Comment by genman
2 years ago
You are missing the forest behind the trees, I'm afraid of. The reason behind the increase of US fossil fuel production is geopolitical to suppress Russian profits and its ability to finance its genocidal war. Russia can't lower much of its production cost. Major part of the Russian state budget is based on profits from the fossil fuel sales - no profits, no war.
If US didn't increase its production then Russia could sell at higher price and many countries would be forced to buy it as there would be no alternative. This would allow it to continue the war longer and possibly attack more countries.
Unfortunately the formula of the problem is complex with many variables. There are no easy solutions.
The best strategy we have right now is to convince China to reduce its fossil fuel usage so everyone else could scale down.
All this is saying is countries will produce/consume fossil fuels according to self interest. US shale/oil export boomed years before RU/UKR war, same with planned LNG expansion. That kind of infra didn't get planned and built in the last 2 years. It just so happens the war validated US prior geostrategic goal of being fossil fuels exporter. Eitherway, why would PRC be convinced to reducing use when it's at 1/6 per capital of US. West has to ramp down per capital usage to PRC levels for that proposal to make sense.
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And the only effect of PRC consuming more energy for manufacturing is other countries can manufacture less. Why do we need to reshore / diversify / build redundant factories/supply chains. Clearly that's in jest, but the logic works both ways, why would PRC not harness energy to improve her geopolitic posture when US is using it to enhance hers. Long term demand also works on efficiency paradox, the more supply there is, the cheaper something becomes and the more it tends to be used. US ramping up more supply/reduces, or rather increase cost of green transition. Large reason why oil demand is set to plateau long term is PRC is using oil to make renewables with cheap RU and Iranian oil. The point is, as long as US benefits from being fossil exporter by playing up her geologic advantages, PRC is going to reap benefit from converting fossil to goods by playing up her manufacturing advantages.
I'm was talking about the recent increase. But in longer term global oil production depends on demand. You can't sell more than there is demand for. The only effect US production increase has is that other countries can sell less. Considering that Russia will use oil income directly for expansionist wars and Iran will finance global terrorism then it is only a positive outcome.
When it comes to wealth then nobody demanded China to participate in single party controlled economy experiments that crippled its economical growth for decades and kept large parts of its population poor. Lets remind that this is the (perhaps naive) goodwill of the West that has allowed China to prosper.
Another point when it comes to per capita usage: China has tripled its population by close to 3 times post WW2. While US population has also increased then it has been in large part by immigration (including Chinese immigrants). The same applies to EU - they are sinks for the population growth in other countries while their native population declines.
Yes, per capita primary energy consumption of China is 2.5 times less than that of US, but US consumption is already by itself incredibly high. The difference between China and Germany is only 1.3 times and China is using more energy per capita than is United Kingdom.
So it is by no degree justified for China to expect the same level per capita energy usage as United States.
The first step for China is to stop aggressive increase in fossil fuel usage. If it can signal that it can be cooperative then other countries can make further adjustments. If China does not play along, US will neither.
> China has tripled its population by close to 3 times post WW2. ... > So it is by no degree justified for China to expect the same level per capita energy usage as United States.
Global policy coordination on Climate change focus on per capita goals post PRC population explosion, which is only metric countries can agreed. PRC absolutely has justification to expect same per capita energy usage, not just current, but historical, that is multiple times current because historical per capita actual factors in accumulation of wealth/capital/infra. Hence PRC emission rivalling developing EU countries, they're pouring centuries worth of concrete in a few years to catch up on infra, which is right of any nation behind on developing curve.
On topic of population flows, since PRC population decreasing, and US is increasing via immigration, and each US immigrant naturally adopts high per capita emissions, it's only "fair" that US also stops immigration. Of course that too is absurd. As is any proposal that that PRC would should limit fossil fuel usage to per capita levels below US and west. Ultimately, we both recognize neither US nor PRC has any interest in "playing along" because they benefit from increasing fossil usage.
The original comment was merely highlighting that US by virtue of becoming net exporter of crude + lng is increasing fossil fuel usage comparable to PRC. And that really EU is the only actor who has stagnated emission, but that's more due to policy failure than anything. US net contribution to fossil usage is anything but stagnate both in terms of industry and demographics. And unlike PRC trends which has peak/tipping points, US population increase + fuel exports will keep US as the largest per capita contributer to climate crisis. US is increasing ceiling for what is acceptable per capita for large country. And until that changes, no one else will be incentivized to settle at fraction of US per capita. If anything it would justify PRC start mass exporting coal once they're done their green transition.
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