How global warming saves more people than it dooms

From Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein

This is Part 3 of a 4 part feature where I cover 4 of the top energy issues that will be discussed this summer, especially as politicians return home for August Recess.

Warmer temperatures are less of a threat than cold ones, and fossil fuels make us safer from both.

Anti-fossil fuel politicians love summer because hot temperatures give them the opportunity to portray the world as “on fire”—and offering anti-fossil-fuel policies as a solution.In reality, cold is a bigger problem than heat—and anti-fossil-fuel policies make both worse.¹

Anyone commentating responsibly on summer temperatures must acknowledge 3 facts:1. Heat-related deaths are far less prevalent than cold-related deaths
2. Earth is warming slowly—especially in warm places
3. Fossil fuels make us safer from both cold and heat

1. Heat-related deaths < cold-related deaths

When our leaders discuss the warming of the planet, they treat warming as obviously bad. But while they portray the planet as already “too hot,” the fact is that far more human beings die of cold than of heat.²

Study after study has found that deaths from cold outnumber deaths from heat by 5-15 times. On every continent cold is more dangerous than heat. Even in many countries we think of as especially hot, such as India, cold-related deaths significantly exceed heat-related deaths.³

2. Earth is warming slowly—especially in warm places
So far we’ve had ~1°C of warming from a cold starting point in Earth’s history 150 years ago. Future warming will be limited by the diminishing nature of “the greenhouse effect”—as well as being concentrated in colder places.⁴
Warming so far has been slow and benign. But will future warming make the world unlivably hot? No, given 2 facts almost universally acknowledged by climate scientists: 1) the diminishing warming impact of CO2 and 2) the concentration of warming in colder places.

The warming impact of CO2 diminishes (“logarithmically”) as it increases in concentration.Every new molecule of CO2 we add to the atmosphere has less of a warming effect than the previous one. Warming will diminish as emissions increase—the only question is at what rate.⁵

Climate warming is concentrated in colder areas of the world (such as the Arctic), during colder times of day, and during colder seasons.This means that future warming will occur more in cold situations where it saves lives than in hot situations where it causes problems.⁶

All reporting on the warming of the Earth should specify not only that humans are far more endangered by cold than by heat, but also that Earth is warming slowly—and less in warm places. That virtually no reporting acknowledges this shows that much “reporting” is propaganda.
3. Fossil fuels make us safer from dangerous temperatures
Not only is the warming from fossil fuels’ CO2 emissions slow and in many ways beneficial, the uniquely cost-effective energy we get from fossil fuels makes us both safer from cold and heat.
The key to being protected from dangerous temperatures is to master them by producing different forms of temperature protection, such as: insulated buildings, heating, and air-conditioning. All of these things require energy—which means for most people they require fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are the only source of low-cost, reliable energy that for the foreseeable future can provide energy to billions—in a world where 3 billion people still use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator.⁷
On a planet where people die much more from cold than from heat, but both are major threats, the key to safety is to have energy be as affordable and plentiful as possible so as many as possible can afford heating and air conditioning. For now this means more fossil fuels.
People who blaming pro-fossil-fuel politicians for hot temperatures evade that:1. Cold is more dangerous than heat
2. Warming is slow, especially in warm places
3. We need fossil fuels to protect us from cold and heat

Reducing CO2 emissions in a humane and practical way means focusing on liberating alternatives—especially the most potent, nuclear—to try to truly outcompete fossil fuels in the future. Depriving us off fossil fuels now and pretending China will follow is immoral and impractical.

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REPORT: Alberta municipalities hit with $37 million carbon tax tab in 2023

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Alberta

REPORT: Alberta municipalities hit with $37 million carbon tax tab in 2023

Published on November 24, 2024

Todayville

Grande Prairie. Getty Images photo

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Laura Mitchell

Federal cash grab driving costs for local governments, driving up property taxes

New data shows the painful economic impact of the federal carbon tax on municipalities.

Municipalities in Alberta paid out more than $37 million in federal carbon taxes in 2023, based on a recent survey commissioned by Alberta Municipal Affairs, with data provided to the Canadian Energy Centre.

About $760,000 of that came from the City of Grande Prairie. In a statement, Mayor Jackie Clayton said “if the carbon tax were removed, City property taxes could be reduced by 0.6 per cent, providing direct financial relief to residents and businesses in Grande Prairie.”

Conducted in October, the survey asked municipal districts, towns and cities in Alberta to disclose the amount of carbon tax paid out for the heating and electrifying of municipal assets and fuel for fleet vehicles.

With these funds, Alberta municipalities could have hired 7,789 high school students at $15 per hour last year with the amount paid to Ottawa.

The cost on municipalities includes:

Lloydminster: $422,248

Calgary: $1,230,300 (estimate)

Medicine Hat: $876,237

Lethbridge: $1,398,000 (estimate)

Grande Prairie: $757,562

Crowsnest Pass: $71,100

Red Deer: $1,495,945

Bonnyville: $19,484

Hinton: $66,829

Several municipalities also noted substantial indirect costs from the carbon tax, including higher rates from vendors that serve the municipality – like gravel truck drivers and road repair providers – passing increased fuel prices onto local governments.

The rising price for materials and goods like traffic lights, steel, lumber and cement, due to higher transportation costs are also hitting the bottom line for local governments.

The City of Grande Prairie paid out $89 million in goods and services in 2023, and the indirect costs of the carbon tax “have had an inflationary impact on those expenses” in addition to the direct costs of the tax.

In her press conference announcing Alberta’s challenge to the federal carbon tax on Oct. 29, 2024, Premier Danielle Smith addressed the pressures the carbon tax places on municipal bottom lines.

“In 2023 alone, the City of Calgary could have hired an additional 112 police officers or firefighters for the amount they sent to Ottawa for the carbon tax,” she said.

In a statement issued on Oct. 7, 2024, Ontario Conservative MP Ryan Williams, shadow minister for international trade, said this issue is nationwide.

“In Belleville, Ontario, the impact of the carbon tax is particularly notable. The city faces an extra $410,000 annually in costs – a burden that directly translates to an increase of 0.37 per cent on residents’ property tax bills.”

There is no rebate yet provided on retail carbon pricing for towns, cities and counties.

In October, the council in Belleville passed a motion asking the federal government to return in full all carbon taxes paid by municipalities in Canada.

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

Energy

Global fossil fuel use rising despite UN proclamations

Published on November 22, 2024

Duane Rolheiser

From the Fraser Institute

By Julio Mejía and Elmira Aliakbari

Major energy transitions are slow and take centuries, not decades… the first global energy transition—from traditional biomass fuels (including wood and charcoal) to fossil fuels—started more than two centuries ago and remains incomplete. Nearly three billion people in the developing world still depend on charcoal, straw and dried dung for cooking and heating, accounting for about 7 per cent of the world’s energy supply (as of 2020).

At the Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Azerbaijan, António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, last week called for a global net-zero carbon footprint by 2050, which requires a “fossil fuel phase-out” and “deep decarbonization across the entire value chain.”

Yet despite the trillions of dollars already spent globally pursuing this target—and the additional trillions projected as necessary to “end the era of fossil fuels”—the world’s dependence on fossil fuels has remained largely unchanged.

So, how realistic is a “net-zero” emissions world—which means either eliminating fossil fuel generation or offsetting carbon emissions with activities such as planting trees—by 2050?

The journey began in 1995 when the UN hosted the first COP conference in Berlin, launching a global effort to drive energy transition and decarbonization. That year, global investment in renewable energy reached US$7 billion, according to some estimates. Since then, an extraordinary amount of money and resources have been allocated to the transition away from fossil fuels.

According to the International Energy Agency, between 2015 and 2023 alone, governments and industry worldwide spent US$12.3 trillion (inflation-adjusted) on clean energy. For context, that’s over six times the value of the entire Canadian economy in 2023.

Despite this spending, between 1995 and 2023, global fossil fuel consumption increased by 62 per cent, with oil consumption rising by 38 per cent, coal by 66 per cent and natural gas by 90 per cent.

And during that same 28-year period, despite the trillions spent on energy alternatives, the share of global energy provided by fossil fuels declined by only four percentage points, from 85.6 per cent to 81.5 per cent.

This should come as no surprise. Major energy transitions are slow and take centuries, not decades. According to a recent study by renowned scholar Vaclav Smil, the first global energy transition—from traditional biomass fuels (including wood and charcoal) to fossil fuels—started more than two centuries ago and remains incomplete. Nearly three billion people in the developing world still depend on charcoal, straw and dried dung for cooking and heating, accounting for about 7 per cent of the world’s energy supply (as of 2020).

Moreover, coal only surpassed wood as the main energy source worldwide around 1900. It took more than 150 years from oil’s first commercial extraction for oil to reach 25 per cent of all fossil fuels consumed worldwide. Natural gas didn’t reach this threshold until the end of the 20th century, after 130 years of industry development.

Now, consider the current push by governments to force an energy transition via regulation and spending. In Canada, the Trudeau government has set a target to fully decarbonize electricity generation by 2035 so all electricity is derived from renewable power sources such as wind and solar. But merely replacing Canada’s existing fossil fuel-based electricity with clean energy sources within the next decade would require building the equivalent of 23 major hydro projects (like British Columbia’s Site C) or 2.3 large-scale nuclear power plants (like Ontario’s Bruce Power). The planning and construction of significant electricity generation infrastructure in Canada is a complex and time-consuming process, often plagued by delays, regulatory hurdles and substantial cost overruns.

The Site C project took around 43 years from initial feasibility studies in 1971 to securing environmental certification in 2014. Construction began on the Peace River in northern B.C. in 2015, with completion expected in 2025 at a cost of at least $16 billion. Similarly, Ontario’s Bruce Power plant took nearly two decades to complete, with billions in cost overruns. Given these immense practical, financial and regulatory challenges, achieving the government’s 2035 target is highly improbable.

As politicians gather at high-profile conferences and set ambitious targets for a swift energy transition, global reliance on fossil fuels has continued to increase. As things stand, achieving net-zero by 2050 appears neither realistic nor feasible.