I was completely mislead by the headline of Tom Friedman’s latest New York Times column, “Biden’s Big, Bold, Surprising Plan for a Green Transition (I Hope)”. It turns out that the column consists of an interview with Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips, and the “I hope” relates to Mr. Friedman’s hope that the Biden Administration will adopt something that resembles what they’re discussing.
I feel comfortable in predicting that the Biden Administration will do nothing of the sort, particularly before the midterms.
What the column describes is Mr. Friedman’s hopes for a “Green Transition” plan.
“Green Transition†is B.S.
Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. China’s CO2 emissions are on a trajectory that can only be described as incredible. They move in lockstep with GDP. Increases something like 20x since 1960. India now emits 50% as much as the US. Despite pop culture citations, the EU emits like a motherfucker.
Its a well worn observation. China, India and, collectively, other developing countries will dwarf (in their increases) any US/EU effort to reduce CO2. Its laughable. China wants us to self immolate. And for short term political gain, and tulip craze like hysteria, we seem to want to acquiesce. I think its because our politicians see a tax bonanza. They have tapped the US citizen out as to ability to pay. And, recently, we see that printing money is going to drain the blood from the US consumers ability to purchase.
Chickens —> Roost.
One of the ways this has been characterized is that each incremental dollar of China’s GDP requires incremental carbon emissions. In fairness that is not as true as it used to be but it still remains true.
See here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/239093/co2-emissions-in-china/
That is not true, for example, in the G7 countries. It’s one of the many reasons I believe that the G7 need to onshore heavy industry.