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Climate Wars: IEA Warns Governments To Stockpile Battery Metals 

May 6, 2021

Climate Wars: IEA Warns Governments To Stockpile Battery Metals 

China’s dominance in green energy technologies are rare earth metal production is very concerning to the International Energy Agency (IEA), who posted a stark warning Wednesday advising western governments to stockpile critical battery metals such as cobalt and lithium.

IEA’s warning comes as the next chapter in US-China tensions will be climate wars as energy transition investment ramps up with peak oil around 2030. Many Western countries and China have estimated net-zero carbon emission economies somewhere around 2040-2060. The need for western economies to become less reliant on China for rare earth metals, such as lithium and cobalt, is a necessity for independence from the East.

China has arguably been faster in adopting green technologies than western countries. Climate wars are much more than climate action and saving the planet – it’s about the superpower race between the US and China and who can deliver climate change solutions and clean-tech.

Source: BofA

IEA said leading industrial nations should begin to develop stockpiles of metals and minerals.

“Meeting our climate change goals will turbocharge demand for mineral resources,” Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, told Bloomberg by phone. “Voluntary strategic stockpiling can in some cases help countries weather short-term supply disruptions.”

The problem with rare earth metals is that only a handful of countries control more than 75% of the global supply. So if disruptions, for any reason, were seen, they would immediately ripple throughout the world, seizing the production of green technologies.

Bloomberg data shows demand for rare earth metals will soar this decade as countries decarbonizing their economies.

Source: Bloomberg 

Bank of America lists the metals that go into clean technologies.

Source: BofA

After decades of advising governments on oil and gas markets, the agency focuses on supply chain risks of rare earth metals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The climate wars: trench warfare or blitzkrieg?

March 30, 2016

The climate wars: trench warfare or blitzkrieg?

In a previous post, I examined more than 25 years of Gallup polls in the US and I came to the conclusion the climate debate is stuck in a trench warfare condition. Apparently, the percentage of Americans who say they are “worried” about climate change is today nearly the same as it was in 1989.

After the publication of that post, I received a comment that cited the results of a recent study of the social mediasponsored by “The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate” that seem to be indicating a different trend. Here is the main result of that study;
Clearly, something has changed in 2014 that has led to a remarkable change in the discourse on the relation of climate and economic growth, with a very large growth (around 700%) of people having an attitude defined as “positive” toward climate change. At first sight, it looks good: this is not trench warfare, it is a true blitzkrieg.
However, it is also something that has to be taken with great caution. Note that the question that was examined in the analysis was very narrow; strictly limited to whether one believes that climate change and economic growth are compatible. The analysis didn’t examine whether the messages indicated that people were worried or not about climate change, or even whether they believed it existed and was caused by human actions. And the “negative” opinion expressed in a fraction of the messages might well have been expressed by people who were very worried about climate change; so much that they thought (reasonably, in my opinion) that economic growth can only worsen things.
Indeed, the goals and the approach of the group of people who call themselves “The New Climate Economy Commission” seems to be very limited. In one of their reports, they state.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trench warfare in the climate wars: no victory in sight

March 24, 2016

Trench warfare in the climate wars: no victory in sight 

Image from “ThinkProgress”

The latest data from Gallup about how much Americans worry about global warming are nothing less than amazing. Today, we are exactly where we were more than one-quarter of a century ago. And yet, climate science has progressed, temperatures have been rising, the ice has been melting, the sea level has been rising, and plenty more evidence of dangerous global warming has accumulated. But the curves go up and down while the average remains constant; no long-term trend is apparent. It looks like trench warfare during the first world war. Mighty battles, lots of casualties, but neither side is winning.

In a sense, it is not surprising. I have been following the climate debate for several years and I can say that it is not a debate – it is a war. And in a war, you don’t debate using rational arguments, you take sides. It has to do with the extreme polarization that is taking hold in most Western societies (and it is increasing!). When it comes to discussing major issues, such as global warming, people are not debating; they are only making statements of identity. And it is normal that we are not going anywhere: neither scientific data nor anti-science spin campaigns (*) can move people who have chosen the side they belong to.

However, it is also true that trench warfare in the first world war didn’t last forever. At some point, one of the two sides couldn’t take it anymore and had to concede. Could something like that occur for the climate war? Possibly, yes. Indeed, many of us have been hoping for an event so major and so evident that the danger of global warming could not be denied anymore; the equivalent of a “decisive battle” in war. But even facing extreme events, reality can always be denied when ideological polarization takes hold. For the time being, we remain locked in trench warfare.

What does Climate Change Look Like?

November 3, 2015

What does Climate Change Look Like?

“Our goal is not to amass information or satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it”

                                                                                                                –Pope Francis

Several weeks ago, I forced myself to spend some time looking at pictures of Syrian refugees.  These images have haunted me ever since.   The pictures showed refugees landing on the shores of the Greek Island of Lesbos or Kos, huddled in rubber dinghies, or falling on the beach in exhaustion and relief.   Others had drowned, their bodies washing up on the beaches of Turkey, Libya, and other Mediterranean nations.   In many places, no one was there to meet them.  The beaches were abandoned but for the stranded refugees.  After a time, volunteers began to show up and assist the disheveled travelers, but many reports suggest an inadequate response by local authorities, as well as complaints by tourists, put- off by the interruption to their holiday enjoyment.

I have been haunted these images in part because of the basic compassion that most of us have for others in need, at least when we, ourselves, are safe and comfortable.  The picture of drowned Ayland Kurdi, pictured at the top, stabs at the heart of the parent in me.  He was the same age as my boys; but even short of the unthinkable and unbearable, I can’t help but try to imagine the difficulty in caring for young lives amidst fear, chaos, and violence.  During our worst temper-tantrums and middle-of-the-night wake ups, for consolation and as a matter of counting my blessings, I try to imagine what it would be like to raise toddlers in a war-zone or in a refugee camp, and try to visualize the utter exhaustion, punctuated by fear, uncertainty, and perpetual discomfort.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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