[T}he very concept of net zero is deeply flawed. It is based on the idea that all we need to do to prevent dangerous levels of warming is eliminate carbon pollution to the point where our remaining emissions are matched by the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by plants, soils and other natural carbon sinks, as well as – should they ever exist – novel carbon removal technologies. But this focus on emissions is misguided, because it is not how much we emit every year that ultimately counts.
What matters is the concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and these, as the planetary catastrophe unfolding around us testifies, are already far too high.
Atmospheric concentrations of the most significant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are now around 420 parts per million, up from 280 ppm in the 18th Century and 336 ppm when I was born in 1979.
The safe level is generally considered to be no more than 350 ppm, yet net zero aims to stabilise concentrations at whatever level they reach when we finally reach carbon neutrality – and that may be as high as 470 ppm even if we meet our commitments globally. Given what we’re already experiencing at 420 ppm, stabilising the climate at such levels should be unthinkable – and that means we need to rethink net zero.
Rather than slowly applying the brakes with the aim of stopping by 2050, we should be slamming on the brakes immediately and then shifting into reverse. Simply reducing emissions to net zero is not enough, we should be aiming for net negative so that we can start reducing atmospheric concentrations back down to safe levels.
“Without policies such as regulations or taxes on very polluting investments, it’s unlikely that wealthy individuals making a lot of money from fossil fuel investments will stop investing in them,” says one economist.
The richest tenth of U.S. households are responsible for 40% of all the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, a study published Thursday revealed, underscoring what progressives say is the need for regulations and taxes on carbon-intensive investments.
Published in PLOS Climate, the study—which was led by University of Massachusetts, Amherst sustainability scientist Jared Starr—analyzed 30 years of U.S. household income data and the greenhouse gas emissions generated in creating that income.
“We find significant and growing emissions inequality that cuts across economic and racial lines,” the paper notes. “In 2019, fully 40% of total U.S. emissions were associated with income flows to the highest earning 10% of households.”
“Among the highest-earning 1% of households (whose income is linked to 15-17% of national emissions), investment holdings account for 38-43% of their emissions,” the publication continues. “Even when allowing for a considerable range of investment strategies, passive income accruing to this group is a major factor shaping the U.S. emissions distribution.”
“It just seems morally and politically problematic to have one group of people reaping so much benefit from emissions while the poorer groups in society are asked to disproportionately deal with the harms of those emissions.”
The study’s findings are consistent with research published in 2021 by the Institute for European Environmental Policy and the Stockholm Environment Institute that estimated the wealthiest 1% of humanity was on track to produce 16% of all global CO2 emissions by 2030. Additionally, a 2022 Oxfam report found that a single billionaire produces a million times more carbon emissions than the average person.
Starr toldThe Washington Post that “as you move up the income ladder, an increasing share of emissions is associated with investments.”
Then there were “super-emitters” with extremely high overall greenhouse gas emissions, corresponding to about the top 0.1% of households. About 15 days of emissions from a super-emitter was equal to a lifetime of emissions for someone in the poorest 10% in America.
The team found that the highest emissions linked to income came from white, non-Hispanic homes, and the lowest came from Black households. Emissions peaked until age 45 to 54, and then declined.
“It just seems morally and politically problematic to have one group of people reaping so much benefit from emissions while the poorer groups in society are asked to disproportionately deal with the harms of those emissions,” said Starr.
The study asserts that “results suggest an alternative income or shareholder-based carbon tax, focused on investments, may have equity advantages over traditional consumer-facing cap-and-trade or carbon tax options and be a useful policy tool to encourage decarbonization while raising revenue for climate finance.”
“Without policies such as regulations or taxes on very polluting investments, it’s unlikely that wealthy individuals making a lot of money from fossil fuel investments will stop investing in them.” https://t.co/66v51R4xE7
Lucas Chancel, a French economist who was not part of the study, told the Post that “all Americans contribute to climate change, but clearly not in the same way.”
“Without policies such as regulations or taxes on very polluting investments,” he stressed, “it’s unlikely that wealthy individuals making a lot of money from fossil fuel investments will stop investing in them.”
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
Despite his big talk on climate, when it comes to fossil fuels, President Biden’s policies just build on previous expansion.
A slew of White House actions are undermining efforts to address climate change, and under Biden, the country is producing more energy from fossil fuels than it did under former President Donald Trump.
The science is clear: Building any new fossil fuel infrastructure is incompatible with a livable climate. Yet, while President Joe Biden touts the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, as the country’s biggest climate law ever, he’s glossing over all the ways his administration has advanced fossil fuels, including in the IRA.
A slew of White House actions are undermining efforts to address climate change. And under Biden, the country is producing more energy from fossil fuels than it did under former President Donald Trump. In 2022, the U.S. broke its record for most fossil fuels produced in a year. Worse, it’s on track to break that record for 2023.
We know that to stem the tide of climate chaos, we need to move off fossil fuels, period. Instead, the Biden administration has approved and supported several projects that will unleash carbon bombs on our climate and lock in decades of drilling, burning, and emitting.
“Unless he drastically changes course, Biden’s legacy will forever be marred by his failure to directly address fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis,” said one campaigner.
Climate campaigners on Tuesday responded to U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech touting the clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act on the eve of its first anniversary by condemning his administration’s fossil fuel expansion and calling on him to declare a climate emergency.
Biden has repeatedly hailed the $368 billion in clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) while claiming last week that he has “practically” declared a climate emergency. On Tuesday, the president delivered his remarks at Ingeteam, a company that makes wind turbine systems and says it plans to manufacture electric vehicle charging stations and hire 100 workers.
“This is happening across the state,” Biden asserted. “It is a direct result of the clean energy investments I signed into law a year ago. Folks, as I’ve said for a long time, when I think climate, I think jobs.”
Tune in as I deliver remarks on how Bidenomics is Investing in America to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. https://t.co/dcsbgitKAt
Progressive critics pushed back against the president’s claims.
“President Biden can talk until he’s blue in the face about investments in clean energy, but as long as he continues to approve massive new fossil fuel projects throughout the country, we keep moving backward on the path to a livable climate future,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. “No amount of investment in wind turbines, solar panels, or faulty carbon capture schemes will protect our environment or stabilize our climate if we simultaneously extract and burn more and more oil and gas.”
“The Alaska Willow drilling project, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a plethora of new LNG export terminals—these are among the features of Biden’s energy legacy that will doom us to climate catastrophe if he doesn’t change course now,” Hauter continued. “Meanwhile, President Biden’s massive investments in unproven, impossibly expensive carbon capture schemes serve only to allow the fossil fuel industry to keep doing what it does best—drill, frack, pump, and pollute—under the premise that a mysterious, magical technology will somehow clean it all up.”
“These faulty initiatives are sucking away precious time and money that could otherwise be spent on legitimate clean energy projects like wind, solar, and building efficiency,” she added.
It’s been almost one year since the Inflation Reduction Act passed Congress, but @POTUS and his administration aren’t acknowledging how they’ve advanced fossil fuels – even in the IRA. We need to move off fossil fuels NOW to truly stop climate chaos.
Oil Change International U.S. campaign manager Allie Rosenbluth called the IRA “one of the biggest handouts to the fossil fuel industry in U.S. history.”
“With tens of billions of dollars in giveaways for the oil and gas industry, provisions expanding fossil fuel leasing, and incentives for dangerous and unproven technologies designed to keep the fossil fuel industry in business like carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and direct air capture, this law will not accomplish what we need to have a livable future.”
“Unless he drastically changes course, Biden’s legacy will forever be marred by his failure to directly address fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis,” Rosenbluth added.
President Biden @potus please watch this video. It makes the case for a climate emergency declaration with concision and conviction @FightFossilshttps://t.co/em7PrzsA0M
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said in a statement that “one year after President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the need is more urgent than ever for him to declare a climate emergency, phase out fossil fuels, and fast-track distributed energy systems.”
CBD energy justice director Jean Su argued that “it’s clear that the IRA isn’t enough.”
“This summer has been an absolute horror show of the catastrophic consequences of burning fossil fuels. President Biden needs to run, not walk, away from the climate catastrophe of fossil fuels,” she asserted. “Every time his administration approves another oil or gas project, it pushes us toward a more hellish future.”
“Biden should use all his executive powers to speed the end of the fossil fuel era, because every tenth of a degree matters,” Su added. “Unless he does, these projects will perpetuate human suffering, environmental racism, and wildlife extinction. They’ll just keep on cooking the planet.”
March to End Fossil Fuels. Sept 17th. NYC. Please join us to call on our leaders to step up or step aside. https://t.co/kwKD6UYdwj
A spoof ad of Sunak shaking oil-soaked handPhoto: Fossil Free London
PARODY adverts mocking Rishi Sunak for giving public money to oil giants have appeared across London’s bus stops.
The Prime Minister is shown shaking an oil-soaked hand next to a Conservative logo with the words: “A helping hand for those in need: £3.75 billion public money to oil company Equinor if Rosebank oil field goes ahead.”
The spoof ads have been spotted in Hackney, Southwark and Tower Hamlets so far, and come after Fossil Free London campaigners last week delivered giant gifts to the Norwegian embassy to represent the £3.75bn tax breaks developers of the North Sea’s Rosebank field could receive.
Norway’s state-backed oil and gas giant Equinor would be among the firms set to profit while the taxpayer picks up almost all the costs of the development.
Earlier this month Mr Sunak claimed a planned expansion of oil and gas drilling in the North Sea was “entirely consistent” with the government’s goal to reach net zero by 2050.
