COP28 should be the last COP

From Energy Talking Points

COPs are immoral because they deprive billions of the energy they need to prosper. They should be replaced by energy freedom conferences.

Myth: UN COP climate conferences have been a force for good, but COP 28 must lead to far more “climate action.”

Truth: These conferences are immoral because they deprive billions of the energy they need to prosper.

They should be replaced by energy freedom conferences.

Introduction

The leadup to the COP 28 climate conference has had a consistent theme: previous COPs have done an okay job of restricting fossil fuels in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but this one needs to restrict fossil fuel use far faster so as to reach net-zero by 2050.
This is 180° wrong.¹
COP 28’s net-zero agenda—i.e., rapid elimination of fossil fuels—is unnecessary, and pursuing it faster would be catastrophic because
1. Fossil fuels are making us far safer from climate.
2. Even barely implementing COP’s net-zero agenda has been disastrous.

Fossil fuels are making us far safer from climate

The justification of COP 28’s net-zero agenda is that fossil fuel use is causing an escalating “climate crisis.”

But if we factor in fossil fuels’ many climate benefits and carefully weigh fossil fuels’ climate side-effects, the opposite is true.

Factoring in fossil fuels’ “climate mastery benefits”
One huge benefit we get from fossil fuels is the ability to master climate danger—e.g., fossil-fueled cooling, heating, irrigation—which can potentially neutralize fossil fuels’ negative climate impacts.
Example of fossil-fueled climate mastery overwhelming negative impacts: Drought.
Any contribution of rising CO2 to drought has been overwhelmed by fossil-fueled irrigation and crop transport, which have helped reduce drought deaths by more than 100 times over 100 years as CO2 levels have risen.²
Even though we obviously need to factor in fossil fuels’ climate mastery benefits, our designated experts totally fail to do this.
E.g., the UN IPCC’s multi-thousand-page reports totally omit fossil-fueled climate mastery! That’s like a polio report omitting the polio vaccine.
Carefully weighing fossil fuels’ climate side-effects
With rising greenhouse gasses we must be even-handed, considering both negatives (more heatwaves) and positives (fewer cold deaths). And we must be precise, not equating some impact with huge impact.
Even though we obviously need to factor in both negative and positive impacts of rising CO2 with precision, most designated experts ignore big positives (e.g., global greening) while catastrophizing negatives (e.g., Gore portrays 20 feet sea level rise as imminent when extreme UN projections are 3 feet/100years).³
Every report you hear about fossil fuels having made climate more dangerous commits at least one of 2 fallacies: ignoring the enormous climate mastery benefits of fossil fuels or wildly exaggerating negative climate side-effects of fossil fuels. Here’s how the prestigious IPCC does both.⁴
Alex Epstein – The IPCC’s perversion of science
If we do factor in fossil fuels’ enormous climate mastery benefits and carefully weigh their climate side-effects, we find that fossil fuels are a tremendous climate net-positive and will remain so in the future.
Myth: We are more endangered than ever by climate because of fossil fuels’ CO2 emissions.
Truth: We have a 98% decline in climate disaster deaths due to our enormous fossil-fueled climate mastery abilities: heating and cooling, infrastructure-building, irrigation, crop transport.⁵
Myth: Climate-related disaster X shows that fossil fuels are making climate unlivable.
Truth: If we look at trends, not anecdotes, the drastic decline in extreme weather deaths shows that fossil fuels have made our naturally dangerous climate more livable than ever.⁶
Myth: Even if climate-related disaster deaths are down, climate-related damages are way up, pointing to a bankrupting climate future.
Truth: Even though there are many incentives for climate damages to go up—prefs for riskier areas, government bailouts—GDP-adjusted damages are flat.⁷
Myth: Even if we’re safe from climate now, we can expect future emissions to lead to disaster.
Truth: Since today’s unprecedented safety exists after over 100 years of rising CO2, and with ~1° C warming, we should be skeptical that further CO2 rises will somehow overwhelm us.
Myth: Mainstream science shows that rising CO2 is an “existential threat” that will soon cause global catastrophe and then apocalypse.
Truth: Mainstream science shows that rising CO2 levels will lead to levels of warming and other changes that we can master and flourish with.
Myth: Future warming is ominous because heat-related death is already such a catastrophic problem.
Truth: Even though Earth has gotten 1°C warmer, far more people still die from cold than heat (even in India)! Near-term warming is expected to decrease temperature-related mortality.⁸
Myth: Future warming is ominous because it will be worst in hot areas.
Truth: The mainstream view in climate science is that more warming will be concentrated in colder places (Northern latitudes) and at colder times (nighttime) and during colder seasons (winter). Good news.⁹
Myth: Future warming will accelerate as CO2 levels rise.
Truth: Mainstream science is unanimous that the “greenhouse effect” is a diminishing effect, with additional CO2 leading to less warning.

Even IPCC’s most extreme, far-fetched scenarios show warming leveling off.¹⁰
Myth: We face catastrophically rapid sea level rises, which will destroy and submerge coastal cities.
Truth: Extreme UN sea level rise projections are just 3 feet in 100 years. Future generations can master that. (We already have 100 million people living below high-tide sea level.)¹¹
Myth: Hurricane intensity is expected to get catastrophically higher as temperatures rise.
Truth: Mainstream estimates say hurricanes will be less frequent and between 1-10% more intense at 2° C warming. This is not at all catastrophic if we continue our fossil-fueled climate mastery.¹²
Myth: Science says that if we hit 1.5 or 2° C warming since the 1800s we face catastrophe followed by apocalypse.
Truth: The 1.5-2° C number is activist fiction. The mastery abilities that have made life far better through 1° C warming will continue to keep us safe.¹³

Even barely implementing the net-zero agenda has been disastrous.

While COP 28 leaders bemoan how slow their restriction of fossil fuel use in pursuit of net-zero has been, even “slow” restriction has caused a global energy crisis. “Aggressive climate action” = global catastrophe.

Myth: Net-zero policies are new and exciting.
Truth: Net-zero policies have caused catastrophic energy shortages even with minuscule implementation. Just by slowing the growth of fossil fuel use, not even reducing it, they have caused global energy shortages advocates didn’t warn us of.
Minuscule net-zero policies causing huge problems:
- US: frequent power shortages (and some disastrous blackouts) after shutting down fossil fuel power plants. E.g., CA
- EU: deadly fossil fuel dependence after restricting domestic fossil fuel industry
- Poor nations: can’t afford fuel due to global restrictions¹⁴
The “net-zero” movement, led by UN COPs, is the root cause of today’s energy crisis because it has restricted
1. fossil fuel investment
2. fossil fuel production
3. fossil fuel transport
This has artificially suppressed fossil fuel supply, leading to high prices and shortages.
Suppressing fossil fuel investment
For fossil fuel energy to remain low-cost requires sufficient investment. But the COP-led net-zero movement has used government and private entities, often under the banner of “ESG,” to punish and suppress it—meaning less fossil fuel supply.¹⁵
Suppressing fossil fuel production
For fossil fuel energy to remain low-cost for billions of people requires that producers be free to produce it all around the world.

The COP-led net-zero movement has opposed it throughout the world, often successfully, increasing prices.¹⁶
Suppressing fossil fuel transport
For fossil fuels to remain low-cost for billions of people we need to be able to easily transport them from where they are produced to where they are used. But the COP-led net-zero movement has opposed transportation around the world.¹⁷
The “net-zero” movement has rationalized its opposition to fossil fuel investment, production, and transport with claims that solar and wind could rapidly replace fossil fuels.
This has obviously not happened. Despite huge solar and wind subsidies fossil fuel demand has increased.
Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy, providing energy that’s low-cost, reliable, versatile, and scalable to billions of people.
That’s why overall fossil fuel use is growing. E.g., China, despite its “net-zero” pledges, has 300 new coal plants in the pipeline.¹⁸
There was never any reason to expect solar and wind to replace fossil fuels. The world needs far more energy—3 billion people still use less electricity than a US refrigerator—so there’s no reason to expect lower demand for any form of cost-effective energy, let alone ultra-versatile fossil fuels.¹⁹
Despite claims that solar and wind are rapidly replacing fossil fuels, they provide less than 5% of world energy—only electricity, ⅕ of energy—and, crucially, even that small percentage depends on huge subsidies and reliable (mostly fossil-fueled) power plants.²⁰
Solar and wind’s basic problem is unreliability, to the point they can go near zero at any time. Thus they don’t replace reliable power, they parasitize it. This is why they need huge subsidies and why no grid is near 50% solar and wind without parasitism on reliable neighbors.²¹
The popular idea that we can use mostly or only solar and wind with sufficient battery backup is not being tried anywhere because it’s absurd. Batteries are so expensive that just 3 days of global backup using Elon Musk’s Megapacks would cost $570 trillion, about 6X global GDP!²²
Scary fact: the “net-zero” movement has caused an energy crisis just by achieving a tiny fraction of its goals. While it has advocated rapidly reducing fossil fuel use, it has only succeeded globally at slowing the growth of fossil fuel use. And even that is catastrophic.
If just restricting the growth of fossil fuels in a world that needs far more energy is catastrophic, what would it mean to reduce CO2 emissions by the 50% many “climate emergency” advocates want by 2030 and the 100% they want by 2050?
Global misery and premature death.
The net-zero movement led by COP is particularly dangerous to Africa and other poor regions.
Consider: ⅓ of the world uses wood and animal dung for heating and cooking. 3 billion use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator.

Only fossil fuels can provide the energy they need to develop.²³
Every prosperous country has developed using fossil fuels.
No poor country has been able to develop to the point of prosperity without massive fossil fuel use.

The reason is that development requires energy, and fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective, including scalable, source of energy.
Africa is the world’s poorest region. Most Africans want rapid development and with it, prosperity.
This is absolutely achievable. But only by using the proven practices every once-poor place has used to develop and prosper.

One such practice is large-scale fossil fuel use.
In recent decades China and India have used large amounts of low-cost, reliable energy from fossil fuels to rapidly develop.
Since 1980, India’s fossil fuel use has increased by >700% and China’s by >600%.

India’s life expectancy increased by 17 years and China’s by 14!²⁴
Fossil fuels are so uniquely good at providing low-cost, reliable energy for developing nations that even nations with little or no fossil fuel resources have used fossil fuels to develop and prosper. E.g. South Korea (83% fossil fuels), Japan (85% fossil fuels), Singapore (99% fossil fuels).²⁵
The obvious path for African development and prosperity is to use fossil fuel whenever it’s the most cost-effective option, which is most of the time, and certainly to responsibly produce the significant fossil fuel resources that exist in Africa.
Yet COP tells Africa to forego fossil fuels.
Given that every prosperous place on Earth has depended on and continues to depend on massive fossil fuel use, and that attempts to replace fossil fuels with solar and wind are failing, the push for Africa to adopt net-zero—aka fossil fuel elimination—is a death sentence for African development.

The alternative to the unnecessary and destructive COPs: energy freedom conferences

Instead of focusing on rapidly eliminating fossil fuel use, we should focus on rapidly liberating energy production and use of all kinds of energy via energy freedom policies.

What are “energy freedom policies”?
Government actions to protect the ability of producers to produce all forms of energy and consumers to use all forms of energy, so long as they don’t engage in reasonably preventable pollution or endangerment of others.
Energy freedom policies include:
- Protecting the freedom to develop fossil fuels and other forms of energy. E.g., deep geothermal development.
- Protecting the freedom to use fossil fuels and all other forms of energy. E.g., decriminalizing nuclear.
Energy freedom policies are more likely to lead to long-term emissions reductions, because they accelerate the rate at which nuclear and other alternatives become globally cost-competitive. (The only moral and practical way to reduce global emissions.)²⁶
Fact: the 2 biggest instances of CO2 reduction have come from energy freedom policies:
- Nuclear: Freedom led to cost-effective and scalable nuclear power until the “green” movement virtually criminalized it.
- Gas: Freedom led to significant substitution of gas vs. coal.
Alternative energy policy has been dominated by the “green energy” movement, which is an outgrowth of the anti-development green movement. This movement is hostile to all development because of development’s impact on nature, and therefore is hostile to every form of cost-effective energy.
COP’ leaders’ enthusiastic support for solar and wind is phony. Just as they oppose fossil fuels, nuclear, and hydro for their impact, in practice they oppose the massive mining, construction, and transmission-line-building “green energy” requires.²⁷
The obvious path forward for the world is energy freedom: the freedom to produce and use all cost-effective sources of energy—including, essentially, fossil fuels—which means rejecting all net-zero targets.
We need courageous leaders who will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

PS Here’s my friend Jusper Machogu’s message to COP.

Related Topics:#AlexEpstein #COP28 #EnergyTalkingPoints

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‘Big vulnerability’: How Ontario and Quebec became reliant on U.S. oil and gas

Published on March 2, 2025

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From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

ARC Energy Institute leaders highlight the need for a new approach in a new reality

Despite Canada’s status as one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, more than half of the country’s own population does not have true energy security – uninterrupted, reliable access to the energy they need at an affordable price.

Even though Western Canada produces much of the oil consumed in Ontario and Quebec, in order to get there, it moves on pipelines that run through the United States.

“It’s only energy secure if the Americans are our partners and friends,” leading energy researcher Jackie Forrest said on a recent episode of the ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

Amid rising trade tensions with the United States, energy security is taking on greater importance. But Forrest said the issue is not well understood across Canada.

“The concern is that in the worst-case scenario where the Americans want to really hurt our country, they have the ability to stop all crude oil flows to Ontario,” she said.

That action would also cut off the majority of oil supply to Quebec.

The issue isn’t much better for natural gas, with about half of consumption in Ontario and Quebec supplied by producers in the U.S.

“Tariffs or no tariffs, there is a real vulnerability there,” said Forrest’s co-host Peter Tertzakian, founder of the ARC Energy Research Institute.

The issue won’t go away with increased use of new technology like electric cars, he said.

“This isn’t just about combustion in engines. It’s about securing a vital commodity that is an input into other parts of our manufacturing and sophisticated economy.”

Oil: The Enbridge Mainline

The Enbridge Mainline is the main path for oil from Western Canada to reach refineries in Ontario and Quebec, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

Originating in Edmonton, Alberta, the Enbridge Mainline moves crude oil, refined products, and natural gas liquids through a connected pipeline system. At Superior, Wisconsin, the system splits into Line 5, going north of Lake Michigan, and Lines 6, 14, and 61, going around the southern tip of the lake. The two routes then coalesce and terminate in Sarnia, Ontario, where it is interconnected with Line 9, which is terminated in Montreal, Quebec. Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

Originally built in 1950 from Edmonton to Superior, Wisconsin, in 1953, it was extended to Sarnia, Ontario through a segment known as Line 5.

CAPP said that at the time, politicians had pushed for an all-Canadian path north of the Great Lakes to increase energy security, but routes through the U.S. were chosen because of lower project costs and faster timelines.

In 1979, an extension of the pipeline called Line 9 opened, allowing oil to flow east from Sarnia to Montreal.

“Line 9 was built after the oil crisis and the OPEC embargo as a way to bring western Canadian crude oil into Quebec,” Forrest said.

But by the 1990s – before the massive growth in Alberta’s oil sands – there was a lack of crude coming from Western Canada. It became more economically attractive for refineries in Quebec and Ontario to import oil from overseas via the St. Lawrence River, CAPP said.

A reversal in 1999 allowed crude in Line 9 to flow west from Montreal to Sarnia.

By the 2010s, the situation had changed again, with production from the Alberta oil sands and U.S. shale plays surging. With more of that oil available, the offshore crude was deemed to be more expensive, Forrest said.

In 2015, Line 9 was reversed to send oil east again from Sarnia to Montreal, displacing oil from overseas but not resolving the energy security risk of Canadian pipelines running through the U.S.

CAPP said the case of Line 5 illustrates this risk. In 2020, the Governor of Michigan attempted to shut down the pipeline over concerns about pipeline leak or potential oil spill in a seven-kilometre stretch under the Straits of Mackinac.

Line 5 has been operating in the Straits for 72 years without a single release.

Enbridge is advancing a project to encase the pipeline in a protective tunnel in the rock beneath the lakebed, but the legal battle with the State of Michigan remains ongoing.

Natural gas: The TC Canadian Mainline

The natural gas pipeline now known as TC Energy’s Canadian Mainline from Alberta was first built in 1958.

The TC Canadian Mainline (red dashed line) transports natural gas produced in Western Canada to markets in Eastern Canada. Red lines show pipelines regulated by the Canada Energy Regulator, while black lines show pipelines regulated by the United States. Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

“This pipeline brought gas into Ontario, and then it was extended to go into Quebec, and that was good for a long time,” Forrest said.

“But over time we built more pipelines into the United States, and it was a better economic path to go through the United States.”

The Mainline started running not at its full capacity, which caused tolls to go up and made it less and less attractive compared to U.S. options.

According to CAPP, between 2006 and 2023 the Mainline’s deliveries of gas from Western Canada to Ontario and Quebec were slashed in half.

“We should have said, ‘We need to find a way for this pipeline, over our own soil, to be competitive with the alternative’. But we didn’t,” Forrest said.

“Instead, we lost market share in Eastern Canada. And today we’re in a big bind, because if the Americans were to cut off our natural gas, we wouldn’t have enough natural gas into Quebec and Ontario.”

A different approach for a new reality

Forrest said the TC Mainline, which continues to operate at about half of its capacity, presents an opportunity to reduce Canada’s reliance on U.S. natural gas while at the same time building energy security for oil.

“Those are the same pipes that were going to be repurposed for oil, for Energy East,” Tertzakian said.

“The beauty of the thing is that actually, I don’t think it would take that long if we had the will… It’s doable that we can be energy secure.”

This could come at a higher cost but provide greater value over the long term.

“That’s always been the issue in Canada, when it comes to energy, we always go with the cheapest option and not the most energy secure,” Forrest said.

“And why? Because we always trusted our American neighbor to never do anything that will impact the flow of that energy. And I think we’re waking up to a new reality.”

Alberta

U.S. tariffs or not, Canada needs to build new oil and gas pipeline space fast

Published on February 19, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Grady Semmens

Expansion work underway takes on greater importance amid trade dispute

Last April, as the frozen landscape began its spring thaw, a 23-kilometre stretch of newly built pipeline started moving natural gas across northwest Alberta.

There was no fanfare when this small extension of TC Energy’s Nova Gas Transmission Limited (NGTL) system went online – adding room for more gas than all the homes in Calgary use every day.

It’s part of the ongoing expansion of the NGTL system, which connects natural gas from British Columbia and Alberta to the vast TC Energy network. In fact, one in every 10 molecules of natural gas moved across North America touches NGTL.

With new uncertainty emerging from Canada’s biggest oil and gas customer – the United States – there is a rallying cry to get new major pipelines built to reach across Canada and to wider markets.

Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson recently said the country should consider building a new west-east oil pipeline following U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs, calling the current lack of cross-country pipelines a “vulnerability,” CBC reported.

“I think we need to reflect on that,” Wilkinson said. “That creates some degree of uncertainty. I think, in that context, we will as a country want to have some conversations about infrastructure that provides greater security for us.”

Many industry experts see the threat to Canada’s economy as a wake-up call for national competitiveness, arguing to keep up the momentum following the long-awaited completion of two massive pipelines across British Columbia over the last 18 months. Both of which took more than a decade to build amidst political turmoil, regulatory hurdles, activist opposition and huge cost overruns.

On May 1, 2024, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX) started delivering crude oil to the West Coast, providing a much-needed outlet for Alberta’s growing oil production.

Several months before that, TC Energy finished work on the 670-kilometre Coastal Gaslink pipeline, which provides the first direct path for Canadian natural gas to reach international markets when the LNG Canada export terminal in Kitimat begins operating later this year.

TMX and Coastal GasLink provide enormous benefits for the Canadian economy, but neither are sufficient to meet the long-term growth of oil and gas production in Western Canada.

More oil pipeline capacity needed soon

TMX added 590,000 barrels per day of pipeline capacity, nearly tripling the volume of crude reaching the West Coast where it can be shipped to international markets.

In less than a year, the extra capacity has enabled Canadian oil production to reach all-time highs of more than five million barrels per day.

More oil reaching tidewater has also shrunk the traditional discount on Alberta’s heavy oil, generating an extra $10 billion in revenues, while crude oil exports to Asia have surged from $49 million in 2023 to $3.6 billion in 2024, according to ATB analyst Mark Parsons.

With oil production continuing to grow, the need for more pipeline space could return as soon as next year, according to analysts and major pipeline operators.

Even shortly after TMX began operation, S&P Global analysts Celina Hwang and Kevin Birn warned that “by early 2026, we forecast the need for further export capacity to ensure that the system remains balanced on pipeline economics.”

Pipeline owners are hoping to get ahead of another oil glut, with plans to expand existing systems already underway.

Trans Mountain vice-president Jason Balasch told Reuters the company is looking at projects that could add up to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of capacity within the next five years.

Meanwhile, Canada’s biggest oil pipeline company is working with Alberta’s government and other customers to expand its major export pipelines as part of the province’s plan to double crude production in the coming years.

Enbridge expects it can add as much as 300,000 bpd of capacity out of Western Canada by 2028 through optimization of its Mainline system and U.S. market access pipelines.

Enbridge spokesperson Gina Sutherland said the company can add capacity in a number of ways including system optimizations and the use of so-called drag reducing agents, which allow more fluid to flow by reducing turbulence.

LNG and electricity drive strong demand for natural gas

Growing global demand for energy also presents enormous opportunities for Canada’s natural gas industry, which also requires new transportation infrastructure to keep pace with demand at home and abroad.

The first phase of the LNG Canada export terminal is expected to begin shipping 1.8 billion cubic feet of gas per day (Bcf/d) later this year, spurring the first big step in an expected 30 per cent increase in gas production in Western Canada over the next decade.

With additional LNG projects in development and demand increasing, the spiderweb of pipes that gathers Alberta and B.C.’s abundant gas supplies need to continue to grow.

TC Energy CEO Francois Poirier is “very bullish” about the prosect of building a second phase of the recently completed Coastal GasLink pipeline connecting natural gas in northeast B.C. to LNG terminals on the coast at Kitimat.

The company is also continuously expanding NGTL, which transports about 80 per cent of Western Canada’s production, with more than $3 billion in growth projects planned by 2030 to add another 1 Bcf/d of capacity.

Meanwhile Enbridge sees about $7 billion in future growth opportunities on its natural gas system in British Columbia.

In addition to burgeoning LNG exports from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, TC Energy sees huge potential for gas to continue replacing coal-fired electricity generation, especially as a boom in power-hunger data centres unfolds.

With such strong prospects for North America’s highly integrated energy system, Poirier recently argued in the Wall Street Journal that leaders should be focused on finding common ground for energy in the current trade dispute.

“Our collective strength on energy provides a chance to expand our economies, advance national security and reduce global emissions,“ he wrote in a Feb. 3 OpEd.

“By working together across North America and supporting the free flow of energy throughout the continent, we can achieve energy security, affordability and reliability more effectively than any country could achieve on its own.”