|
13
June 2023
By
EDITH M. LEDERER, ELLEN KNICKMEYER and FRANK JORDANS
Oil producers say tech will soon handle
climate-wrecking fumes. US envoy Kerry says be skeptical
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.S. climate
envoy John Kerry on Tuesday urged the world to be “very skeptical”
about claims from oil and gas producers that emerging technology soon
will allow people to adequately capture the climate-wrecking fumes
emitted by their cars, planes and businesses.
It’s “one big question mark,” Kerry told The Associated Press
of the future viability of carbon-capture technology, a debate at the
heart of global negotiations on cutting emissions to stave off the
most disastrous scenarios of global warming.
The International Energy Agency and increasing numbers of
scientists, governments and global leaders and advocates are saying
the only way to rein in climate change fast enough is to immediately
stop drilling new oil and gas wells and sharply phase down existing
drilling.
Many oil companies and oil states are fighting the calls for
production cuts, saying that still-emerging carbon-capture technology
will come to the rescue. The burning of fossil fuels is the main cause
of global warming, and techniques to capture enough of the fumes to
make a difference, affordably and efficiently, have yet to be
developed.
“Let’s be very skeptical about this unless it’s proven to
work,” Kerry told the AP after delivering a statement at a U.N.
Security Council meeting. “We can’t afford to play games anymore with
the amount of fossil carbon that’s going up in the atmosphere,” along
with methane and other climate-damaging gases from the oil and gas
industry.
That doesn’t mean that government, corporations and oil and gas
producers shouldn’t keep pushing for breakthroughs in the technology,
he said. “If it could work, fine, you know. … But we heard for 30
years about clean coal, and how did that work out?”
Kerry told the U.N. Security Council that “it’s now
indisputable – indisputable – that the climate crisis is one of the
top security threats, not just to the developed world but to the
entire planet, to life on the planet itself.”
He said it already costs countries billions of dollars every
year “just to clean up the mess, and most importantly, it costs the
world millions of lives,” including 7 million a year who die from
greenhouse gas pollution.
Kerry stressed that 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa account
for 0.55% of global emissions and 20 countries account for 76%. He
said they all pledged nearly 10 years ago to cut emissions fast enough
to keep the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a threshold
scientists say is about to be crossed, “but we’re not all doing it.”
He said he wasn’t at the U.N. to point fingers but to urge all
countries to start working together to tackle the crisis. He called
for an immediate end to the permitting of new unabated coal plants.
“No country should be bringing online new sources of pollution
wherever it comes from, knowing what we know about this crisis,” Kerry
said.
Globally, no major oil and gas producer is known to be
seriously considering phasing down its production, said Hanna Fekete,
a researcher with the German-based NewClimate Institute. The U.S., the
world’s biggest producer, is among those scaling up production,
despite the Biden administration’s climate commitments.
American consumers would need to cut their dependence on fossil
fuels dramatically if the U.S. is to meet its climate goals, Fekete
said.
The United Arab Emirates, the host for U.N.-sponsored climate
talks later this year, is also among the nations aiming to ramp up
production, not reduce it.
Kerry called the stepped-up U.S. production a “momentary
bubble” as a result of bumps in the global energy market from the war
in Ukraine. Increased U.S. demand for electric vehicles and a move to
cleaner forms of power would help take care of that, he said.
“So, we’re in a transition. The word transition is very key to
what we’re trying to do,” Kerry said.
China would have to step up as well, Kerry said. The country is
currently the top emitter of fossil fuels, owing partly to continued
operation and building of dirty-burning coal-fired power plants.
President Xi Jinping’s government has resisted pressure to
rapidly phase out coal plants, arguing that China is still a
developing nation and should not be held to the same climate standards
as the U.S. and other big Western economies.
“Well, first of all, China is not a poor nation,” Kerry said.
“So let’s understand that the second-largest economy in the world is
exactly that, the second-largest economy in the world, and they’ve
spent huge amounts of money around the world in various countries.”
Kerry also made clear that he will not go to China for
face-to-face talks with his climate counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, before
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Beijing. He is expected
in China soon.
Kerry, who was invited to Beijing by Xie, noted concerns about
the health of the Chinese official, who has been a key part of U.S-China
climate negotiations that have led to some past climate breakthroughs.
“He’s had a difficult period in the last months, and we wish
him well,” Kerry said. “He is a very, very important interlocutor and
he’s very reliable and trustworthy in terms of his commitment,
seriousness. So we hope the Chinese-U.S. track will begin to get on.”
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
509 995 1879
Cell, Pacific Time Zone.
General office:
509-254
6854
4501 East Trent
Ave.
Spokane, WA 99212
|
