The Politics of Climate Change

The question of climate change isn’t if there’s change, but rather what and who is causing it. That question will be debated ad nausea without any real resolve as it’s not largely not a scientific debate anymore, but rather all political, even within the halls of science.

The telltale on the futility of the U.S. effort to solve the climate change problem lies with a quote that came from the Paris conference by Secretary of State Kerry when he stated:

“The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what – that still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.

If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions – remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions – it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65% of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”

The political aspect of the whole argument seems to center around not an environmental concern or interest, but rather purely a financial one. The environmental aspect is simply the means to an alternative end; one can probably easily derive why an issue like climate works well as a means to such an end as people are often hesitant to part with their wealth at will, yet saving the world in which they live is something that most would find quite appealing. The scope of the redistribution of financial wealth aspect of this whole matter can be seen in many aspects:

As the scale of international climate finance needed above and beyond current flows requires the re-direction of hundreds of billions of dollars annually, public finance from developed countries plays a key rolein leveraging the much larger flow of private finance attracted to investments in the energy sector. Public finance can assist in setting the direction for private investment, helping to channel it towards climate projects, such as renewable energy production, and away from investments in fossil fuel infrastructure. (Source:  The Road Through Paris.)

So if one is to believe Secretary Kerry’s comment about 65% of the pollution comes from the developing world, the above would question the ability to reform or change this matter, even with the vast amounts of monies promised through the Paris agreement, what with the adaption part of the equation largely being ignored. And that’s all hinged on the premise that it is mankind that is in fact causing global climate change. This is probably the fear that strikes the heart of those so adamantly pursuing the climate change decree, i.e. allowing science to truly and independently determine if the cause of climate change can be identified.

While the argument for climate change caused by humans consistently references a statement akin to ‘97% of scientists agree,’ that argument has been debunked many times by many different entities as being a gross misrepresentation of the scientific community at best. Additionally, much has been written of the fight for research monies by institutions and researchers, and how those monies are limited to only those with an intent or promise that their research will support the foregone position on man-caused climate change, to the point that institutions and/or researchers have had research monies pulled from them if they in fact they fail to provide the politically correct research answer (Sources: Forbes, Climate Depot and The Wall Street Journal). It’s troubling to see that research is not above being bought, or worse, threatened with funding.

It’s most interesting to watch the industry response to the matter; surely there is a diversity of reactions, varying from wholly supporting the current administrations direction to staunchly decrying it. What I find most interesting is how those wholly supporting him often are realizing significant financial gain by doing so, through such means as earmarked funding for ‘research’ or ‘demonstration’ projects, with those funds going directly to them or a wholly-owned subsidiary, or other more direct means such as tax incentives.

There was a recent report where some in the industry are taking a much different approach to the newly proposed CPP rules and regulations, stating it’s not their responsibility to protect their fuel source industries (i.e., coal and gas), but rather the states from where these natural resources are mined. That really poses a much broader question on the issue: Just what is the role of the power generation industry in this whole matter? For those who might be left with untold stranded investments in technologies that might be mothballed far before their depreciated life, who will bear those financial costs?

Likewise, while no one argues that the cost of renewable energy power generation has declined significantly, it surely must remain beyond the realm of being financially viable to develop or there wouldn’t be such a clamor for the extension of all the financial incentives that this assignment references were just granted by Congress. Truth be told, while there are numerous stories of ‘sold-out’ solar communities these days, there are also examples where those projects are not selling to the general public. The difference being the latter are not subsidized to a point that makes the investment feasible; those non-subsidized projects with 25- to 30-year paybacks just don’t make much financial sense to anyone who values their money. That begs the question: If American’s are hesitant make that type of investment, why should the government be so anxious to do so?

Likewise, many utilities that were so willing to offer net-metering interconnections to renewable energy production are now realizing the Pandora box they created and finding the attempts to close that door challenging at best. If renewable power generation was so affordable, why the need to net meter it? Again, many in the utility industry likely made decisions that appeared to be the politically correct answer only to find the decision was not feasible, and are now left to solve the unsolvable puzzle they created.

The fact of the matter remains that until research can overcome the energy density and storage challenge that haunts renewable energy generation, it will continue to struggle to gain ground against the use of fossil fuel, unless the latter is so hampered by law and regulation so as to make it unaffordable. Renewable enthusiasts often point to Germany as the great success story for renewables. If one looks at their power generation portfolio for 2014, wind and solar still account for less than 15% of their energy production (Source: ENS) while tradition power sources - coal, gas and nuclear - supply almost 70%.