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Study: Global Warming Solvable If Fossil Fuel Subsidies Given To Clean Energy
An anonymous reader writes A research team at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, says it has studied how much it would cost for governments to stick to their worldwide global warming goal. They've concluded that for "a 70 per cent chance of keeping below 2 degrees Celsius, the investment will have to rise to $1.2 trillion a year." Where to get that money? The researchers say that "global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising" with more than half going to fossil fuel energy. If those subsidies were spent on renewable energy instead, the researchers hypothesize that "global warming would be close to being solved."
. . .the government gets out of the re-distribution business?
That if you REALLY want to eliminate fossil fuel usage, the big spending is going to have to be on dams and nuclear reactors.
Watch any video of Amory Lovins and wonder why he isn't in charge of energy in the USA.
TFA is loonie. According to its own data, the "fossil fuel subsidies" it is hoping to redirect are those that third-world OPEC type countries currently give to their own populations in the form of supercheap oil. Withholding that money would be regime suicide (plus possibly population genocide).
Energy is a lot like roads an bridges in the way it promotes prosperity by its very existence. One can imagine a world where energy does not need military protection or special tax treatment, but it would be a world where national rivalries in power and economics are much subdues compared to the present. We're not there yet, but a rapid transition to renewable energy could probably get us closer more than just about any other move. Let's make the switch.
Maybe it could theoretically work (or maybe not), but it's irrelevant because almost impossible to do.
The problem is: how do you take away money (subsidies) from those who have a lot of it (partly precisely from subsidies)?
They can spend a lot for lobbying and public relations in general. The industries which would need to receive these subsidies don't have comparable means for their campaigns, and in part these industries don't even exist yet, because the money is lacking to develop them.
In social movements, many poor can force a few rich to pay more.
But industries are different. How do a few poor convince that the money of many very rich industries (which also feed many workers) should go to them?
Well we have known this for a long long time. Problem is how do we get the government to stop subsidizing fossil fuel?
Voting against the tea party nutcases might be a good start. They are they ones forcing these subsidies: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/29/...
Land Area that is needed to power the whole world with solar panels using existing technology: http://www.gembapantarei.com/s...
Keep putting your hands over your ears and screaming "I can't hear you!" like a five year old.
Well ... people have a "green" conscious but a non-green wallet. Bumping up the cost of fuel will mean reduction in their standard of living. That may not go down well.
I'm absolutely sure that you can reduce emissions that way. But at what cost?
Power plants are not being built for fun, they actually serve a purpose, namely that of generating electricity in places that need electricity. In the world today, that happens mainly in places where electricity is scarce and absolutely needed to get out of poverty. It so happens to be the case that fossil power plants are much less expensive on a per-kWh basis and far more reliable than wind and solar. Hydro is a serious competitor but it doesn't matter where you want to build a hydrodam, there will always be greenpeace or some other transnational pseudo-environmental outfit that will organize protests for whatever madeup reason without any sort of constructive suggestions or criticism at all. (To pick the most recent example, Chile could have replaced some 20% of electricity generation with hydro, but protests against the dam prevented it.)
What happens when you invest the money that currently goes to fossil power plants into "renewables" like solar or wind? (Which are the only ones left for the most part.) You'll have less power. You'll have a completely unreliable supply of power. Sure that "solves" the problem, but only if you pretent that electricity really isn't necessary. Which is what our so-called enviromentalists tend to think, because they live in countries where there has never been such a problem.
TFA sez this:
" ... global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising with more than half going to fossil fuel energy. If those subsidies were spent on renewable energy instead, the researchers hypothesize that "global warming would be close to being solved ..."
Let's look at hot the real world operates ...
China subsidizes its solar panel companies - making the solar panels cheap, - and according to the researchers of the TFA, that is a good thing, right ?
Nope !
The rest of the world cried foul, and start slapping taxes on solar panels which came from China
Why is that ?
Well ... the main business of _any_ government on earth is not to save the Earth. Their main business is POLITICS and because of that, they simply can ***NOT*** let cheap solar panels to come into their country, even if their own country does not produce any solar panel at all
That's the real world to you, researchers !
So if you consulted with 100 doctors and 97 told them you that you had cancer, you'd go with the 3?? Is it only climate science you dismiss so flippantly, or is this internet thing also another liberal plot...
Suppose you had a bank account with $20,000,000,000,000 (20 trillion) in it. That's so much wealth that it can be considered infinite for all practical purposes. There is no monarchy, but with that much resources in your name, you are practically king for life, your children are king for life, your children's children are king for life.
Then one day some hippies tell you that you shouldn't withdraw your money from this bank because it will destroy the lives of billions of people. They're saying we need to invest in renewable energy so save ourselves. So you face a dillema:
A. Keep your infinite bank account, and be the king of a world where billions of people are doomed.
B. Give up your infinite bank account, and be a nobody in a world where everyone is much better off.
What do you choose? What do they choose? Keep in mind, most of those who have this infinite bank account are not the compassionate kind of people.
Yes.
- Steve Jobs.
That last link says global fossil fuels subsidies are $540B, less than half the necessary amount they've calculated. The headline is plainly wrong. They're saying we'd have to take all the money currently spent developing fossil fuels (including in the private sector), along with an additional $200B/year to do this.
Eliminate all subsidies. Why create a real problem, as the result of an imagined one.
Global warming is a natural phenomena, connected to Sun and Earth cycles.
Burning fossil fuels do NOT make it worse.
Nor there is anything we can do to make it lighter.
The only thing that happens is great tremendous THEFT of peoples money, that are mostly wasted by traitors.
And economic stagnation due to high prices of fuel and energy (in EU 4 times more expensive than they should be).
It's time to hang these political and scientific traitors.
Yeah and when you're 97 doctors say the science is settled as the pro-global warming scientist insist upon then you know for sure those 97 doctors are talking out their ass. No science is ever settled.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Anyone else notice how the global warming crowd has switched full gear into "there is no debate!" and outright name calling ever since their side got outright caught faking studies and manipulating data?
Do you people actually think anyone buys it now or you just not care anymore?
Serious question, because you would think that this would of gone exactly the other direction and the people who faked the data would be discredited beyond ever flipping a big mac again and the whole movement would of collapsed under its own corrupted weight, but it seems like instead they've just doubled down.
Hmm, let us take a look at this LIMITS-Paper...
Who pays these subsidies and who receives it:
"Oil-exporting countries were responsible for approximately two-thirds of total fossil subsidies, while greater than 95% of all direct subsidies occurred in developing countries."
So the citizens of oil-exporting countries and the poorest of the world should pay more for energy so that the green sector can make more money?
I'm all for ending fossil fuel subsidies. While we're at it, we should also end the other major subsidy related to carbon emissions: agricultural subsidies.
But that won't reduce carbon emissions appreciably, even if we took all that money and handed it to "green energy companies" on a silver platter.
Well, if I found out the 97 doctors falsified the test results so they could bill my insurance company for chemo treatments, I think I'd go with the 3 and be pretty pissed at the other 97.
Hydroelectric is good, in the places where it makes sense such as Niagara Falls.
To provide for all of US energy needs would require 20,000 dams, each with the capacity of Hoover dam. Because Hoover was located in one of the best places possible, it flooded only 100 square miles. We' e already dammed most of the best spots, so new dams would be in less ideal places.
The 20,000 dams required would flood 80% of the continental US, so that's probably not a solution. There may be a few places remaining to add a little bit more hydro. However, we should keep in mind hydro is responsible for all of the catastrophic accidents that kill thousands of people. See for example Banqiao. Also, the MAIN reason to avoid fossil fuels is greenhouse gases, and hydro produces about the same amount of greenhouse gases, so it doesn't really help with the primary goal. International Rivers has some good information about that if you're interested.
Nuclear makes a lot of sense, with the one main drawback being a concern about safety. A worst-case nuclear accident could, in theory, kill a lot of people. On the other hand, hydro and coal actually DO kill thousands of people. Solar electric doesn't kill people, but it doesn't produce reliable electricity either, so it's only indirectly dangerous - wasting time and money playing with solar ensures that we remain stuck with coal.
Doesn't Robin Hood Theory go for bad politics as well as bad energy? And would not be limited to only one area of life.
Take the money from those lousy, good for nothing, bad politicians in office, and all kinds of good can be done!
Why limit yourselves to only fixing energy? Get those ignorant, self-serving, A#%holes out of office! The rest will fall into line at the same time.
We need to start by ending ALL money spent by the governments that supports or benefits the coal industry (direct subsidies, governments building rail lines, ports etc to benefit the coal industry, building new coal fired power stations instead of building better alternatives etc)
And no I dont care if you loose your job because no-one wants the coal your mine (or mining town) produces anymore, much like I dont care that people no longer want asbestos or buggy whips or any other obsolete technology.
Today the countries of the "Developing World" crying for money were in the centuries preceding the fist A.D. the "Developed World" of the day. At those time the economies of the Developed World in Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe were based on "renewable" forms of energy such as solar, water and wind. Then the economic collapse occurred and the Developed World's cities and institutions all but failed as the Roman Optimum Period drew to a close. The Little Ice Age changed building standards and forced those of the day to find and utilize other fuel sources for energy after deforesting much of Europe, Asia and the Americas. In the day the "super" fuel coal was discovered. Gradually over the centuries the peoples engineered new ways to burn coal to greater effect. Then after the re-discoveries of electricity and magnetism and the manufacturing of conducting wire, coal burning chambers were mated to supply heat to steam engines which turned large circular magnets to produce alternating current and Paris became the 'City of Light'. Prosperity flourished except for those countries of the former Developed World who held to their cherished beliefs that solar, water and wind were all that were needed and their economies remained in stagnation for centuries.
For your information:
If you found out 0.1 of the 97 doctors falsified results, you would still go with the 3 and be pretty pissed at the other 97.
Lets start with SHOW US THE NUMBERS AND YOUR ANALYSIS METHOD
too many 'studies' have been quoted by leftists and others which were political hogwash contrived to meet an agenda.
Make sure such a report include accurate impact data on the economy this planned changes are applied to.
If Country As economy is wrecked and Country Bs never bothers to change their policies and cancels/removed the benefits then what good is this plan the study proposes.
The problem is not that fossil fuels gets subsidies. The problem is that there are subsidies. Don't shift the subsidies and give them to someone else. It is time to end all subsidies.
No fossil fuel subsidies -> gasoline will rise to it's natural price of about $16/gallon, electric prices will rise and there will be more interest in renewables and efficiency.
No farm subsidies -> food prices will rise for the worst foods but less so for better foods and more local foods.
No mortgage deduction (a subsidy) -> cost of loans will go up but home prices will actually drop.
While we're at it, pay politicians only minimum wage and change taxation to a simple flat income tax over the poverty x 150% and institute a national sales tax of 7%, local real estate taxes only on buildings (not land) and virtually all other taxes should be eliminated. Then keep it that way for the next 100 years. Make things predictable.
There IS no debate. No one is name calling, but I can start if you'd like. Please show me these faked studies. Please show me this manipulated data. Please. Where is it?
There are links in THIS discussion where you can go play with the raw data sets.... Perhaps you should?
Yeah. Relativity is just a Theory guys.... There's still debate! I know this guy, who knows a guy, who totally says it's not legit. Why haven't we heard from him! There's a conspiracy! Just because he's not a fancy "scientist". Because he's not an "expert" in their Ivory Tower. We should teach the controversy man.....
Science grows. We continue to discover new principles about the way the universe works, and new nuances every day.... but yes, some science is settled. We can predict what happens when we put two chemicals together. We can predict what will happen if we put two bodies next to each other in a frictionless environment. We know how a LOT of things work, and just because we're still discovering how things work, doesn't mean that many basic principles are not agreed on.
Some temperature records are constantly adjusted in the past. Given that the history is constantly being revised - how do we know what the actual trends are?
The RSS data set is about the most accurate we have, given it has a constant reference background (deep space), and covers the entire globe equally with the same set of instruments, and has done so for the last 35 years. And that record shows no warming for nearly 18 years.
One scientist, Don Easterbrook got it right. His model - based upon the cycles of the oceans - appears to fit the current pause quite nicely as well as matches the past. Perhaps he's on to something, in that his model more accurately tracks historical records AND the current situation than the IPCC/CO2 driven models.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
They don't have data on the US, and Western Europe. They have China, but ~$13 billion goes to oil, and ~$3.3 billion goes to coal. So, yeah. The big industrialized, consuming nations can change squat. This report is worthless to people in that big industrialized, consuming nations.
Predicting what will happen does not mean you have interpreted a phenomenon correctly; it is only accurate as you understand it and not necessarily the map as being a true representation of the territory.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Does your employer the redirector for advertisers also have nuclear power companies as customers ray?
You're no expert on this subject. You're an advertiser and no expert there either http://it.slashdot.org/comment... since you made gigantic technical mistakes and ran from backing up your own erroneous words here also raymorris http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
If your doctors know as much about physiology as scientists know about climate, you are gonna die either way.
I have absolutely no power of a large corporation. They're so big I can't boycott them without basically dropping off the grid, in which case I cease to matter anyway. I would need to be a billionaire to have any say in them as an individual.
At least with the Gov't I have a chance, however small. It's happened before. In the 50s, 60s and 70s we saw a massive decline in the power of the aristocracy (fyi, America has an aristocracy, they just don't like to talk about themselves). We saw huge decreases in wealth inequality. Most of this was fueled by Unions along with a bit of the aristocracy turning on itself (Frank Roosevelt). Still, it's _possible_, however unlikely.
And what's the worst that can happend? At the end of the day it doesn't make any difference to me if the jack boot in my neck is a public or private jack boot. Might as well take a chance with Gov't.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
that the AGW hypothesis is all about money? I doubt it.
And yet if you asked 100 astrophysicists if the science of gravity is settled enough to precisely place an orbiter on a planet 35 million miles away, 97 would say yes and 3 would punch you in the face for being an idiot.
... global warming'...
But I'm amazed these retards actually used the phrase 'global warming', since the new accepted LIE is to use the deliberately misleading phrase 'climate change', which is MEANT to mean "catastropic man-made global warming', and is IMPLIED every time they use it...
Just go to www.climatedepot.com and start reading the truth about this ridiculous 'global warming' scam. These 'scientists' are just shysters in it for the money, and my, doesn't it show.
ClimateDepot is a shell website created by the "Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow," a think tank funded by crackpot Richard Mellon Scaife (you might remember him from every fake Clinton scandal ever) and Exxon Mobil.
It's ran by Marc Morano, an ex-producer of Rush Limbaugh's show, which should tell you about as much as you need to know about it's journalistic ethics.
In short, ClimateDepot is a fake website designed to sucker idiots like you into believing there's some sort of "other side" to the climate change "debate" -- when in reality there isn't. But then again, 90% of the Climate Deniers I have met are in it just to piss off liberals in some sort of psychotic ignorant tribalism, so... perhaps I waste my breath.
I though these days if you mentioned glowball waaming,
you must be an idiot.
Glow ball warmies deny putting the pseudo back into science.
A child in the park says to his father, an economist, "look dad, there's a twenty under that bench!" Dad replied, "Nonsense, son, if there were a twenty there, someone would have picked it up!"
The green energy industry is getting billions if not trillions of dollars in subsidies all over the planet. They get 10x more than the coal industry. Yet they need more money still? The reason they are running out of money is because the technologies they front are not efficient and are cash traps for slush funds for more "green" propoganda.
Be more specific with what you are proposing.
1. Data Adjustments. Look at your own link. Look at the graphs. If NOAA is adjusting a data point DOWNWARD by .13degrees Fahrenheit... I... This does not point to massive falsification. You often have to adjust data due to instrument drift. One point does not make a trend. Neither does two, not in that many data points. History is NOT constantly being revised....
2. I really don't care about your last 18 year thing. Lots of data sets show a flat in the last decade (within a HUGE upwards trend over the last 100ish years). You can't cherry pick a decade within a century and call it the norm.
3. I'll look at this. He seems to be published, and have some decent scientific chops. Alas, some of the first google hits on him come up with how he's ... wrong. http://www.skepticalscience.co..., http://www.skepticalscience.co..., and it even looks like the site you linked to had some questions about his predictions... http://wattsupwiththat.com/201... At a cursory glance, it looks like he's working qualitatively instead of quantitatively, and it looks like he's pretty much just cutting and pasting old data into new data and calling it a prediction... ? So, basically, No, he's not more accurate. He's wrong. He's also a geologist, which is like asking my electrician to fix my plumbing.... Anyway.
You're wrong. It took me 5 minutes to look at your data and find it to be, not just holey, but flat out wrong.
So adjustments on the scale of what the IPCC is warning us about aren't anything to worry about? Hokay....
For the last 18 years, it was well established by the pro-AGW crowd that 17 years was needed for a signal. We have 18 years - and no signal. Not to mention the pro-AGW side likes to ignore the Medieval warm period, or the little ice age (the former being as warm - or warmer - than now).
As far as Professor Easterbrook, that "Skeptical Science" site has about as much reliability as the old Enzyte site pushing penis pills. A lot of handwaving and ignoring of facts... His predictions from the late 1990s were spot-on. He correctly predicted the current pause, and calls for us to enter a period of cooling. Well, we've got the pause - now to see if we get the cooling.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Data tampering: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/one-more-time/
Raw satellite data shows no warming in 17 years: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/06/satellites-show-no-global-warming-for-17-years-5-months/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/06/satellites-show-no-global-warming-for-17-years-5-months/
The crux of it is this in your statement; "...settled enough". There are still many things we do not fully understand about gravity and your 97 astrophysicists would understand they do not have all the answers.
The three remaining astrophysicists would get run over at the next zebra crossing next to the nearest black hole. Which would serve them right for being an asshats to think they have all the answers.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
What is the problem we are solving again?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Surely that is the most sustainable option?
A worst case nuclear accident would kill a lot of people, assuming we continue to build nuclear power plants like we have in the 1950s. If we build modern nuclear power plants then a worst case nuclear accident would be no worse than that of a coal plant and certainly less than that of a hydro electric failure.
We need to build waste annihilating molten salt reactors. We get cheap and safe power while burning up the stockpiled nuclear "waste" from the solid fuel plants.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
What do people call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.
Alternative energy does not work because if it did we would not call it alternative energy any more. We've been subsidizing wind and solar for decades, at some point we have to make it sink or swim on its own.
I've been told many times by people here on Slashdot on how wind and solar are as cheap as anything else. If that is true then why does it need a subsidy any more? People would be building out wind and solar power because its profitable to do so.
We don't burn coal and natural gas because we are evil bastards that put money before our children. We burn fossil fuels because they make a profit, a profit we need to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate our children.
What subsidies do is take money from those that know how to make money and give it to people that don't. If people knew how to make money with wind and solar they wouldn't be lobbying government for subsidies, they'd be too busy making money so that they can feed the children to lobby for subsidies.
The problem I see is not subsidies but taxes. Prohibition of alcohol set back bio fuel research at least fifty years. Right now if you want to do research in alcohol as a fuel you have all kinds of legal hoops to jump through to prove that people aren't drinking it. Prohibition of alcohol is gone but we still have prohibitive taxes and regulation.
Regulation is killing all kinds of beneficial research. Anything nuclear gets killed before they can even get started. We can't even build solar panels in the USA because of EPA regulations.
Just mentioning this will likely get me modded into oblivion but I'll say it anyway. The NOAA has been caught altering historical temperature data. There is no global warming. The hottest period on record has been in the 1930s, all annual temperatures have been lower. The US federal government does not care about global warming either because they know its not happening or because they are too busy "spreading the wealth" to buy votes. My proof? The physical plant that heats the federal buildings in DC is powered by coal. If they we concerned about global warming then they'd be removing the plank from their own eye first.
The problem is subsidies, not the solution. Companies are rewarded for following the rules laid out by the government, not for actually solving the problem. A free market solves problems.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The funny thing is that solar does kill more people per MWh than almost everything else. All those people falling from roofs while installing PV panels do add up pretty fast considering the tiny amounts of energy it converts to electrical. PV doesn't scale very well, big molten salt plants are safer for now, but if/when they start failing, I guess it will be pretty nasty as well, but at least those are not built anywhere near anything usually.
If only the public would give all of their money to the bankers then the banking crisis will be solved. Honest guy.
This is an irrelevant analogy because there is no such consensus.
ha ha ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho, ha ha ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho, .....
OMG, almost fell off my chair.
Renewables are only viable if we find ways to store energy effectively ... kind of like the way fossil fuels do.
Otherwise, virtually all the renewables need some form of backup, usually fossil fuel based ... so you'll still need fossil fuels.
And by the way, the most touted renewables (wind/solar) favour only a fortunate few on the planet. So come up with a way of shipping that stored power ... kind of like the way fossil fuels can be shipped to wherever power is needed.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Yes, 'ad hominem fallacies' are a waste of breath
So Whatsupwiththat, JoNova, Climate Depoe, and Climate Etc. and climate comments from Lubos Motl are all crackpots as well, right?
"there is no debate" said the guy who does not want to debate.......idiot.
I thought the point of no return was already at hand, but now if subsidies (aka peoples hard-working tax dollars) are diverted to "clean" energy, why the problem will be solved. Don't you just love wish fulfillment and magical thought. I wish I wasn't such a pessimist and could think rainbows and unicorns, you know because science.
CO2 has continued to rise by 8-10% over the last 17+ years but temperatures have not. That FACT is born out by all 5 of the datasets (3 balloon and 2 satellite) which clearly show between a 14 to almost 18 year period with no warming.
The scientific method requires theories be tested with experiments and observational data. So my question is "How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit that the theory of CO2 controlling the climate is WRONG?".
20 years? Almost there. 30? NEVER? If the last one then you are engaging in belief not science.
How about some predictions that have been accurate? Dr Libby from the mid 1970s has the longest accurate prediction (30+ years), Dr Easterbrook is at 12+ and Dr Abdussamatov 8+. All cite cyclical factors and their theories do not rely on CO2 as a factor.
It may be hard to wean economies off burning carbon under current technological conditions, and all to our peril. Without economic incentives, it will be hard to persuade people to get out of the business of producing energy that comes from burning carbon. There are a couple of reasons for this !) The Grid was planned to make use of the abundant and cheap Carbon energy resources. Don't forget that when Oil Company Ads rig the argument about renewables not being available. The grid doesn't go to places where there might be abundant renewable energy resources and the Utilities aren't going to build the grid out there if there is no incentive to do so. 2) Renewables are not yet reliably available to meet instantaneous demand for energy that relying on Carbon burning has been able to satisfy. There is no economical way to store energy for later use, so even though there might actually be a huge abundance of renewable energy out there, there is no way to store it for later use.
Nuclear, fission and fusion, has a bad rap and it might eventually have to be used to address these issues. I have seen the argument about the investment in high pressure water reactors that use U-235 and produce weapons grade products, Pu, as a side effect, the risks of using them and the counter arguments about using Th based unpressurized reactors instead. I don't have the expertise to know if the advocates for a complete change in our nuclear energy strategy are right or not, but if we have been avoiding a safer alternative for economic and political, even military reasons, that is something that needs to be examined. A safer nuclear power source with a resource that is regarded as a contaminant and is over abundant in the refining of the other rare earths that we badly need, must get consideration.
Surely if fusion ever becomes practicable and it can be done without producing radioactive wastes, that would drastically change the energy equation, as would the use of Th reactors, if they are comparatively safe. Proper use of these could reduce the need to burn Carbon.
Not an ad hominem fallacy. Just pointing out some rather severe bias.
The idea that renewable energy will replace these subsidies in those economies is ludricous. Small farms that depend on fossil fuel for subsistence farming, small fishermen who depend on subsidized fuel to power their boats, and many other small businesses simply cannot substitute "renewable energy" for diesel power. Thousands of cars that burn cheap gasoline (Venezuela) or cheap natural gas (Iraq) are not going to be suddenly fueled by batteries charged from solar and wind power. Economies that derive most of the national revenue (the Middle East) from oil and gas production owned by the State, are not going to find a new source of revenue to feed and cloth their population with by generating solar and wind power. Their conclusion could not be more naive or more unrealistic.
The article ultimately points to an IEA website for the data on subsidies. If you look there (http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energysubsidies/ ), much of the subsidies are in the form of fuel price subsidies in developing countries (see http://www.iea.org/subsidy/ind... ). According to a 2009 IEA document (http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/energysubsidies/second_joint_report.pdf ), this accounts for $312 billion a year. The rest is attributed to "tax expenditures, under-priced access to scarce resources under government control (e.g. land) and the transfer of risks to governments (e.g., via concessional loans or guarantees. These subsidies are more difficult to identify and estimate compared with direct consumer subsidies." If you take away fuel subsidies in India, for example, many people could not even cook their food, much less get around. In many countries eliminating fuel subsidies would result in mass hardship and even civil disruption. Blithely assuming such subsidies can be eliminated is not a practical solution.
So Whatsupwiththat, JoNova, Climate Depoe, and Climate Etc. and climate comments from Lubos Motl are all crackpots as well, right?
"there is no debate" said the guy who does not want to debate.......idiot.
Whatsupwiththat -- or rather, Wattsupwiththat I presume -- is Anthony Watt's website, and yeah, he's a crackpot and professional grifter. He has no academic or scientific training, his arguments are either debunked climate denier talking points being regurgitated or "hey, it's cold outside, LOL" type circumstantial evidence - hardly worth an eyeroll. He adds nothing to the conversation but he does keep getting speaking gigs and advertiser bucks, so hey, grifters gonna grift.
JoNova is Joanne Codling (aka Joanne "I watch too much Star Trek" Nova)'s blog. She's funded by the Heartland Institute and the Science and Public Policy Institute -- in other words, she's a professional shill for professional climate deniers. Oh, and she's not a scientist (she's a failed TV talking head) and thus her opinion on a scientific fact like global warming is utterly useless.
Climate "Depoe," unless I'm not seeing the site, is one I've already covered - Climate Depot.
ClimateEtc is Judith Curry's blog, and while she's a climatologist at Georgia Tech, she's also a loon. For example, she heavily cites and defends the Wegman Report, and later admitted she never read it. I doubt she'll make it another 5-10 years at Georga Tech before joining Richard Lindzen as a professional crank for some Heartland Institute shell company.
Oh, and Lubo Motl? He's a failed string theory physicist, not a climatologist, and his only claim to fame was being hired at Harvard and fired for being a raging douchebag. You can tell, mostly because his blog reads like something from the GNAA or the Yahoo News comments section. And don't get me started on his shitting over half the science blogs on the internet in the comments section -- I guess when you're a failed PHD student who hasn't done any actual work in science since 2007 you have lots of time to troll blogs.
So yeah, I will repeat it. There is no debate. Your sources are crackpots, loons, cranks, and professional grifters, and at this point, I'm willing to go further -- you don't get to "debate" scientific fact. There is no climate change debate. It's real, it's man made, and it's the biggest threat we as a people will likely ever face.
The only debate left is what we do about it. Deniers are just idiots on par with Anti-vaxxers and should have their brains taken away by social services.
The bulk what can be consider "subsidies", under any reasonable definition, are targeted at renewables. In fact, 2/3 of energy "subsidies" are artificially sustaining the renewables market: http://cornerstonemag.net/u-s-...