Reaction: Seven new oil and gas projects approved since IPCC report called for an end to fossil fuel

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Vice Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III April 4, 2022

For these Reaction articles, I will be reacting to an issue in the media related to our theme -the total collapse of human civilization. This is a short segment from the IPCC Working Group III's news conference on April 4th, 2022. Please watch the short video. The transcript is below:

Transcript---

In response to high fuel prices and war in Ukraine, The US and EU have signaled they will build additional fossil fuel infrastructure on either side of the Atlantic -much of which will stay online for decades to come. Are these build outs consistent to limiting warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C?

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz

Thank you, we do show that fossil fuel infrastructure that we keep building will (some of that) be stranded which means that we will not be able to use it if we want to be able to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. In fact what we presently see, or at least at the time when we finally looked at the literature (which was last October) that approximately 1 to 4 trillion US dollars worth of infrastructure will be stranded which means that it will not be possible already to return fully their investments.

So, building even more infrastruture either puts reaching our climate goals at risk or will just cause even more infrastructure to be stranded and that will have negative impacts on the whole society.

Today, I read an interesting article from euronew.com's Green News: Seven new oil and gas projects approved since the IPCC report called for an end to fossil fuel. The date of this writing is April 13, 2022. It has only been 9 days since the IPCC report was released on April 4th, 2022.

Here is a list of the 7 projects:

1. Exxon announced it will invest $10 billion (€9 billion) in a new offshore project off the coast of Guyana.

2. As part of its new energy strategy, the UK government announced that licensing of new oil and gas projects in the North Sea will begin this autumn.

3. Canada greenlighted the controversial $12 billion (€11 billion) Bay du Nord offshore oil project. This especially bothers me as a Canadian.

4. British business minister Kwasi Kwarteng announced that he has ordered a short report on fracking, saying that all options should be on the table to reduce Britain’s dependence on imported energy.

5. Portugal’s Galp Energia, a partner of the Exxon-led gas consortium in Mozambique, said that it hopes to start building onshore plants in the African country in 2024.

6. China’s ENN signed a new deal with US-based NextDecade to buy 1.5 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for 20 years, starting in 2026.

7.Ithaca Energy announced it will buy Siccar Point Energy, the company behind the controversial Cambo oil field off Shetland. The acquisition means that the Cambo oil field is likely to be expanded in the future, despite outrage from environmentalists, who believe the expansion will worsen the climate crisis.

It has only been 9 days....

Behaviour never lies but politicians do, and so do scientists. It never ceases to amaze me how low the IPCC will stoop to fulfill their mandate, even at the risk of human extinction.

This is the IPCC's stated aim:

The objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies.

I invite you the reader to click on the link and read the document. There is nothing in their mandate about having any responsibility to the public or the health of the biosphere. The sole purpose of the IPCC is to serve the world governments. In other words, the IPCC serves only those with priviledge and power.

In my view, the only completely honest person who spoke at the press conference was the only non-IPCC member , the Secretary-General António Guterres:

We are on a fast track to climate disaster. Major cities under water. Unprecedented heatwaves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals. This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies.

If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were honest, they would tell us that 1.5°C is no longer a viable goal. In fact, we will be extremely hard pressed to stay under 2.0 °C if no more fossil fuel infrastructure were built.

If the IPCC were honest, they would tell us that it is extremely ulikely that the governments of the world would abandon any built fossil fuel infrastructure until they have wringed out every last dollar of their investment.

If they were honest, they would tell us that they expect the governments of the world to massiviely increase their fossil fuel investments over the next decade. If they were honest, they would tell us that even 2.0 °C is probably an impossible goal because the governments, their masters; don't care. You should know that the earth at 2.0 °C will be a hellscape.

We are being lied to by the IPCC scientists who present these reports. We are being lied to by mainstream media scientists who tell us "we stll have time." We are being lied to by our smiling politicians who use scientists and their reports soley for the purpose of gaining power and priviledge.

At this point, I'm thinking about a quote from Winston Churchill:

I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do.

Behaviour never lies.