huntington Beach isn’t just an environmental and economic blow. It has triggered visceral anger and revived questions about why California still has an offshore oil industry at all, five decades after it stopped issuing new drilling permits.
“This spill should be the end of offshore drilling in California,” Julie Teel Simmonds, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said by phone from San Diego. “This should be the last catastrophic spill we endure.”
This should be the last catastrophic spill we endure
JULIE TEEL SIMMONDS
It’s not just the environmentalists. Both of California’s senators — Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla — said the episode underscores the need to block offshore drilling, including through a legislative ban on new leasing off California, Oregon and Washington. The House has already tucked the measure into its version of a multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill designed to advance major Biden administration policy priorities.
“This is yet another preventable environmental catastrophe,” but “we have the power to prevent future spills,” Padilla said in an emailed statement.
Many of the famous sandy stretches near Huntington Beach, which has been fighting with Santa Cruz for the nickname “Surf City,” are closed and vacationers are canceling plans.
Shaun Hammon, manager of Ocean Surf Inn and Suites in Sunset Beach, just north of Huntington Beach, said while the “actual physical stuff” hadn’t yet reached the beach closest to the inn as of Monday afternoon, customers are nervous.
“It’s not only an ecological crisis,” said Chad Nelsen, who could smell the oil at his favorites surf spots this week. He serves as the chief executive officer of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental group headquartered in San Clemente.
“It’s a community, recreation and ultimately, an economic crisis. Once a spill occurs, the toothpaste is out of the tube, the damage is done,” he said.
Once a spill occurs, the toothpaste is out of the tube, the damage is done
CHAD NELSEN
The spill, from a pipeline owned by a unit of Amplify Energy Corp., comes at a time when California has been aggressively moving to shift away from fossil fuels. Although the first offshore oil wells in the U.S. were drilled just east of Santa Barbara in 1896, it’s been reining in the industry in more recent decades. The state stopped issuing new offshore oil and gas leases after a high-profile spill in 1969 and has taken an increasingly hard line on the sector.
The days of oil production were numbered in California even before the latest leak. Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency late Monday to assist with the response to the spill, has banned the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 and targeted phasing out fossil fuel extraction by 2045.
“As California continues to lead the nation in phasing out fossil fuels and combating the climate crisis, this incident serves as a reminder of the enormous cost fossil fuels have on our communities,” Newsom said in the statement.
Many of California’s offshore oil rigs have been shut and some dismantled after years of decline. Oil production in federal waters off the U.S. West Coast totaled 13,000 barrels a day in July, down from more than 200,000 barrels a day in the mid 1990s. Closer to shore, in state waters, that total was about 19,000 barrels a day in 2019.
Much of that decline happened after a break in a Plains All American Pipeline LP line near Santa Barbara in 2015 spilled thousands of gallons of crude onto a local beach, prompting the shutdown of multiple production platforms. One, Platform Holly, is currently being decommissioned and its wells plugged, but three others, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s only oil platforms off the California coast, are still maintained, but not operating. The company is trying to get the go-ahead to start them up again.
But even then, California was ranked as No. 7 last year among U.S. oil-producing states (topping for example, Wyoming, which is perhaps more well-known for its crude production).
The offshore production that continues in California may be partly because companies are reluctant to absorb the costs of shutting and decommissioning existing platforms, said Simmonds of the Center for Biological Diversity. The oil that spilled into the sea this week emerged from a pipeline linked to a network of decades-old production facilities.
“Oil and gas companies theoretically put up a sufficient bond to cover decommissioning costs, but they usually are woefully inadequate and many companies just end up declaring bankruptcy, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab,” she said.
There are other obstacles to cutting back. The state is already facing an enormous squeeze on its electricity grid, with intermittent power from wind, solar and hydro sources proving difficult to manage amid recent bouts of extreme weather. Natural gas prices have soared as California utilities have had to burn more of that fuel.
Disrupting offshore drilling could make the state more dependent on crude imports, said Zachary Rogers, director of global oil service at Rapidan Energy.
“While there will certainly be a passionate reaction to the spill, it’s tough to say whether or not this will materially affect future production in California,” he said.
Even dwindling offshore production for some smaller oil companies makes it worthwhile, and dismantling an aging platform has costs and generates zero profit, said Deborah Gordon, senior principal in the Climate Intelligence Program at the Rocky Mountain Institute. She also pointed to the likelihood of more oil imports into the state if offshore output is curbed.
Chris Varcoe: Demise of Canadian Energy Pipeline Association 'really short-sighted,' warns Alberta energy minister
HEY WE ARE PUMPING TAXPAYERS DOLLARS OUT FOR YOUR PR AND YOU DO THIS
'The opposition isn't going to stop just because new crude oil pipelines have been completed and built,' Sonya Savage says
Author of the article: Postmedia News Chris Varcoe Publishing date: Oct 05, 2021
The era of massive oil pipeline projects being pitched in Canada is winding down with the demise of Keystone XL earlier this year.
PHOTO BY KRISZTIAN BOCSI/BLOOMBERG FILES
Does Canada need an organization to advocate for oil and natural gas pipelines if no new significant project proposals are coming down the road?
Aside from the owners, who will speak up for projects now underway or existing ones facing fierce opposition — such as Enbridge’s Line 5, where a new twist unfolded Monday — if the group that represents the sector disappears?
These are questions for the industry to ponder after the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) said Friday it will stop operating at the end of 2021.
It’s clear that leaders of large pipeline companies, including Enbridge, TC Energy and Pembina Pipeline, can speak up for their individual businesses to regulators, policymakers and the public — and they will.
However, that leaves CEPA headed for extinction.
The decision to close comes after Enbridge decided to leave the 28-year-old industry association last fall, with TC Energy and Pembina Pipelines serving notice they would depart by the end of this year.
Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage, who previously worked at CEPA and Enbridge before entering politics, was blunt Monday when asked about the decision.
“It’s really short-sighted for these companies to have let the industry association fold because you know we’re going to need it again,” Savage said in an interview.
“You see the attacks and the opposition to major new pipeline projects. Well, that opposition is now targeting existing pipelines … Who is going to be advocating for the industry-wide perspective on that?”
CEPA president Chris Bloomer said the loss of the three large pipeline companies as members created a budget hole that couldn’t easily be filled.
It led to the board’s decision to stop operations by year’s end and the pipeline companies will soon be left to speak on their own behalf.
“My indication from the companies is they want to do it on their own,” Bloomer said Monday.
“And companies like TC and Enbridge, they have the capacity to do that … but the larger companies are changing, too, and their focus is different and that needs to be recognized.”
CEPA president Chris Bloomer.
PHOTO BY STUART GRADON/CALGARY HERALD FILES
The companies certainly have the ability to hire lobbyists and experts to ensure their voices are heard in Ottawa.
In a statement, TC Energy said it is a member of various trade associations across North America and, after careful review, decided to not renew its CEPA membership.
The decision also reflects a changing period for the country’s pipeline sector. The era of massive oil pipeline projects being pitched in Canada is winding down with the demise of Keystone XL earlier this year.
While opposition to Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement project continues, the pipeline began to fill up with oil on Friday. Construction on the Trans Mountain expansion is now more than 30 per cent complete. CEPA started as a technically focused organization that shared information and collaborated on best practices, Bloomer said. With the pipeline battles of the past decade, it shifted into an advocacy role. But legislative hurdles, low commodity prices, the push to decarbonize, along with ongoing legal and regulatory struggles, have all made it difficult to build new energy infrastructure in North America. “It’s a sign of the times,” said former TransCanada executive Dennis McConaghy, who has written books about the pipeline sector.
“It’s another voice lost in Ottawa.”
Former TransCanada Corp. CEO Hal Kvisle, who is chair of the Business Council of Alberta, said CEPA played a strong role over the years on technical issues, such as dealing with pipe corrosion and integrity issues.
The pipeline battles in North America today are a different matter.
It's another voice lost in Ottawa DENNIS MCCONAGH
“The problems are so political and so difficult and of such national interest, I think an organization like (CEPA) would have a very tough time having an impact,” Kvisle said.
The battle over Line 5, an existing pipeline operated by Enbridge, highlights the presence of politics in such matters.
The pipeline ships 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids per day from Western Canada to Ontario, with the route running under the Straits of Mackinac, moving product through Michigan to Sarnia.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, citing safety concerns, wants to shut it down and revoke an easement granted in 1953 for the line to pass under the straits. The dispute is before the U.S. courts.
Enbridge and the Canadian government are working together, along with the provinces, to ensure the flow of energy to the area isn’t disrupted.
On Monday, lawyers for the federal government officially invoked a dispute settlement provision in a 44-year-old pipeline treaty signed by Canada and the U.S. to prevent authorities from blocking the transmission of oil or gas in transit between the countries.
News of the treaty being invoked came after mediation discussions between Michigan and Enbridge stopped. “Enbridge has continued to participate in the mediation process in good faith and still is hopeful that a negotiated resolution” can keep energy flowing, the company said in a statement.
Savage called Monday’s announcement good news, as discussions were at a standstill and invoking the treaty “needed to happen.” It will take the dispute out of the legal system while the treaty is discussed by the two countries.
As for the end of CEPA, Savage called it a disappointment, noting an industry group can speak with a much broader voice to governments than a single company on key matters such as building or operating existing pipelines.
“The opposition isn’t going to stop just because new crude oil pipelines have been completed and built. It’s going to find something else to oppose and they won’t have that strong voice of the industry association representing the industry as a whole,” she said.
The goal of tackling global warming by turning carbon dioxide into fuel could be one step closer with researchers using a supercomputer to identify a group of "single-atom" catalysts that could play a key role.
Researchers from QUT's Centre for Materials Science, led by Associate Professor Liangzhi Kou, were part of an international study that used theoretical modelling to identify six metals (nickel, niobium, palladium, rhenium, rhodium, zirconium) that were found to be effective in a reaction that can convert carbon dioxide into sustainable and clean energy sources.
The study published in Nature Communications involved QUT researchers Professor Aijun Du, Professor Yuantong Gu and Dr. Lin Ju.
Professor Kou said the research was conducted by modelling the experiments using the National Computational Infrastructure at the Australian National University, looking at how single atoms of the metals would react with two-dimensional pieces of "ferroelectric" materials.
Ferroelectric materials have a positive charge on one face, and negative charge on another, and this polarization can be reversed when a voltage is applied.
In the theoretical modelling, the researchers found that adding the atom of the catalyst metal to the ferroelectric material resulted in converting the greenhouse gas into a desired chemical fuel.
Once the polarity is reversed, the state will be preserved to act as a catalyst in converting the carbon dioxide.
Professor Kou said while single-atom catalysts to be used in reducing carbon dioxide was proposed a decade ago, this research takes the field forward significantly.
"We have designed a special chemical catalyst, it can convert the greenhouse gas CO2 into the desired chemical fuels. The conversion efficiency can be controlled using a feasible approach," Professor Kou said.
"It means we for the first time developed the abilities to speed up or slow down, even switch off the chemical reaction.
"Carbon dioxide is the main reason of global warming due to the greenhouse effect, to convert it into the chemical fuels is not only important for our environments, but also helpful to solve the energy crisis."
Dr. Ju, first author on the study, said the research work provided a guidance for the design of novel catalysts which could produce significant impacts for the chemical industry.
Professor Kou said the long-term goal in this area of research was to find ways to turning carbon dioxide into clean energy sources.
Professor Kou said the results of this study could eventually lead to a way of adding a coating to engines or industrial systems that would convert carbon dioxide instead of releasing more of the gas into the atmosphere.
The QUT researchers are from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, and School of Chemistry and Physics.Carbon dioxide reactor makes Martian fuel
More information:Lin Ju et al, Controllable CO2 electrocatalytic reduction via ferroelectric switching on single atom anchored In2Se3 monolayer,Nature Communications(2021).DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25426-5
RepAir Carbon realised fuel cell tech could be applied to CO2 capture — now they plan to scale Mike Butcher@mikebutcher •October 6, 2021
Existing technologies for direct air capture technologies require a lot of heat to remove the CO2, after it’s been absorbed into filters. The process to date has been laborious and often highly energy inefficient. What’s often been missing in the process has been a more efficient way of capturing CO2 in the first place. The key to the whole thing is filters, and it is this aspect that more than one startup has been working on in the last few years.
Israel-based RepAir Carbon has now came up with an approach drawn from the ideas behind fuel cell technology to do just that, and it’s now closed a $1.5 million seed funding round co-led by Counteract and ESIL, with participation from Consensus Business Group, ImpactAssets and other investors. ESIL is a partnership of EDF Renewables, Johnson Matthey and Bazan Group.
RepAir Carbon’s aim is to develop this “cell” approach for what it describes as “modular Direct Air Capture” to capture or store greenhouse gases “at a gigaton scale”. The promise is much lower energy consumption and a less CapEx intensive, modular design based on electrochemistry.
RepAir says it uses an electrical current and a selective membrane to separate CO2 from the air, consuming “up to 3 times less energy for each tonne of CO2 captured without the need for high temperature or significant pressure differentials.”
Amir Shiner, co-founder and CEO of RepAir said: “Direct Air Capture plays a key role in any scenario where global temperature rises less than 2°C. However, today’s solutions are too expensive, energy-hungry, and resource-intensive. We’re working hard to develop a technology with a responsible energy footprint that can be deployed in many more settings. This investment will help us advance and optimize our TRL3 prototype.“
Alongside Shiner, the RepAir team includes co-founder and Chairman Yehuda Borenstein, CTO Ben Achrai, PhD, and Board Member Yushan Yan, PhD.
Andrew Shebbeare, managing partner at Counteract, said: “We firmly believe in the part Direct Air Capture will play but are also convinced that today’s technology needs to evolve. With a promising platform and exceptional team, we are convinced RepAir is advancing the state of the art and will help pave the way for responsible and scalable DAC.”
Eli Cymbalista, CEO of ESIL, said: “Our aim is to accelerate and commercialize startups delivering economically viable solutions that support the transition to a NetZero world. We believe RepAir fits that brief exactly and are excited to contribute the skills and resources of our partners’ network to help accelerate their progress.”
In an interview with me, Shiner added: “We will eventually have more blocks that can scale like Lego. We can scale in a modular nature. So we can place our device next to, say, a wind farm, where we get the energy to populate the device. We’re very flexible in terms of where we locate the device because we use air rather than the emitted pollution from a chimney.”
CAPITALI$T ANARCHY
'Steeply disconnected': Why Alberta's battered producers could miss out on global natural gas boom
Natural gas prices are hitting multi-year seasonal highs across North America
Author of the article: Geoffrey Morgan
Publishing date:Oct 06, 2021
Producers point to maintenance and expansion work on TC Energy Corp.’s Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. pipeline system for the disconnect between Alberta’s market and the rest of North America.
PHOTO BY SUNMEDIA FILES
CALGARY — Heavily discounted natural gas prices in Alberta have domestic producers frustrated they could miss out on much of the upside of a global rally as natural gas prices skyrocket ahead of the winter.
Natural gas prices are hitting multi-year seasonal highs across North America due to a combination of low storage levels and red-hot demand from overseas markets even before winter heating season begins in earnest. The Henry Hub benchmark price in Louisiana traded for US$5.69 per thousand cubic feet on Tuesday, while gas prices at Dawn, Ont. traded at US$5.19 per mcf according to ATB Capital Markets.
By contrast, Alberta’s AECO benchmark price averaged at US$3.12 per mcf on Tuesday — which is at a just 55 per cent of the U.S. Henry Hub benchmark price, or a US$2.57 per mcf discount.
Producers point to maintenance and expansion work on TC Energy Corp.’s Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. (NGTL) pipeline system for the disconnect between Alberta’s market and the rest of North America. NGTL is the largest gas transmission system in Canada and TC Energy also operates the largest network of export pipelines, moving Alberta gas eastward to Ontario and westward to San Francisco.
“The AECO basis, which is really that delta between the two markets AECO and Henry Hub and adjusted for different markets and currencies, is quite large right now,” said Darren Gee, president and CEO of Peyto Exploration and Development Corp., adding that he’s concerned the discount will persist through the winter as TC Energy is expanding its gas transmission system in the province.
“It actually is quite steeply disconnected right now,” he said, referring to the pricing relationship between AECO and U.S. benchmarks Henry Hub and NYMEX.
Gee said that in years past, a $2 per mcf AECO discount was common as there were restrictions on the NGTL system. Now that natural gas prices are higher, AECO continues to trade above the bargain-basement levels of the last several years, but remains heavily discounted to other North American benchmarks during periods of NGTL maintenance.
In an effort to diversify away from the volatility and discounts of the AECO benchmark, producers pay to move their gas on long-haul pipelines to the U.S. West Coast, Chicago and Central Canada, where prices typically trend higher than in Alberta.
“While we do not comment or speculate on the dynamics of the market, we are able to confirm that all outages in question are planned in nature, closely coordinated with our customers and communicated to industry months in advance,” TC Energy said an emailed statement.
Calgary-based TC Energy said the maintenance and expansion work is part of the company’s $8 billion in spending to expand the system and remove bottlenecks over a five-year period. The pipeline giant said flows on the system “have remained robust” at 12.2 billion cubic feet per day.
“While conducting maintenance is an integral part of ensuring the safe and reliable operations of the system, we have and will continue to work with our customers to ensure we can complete this important work while mitigating impacts whenever possible,” the company said.
TC Energy did not say when the scheduled maintenance will wrap up as natural gas producers watch prices jump sharply in other hubs even before the winter heating season begins to draw large quantities of gas out of storage.
“It’s supposed to all be coming on in pieces, mid-October by November 1st,” said Raymond James analyst Jeremy McCrea, adding the scheduled maintenance normallyends before winter heating season beginsand prices tick upward seasonally.
“The problem though, and I’m hearing this from a number of producers, given how rampant COVID-19 is here in the province, there is just one delay after another,” McCrea said, adding that outbreaks among field workers is slowing work on a number of projects.
In response to a question about COVID-19 delays at its operations, TC Energy said in an emailed response, “Flows and utilization levels across our network continue to be in line with historical norms despite the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, extreme weather events and energy market volatility.”
The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed.
Explicit subsidies that cut fuel prices accounted for 8% of the total and tax breaks another 6%. The biggest factors were failing to make polluters pay for the deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42%) and for the heatwaves and other impacts of global heating (29%).
Setting fossil fuel prices that reflect their true cost would cut global CO2 emissions by over a third, the IMF analysts said. This would be a big step towards meeting the internationally agreed 1.5C target. Keeping this target within reach is a key goal of the UN Cop26 climate summit in November.
Agreeing rules for carbon markets, which enable the proper pricing of pollution, is another Cop26 goal. “Fossil fuel price reform could not be timelier,” the IMF researchers said. The ending of fossil fuel subsidies would also prevent nearly a million deaths a year from dirty air and raise trillions of dollars for governments, they said.
“There would be enormous benefits from reform, so there’s an enormous amount at stake,” said Ian Parry, the lead author of the IMF report. “Some countries are reluctant to raise energy prices because they think it will harm the poor. But holding down fossil fuel prices is a highly inefficient way to help the poor, because most of the benefits accrue to wealthier households. It would be better to target resources towards helping poor and vulnerable people directly.”
With 50 countries committed to net zero emissions by mid-century and more than 60 carbon pricing schemes around the world, there are some encouraging signs, Parry said: “But we’re still just scratching the surface really, and there’s an awful long way to go.”
“To stabilise global temperatures we must urgently move away from fossil fuels instead of adding fuel to the fire,” said Mike Coffin, senior analyst at the thinktank Carbon Tracker. “It’s critical that governments stop propping up an industry that is in decline, and look to accelerate the low-carbon energy transition, and our future, instead.
The comprehensive IMF report found that prices were at least 50% below their true costs for 99% of coal, 52% of diesel and 47% of natural gas in 2020. Five countries were responsible for two-thirds of the subsidies: China, the US, Russia, India and Japan. Without action, subsidies will rise to $6.4tn in 2025, the IMF said.
Proper pricing for fossil fuels would cut emissions by, for example, encouraging electricity generators to switch from coal to renewable energy and making electric cars an even cheaper option for motorists. International cooperation is important, Parry said, to allay fears that countries could lose competitiveness if their fossil fuel prices were higher.
“The IMF report is a sobering reading, pointing to one of the major defects of the global economy,” said Maria Pastukhova, at the thinktank e3g. “The IEA’s net-zero roadmap projects that $5tn is necessary by 2030 to put the world on the pathway to a climate-safe world. It is maddening to realise the much-needed change could start happening now, if not for governments’ entanglement with the fossil fuels industry in so many major economies.”
“Fossil fuel subsidies have been a major stumbling block in the G20 process for years,” she said. “Now all eyes are on the G20 leaders’ summit in late October.”
Ipek Gençsü, at the Overseas Development Institute, said: “[Subsidy reform] requires support for vulnerable consumers who will be impacted by rising costs, as well for workers in industries which simply have to shut down. It also requires information campaigns, showing how the savings will be redistributed to society in the form of healthcare, education and other social services. Many people oppose subsidy reform because they see it solely as governments taking something away, and not giving back.”
The G20 countries emit almost 80% of global greenhouse gases. More than 600 global companies in the We Mean Business coalition, including Unilever, Ikea, Aviva, Siemens and Volvo Cars, recently urged G20 leaders to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.
Energy In 2050:
OPEC's rosy oil forecast in sharp contrast to TotalEnergies' alarming 'rupture' scenario In TotalEnergies 'rupture' scenario, oil demand in 2050 will shrink to around 35 million bpd. OPEC believes it will remain at current levels
Nathaniel Bullard Publishing date:Oct 06, 2021 •
The sun sets behind a oil derek near the Saudi Arabian border.
PHOTO BY JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
Two of Big Oil’s biggest players dropped their long-term energy outlooks last week: French energy company TotalEnergies and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. They offer quite different visions of the world 25 years from now. The European energy major sees a future driven by technology and policy; the cartel presents a vision that looks much like today.
TotalEnergies looks at all energy demand, not just oil, and posits a now-familiar refrain of Europe’s long-term corporate energy planners: renewable energy will continue to expand rapidly; oil and coal demand growth will fall; and natural gas demand, continuing to rise, will be the key to the energy transition. Even with a timeline measured in decades, details matter. Let’s take a closer look at two scenarios Total puts forth of the energy transition: Momentum and the somewhat alarmingly, named Rupture.
Momentum, the outlook notes, is “based on decarbonization strategies of net-zero 2050, with China on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060” and includes the announced climate targets and Paris Agreement-based nationally determined contributions of other countries. This scenario, a baseline expectation, foresees a temperature rise of 2.2 to 2.4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Rupture is more aggressive: it expects countries to meet the global aspirations of the Paris Agreement along with even more net zero commitments, strong public policy, technology advancements, and a new energy system built on a global scale.
Momentum also creates ceilings on future demand for oil and coal (gas, on the other hand, continues to grow). Peak oil demand will come at some point in this decade. In the Rupture scenario, oil demand in 2050 is 60 per cent lower than in 2019. Coal demand has already peaked and gas demand continues to grow.
OPEC, not surprisingly, has a rather different take on oil. It sets out four scenarios, only one of which has a technology lens. The oil cartel sees demand rising in one scenario, plateauing in another, and peaking in the 2030s in another. The only decline from 2019 levels is in its most aggressive scenario, the Accelerated Policy and Technology Case.
OPEC’s energy transition-focused scenario allows for more aggressive policies, but does not spell them out. Technology breakthroughs play no part in its vision, but it allows for the possibility of faster adoption of existing technology.
New research from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School suggests that OPEC’s technology scenario significantly underestimates what is possible to change transport. The researchers have scrutinized the actual and projected costs for 50 different energy technologies, and found that most models consistently over-estimated costs and under-estimated deployment for renewable technologies. Solar, wind, and batteries on the other hand, have dropped in cost at a rate of roughly 10 per cent per year for several decades. Today’s energy technology simply needs to continue at that rate to change tomorrow’s energy system.
That is a scenario the Oxford researchers see as possible. Their “Fast Transition” scenario assumes that “renewable energy and storage technologies maintain their current deployment rates for a decade, replacing fossil fuels in two decades.” Its “Slow Transition” scenario requires current renewable growth rates to slow immediately, with fossil fuels still dominating through the middle of the century. In a “No Transition” scenario, every energy type grows proportionally to its share today. This, the authors say, is essentially a worst case scenario.
“No Transition” sounds much like what OPEC expects: today, just more of it. But that is not what research suggests is possible based on decades of observation. And it’s not what companies like TotalEnergies expect either, when even their standard scenario sees demand for oil peaking soon, then declining substantially by mid-century.
Nathaniel Bullard is BloombergNEF’s Chief Content Officer.
Turkey finally ratifies Paris climate agreement but protests key detail
By Isil Sariyuce and Caitlin Hu, CNN Updated 7:11 AM ET, Thu October 7, 2021 Presidential honor guard officers walk as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a ceremony at the parliament in capital, Ankara, on July 15, 2021.
Istanbul (CNN)Turkey became the last G20 nation to ratify the Paris climate agreement on Wednesday, almost six years after initially signing it, but at the same time, lawmakers protested a key detail -- the country's classification as a developed nation.
Turkish environment and urbanization minister Murat Kurum said Wednesday that lawmakers had voted unanimously in favor of ratifying the agreement, just weeks before world leaders convene in the Scottish city of Glasgow for crucial talks on climate. Kurum said on Twitter that he hoped the decision would help the country achieve net zero by 2053. Net zero is where the amount of greenhouse gases emitted is no greater than the amount removed from the atmosphere.
The Paris Agreement, adopted by nearly 200 nations, commits participants to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, below 1.5 degrees. Each country is responsible for developing its own plan for achieving those goals.
Turkey was one of just a handful of signatory countries that had not yet ratified the pact. It had held out for years because the government opposed Turkey being listed under Annex I -- a category for industrialized nations -- which means the country is obliged to do more on climate than developing nations.
While lawmakers backed the Paris Agreement -- which calls Turkey an industrialized nation -- they also adopted a statement saying they were ratifying the deal as a developing country, and would only implement it if it did not "harm its right to economic and social development."
Ümit Şahin, coordinator of Climate Change Studies at Istanbul Policy Center, said that the Paris Agreement did not allow for any such conditions to be imposed on it. That means the statement is essentially symbolic.
"The countries can always give a statement within their right of being a sovereign state, but this does not change the fact that Turkey signed it as an Annex I country," he said. "This is climate politics and diplomacy, but does not change the fact that Turkey ratified Paris."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced last month at the United Nations General Assembly in New York that he would submit the agreement to parliament and called for more accountability from the world's most developed nations, which are historically the greatest contributors to global carbon emissions.
"Whoever has done the most damage to nature, to our atmosphere, our water, our soil and the earth, and whoever has wildly exploited natural resources, should also make the greatest contribution to the fight against climate change," he said.
"Unlike the past, this time no one can afford the luxury to say, 'I'm powerful so I will not pay the bill.'"
Local climate activism groups and business chambers were supporting Turkey's ratification ahead of the COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in early November.
CNN's Isil Sariyuce reported from Istanbul and Caitlin Hu reported and wrote from New York.
