Opinion
It’s often quite an eye-opener, talking to a committed leftist. Rarely, outside of a cult sequestered in a remote desert with no communication with the outside world will you find a group of people so utterly convinced of what just isn’t so. Or more staunchly committed to rejecting outright anything that contradicts their received dogmas.
Just from recent personal experience, I could cite: explaining that governments counted as “Covid deaths” any death within weeks of a Covid test. “Oh, I just don’t believe that.” Or that Donald Trump oversaw record minority employment. “Well, that just isn’t true.”
And don’t even get started trying to tell them the facts about “renewables”.
The worst offenders are the left-media (oops — apologies for the tautology).
If you believe these idiots, the world is switching en masse to “renewables”. As usual, they’re completely wrong.
On almost every energy issue, [Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen] and his media cheer squad ignore setbacks in the northern hemisphere where coal and gas are being burned at record levels, the US is winding back EV mandates, two of Europe’s biggest carmakers, Volvo and Renault, are reducing EV investment and the EU looks likely to start to unravel its commitment to achieve net zero by 2050.
Thermal coal use globally reached an all-time record in 2023. Global coal exports topped one billion tonnes and coal-fired electricity generation between October 2022 and October 2023 was up 1 per cent to 8295 terawatt hours. Emissions from coal-fired power last year topped 7.85 billion tonnes of CO2, up 67 million tonnes.
The record-high coal burning is entirely because the Chinese and Indian governments aren’t run by woke dementoids worshipping at the feet of scowling Swedish doom goblins. By far the biggest kahuna in the new coal rush is China.
China now uses 55 per cent of the world’s coal, and coal makes up 70 per cent of China’s CO2 emissions. More than 95 per cent of new global coal capacity last year opened in China. Even the Guardian now acknowledges China is approving new coal power projects at the rate of two a week.
Yet in much of the Australian media, China is regularly described as a green superpower. Sure, it exports wind and solar components made in China with coal-fired electricity!
For once, the CCP is doing something smart, if shockingly cynical, in exploiting the madness of Western governments and the chattering classes.
Writes Doomberg, China is “more than happy to profit from countries willing to sacrifice themselves at the Altar of the Church of Carbon and even happier to recycle those profits into securing coal at prices lower than they would otherwise be if so much international demand hadn’t been voluntarily removed from the market”.
The left is just as mind-bogglingly wrong when it comes to their smugmobiles.
Predictions EVs will conquer the motoring world are proving just as inaccurate as peak coal forecasts. Both Porsche and the EU are pushing for delays to Europe’s commitment to phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.
The big car makers, Volvo, Renault, and Toyota, are all either scrapping or avoiding altogether EVs. Whatever else you may say about car makers, they’re not complete imbeciles. If EVs were such a goldmine, they’d be cornering the market in an instant. Even Joe Biden is pulling back on EV mandates after discovering that they couldn’t even force Americans to buy the bloody things.
Even the greenest idiot governments are recovering something approaching sanity.
The British Labour Party is paring back its $54bn annual green investment pledge to about $29bn. Germany is backtracking on green spending as its finances crumble and heavy industry leaves the industrial heartland of Europe. It is turning back to coal.
Mass protests by farmers across Europe are also driving the EU to drop its nuttier “climate” regulations on agriculture.
Because, at the end of the day, even the dumbest politician knows she has to face re-election eventually.
The workers of the world who know China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil are not reducing fossil fuel use will not be turkeys voting for Christmas.
When investment giants walk away from global corporate ESG (environmental, sustainable, governance) commitments, it should be clear even the bankers who have been making the most money from green investment can now see the electoral writing on the wall.
The Australian
If only they could get through to the morons playing fancy dress and glueing themselves to roads.