German EU Parliamentarian Holger Krahmer has posted a very interesting view on Obama’s recently announced new climate initiatives, which aim to reduce USA’s CO2 emissions 50% by 2030.
Photo: MEP Holger Krahmer, EU
The reductions are supposedly to come mainly from “the shut down of coal power plants and the introduction of more renewable energies“.
But Krahmer calls Obama’s plan “a bluff”, and Europe is falling for it.
The announced efforts are in truth not efforts, and the reductions in CO2 emissions for the USA can be reached without any additional cost. American CO2 emissions have been falling for years, and have been so without any action from the government – ever since affordable gas from unconventional sources has started replacing coal as a source of energy. One could call the shale gas revolution also the market-economy energy revolution. […]
One look at the numbers shows: Coal’s share of the USA’s energy mix has been steadily dropping since 2007, from 48.9% to 37.4% in 2012. On the other hand, the share of natural gas has gone from 21.7% to 30.4% for the same time period.”
America’s use of renewable energy has also increased, but are still practically insignificant in the overall energy mix. Obama’s initiative is one that tries to grab credit for what the free-market economy is doing on its own already. As a result of the reduction in coal, Krahmer writes:
American CO2 emissions in the same time period dropped 13.5%. Of course it would not be serious to make a straight line extrapolation to the year 2030, but one can see that gas in the USA will continue its boom and that it will lead to a shift in the energy mix in favor of gas. Obama’s climate promises are only anticipating a development that is completely independent of any measures by the US government. In other words: It’s a reduction in US-CO2 emissions that is based on the fortune of having huge gas reserves at its disposal, and it is going to cost the USA nothing. Making promises that don’t cost anything is easy. And Obama did precisely that at his recent speech at Georgetown University.”
Krahmer then asks what shall the USA do with its vast coal reserves, which the country will no longer need. Krahmer writes that the answer is a no-brainer:
The coal will be exported. In 2012 the USA exported 125.7 million tonnes. In 2007 the amount was only 59.1 million tonnes. In just five years the USA was able to double its coal exports. The grateful customers of this American coal just happens to be self-anointed climate protection bulwark Europe, which in 2012 took in half of the total US coal exports. When Obama is serious about his climate promises, then he is not casting into question – as he announced – the financial support for coal power plant construction in foreign countries, but rather the export of American coal. Because this is not to be expected, nothing more needs to be said in regards to the free trade agreement with Europe.”
Political warmism was always a game of Realpolitik and cunning and trying to subdue the economic competitor.
A commission from the German Bundestag wrote the Kyoto treaty (and had it called Kyoto treaty instead of Bonn treaty, cunning in itself) and made it so that Germany would not have to do anything beyond shutting down old DDR factories to fullfil the goals.
As there is no real problem of Global Warming this just keeps being the biggest scapegoat politicians could ask for ever.
Dang, we’ve been caught.
We’ll keep fracking, you guys keep buying coal.
If countries really wanted to reduce their co2 output they should be going made for gas. No pain, all gain. We will not run out of gas. What warmists cannot and will not accept is that fossil fuels are here to stay – for a very long time indeed. 😉
I follow this stuff for a living. When I heard the President’s speach, I realized it was the actually nothing new, it was the same path EPA had been following before the speech. I surmise it was done to prop up his base, to let them know he really, really was thinking about “climate change.” In fact, as you have stated, the US is already almost to the 17% reduction in CO2 goal just from the market forces involving the new sources of gas, without a trace of regulation. And when many coal fired power plants close in 2015, there will be even less coal burned in favor of natural gas. But this will not be due to CO2 regulations but to mercury control.
Obama got into power with the Green Lobby paying the way and now Obama has to “come good” for their support.
If the Green Lobby was dismantled and outlawed tomorrow Obama would have to find another group to prop him up …maybe Big Oil and Gas?
THEN you would hear him announce an expansion of clean coal and clean gas plants!!!
This has nothing to do with saving the planet, it has everything to do with saving the pipeline of money being deposited inside political alliances!
The “Green Lobby” is at least partially “Big Oil”; and that’s why they want Big Coal gone.
Careful with the officially proclaimed chasms. They are a lie.
Holger Kramer should do his home work.
Both the US and Europe still uphold and further expand their bio mandates en CO2 emission reduction schemes for power plants. It is a deadly mix for millions of people on the planet. It already triggered food riots and the Arab Revolution.
This policy kills people.
A typical situation is at my university, with 5000 employees and 50000 students in Pennsylvania, USA.
Rather than repair the coal power plant, it is switching it to natural gas.
The danger of future regulation played a role, but the conversion costs ($40 million out of a $2 billion yearly budget) are not much bigger than the repairs, and natural gas is extremely inexpensive now here.