September 16, 2023 Friends,
A Mass Climate Mobilization Is Taking Place
Sunday. Here’s Why It’s Urgent.
Economist Robert Pollin analyzes the state of the global
green transition in the lead-up to Sunday’s mass protest.
September 14, 2023
Climate
activists demonstrate in front of the headquarters of BlackRock, a leading firm
invested in fossil fuels, in front of the Hudson Yards building in Manhattan,
New York, on September 13, 2023.FATIH AKTAS / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
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AUN climate report ahead of the upcoming
COP28 summit says that governments are failing to cut emissions fast enough for
the planet to avoid an unmitigated disaster and calls in turn for the phasing
out of fossil fuels. In the wake of the hottest summer on record, climate advocates
have organized a “March to End Fossil Fuels” in New York City as part of the
wave of global mobilizations with the aim of putting an end to the poisons that
are killing the planet. The action will take place Sunday, September 17.
Amid this crucial mobilization, the climate
movement is working hard to expose the roots of this crisis and chart an
alternate course, wrestling with questions such as: Why do governments continue
to subsidize fossil fuels? Aside from the obvious resistance of the fossil fuel
industry, what are the economic and technological challenges we would face by
moving to a post-fossil fuel future? How do we actually get to zero emissions?
Robert Pollin, one of the world’s leading
progressive economists and an expert on the macroeconomics of climate change
and energy, tackles these questions in an extensive and exclusive interview
for Truthout. Pollin is distinguished professor of e conomics and
co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has published scores of books and
articles on jobs and macroeconomics, labor markets, wages and poverty, and
environmental and energy economics. He was selected by Foreign Policy
Magazine as one of the “100 Global Thinkers for 2013.” His latest
book, coauthored with Noam Chomsky, is Climate Crisis and the Global
Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet.
C. J. Polychroniou: On Wednesday, September 6,
the European Copernicus Institute reported that the summer of 2023 was the hottest ever
recorded in history by a large margin, prompting in turn
UN Secretary-General António Guterres to issue a statement saying “climate
breakdown has begun.” And speaking of the UN, on Friday, September 8, it
released an assessment of
the progress on cutting emissions in which it said that
countries are failing to make good on their commitments to curb emissions and
that, subsequently, “there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure
a livable and sustainable future for all.”
First, what’s the current picture of
energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and that of renewable energy,
respectively, and why is it that eight years after the Paris Agreement the
world is still falling short of its climate goals?
Robert Pollin: To have any chance of moving onto a viable global
climate stabilization path, the single most critical project at hand is
straightforward. It is to phase out the consumption of oil, coal and natural
gas, so that, by 2050, fossil fuel consumption for producing energy will have
fallen to zero. This is because producing and burning fossil fuels to produce
energy is responsible for about 90
percent of all CO2 emissions.
As of the most recent data from the International
Energy Agency (IEA), the leading mainstream organization focused on global
energy market conditions, global CO2 emissions were at around 36 billion metric tons in 2021. This
represents a roughly 70 percent emissions increase since 1990 and a 14 percent
increase just since 2010. More to the point, according to the IEA’s estimates
for future emissions under two alternative realistic scenarios — what they term
as their “stated policies” and “announced pledges” scenarios — emissions will
fall barely at all by 2030 and will not come close to achieving the zero
emissions target by 2050.
The IEA does also develop a scenario through
which the world can reach zero emissions by 2050. The difference between the
IEA’s stated policies and announced pledges scenarios relative to their net
zero emissions by 2050 scenario is what the IEA demurely terms an “ambition
gap.” The question for getting to zero emissions is therefore to figure out how
to close this “ambition gap.”
Closing this ambition gap must, of course,
recognize that people do still need to consume energy to light, heat and cool
buildings, to power cars, buses, trains and airplanes, and to operate computers
and industrial machinery, among other uses. As such, to make progress toward
climate stabilization requires a viable alternative to the existing fossil fuel
dominant infrastructure for meeting the world’s energy needs.
Specifically, we need to be building a
high-efficiency clean renewable energy-dominant global energy system as we also
phase out to zero the fossil fuel dominant global energy infrastructure. There
are important, if still not nearly adequate, positive developments here. First
of all, on costs: The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reports that, as of 2021, fossil
fuel-generated electricity ranged between 5-15 cents per kilowatt hour within
the high-income economies. By contrast, the global average costs for generating
a kilowatt of electricity from existing utility-scale onshore wind, at 3.3
cents, or solar photovoltaic technology, at 4.8 cents, were already at the low
end of the fossil fuel-generated electricity cost range. It is therefore
reasonable to assume that, even with existing clean energy technologies,
electricity can be delivered now at approximately half the costs of fossil
fuel-generated electricity. This is without taking account of any policy
incentives to support clean energy investments or, for that matter, any
environmental costs from continuing to burn fossil fuels.
The “March to End Fossil Fuels” coming up this
Sunday, September 17, in New York City, could not be more timely and important.
In addition to these figures on costs, IRENA
reports that global investments in renewables and high efficiency reached a
record high of $1.3 trillion in 2022. However, IRENA also emphasized that this
wasn’t nearly enough, stating that annual investments need to “at least quadruple” to be on track for
bringing global emissions down to zero by 2050.
Putting it all into some basic arithmetic: As of
2021, total fossil fuel energy consumption amounted to 502
quadrillion British Thermal Units (Q-BTUs). To bring fossil
fuel consumption down to zero by 2050 would entail, in absolute figures,
cutting consumption by an average of about 19 Q-BTUs per year over 27 years,
starting in 2024. This amounts to a 3.8 percent cut in fossil fuel consumption
each year relative to the 2021 consumption level.
Technically speaking at least, this is an
entirely realistic path to zero CO2 emissions, as long as the clean energy
infrastructure is advancing in full force while fossil fuel energy consumption
falls to zero. But it will obviously require a massive political movement to
overcome the power of the global oil companies, who continue to reap
record-breaking profits from destroying the Earth. In 2022, profits for the
major oil corporations reached an all-time high of $200 billion. The oil companies and their
shareholders have no intention whatsoever of relinquishing these riches. That
is the simple answer to your question as to why we have accomplished so little
on behalf of saving the planet eight years after 193 countries formally
endorsed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.
Clearly, the “March to End Fossil Fuels” coming
up this Sunday, September 17, in New York City, could not be more timely and
important. I myself very much look forward to being out there with hopefully
hundreds of thousands of other marchers.
The 2015 Paris Agreement failed, ironically
enough, to make any mention of fossil fuels even though these poisons are
responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions and hence global warming. Yet,
the UN assessment of global progress on cutting emissions calls for the
immediate phase out of fossil fuels and even the European Union is pushing for
fossil fuel phase out “well ahead” of 2050 at COP28 climate summit.
Undoubtedly, leaving oil, coal and gas in the ground is the most effective way
to curb global warming, but this is not happening. Are economics or lack of
technological innovation in any way responsible for delaying the transition to
a post fossil fuel future?
Inevitably, there are major economic and
technical challenges involved in completely transforming the global energy
system from being dominated by fossil fuels to one being dominated by clean
renewable energy sources and high efficiency. But these challenges are by no
means overwhelming, much less insurmountable. By my own calculations, the level
of new global investment spending on clean renewables and high efficiency will
need to average about $4.5 trillion per year, every year until 2050 — a figure
that is very close to the IRENA estimate that I cited above. This amounts to an
average of about 2.5 percent of global GDP per year between now and 2050. It is
also less than 1 percent of the current level of total global financial assets
of $470 trillion. So, considering the big global financial framework, the
transition project is an entirely realistic proposition.
There are three major sets of challenges in
building a high-efficiency/renewable-energy dominant global energy infrastructure.
These concern the issues of 1) intermittency with solar and wind energy; 2)
mineral requirements as inputs in building the clean energy infrastructure and
3) land-use requirements for renewables, especially solar and wind. Let’s
briefly consider these.
Intermittency refers to the fact that the sun
does not shine and the wind does not blow 24 hours a day. Moreover, on average,
different geographical areas receive significantly different levels of sunshine
and wind. As such, the solar and wind power that are generated in the sunnier
and windier areas of the globe will need to be stored and transmitted at
reasonable costs to the less sunny and windy areas.
In fact, these issues around transmission and
storage of wind and solar power will not become pressing for many years into
the clean energy transition, probably until the mid-2030s This is because
fossil fuels, along with nuclear energy, will continue to provide a baseload of
nonintermittent energy supply as these energy sectors proceed toward their
phase out while the clean energy industry rapidly expands. Fossil fuels and
nuclear energy now provide roughly 85 percent of all global energy supplies.
Even with a phase out to zero by 2050 trajectory, with fossil fuel supply cut
on average by 18 Q-BTUs per year, fossil fuels will continue to provide the
majority of overall energy demand through about 2035. Meanwhile, fully viable
solutions to the technical challenges with transmission and storage of solar
and wind power — including around affordability — should not be more than a
decade away, certainly as long as the market for clean energy grows at the
rapid rate that is necessary. For example, IRENA estimates that global battery
storage capacity could expand between 17- to 38-fold as of 2030.
Building a global clean energy infrastructure
will entail a massive expansion in demand for the set of minerals that are used
intensively in clean energy technologies. Some of the most heavily required
minerals include lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel. Several rare earth minerals
will also experience heavily increasing demand, including tellurium, used for
solar cell production and neodymium, used in producing wind turbines and
electric vehicles.
Short-term supply shortages will likely emerge
with some of these minerals as demand for them expands rapidly. But none of the
likely shortages should be insurmountable. One solution will be to greatly
expand the industry for recycling the needed metals and minerals. At present,
average recycling rates for these resources are below 1 percent of total
supply. By contrast, recycling rates for aluminum throughout the world are
at around 75 percent. Increasing recycling rates by even relatively modest
amounts will make a substantial contribution towards overcoming supply
shortages.
Beyond these considerations are the equally
critical issues relating to where, and under what conditions, these required
minerals will be extracted. To begin with, the majority of deposits of the key
minerals are located in the Global South. Thus, well over 50 percent of all
lithium deposits are located in the so-called “lithium
triangle’” of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Nearly 50 percent of all
cobalt deposits are in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with another 12
percent in Indonesia and the Philippines. Indonesia, Brazil and the Philippines
account for 44 percent of all nickel deposits, while South Africa and Brazil
account for 61 percent of all manganese deposits.
The rapid expansion of mining in these regions
creates conditions for both significant positive as well as negative impacts.
The positive possibilities include the employment creation, infrastructure
investments and export earnings that could result through the large-scale
expansion of the respective regions’ mining operations. On the negative side,
the major expansion of these mining operations will almost certainly create
harmful environmental impacts. For example, in the Chile/Argentina/Bolivia
lithium triangle, approximately 500,000 gallons of water are needed to produce
one ton of lithium through the particular “brine pumping and solar evaporation”
extraction technique deployed there. This alters the natural hydrodynamics of
the region and reduces the availability of water for local communities.
It will also always be an open question as to how
large a share of the export revenues generated by these mining operations will
accrue to the host country governments or local enterprises. This will depend
on the terms established between the respective countries’ governments and
local enterprises vis-a-vis the multinational corporations who obtain
concessions to develop and operate the mines. Unless the local governments and
enterprises succeed in gaining favorable terms, the profits from these mining
operations will then mostly be repatriated back to the shareholders of the
multinational firms, thereby replicating a pattern of corporate imperialism that has deep
historical roots.
The issue of land use requirements is frequently
cited to demonstrate that building a 100 percent renewable energy global
economy is unrealistic. But these claims are not supported by evidence.
As one individual country case, the situation in
Greece is useful in demonstrating how land use issues with respect to renewable
energy development can be managed either poorly or well. In fact, land use for
renewable energy projects has been controversial in Greece for several years.
This is primarily because wind turbines have already been erected in
environmentally sensitive areas such as mountaintops and pristine ecological
sites. These installations are scarring the impacted land areas and
contributing to biodiversity losses.
The overwhelming amount of support provided by
fossil fuel subsidies is not received by poor people, but rather flows to
high-income households and the fossil fuel companies
My coauthors and I have developed a series of
scenarios through which Greece can supply 100 percent of its energy needs with
renewables by 2050 while creating minimum impact on undeveloped or agricultural
land areas. In one specific case, we show how the 100 percent renewable energy
requirement by 2050 can be met while locating renewable installations on a
total of 709 square kilometers (km2) of land, which amounts to only 0.5 percent
of Greece’s total land area. Crucially, within this scenario, we show that
renewable installations would need to be located on only about 0.2 percent of
Greece’s roughly 88,000 km2 of agricultural and undeveloped areas. We also
exclude altogether the roughly 37.000 km2 of forests and woodland shrub areas
of land cover in Greece. The key to minimizing solar and wind installations on
environmentally sensitive sites is to maximize installations on the full range
of available artificial surfaces, including commercial, industrial and
residential rooftops, along roadways and rail lines, at airports, sports and
leisure facilities and at mineral extraction sites.
How much of a role do subsidies play in hindering
fossil fuel phase out?
One of the few postulates in economics that you
can actually count on is: “If you pay people lots of money to do something, you
will get more of that something than if you didn’t pay them.” This pretty much
sums up the situation with fossil fuel subsidies all over the world today.
Despite reams of official pledges and resolutions over many years from virtually
every international and national governmental body, governments continue to pay
out huge sums of money to underwrite the production and consumption of fossil
fuels and thus, the ongoing destruction of a livable planet.
There are different
estimates as to exactly how much governments are now spending
on fossil fuel subsidies. In my view, the most relevant measure — combining
figures from the International Energy Agency and Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) — is $1.4 trillion for 2022. This figure is roughly
equal to the record amount of global clean energy investments in 2022 that I
cited above. It is also roughly double the total fossil fuel subsidy figure of
$650 billion from 2019, just prior to the COVID lockdown of 2020.
Why are governments still paying out fossil fuel
subsidies in the face of all the commitments they have made to eliminate them?
The most benevolent explanation is that these subsidies have been critical for
keeping low-income people afloat. This is true, most especially in poor
countries but in high-income countries as well. However, governments would be
able to provide much more generous levels of support to low-income people, at
much lower costs, through other measures, including simple cash transfers or
subsidized prices for food.
In fact, the overwhelming amount of support
provided by fossil fuel subsidies is not received by poor people, but rather
flows to high-income households and the fossil fuel companies. To take the
case of Indonesia, the share of total fossil fuel subsidies going to
the richest 10 percent of households is approximately 10 times greater than the
amount going to the poorest 10 percent. This results because every Indonesian
is able to buy fossil fuel energy at the same subsidized retail prices. The
only difference is that, on average, rich households spend 10 times more on
energy than poor households.
Still more lavish benefits go to the fossil fuel
companies. If these subsidies were channeled instead into clean energy
investments, as they should be, the fossil fuel companies would face steadily
mounting competition from clean energy sources and their markets would dry up.
Instead, thanks to ongoing subsidy support, fossil fuel companies continue to
reap outsized profits.
What do you think of the idea of a Fossil Fuel
Non-Proliferation Treaty as a way of stopping the
expansion of fossil fuel exploration?
The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation proposal is
being led by the Pacific Island nations of Vanuatu and Tuvalu that are being
severely impacted by the rising sea levels resulting from global warming. The
website for this initiative states: “It’s time to leave behind the pollution,
economic and climate and security risks caused by coal, oil and gas. There is
enough affordable, renewable energy capacity in every nation of the world to
power people’s lives and communities.” I completely agree with this. Of course,
we have to embrace all forms of mobilization to save our planet, including this
important one.
Hundreds of international, national and local
organizations have endorsed the September 17,“March to End Fossil Fuels” in New
York City, which is part of a mass global escalation to put an end to fossil
fuel production. Similar demonstrations have already taken place in different
parts of the globe, including London on April 24, 2023, where some 50,000
people gathered outside Parliament to demand that the U.K. government stop all
fossil fuel explorations immediately. What should we make of concerns and
claims that demands for climate regulations are driving voters straight into
the arms of extreme populist parties and movements?
The point here is that building a clean energy
economy cannot just be seen by voters only in terms of “demands for climate
regulations.” It is critical to understand the clean energy transition as a
great source of new opportunities, along multiple dimensions. First,
investments to build a clean energy economy have already become a major new
source of job creation in all places that clean energy investments are being
mounted. This expansion of job opportunities will continue growing as the clean
energy transition proceeds. As we have seen, clean renewable energy, combined
with high efficiency, will also deliver energy at lower prices than the current
costs of fossil fuel energy. Further, low-income economies will be able to
build relatively small-scale, lower-cost, clean energy infrastructures in their
rural regions. To date, working within the conventional massive fossil fuel
infrastructure scale, governments in developing economies have failed to
deliver electricity to roughly half of their rural populations. Finally, of
course, there will also be major health benefits everywhere through eliminating
both indoor and outdoor pollution generated by burning fossil fuels. These are
all in addition to the fundamental goal of driving emissions to zero.
Still, there is also no question that workers
and communities throughout the world whose livelihoods depend on people
consuming oil, coal and natural gas will lose out in the clean energy
transition. As such, just transition policies for these workers and communities
have to be understood as central features of the overall clean energy
transition project.
Along with several coworkers, I have
developed just transition programs for eight U.S. states,
as well for the U.S. economy overall and for other countries, most
recently South Korea.
Focusing on transition policies for the fossil
fuel industry dependent workers, I would argue that, as a first principle, the
aim of such policies should be, simply, to truly protect them against major
losses in their living standards. To accomplish this, the critical components
of a just transition policy should include three types of guarantees for the
workers: 1) a guaranteed new job; 2) a guaranteed level of pay with their new
job that is at least comparable to their previous fossil fuel industry job and
3) a guarantee that their pensions will remain intact regardless of whether
their employers’ business operations are phased out.
The imperative of generous just transition
policies was recently described by Norman Rodgers. Rodgers has been an oil
refinery worker in Los Angeles for 24 years and is a leader of the United
Steelworkers Local 675 that represents the region’s oil refinery workers.
Rogers writes as follows:
Many speak of a ‘just
transition,’ but we’ve never seen one. No worker or community member will ever
believe that an equitable transition is possible until we see details fully
funded state safety net and job creation programs…. With a fully funded equitable
transition plan — meeting the immediate need for a safety net for workers and
communities and offering a bold vision to restructure our economy — we can …
move California workers, communities and the planet toward a more secure future.
Following from Norman Rodgers, I hope that
Sunday’s “March to End Fossil Fuels” will highlight and celebrate the massive
opportunities — including the immediate tangible opportunities, like jobs,
greater access to affordable electricity, and healthy environment — that will
result through creating our clean energy future. Of course, these are all in
addition to saving the planet by driving C2O emissions to zero. Equally, I hope
we marchers will loudly insist on just transition policies for all workers and communities
whose livelihoods now depend on the fossil fuel industry.
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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