Two perceptive op eds by Dr. Judith Curry provides thinking pertinent to UK Sunak’s reconsideration of climate policies.  Her articles in December and January for Sky News Australia was The faux urgency of the climate crisis is giving us no time or space to build a secure energy future. and Rapid technological innovation – not harmful renewables policy – key to lighting our energy future.

Note: “faux” means “artificial” or “contrived”–IOW “fake” without any Trumpian overtones.  I referred to Sunak in the title because he is now the man in the barrel for raising energy issues.  But those elected officials who climb down even a little from ruinous Zero Carbon promises will find themselves in the same predicament.  So this messaging would serve many in these dire straits.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

There is a growing realisation that emissions and temperature targets
are now detached from the issues of human well-being
and the development of our 21st century world.

For the past two centuries, fossil fuels have fueled humanity’s progress, improving standards of living and increasing the life span for billions of people. In the 21st century, a rapid transition away from fossil fuels has become an international imperative for climate change mitigation, under the auspices of the UN Paris Agreement. As a result, the 21st century energy transition is dominated by stringent targets to rapidly eliminate carbon dioxide emissions. However, the recent COP27 meeting in Egypt highlighted that very few of the world’s countries are on track to meet their emissions reductions commitment.

The desire for cleaner, more abundant, more reliable and
less expensive sources of energy is universal.

However, the goal of rapidly eliminating fossil fuels is at odds with the urgency of providing grid electricity to developing countries. Rapid deployment of wind and solar power has invariably increased electricity costs and reduced reliability, particularly with increasing penetration into the grid. Allegations of human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, where global solar voltaic supplies are concentrated, are generating political conflicts that threaten the solar power industry. Global supply chains of materials needed to produce solar and wind energy plus battery storage are spawning new regional conflicts, logistical problems, supply shortages and rising costs. The large amount of land use required for wind and solar farms plus transmission lines is causing local land use conflicts in many regions.

Given the apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding climate change, does the alleged urgency of reducing carbon dioxide emissions somehow trump these other considerations? Well, the climate ‘crisis’ isn’t what it used to be. The COP27 has dropped the most extreme emissions scenario from consideration, which was the source of the most alarming predictions. Only a few years ago, an emissions trajectory that produced 2 to 3 oC warming was regarded as climate policy success. As limiting warming to 2 oC seems to be in reach, the goal posts were moved to limit the warming target to 1.5 oC. These warming targets are referenced to a baseline at the end of the 19th century; the Earth’s climate has already warmed by 1.1 oC. In context of this relatively modest warming, climate ‘crisis’ rhetoric is now linked to extreme weather events.

Attributing extreme weather and climate events to global warming can motivate a country to attempt to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. However, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that eliminating emissions would have a noticeable impact on weather and climate extremes in the 21st century. It is very difficult to untangle the roles of natural weather and climate variability and land use from the slow creep of global warming. Looking back into the past, including paleoclimatic data, there has been more extreme weather everywhere on the planet. Thinking that we can minimize severe weather through using atmospheric carbon dioxide as a control knob is a fairy tale. In particular, Australia is responsible for slightly more than 1% of global carbon emissions. Hence, Australia’s emissions have a minimal impact on global warming as well as on Australia’s own climate.

There is growing realization that these emissions and temperature targets have become detached from the issues of human well-being and development. Yes, we need to reduce CO2 emissions over the course of the 21st century. However once we relax the faux urgency for eliminating CO2 emissions and the stringent time tables, we have time and space to envision new energy systems that can meet the diverse, growing needs of the 21st century. This includes sufficient energy to help reduce our vulnerability to surprises from extreme weather and climate events.

Framework for a robust transition of our energy systems.

In transitioning to cleaner sources of power, we need to acknowledge that the world will need much more energy than it is currently consuming – not just in developing countries, but also in countries with advanced economies. Constructing, operating, and maintaining low-carbon energy systems will itself require substantial amounts of energy, with much of it currently derived from fossil fuels. Increasing adoption of electric vehicles and electric heat pumps will increase electricity demand. More electricity can help reduce our vulnerability to the weather and climate: air conditioners, water desalination plants, irrigation, vertical farming operations, water pumps, coastal defenses, and environmental monitoring systems. Further, abundant electricity is key to innovations in advanced materials, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics, photonics, quantum computing and others that are currently unforeseen or unimagined.

In the near term, laying the foundation for new energy systems is
substantially more important than trying to stamp out fossil fuel use.

This should focus on developing and testing new energy technologies. There will continue to be demand for fossil fuels over the coming decades. Countries that restrict fossil fuel production will not only hurt themselves economically. Paradoxically, restricting fossil fuel production in the near term will actually slow down the energy transition, which itself requires substantial amounts of energy to implement.

The best use of the next three decades is to continue to develop and test a range of options for energy production, storage, transmission and other technologies that support goals of reliable, low-cost energy while lessening environmental impacts and carbon emissions. A more prudent strategy is to use the next two to three decades as a learning period with new technologies, experimentation and intelligent trial and error.

Near-term targets for CO2 emissions, such as 75% renewable energy by 2035, drives the energy transition towards using existing technologies in ways that are counterproductive in the longer term. The perceived urgency of making such a colossal transformation can lead to poor decisions that not only harms the economy and overall human wellbeing, but also slows down progress on reducing carbon emissions.

Rapid technological innovation across all domains of the global energy sector continues to accelerate: long-distance transmission and smart microgrids, energy storage, residential heating, electric vehicles and remarkable progress in advanced nuclear designs. Different countries and locales will use different combinations of these innovations based upon their location, local resources, power needs, and sociopolitical preferences.

In Addition:  Energy Balance Includes Every Energy Source 

Richard O. Faulk explands on the above perspective writing at Forbes: Stop Demonizing Fossil Fuels

If we are going to discuss the climate change movement’s agenda, let’s admit that the underlying problem they seek to resolve is an energy imbalance—one which they attribute to humanity’s excessive reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. To many members of the movement, the imbalance can only be corrected by reducing our dependence on sources such as coal and oil, and replacing them with others (ie. natural gas, ethanol, solar, wind).

Although this sounds tempting to some, the proportion of each source’s contribution to the new “balance” is elusive—both scientifically and politically. Indeed, many environmentalists largely neglect other important energy sources—such as nuclear energy—even though nuclear power plants produce negligible greenhouse gases. In its haste to “save the Earth,” the climate change movement has failed to appreciate that, for the foreseeable future, every source of energy is essential. We cannot afford to demonize and exclude any resources. Instead, each competing source must be sustained by a balanced energy policy that fosters economic growth, environmental protection and human health.

Moreover, if we are seriously concerned about global environmental issues, this new balance cannot be struck without considering its impact on economic, environmental and health concerns in each nation. This requires open minds regarding how certain resources, such as fossil fuels, can be used in developing nations which cannot reasonably be expected to shift immediately to alternative sources.

The use of coal, for example, as an imported product in such countries should not be disfavored while society diversifies to accommodate cleaner-burning technologies and affordable alternative sources. Encouraging such exports creates markets in developed nations that offset pressures to reduce usage domestically. Without relatively inexpensive imported resources, developing nations cannot develop their economies—and insisting on unaffordable alternatives denies them the opportunities that developed nations have exploited for centuries. The inevitable result will be continued poverty, depressed nutrition, increased disease and premature deaths in developing nations—a scenario that any reasonable climate advocate should find unacceptable.

Nevertheless, many climate activists doggedly argue for policies that will suppress the availability and use of fossil fuels in developing nations—as though renewable and other cleaner-burning sources were already available to meet the needs of their disadvantaged citizens. The insensitivity of such policies is alarming—especially since renewable and alternative fuel sources are not yet widely available and effectively deployed even in wealthier nations, such as the United States. It is irrational and, indeed, cruel to insist that fossil fuel use should be minimized globally when such an approach deprives the world’s most impoverished nations of relatively inexpensive and widely available energy sources.

Fossil fuels offer developing nations a “bridge to the future”
that empowers economic development and, ultimately,
diversification of energy resources.

A “balanced” energy policy therefore must consider much more than the appropriate global blend of energy sources. It must also consider the types of energy that can best be utilized in particular nations according to their financial abilities, technical skills and particular needs. It is naive to insist that renewable or alternative sources replace fossil fuels if those advanced sources are unaffordable, unavailable or otherwise impractical in the locations where energy is needed. Such idealism does nothing to feed the hungry, heat and light their homes, workplaces and schools, or encourage economic and technical development.