"The paper places a much higher estimate on economic losses than previous research, calculating a #SocialCostOfCarbon to be $1,056 per ton. This compares to a range set out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that estimates the cost to be around $190 per ton.
The cost of transitioning away from #FossilFuels and curbing the impacts of #ClimateChange, while not trivial, pale in comparison to the cost of climate change itself."
'Woodcock’s entries in the Lords’ register of interests show he is paid to act as the chair of the Purpose Business Coalition, an organisation run by the PR and lobbying firm Crowne Associates, which counts the oil company #BP and the arms company #Leonardo among its clients.'
interestingly, Alan Beattie (FT) points out, the headline subsidies quoted as flowing to fossil fuel firms around the world include both explicit & implicit subsidies (calculated by the IMF & World Bank).
I'm not saying all is therefore fine, but the implicit subsidies include future taxes not levied... as well as other regulatory issues (rather than cold hard cash payments).
This makes the figures look less 'fact' & more political rhetorical which is worth knowing!
#Microsoft#FossilFuels#Decarbonization#ClimateChange#AI: "When Microsoft Corp. pledged four years ago to remove more carbon than it emits by the end of the decade, it was one of the most ambitious and comprehensive plans to tackle climate change. Now the software giant's relentless push to be the global leader in artificial intelligence is putting that goal in peril.
The Seattle-based company’s total planet-warming impact is about 30% higher today than it was in 2020, according to the latest sustainability report published Wednesday. That makes getting to below zero by 2030 even harder than it was when it announced its carbon-negative goal.
Now to meet its goals, the software giant will have to make serious progress very quickly in gaining access to green steel and concrete and less carbon-intensive chips, said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Green. “In 2020, we unveiled what we called our carbon moonshot. That was before the explosion in artificial intelligence,” he said. “So in many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020, if you just think of our own forecast for the expansion of AI and its electrical needs.”"
If you like bullies, let us introduce you to @exxonmobil.
"Exxon Mobil’s punitive lawsuit only hints at the lengths that the fossil fuel industry will go to preserve a business model facing an inexorable decline." #climatechange#climate#fossilfuels
@golgaloth given that Labor has reinstated the Methane Led Recovery I would have to say the anti climate action lobbying is definitely working. #fossilfuels#labor#alp
The pandemic babies who were born in 2021 will probably never see a world that resembles the one we’re inhabiting now. For those who think we’ll have established a colony on Mars by then and will be shuttling humans that direction, I say wake the fuck up and take care of the planet you’re already living on. JFC.
In the 1880s, the mark of consumption among elites was replacing gaslights for electric ones. Today it is the replacement of electric ones for useless decorative gas lights that constantly burn. We see these in many wealthy neighborhoods in Chicago.
I really don't know about the mechanics of this system. Nor do I know anything about the people. Just always find such fixtures strange.
Meanwhile in Papua New Guinea, finding that export markets for coconuts are contracting, PNG is now using what was once a key export as a biofuel.
Not only is this a demonstration of the innovation that can be forced by circumstance, it is likely to reflect an interest in finding alternatives to fossil fuels across the world.
We'll be seeing a lot more stories like this as human ingenuity side-steps fossil fuels for the green transition.
#Microsoft#FossilFuels#BigTech#DataCenters#Environment: "For nearly a decade, Holly Alpine (née Beale) loved working at Microsoft. Shortly after finishing college, in July 2014, she landed a job there as a technical account manager. Less than four years later, Alpine was leading a program that invests in environmental projects in the communities where Microsoft’s data centers are located. She was also helping organize a worker-led sustainability group called the Sustainability Connected Community, which would grow to nearly 10,000 Microsoft employees worldwide by late 2023.
But at the end of last year, Alpine reached a painful decision: She could no longer ethically work at Microsoft. On January 24, 2024, Alpine sent an email to Microsoft president Brad Smith, CEO Satya Nadella, and several other senior company officials, letting them know why.
Writing on behalf of herself and a colleague who resigned at the same time, Alpine told the tech giant’s top brass that the two were quitting in “no small part” due to Microsoft’s work for the fossil fuel industry aimed at automating and accelerating oil extraction."
Ministers in charge of the UK’s climate policies met with fossil fuel companies and lobbyists over 100 times last year, four times as much as they did external climate scientists, campaigners, and charities.
These ministerial oil and gas industry meetings came as the government backtracked on several policies designed to meet the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target.
"Most of the funding, $621 million, will go toward 36 projects aimed at bolstering the resilience of existing infrastructure through things like improving draining, moving roadways, and lifting up bridges.
An additional $119 million will go toward protecting, strengthening, or removing at-risk coastal infrastructure like highways."
"In one of its biggest steps yet to keep #FossilFuels in the ground, the Biden administration announced Thursday that it will end new coal leasing in the #PowderRiverBasin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States.
The bureau determined that no future coal leasing should happen in the basin, and it estimated that coal mining in the #Wyoming portion of the region would end by 2041."