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Eliminating the Tyranny of Eco-Imperialism
Those seeking “social justice” should consider the real and demonstrable suffering caused by efforts to mitigate the alleged threat from anthropogenic climate change.
In the June 2018 Trendsissue, we took a hard look at the business case for mitigating climate change based on the best hard data available today.
We considered the latest research from “Nobel Prize winning,” Yale economist, William Nordhaus who has spent decades using a combination of econometric and climate models to estimate global warming’s future effects. In their 2017 National Bureau of Economic Researchworking paper, Nordhaus and his colleague Andrew Moffatt analyzed and evaluated 36 different estimates derived from 27 peer-reviewed studies of climate change’s impact on “gross world product,” or global GDP, by the year 2100.
As Nordhaus and Moffatt observe, “there are many studies of theoretical temperature increases in the 2-to-4°C range, which imply a reduction in cumulative economic growth that ranges from 0-to-4% of global output.” And interestingly, the most recent results from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is almost never reported, states that “Global mean losses could be 1-to-5% of GDP for 4°C of warming.” This means that Nordhaus and Moffatt’s findings are broadly in line with the IPCC’s climate change consensus.
So, what do these findings imply for people lucky enough to be alive in 2100? Let’s consider the best-case scenario first. Annual “gross world product” is currently somewhere around $75trillion; without adjustments, that means that global income stands at around $10,000 per capita. If we assume a reasonable 3 percent economic growth rate from now until 2100, and a global population in that year of 9 billion, global GDP would rise to $872 trillion and income would be $97,000 per capita, without climate change. Assuming a 3°C increase in average temperature, that would reduce global GDP from $872 trillion to $854 trillion, and income to $95,000 per capita. At 6°C, the figures would be $800 trillion or $89,000 per capita.
In the unlikely event that global economic growth dawdles along at only 2 percent per year for the rest of this century, global GDP would rise to only $388 trillion and income to $43,000 per capita without warming. A 3°C rise in average temperature would reduce global GDP to $380 trillion and income to $42,000 per person; a 6°C increase would cut global GDP to $360 trillion and income to $40,000 per person.
Importantly, the Nordhaus and Moffatt analysis of studies also found “no indication from the damage estimates of a sharp discontinuity or high convexity.” In other words, the studies do not identify any so-called “threshold effects,” in which damages from climate change suddenly accelerate in the future.
This analysis raises what the Trends editors call the $75 trillion question: How much should people living today, making an average of $10,000 apiece, spend in order to prevent future average incomes from falling from $97,000 to $95,000 per capita? Our answer is ZERO! And this would seem obvious to any objective observer.
Furthermore, that question is even easier to answer for the one-quarter of earth’s people who lack electricity in 2018 and live every day on the precipice of disaster. How can anyone compare hypothetical climate problems in the future with very real, immediate, and lethal Third World problems caused and perpetuated by being forced to continue relying on wood, charcoal and dung, which are the fuels of poverty, misery, disease and early death? People in these countries are not expendable laboratory animals, on which to test renewable energy schemes. And they must no longer be treated as such.
As Akinwumi Adesinapresident of the African Development Bank puts it, “The key economic challenge for Africa is the generation of electricity. The continent has the lowest electrification rate in the world. Power consumption per capita in Africa is estimated at 613 kWh per annum, compared to 6,500 kWh in Europe and 13,000 kWh in the United States. The investment is expensive, yes, but the long-term returns will be much greater. To fast-track universal access to electricity, the bank is investing $12 billion in the electric power sector and seeks to mobilize $45-to-$50 billion from other partners.”
To residents of the OECD, energy poverty is unimaginable. But, for over 1.5 billion people in Africa and South Asia, it means they lack the electricity that makes ourmodern lives, jobs, productivity, living standards, health, communication, entertainment and life spans possible. Specifically, each African uses a paltry 4.7% of the electricity the average American relies upon. Just imagine having electricity available only about 1 hour a day … 8 hours a week …or 411 hours per year; and only having it at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes, hours or days. And paying three times as much for each kWh as Americans pay.
And, imagine that your only future hope is to get intermittent power from windmills or solar panels that might increase your per capita electricity supply to 10 or 15% of US consumption.
Then ironically, imagine you live in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and many other sub-Sahara African countries which have vast coal deposits, that could satisfy your country’s demand, at U.S. consumption levels for the next 150 years. Furthermore, imagine that those fossil fuels must be ignored and “kept in the ground,” to appease wealthy “eco-imperialists” who control your access to capital.
And, that’s not a nightmare. It’s been your reality for decades.
A key example of this reality is “Power Africa,” launched in 2013. It’s “one of the largest public-private partnershipsin development history, with more than $54 billion of commitments from its more than 150 public- and private-sector partners.” This Obama-era program managed to facilitate financing for just 7,300 MW of electrical generating capacity and most of that went for expensive, unreliable wind and solar units. As Bloomberg reported, “President Obama’s “signature initiative for Africa” fell “well short” of its goals, producing less than 5% of the new electricity it promised; and virtually all that power was intermittent, expensive wind and solar ? leaving hundreds of millions of Africans “in the dark.”
The only fossil fuel theoreticallyallowed under Obama’s Power Africa scheme was natural gas. And even then, Obama’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation refused to support construction of a 130-MW power plant in Ghana, designed to burn clean natural gas, which was being “flared” and wasted.
And things are not that much better in South Africa, which is the most electrified and advanced nation in sub-Saharan Africa. It suffers from insufficient generating capacity, which means frequent brownouts that hamper factory & mining output and also leads to hospitals and schools that are far below OECD standards. This poor hospital functionality contributes to maternal mortality rates that are 35 times higher than in the U.S., tuberculosis rates 230 times higher, and thousands of people who die every year from lung and intestinal diseases.
But despite this enormous need, so-called “carbon colonialists,” at the World Bank worked to derail funding when South Africa applied for a loan to finish its coal-fired Medupi power plant, even though that plant used advanced clean coal and pollution control technologies. Claiming the project violated “climate change and sustainability goals,” the Center for American Progress, the Sierra Club and other agitator groups pressured the bank to deny funding. And the Obama Administration ultimately voted “present,” which meant the loan was approved by a bare majority of other bank members.
Fortunately, USAID in the Trump Administrationhas performed a vital upgrade of the Obama-era program, which promoted renewable energy and strongly discouraged the use of affordable fossil fuels. The current USAID Administrator Mark Green says the goal of “Power Africa 2.0” is 20,000 MW by 2020, using “affordable, reliable energy,” which means coal in many cases.
More broadly the Trump Administration has spearheaded creating a “global fossil fuel alliance.” Energy Secretary Rick Perryoften refers to this as the “new energy realism” in global power development. As Perry notes, “fossil fuels are absolutely essential for developing countries, especially those where many people still have no electricity.
USAID Administrator Mark Green says Power Africa 2.0 is now “one of the largest public-private partnershipsin development history.” With this backing from the United States, theAfrican Development Bankhas committed $12 billion to a “New Deal on Energy for Africa” program. As Mr. Adesina says, “Africa has a lot of energy potential, but potential doesn’t create anything. We cannot continue to accept Africa being the ‘dark continent.’ We need to … accelerate our plans to light up and power Africa.”
Abundant low-cost energy coupled with foreign investment and intellectual capital will create a whole new era of happiness, healthiness, and productivity in Africa and South Asia and across the globe. As a result, people at the bottom of the economic pyramid will be able to join Americans and Europeans in the Golden Age of the Fifth Techno-Economic Revolution.
Given this trend, we offer the following forecasts for your consideration.
First, the battle against eco-imperialism and worldwide suffering will ultimately be won, by defeating pseudo-science.
As we’ve explained, banks and other eco-imperialistsstill glorify limited wind and solar energy for poor villages, while denying financial support for fossil fuel electricity generation. But that’s not all, anti-chemical fanaticsoppose chemical pesticides that kill disease-carrying and crop destroying insects. Radical organic food groupsbattle any use of genetically engineered crops that multiply crop yields, improve nutrition, survive droughts and slash pesticide. And a growing social-political movement, called “AgroEcology,” rejects virtually everything that has enabled modern agriculture to feed billions more people from less and less acreage and nearly eliminated hunger and malnutrition worldwide. That movement is rabidly opposed to biotechnology, hybrid seeds, monoculture farming, non-organic fertilizers, chemical insecticides and even mechanized equipment like tractors.
Second, only by forcing the eco-imperialists to provetheir case based on hard empirical evidence, will victory be achieved and global affluence assured.
Voters and shareholders are increasingly unwilling to accept anecdotes and extrapolations. Year-after-year of dire warnings that never materialize have made people increasingly skeptical. Consider the claim that “97% of scientists agree” that we face a manmade climate change tipping point; that is true right onlyif they are talking about the bureaucrats, activists and climatologists who take taxpayer and foundation money and blame humans for supposed climate chaos. Beyond those narrow confines, rational scientific discussions rage over global warming and cooling, as well as floods, droughts, extreme weather, carbon dioxide enrichment and a host of related issues (For specifics visit the sources cited in this month’s printable issue: here, here, here, here, hereandhere.) As we’ve previously documented, a $2 trillion “eco-industrial complex” depends on our “support of” and “acquiescence to” its demands. They will not give up easily. And,
Third, as Africa and South Asia join the Fifth Techno-Economic Revolution, the whole world will benefit.
These people will finally become producers and consumers who will add value to the global economy. And that will make everyone richer.
References
1. com. Jul 14, 2018. Paul Driessen. Rejecting Carbon Colonialism.
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/07/14/rejecting-carbon-colonialism-n2500194
2. com. October 5, 2018. Paul Driessen. Can Poor Families Sue John Kerry for Climate Policy Deaths?
3. com. Jul 14, 2018. Paul Driessen. Turning Luddite Eco-Imperialism into a Virtue.
4. com. August 11, 2018. Paul Driessen. Obama Carbon Colonialism and Climate Corruption Continue, Part 1.
5. com. August 13, 2018. Paul Driessen. Obama Carbon Colonialism and Climate Corruption Continue, Part 2.
6. com. August 13, 2018. Paul Driessen. Obama Carbon Colonialism and Climate Corruption Continue, Part 3.
