Monday, November 25, 2024

Part I

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The Money Behind Climate Change: COP29 Reaches Final Deal for $300 Billion Per Year from Developed Nations to Developing Nations

Well, it’s over at least for now. I’m talking about COP29, the 29th conference of the parties under the organization known as the United Nations. Headlines are telling us that a final agreement was reached in this meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, just as the time was running out. And according to this final deal, the United Nations has reached the agreement that richer nations will pay $300 billion into a climate financing fund for developing nations and those most endangered by climate change. And behind this is a massive story and just all kinds of worldview issues. Matthew Dalton of the Wall Street Journal reported the story this way: “The U.S., Europe, and a handful of other rich countries agreed to triple the financing they provide for climate change projects in the developing world to at least $300 billion a year by 2035, signaling their commitment to the Paris Climate Accord despite a looming obstacle, the incoming presidency of Donald Trump.”

Now at this point, I just want to say that it’s politically convenient for everyone to say that the big looming crisis for the United Nations Agreement going all the way back to the Paris Accords of 2009, it’s convenient to say that the looming threat here is the president elect of the United States, Donald Trump, but actually the looming threat could be spelled simply with one word, reality. Donald Trump, in his first administration, took the United States out of the Paris Agreement. You had President Biden then reinstate that agreement, but that doesn’t solve the problem. And as you look at the reality right now, it is very clear that what’s really at stake here is global politics and global money, and that’s what it came down to at that meeting in Azerbaijan. By the way, I state again, the meeting was held in Azerbaijan. That is the former Soviet Republic that is one of the major oil-producing centers of the world, and it doesn’t intend to sell less oil. Neither do the Saudis and other major oil-producing states. They intend to keep on producing oil. And by the way, Americans, among others, intend to keep on using it. 

The Wall Street Journal explains it this way. “The Trump campaign pledged to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, and his administration, backed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate, is likely to cut U.S. climate financing over the next few years, fueling doubts about America’s ability to fulfill the Baku Agreement, at least in the near term.” The journal went on to say, and I quote, “That puts pressure on Europe to help fill the hole left by the U.S. at a time when government budgets on the continent are squeezed by spending to arm Ukraine and rebuild their militaries against the threat from Russia.” Okay, there are some massive issues at stake here. For one thing, you have the kind of press releases coming out from this conference, and by the way, it looked like the conference was going to end in political disaster with no agreement, and that’s because you have incommensurate goals when it comes to the many nations that are involved in this kind of conference.

The poorer nations want more than anything else: money, massive monetary transfers from the developed world. But that’s where things, even with that dynamic, get really, really convoluted, because where do you put China? Going all the way back to the conversations in the United Nations on this issue, originally in the late 1980s, China was listed as a developing country, but China is a massive economy. It indeed may become the largest economy on planet Earth. It’s hard to look at China and say that it’s a developing nation, but China resisted even right down to the end of this meeting being considered a nation that owes money to the process rather than would take money from the process. To be fair, China has been putting money into investments for cleaner energy around the world, and frankly, it’s been pouring a lot of those investments into China itself. On the other hand, China’s expanding economy is largely fueling the increase in the kind of carbon-based pollutants that are going into the air.

China has opened an incredible number of coal-based power plants just in the last several years, and it intends even more. How’s that for putting it in your face? The Paris Accord, or at least the subsequent documents to the Paris Accord going back now, a generation, calls for wealthy nations to spend $1.3 trillion a year in financial transfers to less developed countries. The logic behind this is that the less developed countries are facing the threat of climate change, and they don’t have the ability to meet that threat. They, meaning the richer nations, should transfer lots of money to the poorer nations, the developing nations, in order that they could meet some of the challenges posed by, or at least we are told, will be posed by climate change. And the United States and other wealthier nations have agreed to this in logic, but at the same time, they haven’t agreed to the amount of money some of these developing nations are demanding.

Now, just for example, India was very disappointed with the agreement as it was reached, and as a matter of fact, one Indian delegate said, “India does not accept the goal proposal in its present form; the goal was too little; it is too distant. It is 2035 too far gone.” But the head of the meeting gaveled the meeting to a conclusion so much for that point. Another Indian negotiator said, according to the LA Times, “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it,” but others were sorry to say the meeting’s over. According to this report in the Los Angeles Times and also from the Associated Press, “The $300 billion will go to developing countries that need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil, and gas that causes the globe to overheat, to adapt to future warming, and to pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather.” The next sentence, “It’s not near the $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times the expiring $100 billion a year agreed to in 2009.”

“Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, hoping that more money flows in the future.” Well, in one sense, just speaking honestly, the money is speaking really loudly here. The demands for money and the transfer of money, this is a lot about politics and a lot about money, and a lot about ideology. It is not clear how much of it is actually about climate change or trying to prevent climate change. Now trying to analyze this and think this thing through in terms of the Christian worldview, it causes us to step back for a moment and remind ourselves of the creation mandate and the mandate of stewardship. We are given a mandate of dominion, but we’re also given a mandate of stewardship.

And even as we are to take dominion of the world, we are also to exercise stewardship over the world. And I’m not about to deny the reality of some climate change. I’m not even going to deny some of what’s described as the “basic science” behind what is presented as climate change. Climate changes all the time, but nonetheless, it does appear that a warming trend does pose significant threats, but it is not clear that the agreement such as what was reached at COP29 has anything to do with reality and is going to make any major difference in all of this. In reality, we are looking at a multiplicity of systems, and recent scientific reports have underlined the fact that there are so many variables at work, we’re not even sure which variables, when changed, would make a difference or if the pattern of the changes would lead to a change in the right direction.

And this just reminds me that at least a part of the problem here is that most of the people in the world and most of the energy in our government is certainly not directed to thinking in a biblical worldview. And so if you’re looking at this in merely secular terms, then the best you’ve got is whatever is presented as secular science. Now, given the Christian doctrine of, say, common grace and understanding that science can do some very significant and good things, I’m thankful for those good things. The reality is that science itself, reduced to an ideology of scientism, can’t tell us enough.

Just in recent days, the Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times ran a piece saying, “Climate is still the world’s most pressing catastrophe.” The subhead, “The latest UN summit and the broader picture are dispiriting, but there’s hope and reason to persist.” Now, behind all of this is an ideology that says, “Look, you’re looking at a finite world with finite systems, and you are looking at the fact that it is largely the release of carbon into the atmosphere that is leading to these climatological changes that are leading to a pattern of warming. And the earth can only sustain so much warming.” Human beings are the cause of it. 

Now, I’m not about to deny that human beings and particularly after the Industrial Revolution, are capable of somehow affecting the climate. I’m not going to deny that. But it is hard to just accept the ideological presentation given to us about climate change without first understanding exactly where it’s coming from and the structure of the argument that confronts us. It’s also hard to look at this without remembering that going back just a matter of decades, we were told in the middle of the 20th century, particularly in the 60s and the 70s, that the world was facing an ecological implosion due to pollution and other issues that would threaten the future existence of life on earth. And by the way, the catastrophe that was datelined in that crisis, well, we’ve already surpassed it.

The same thing was true of the so-called population explosion. When we were told that the great looming threat to human flourishing was that there were too many babies, the birth rate was too high, there were going to be too many people on planet Earth, and there was going to be mass starvation. We have passed that date too. And by the way, we are now producing massive amounts of food far beyond what we’re projected in that very pessimistic formula. For that, by the way, we should be thankful. So just looking say, at the last 60 or 70 years, it’s hard to know how seriously to take this. I do not think it is fitting for Christians just to deny the reality of climate change. We can largely observe it, but when you look at forecasting models and you look at recreated retrospective models, the reality is that a whole lot of factors have been put into that.

A team of scientists recently released a report saying that these numbers are being calculated so far behind the reality of the climate that it’s hard for anyone to know exactly where we are or how to project those kinds of figures into the future. Now, it’s not to say we shouldn’t try, but it is to say we have to do this with a certain humility. It is also very important that we understand that behind at least some of this, and certainly when you get into the academic and the political activism, there’s a lot of this. It’s a basic anti-human approach, that is, human beings are a blight upon the planet. If we would just have a smaller footprint, and by the way, we should be as Christians all for stewardship in maximizing our opportunity presented to us with this wonderful planet. But the reality is that human beings being human beings are not the problem.

It’s also clear that politics is a huge part of this, and that means that an awful lot of money is lubricating this issue all over the world. Even one report that came out at COP29 suggested that tens of billions of dollars designated for aid to countries in the name of climate change cannot be accounted for. Wow, that’s a surprise. You just put tens and hundreds of millions of dollars into a massive global equation, and you hope things are going to turn out well with the balance sheet. Well, as Christians, let’s just remember we understand why that is unlikely to happen. And remember the big headline coming out of the close of COP29 is that a final deal was reached, but it turns out that the parties leaving had different understandings of what exactly that deal represented. And by the way, remember the headline was “UN reaches $300 billion climate financing deal,” and it’s supposed to be $300 billion a year, but that’s not even going to kick in until 2035.

It’s also interesting to go back to that United Nations Climate Treaty of 1992 and understand it made a distinction between developed and developing nations. That was very much the international language back in the 1980s into, as you see here, 1992 or so. But just look at the relative standing of many of these nations. As I said, it’s really hard to look at China and call it a developing nation. Is it developing? Of course it is, but it is not a developing nation in terms of the fact that it doesn’t have vast wealth, it is likely to be the largest economy on the planet within a matter of years. And furthermore, it is now the largest single contributor to the carbon in the atmosphere. So China, well just understand this. China wants it both ways. So remember that you’re going to see the celebratory headline saying that COP29 ended with this agreement.

Part II

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Where is Energy Realism? China as a “Developing Country,” EVs, and the Plea to Trump from Major Car Makers to Encourage (Require) EV Sales

But then consider the fact that just days before the New York Times ran an article with this headline, “Soaring Emissions from China are Upending Climate Politics.” A pair of reporters report, “For many years, wealthy places like the United States and Europe have had the biggest historical responsibility for global warming and have been tasked with taking the lead and stopping it. China’s astonishing rise is upending that dynamic.” Listen to this. “Over the past three decades, China has built more than 1000 coal-fired power plants, as its economy has grown more than 40 fold. The country has become by far the largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.” “The United States has still pumped more total planet warming pollution into the atmosphere since the 19th century, in part because the country has been burning coal, oil, and natural gas for longer. But China is quickly catching up. Last year, China for the first time passed Europe as the second-largest historical emitter, according to an analysis published Tuesday by Carbon Brief, a climate research site.”

All that is fascinating. So even as you have the nations congratulating themselves on having reached an accord, we are told that China, that wants to be defined as a developing not as a developed nation, is now the largest contributor of carbon emissions. The United States is larger net over history, but that takes us back to the 19th century. I don’t think we’re going back to the 19th century. And China is not intending to decrease all of this; it is increasing all of this. But here’s where the Christian worldview also tells us that something else is going on, and that is, when people see an opportunity, they will seize upon it. China sees the opportunity both ways, it is intending to use the old fossil-fueled economy and, frankly, to surpass the United States and Europe in that fossil-fuel-driven economy. And at the same time to develop alternatives.

And that includes electric cars; it includes all kinds of solar systems and all the rest, different forms of energy. China wants to win across the board, and it is not limiting itself when it comes to emitting the carbon that comes from burning fossil fuels. I intentionally use that front-page news story from the Wall Street Journal because I want to turn to the opinion section of the journal. Last Wednesday, an article written by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., entitled “Irresistible March of Energy Realism,” Well, I could only hope that realism was at the end of an irresistible march, but as we look around us, there’s an awful lot of resistance when it comes to realism. But I think Holman Jenkins is onto something really big when he says, “Look, there isn’t going to be a major turn from fossil fuels.” And I just want to point to the realism that people in the United States are not going to give up cars.

They’re not going to give up air conditioning; they’re not going to give up school buses. And the transition to so-called alternative energy sources, it’s not that it’s unreal, it’s just that at this point it’s not economically viable. And for one thing, if you just look, for instance, at say, battery-powered cars or battery-powered vehicles, EVs, the reality is that at this point, even though some of them are actually becoming quite functional and some of them are even admired, people want to be seen driving them. The reality is that in the total economy, the manufacture and maintenance of all of those batteries and the charging of them is actually using more energy than if they were traditional carbon-based vehicles. Now, that doesn’t mean that at some point a tipping point won’t be reached, but the reality is that a tipping point isn’t going to be reached soon.

And as evidence of that, we have another very, very strange development. What is this? It is the fact that the big automotive manufacturers are putting pressure on the incoming Trump Administration not to drop the EV quotas and all the national goals, but rather to keep them. Why? Because these major automotive manufacturers, they have been investing billions upon billions of dollars in EV technology, and the American people appear not to be ready to buy all of that technology, and unless the government forces the American people, it’s not going to happen. So they’re actually putting pressure on the Trump Administration to keep up the quotas when it comes to electric vehicles. Now, I’ll just guess the vast majority of the American people don’t have a clue of the fact that that is even happening. But again, it’s on the front page of the papers. The New York Times put it this way in its headline, “Big Autos plea to Trump force us to sell EVs.”

They get right to the point in the subhead, “Industry doesn’t want to waste billions it’s already invested.” But here’s the fact: you’re looking at the reality that Americans, and for some very understandable reasons, just like there’s an understandable dependency upon air conditioning, not only for comfort, although Americans will demand it just at that level, but also for health and well-being in many parts of the country. The reality is that at this point, there is no alternative to the carbon economy. And so, this is really a game. It’s a game that companies are playing, they don’t want to lose their investment, but people aren’t going to buy EVs at the rate that is demanded here unless they’re forced to do so. And that’s exactly what the government is seeking to do now in collusion with the big auto manufacturers by reducing the number of gas-powered vehicles and increasing the number of EVs.

And that’s all you’re going to find on the lot at a certain point, at least according to plan. And so you’re going to buy an EV or you’re not going to have a V. By the way, Saturday’s edition of the same newspaper, we’re talking here about the New York Times, not a conservative newspaper. On the front page of the New York Times Saturday was a headline news story, “A ‘Green’ solution in India is fouling its capital.” The subhead, “Waste to energy plant exposes a million to toxic substances.” Now, all this tells us that the situation is just a lot more complicated than the politicians, and some of the people in big business want you to know or certainly want you to think. I mentioned Holman Jenkins a moment ago. He goes on to make the point that there is just going to be what he calls an irresistible march of energy realism.

And that’s going to mean that eventually it’s going to become clear that you’re going to have different forms of energy, and different forms of fuel that are going to be existing alongside one another. He cites a recent book by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, who goes on to say, “There is no transition.” That’s basically the title of his book. He goes on to argue that energy sources are additive and symbiotic. Now, what does that mean? It means that when a new form of energy comes online, it is adapted, it’s adopted. And so you have, for example, a coal-fired economy, and that’s followed by electrical generation of energy, and it’s followed by other things like nuclear power plants, more on that in a moment. But you also have alternative forms of energy development, such as, say, solar farms and wind energy, and all the rest. But those new forms of energy, they’re added to the energy sources used in the previous economic era.

And so coal, let’s just state the matter clearly, people thought coal was going to disappear as a fuel source decades ago. China’s building new coal-fired fuel plants. It is not passing away, and frankly, it’s not going to be without consequences. The transition is to more energy, and that just points to the fact that human beings demand more energy. Human beings need more energy. And so, you can talk about how you’re going to get that energy, but the bottom line is, one way or another, that energy is going to have to be delivered. You don’t have hospitals without that energy, you don’t have schools without that energy, you don’t have tomatoes without that energy. You don’t have life as we know it without that kind of energy. And we are in an industrial age, indeed, some argue we are in a post-industrial age. But the other thing we’re being told right now is that the emerging technology of AI, or artificial intelligence, is going to consume more energy than any previous industry or technological development has required.

So how does a society sanely say at the same time, “We’re all for AI,” but that’s going to require a radical increase in the amount of energy that’s going to be required. “And we are for cutting back on energy in light of the threat of climate change.” You can say one of those things. You can say the other of those things. You cannot sanely say both of those things. The point made by Jenkins there in the Wall Street Journal is that it is likely there will be new forms of energy, and those new forms of energy are likely to be less carbon-based, and they’re going to be likely to emit less carbon, thereby, and they are likely to take over more and more of the economy in a cost-benefit analysis. It’s going to take time. And the politicians and the others who showed up at this meeting in Azerbaijan, they certainly understand that they didn’t walk to Azerbaijan, they didn’t walk home either.

But all of these decisions come with consequences. That’s another important part of the biblical worldview: actions have consequences, ideas have consequences. Very interesting articles are appearing saying that younger adults are wondering why we don’t use more nuclear power since there are no carbon emissions. Well, that’s because many of the people who warned about nuclear power said that it is a great danger, and of course, it is not without its challenges, but in reality, if we had shifted to an overwhelming dependence on nuclear power to produce electricity decades ago, the one thing we wouldn’t be worried about now is the impact of burning fossil fuels. But the Christian worldview tells us that there is nothing without consequences and there is nothing without cost. And at the same time, we are to try to maximize human good by every possible means. But we also, according to the Christian worldview, understand that the last kind of agreement that is likely to make much of a difference is a global agreement.

Because eventually these are going to come down to decisions that are not just made globally, but more organically, they’re going to be made nationally. And even more organically, they’re going to be made right in the local home, right in the local school, right in the local building.

Part III

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Take the Cue on Climate Change: More World Leaders Showed Up to the G20 Summit Than COP29

By the way, we shouldn’t miss the point that there was an overlap between COP29, fairly few heads of state actually showed up there. There was an overlap with COP29 and the meeting of the G20. That is the leaders of the largest economies in the world. Guess what? More heads of state went to that meeting, not to COP29. That tells you where their priorities actually are. And as we’re going to see in days ahead on The Briefing, the big question there is about really one nation, and that nation is China. But it’s also true that this was the last G20 meeting that President Joe Biden will attend.

The headline in the New York Times was this: “A nostalgic Biden Fades Out of the Picture and Talks with World Leaders.” And by the way, there is no one showing up at a meeting like this with less influence than an outgoing President of the United States. All the interest, understandably enough, is on the incoming administration. And just to make the situation even more of a parable, when it came time for the G20 leaders to be photographed, Joe Biden was too busy in a conversation to make the photograph. He’s not in it. By the way, just to point out, and again, the biblical worldview makes this clear. We have a stewardship, but we do not have control of the universe. We do not actually have control of planet Earth; just to make that point of awkwardly, the Jenkins piece and the Wall Street Journal reports this: “Efforts of stabilization aren’t happening. In the peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a study finds that of 1500 climate policies announced around the world, a mere 63, or 4%, have produced any reduction in emissions.”

I’ll just point out that that little statistic did not make its way into the press release for the conclusion of COP29.