Energy - November + December 2023
Climate and Energy Update – November + December, 2023
When a product is required, there's always a means to obtain it. Europe and other nations recently experienced a frenzy in their quest for gas, yet for politicians and dealers, maintaining legitimacy takes precedence before saving face. If an event isn't featured in mainstream news, it's often dismissed as nonexistent, though it may indeed be unfolding.
Despite sanctions: The EU buys more liquefied natural gas from Russia than before the Ukraine invasion. The European Union has increased its imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine – although at the same time it has moved away from Russian pipeline gas. This is reported by the FAZ. The focus is on the Russian LNG group Novatek, which is benefiting from this development.
In the first seven months of 2023, the EU imported around 40 percent more LNG from Russia compared to the period before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as calculated by the organization Global Witness based on data from the industry service Kpler.
The EU's increasing LNG imports from Russia are at odds with the Russia embargo, which actually prohibits gas imports.
Check it in Mr. Habeck of Germany, If Russian gas does not flow through Ukraine to Europe, there is a risk of Germany's economic standstill. Economics Minister Robert Habeck warned of this as early as June 14, 2023 in an article by the newspaper Die Welt. Literally, it says: "If Russian gas did not come to Eastern Europe to the extent that it still flows through Ukraine, what was agreed at European level applies: Before the people there freeze, we would have to curtail our industry or even shut it down."
The statement at that time is interesting in the current context: the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not want to participate in talks with Russia on the transit of Russian gas through Ukrainian territory. "We will certainly not take part in talks with the Russians, that is absolutely clear," said Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko.
"Next year will show whether Europe can do without Russian gas," he added to the Ukrainian service of the US government-funded channel -
Voice of America.
The UN Climate Conference concluded on 12/12. However, if you peruse the US mainstream media, not a single page has been dedicated to the discussions. While the US Biden-Kerry Press insists that the era of fossil fuels will come to an end, European voices express uncertainty about this assertion.
Baerbock on the barricades:
The final declaration of the climate conference in Dubai does not provide for a binding end to fossil fuels. Do-gooders from the US and EU are horrified.
Because half the world thinks differently than she does, Baerbock has to go into extra time in Dubai. But the disastrous development in Germany makes it difficult for her to promote her climate goals.
If the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai had ended as planned at noon today, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock would have gone home with a hefty defeat, and with her the negotiators from the United States and the European Union.
This is because the Dubai Final Declaration does not provide for a binding end to fossil fuels. And the way in which their share of the energy supply can be reduced in the first place also remains vague.
To follow along and read all about the conference, click here. It is interesting; for climate issues, the UN appears to be a reliable partner, but for peace, it seems to stand in the way of wars.
Perhaps with 84,000 people attending, they all contributed to the increase of 1.5 deg; This report from Australia sums it up well. John Kerry is just what he always was, a talker, and Al Gore a Preacher who still reels his 2020 election loss.
“They’ve come out with a document that says, ‘well you know, some point in the future we’ll get rid of the fossil fuels’.”
Germany, with its red-green coalition, is building the land of milk and honey (the mythical land of Cockaigne if you will). And linked here is their instruction manual for how it should all work out.
And if you need more proof of politicians going crazy and becoming overly ideological. They are justifying all actions as legal if it's for the green cause.. See below for an example of how this has worked out.
Sleeping Beauty is dead: Rapunzel on the run. Because the German fairytale forest is dying. Harvesters have torn holes in one of Germany's largest contiguous mixed forests. The tree-eating machines bite fourteen kilometers of highway-wide construction roads through the Reinhardswald in northern Hesse so that 241-meter-high monster wind turbines can be erected!
The people of the Reinhardswald have tears in their eyes. All day long they hear the screaming of the tree harvesters and the cracking of the trees, which are up to 200 years old. The machines plough through the dense forest to clear paths. This was allowed by the Administrative Court – after a months-long construction stop. Since then, animals have been fleeing the forest, including rare and strictly protected lynxes.
And then you have other projects going completely unnoticed, because it is “Russian”.. Even if it offers just as much benefit to restoring Forests around the Globe?
Like this one: The former Swiss-based oligarch Andrei Melnichenko wants to recreate ice age conditions in the tundra in order to curb methane emissions from the thawing Siberian permafrost – including mammoths. Melnichenko's foundation has set up an extravagant pavilion at COP 28 to promote the project. A 360-degree video installation shows how wolves, buffaloes, tigers and mammoths are once again roaming Russia's gigantic polar climate zone.
Additional Reading: You may find some interesting perspectives on sustainability here. Enthusiasm is part of it; however, achieving realization requires a bit more.
