As the Guardian and thirty other newspapers around the world this morning argue in a joint editorial to mark COP27:
Solving the crisis is the moonshot of our times. Getting to the moon succeeded within a decade because huge resources were devoted to it. A similar commitment is needed now. But an economic crisis has reduced rich countries' appetite for spending and the planet risks being trapped in fossil-fuel dependence by a rearguard action of big business. Yet during the pandemic, central banks across the world lubricated states' expenditure by buying up their own governments' bonds. The trillions of dollars needed to deal with the ecological emergency demand such radical thinking returns.
The emphasis is added: the call is for green or climate quantitative easing.
A year ago Colin Hines and I had this letter in the Guardian:
Way back in 2010 I think Colin and I were the first people to ever propose climate QE, in this paper.
Now it is coming to the fore in debate. It is time it did so. There has never been a more urgent need for radical thinking of this sort.
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Hopefully this is the question that will be more widely asked by everyone who remembers how the banks got bailed out in 2008 (if only so that we could get our hands on our money).
Apparently you can’t throw money at things – that’s what the Neo-liberal world has taught us whilst we’ve thrown money at the banking sector.
Money: In 2016, Draghi & Co @ the ECB were lobbing Euro65billion per month (nope I have not made an error) at Euro banks as QE. Draghi himself admitted the ECB has no shortage of resources. Thus money is there.
Which leaves the open question of e.g. the energy transition in … e,g. Pakistan, a country badly affected by recent floods (and similar countries). The Chinese funded some coal stations in the country (pathetic) & there is bits and bobs of RES development. But nothing very substantial.
However, Pakistan can be characterised as: the Indus river valley with a developed strip that varies but is not much more than 100kms wide (gets a bit wider as you go north). The rest is +/- desert. Sunny places deserts and Pakistan has insolation similar to north Egypt and north Saudi Arabia which means the levelised cost of a kWh of Pv elec is around 1 to 2 pence. Very much cheaper than anything a coal station could produce & if used to make H2 – the result would be cheaper than CH4/nat gas.
The problem in Pakistan and quite a few other locales is political stability – the country risk is high and politicos seem to change with alarming regulatory (bit like the Uk over the past decade I suppose). Key Point: with some political will things could change. One could also ask the question why their co-religionists sitting in the Gulf States don’t dig into their copious pockets and help? I guess doing so would mean Pakistan moving towards energy independence. Oh dear, can’t have that.
The above example could be extended to much of Africa (including the north). But again, one encounters war (Sudan, Mali etc etc) or states run by psycopaths – Egypt (& others) – which pose further barriers.
Thus: the bare bones business case (low cost elec from renewables) is there and the money could be, but the politics is not. (& yes there are quite a few cases where everything is fine re politics). & thus I finish my ramble on an ambivalent note.
Well said Mike
Where are the id NGOs?
Mike, you mentioned the Indus river – a long.long time ago there was a civilisation there and a republic to boot. Why did it disappear because of climate change, natural, not man made climate change. There is a huge elephant that no one mentions, except for a few brave souls like David Attenborough who has for decades – explosive population growth.
If only Bezos would put his billions into that……or even give his workers a decent pay rise.