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I’m seeing more and more of a new kind type of climate denialism pop up lately, which I like to call climate optimism. A climate optimist is aware that the climate crisis is real, is caused by humans, and is an existential threat to humanity. However, they claim that the worst of the climate crisis has already been solved with technology and capitalism. I.e. they think that the current and developing technology solution will prevent more climate disasters and now it is just up to the free market to apply it. In other words, there is nothing more that governments must do but to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry (sometimes natural gas is excepted). A prime example of a climate optimist is the youtube channel Kurzgesagt. But I see this a lot from people that like to cite Our World In Data.
This is climate denial because it completely ignores global trends in carbon emissions, production capabilities, infrastructure rollout in poorer economies, etc. We are still increasing our carbon emissions (albeit at a slower rate) at a time when we needed to have stopped releasing CO2 altogether.
EDIT: After reading the article (as someone posted an archive) I see—to my surprise—that this article is not guilty of my accusations.
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90s Economist was more of a neoliberal front preaching privatization and austerity programs for third-world countries. While heavily ideologized, it tried to keep things from going too extreme, not it is just another sensationalist brown paper.
War and subsidies have turbocharged the LNG transition. There, I fixed the title.
Natural gas compliments renewables until battery storage and renewables overproduction pushes out natural gas. It also produces smaller amounts of CO2 per unit of electricity produced versus coal. Recently, there was an HN thread about large amounts of UK wind curtailment. The largest battery storage system in Europe just went live to provide grid services that’ll negate the need for natural gas to provide those serv…
Can anyone taking issue with this article please address the substance of it?
1) Supply is constrained (by the war and sanctions), demand is fixed to rising, so price goes up.
2) Price goes up, so there is more demand for alternatives, including dirty ones (coal) but also green ones (solar, wind, etc).
3) Increased investment in green energy sources will make them more competitive faster than expected and thus spur the transition.
Can anyone taking issue with this article please address the substance of it?
To me the article is just economics 101. 1) Supply is constrained (by the war and sanctions), demand is fixed to rising, so price goes up. 2) Price goes up, so there is more demand for alternatives, including dirty ones (coal) but also green ones (solar, wind, etc). 3) Increased investment in green energy sources will make them more competitive faster than expected and thus spur the transition.
The article is worth the read. Apparently "S&P Global, a data firm, thinks emissions from energy combustion will peak in 2027, at a level the world would still be producing in 2028 had the war not happened." This isn't theorized market activity, it's actual changes in generation capacity plans made over the last twelve months.