The Problem with the COP28 Climate Change Conference

COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, is underway in Dubai. As with many of these foo-foo summits, I’m not expecting much to come out of it.

COP28 is a progress report on countries’ emission reduction commitments, equating to a parent-teacher conference where all countries get Ds or Fs on their report cards. The current focus of this year’s conference is adding protocols around methane.

Methane is the low-hanging fruit of climate-change talks, so it’s a no-brainer to add regulations surrounding it. However, China’s reluctance to abandon coal production (and, as a by-product, methane) underscores the difficulties in addressing emissions on a global scale.

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Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

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TranscripT

Hey everybody Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from a snowy Colorado. Today, we’re going to talk about what’s going on in the Persian Gulf. There’s something called the COP 28 conference going on, which is the United Nations Global Climate Change Update conference. The acronym stands for Nothing, so don’t look for it. As a rule, I don’t comment on these things because any organization where Djibouti and Japan are both represented generally does nothing and there’s not a lot you should expect to come out of these talks at all.

It’s really just an update on where everyone is. Folks made commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions a few years ago. This is kind of progress report. And the bottom line is pretty much everybody gets a d/f. Not a lot has happened. Two things. Number one, the way these things are negotiated is you have political authorities and you have scientific authorities.

The political authorities are the ones who actually have to get stuff done. And the scientific authorities tend to be the ones who set the thresholds and the targets. And oftentimes the two of them don’t discuss things very often. And so the political statement and the scientific statements often have very little to do with one another. Nothing really different here this time around.

What is different this time around is they’re trying to add a completely new category to the greenhouse gas emissions protocols. So until now, it’s been focused mostly on carbon dioxide, which is by far the number one source of climate change. But this time, they’re trying to add methane. Now, methane, a.k.a. cow farts, a.k.a natural gas, is a much more potent greenhouse gas emission, but for a shorter period of time.

So CO2 lasts in the system for centuries with a moderate warming effect, whereas natural gas usually dissipates within about a decade but has a much stronger impact in that time. So if you’re looking for the low hanging fruit in climate talks, methane is where you want to go. And in cases of like the United States, most of our methane emissions are linked into oil and gas production in some way.

In a lot of oil production and shale fields, natural gas comes up as a byproduct. And so really, all you need to do is have better sealant on the pipelines and the production system. You would have a pretty outsized impact on methane emissions from a climate point of view. In addition, a lot of these things pay for themselves because natural gas is a product that can then be sold into the power system or the chemical system.

So the Biden administration is in the process of perfecting some regulations with the goal of reducing American methane emissions by about 80% over the course of the next decade, which I think is an actually fairly achievable goal that I don’t think the oil and gas industry is going to push back against too much because, again, it’s a product.

But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be involved in these cop talks at all because of the Chinese. Give you an idea of just how hypocritical some of these talks are and how little progress you should expect. The Chinese are against involving methane as an emission target because most of their methane is a byproduct of their coal production.

And if they’re going to continue to use coal for the vast majority of their power, then they’re going to kick out a lot of methane as a side effect. And unlike in the United States, where this is something that can be solved by sealing up pipes, all you have to do in China, if you want to not have the methane, is to shut down the coal, the coal mines.

So the Chinese are kind of dead set against this category in general anyway. We’ve seen this in environmental regulations before with the Chinese, where in a lot of the advanced countries, most notably the United States, it’s an issue of kind of cleaning up after yourself and a lot of it pays for itself. Something very similar happened back in the eighties, in the nineties with something called the Montreal Protocol, which is something that banned chlorofluorocarbons, which is something that used to be in freon and air conditioning systems.

We banned it because it was bad for the ozone layer, gave everybody sunburns and we replaced it with something called HFCS, which were an order of magnitude better. Now, the Chinese were the ones at the time were produce most of the world’s freon, and they didn’t think that the replacement technologies are something that they could master. So for technological sovereignty issues, they refused to go along with it until the rest of the planet had made the switch and then they finally joined on the tail end.

We’re probably going to see something like that with methane in the talks this week. Okay. That’s it. By.

North American Fires Cause a Smoky Start to Summer in the US

Let’s just say that our old friend Smokey Bear wouldn’t be too happy with the Canadians this past week. And these fires are likely only the beginning of a very long summer of low air quality.

We’re getting hit with the trifecta right now. Wildfires (which are as essential a part of BC’s natural ecosystem management as they are to California’s chaparral) in Northern Alberta and Eastern BC, fires (which happen very rarely) in Quebec and the Maritime provinces, and agricultural fires (yearly slash and burns) in Mexico. These are all large enough to cover a vast swath of the US with smoke individually; adding insult to injury, the smoke from multiple fires is overlapping at different elevations.

So can any of this be attributed to climate change? I’m going to say yes…because it’s only June. Some of these fires started in MAY. Barring an unprecedented wet summer, we’ll be dealing with this for months to come.

It may be time to upgrade those filtration systems if you haven’t already.

Prefer to read the transcript of the video? Click here


Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

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TRANSCIPT

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from cloudy Colorado. Today we’re going to talk about this horrible smoke that is hitting most of the country. Basically, if you are east of the front range, you’ll experience it in some way with particularly dense clusters in places like the American Northeast. I hate to say it, folks, but this is just going to be the beginning of a very, very, very long summer of low air quality.

We’ve got three things happening at the same time that have never happened together before. The first, which is something that happens every few years, is we’ve got forest fires in northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia, which is generating a significant amount of smoke that is currently hitting the Great Plains in the Midwest. Second, and this is something that happens very rarely. We’re getting extensive fires in both Quebec and in Canada’s maritime provinces, which is generating most of the smoke that is hitting the American northeast. And then third, something we get every year is we’re at that part of the season where the Mexicans are doing a slash and burn preparation for certain types of fields. So we’ve got more smoke coming up from the south, which is primarily hitting Texas right now.

Anyway, all three of these are big enough that they have the potential to have a huge swath of coverage for the continent. And in a lot of cases, we’re seeing overlapping layers. Now, smoke and fire should not automatically translate into poor air quality because it really matters what the elevation is oftentimes. A few days after the smoke leaves the source of the fire, it drifts up. And when it does that, it still makes your skies kind of crappy. But you’re not dealing with those PMI issues because we’ve got three different sources in three different geographies. We’re getting smoke at multiple elevations, which is making it more of a problem. So really, all we’re waiting now for is for the Californians to have smoke, but luckily they have had the wettest year on record so far. So the chances of me going backpacking in Yosemite this year are very low. There’s still 40 feet of snow on the ground at high elevation. And so they’re probably going to have a relatively wet and therefore not fire filled summer.

For those of you who are concerned about climate change, is that part of this? I’m going to have to say yes for the simple reason that it’s only June and the Albertan and the Quebec fires, you know, started in May. We’ve never had wildfires on this scale this early in the season, which means barring some really atypical summer precipitation in the Great White North, we’re going to be dealing with this smoke and these fires all through June and July and August and September until we get snow. We learned that over and over and over again with the California fires. You basically have to wait for Christmas for this stuff to get put out completely. So if you haven’t put a filtering system for your home back in your Amazon cart, now might be the time. If you’re living in an apartment or you don’t have a traditional HVAC system. There are a number of models of standalone air filters. You might want to consider investing in those because this is going to be kind of a crappy summer if you are east of the front range. I can see the smoke from my neighborhood, but luckily the mountains are providing enough of a bulwark that I’m okay here. Of course I am going to Canada here in a few hours and then all bets are off.

Alright. That’s it for me. You guys take care. Stay safe.

Where in the World: Adair and Winds, Pt. 1

NB: The following video is one I recorded while on my annual backpacking trip in August; please excuse any potential anachronisms.

Camping at Adair Lake is most comparable to spending a night in a wind tunnel – and yes, it was as peaceful as your picturing. The little sleep I did get was supplemented with some thought around wind’s impact on global agriculture.

Many of the world’s agricultural zones get their moisture from 1 of 2 wind sources – jet streams or monsoons. As the climate shifts, we will see more dramatic shifts in winds, leaving these single-wind-source agricultural zones with substantial moisture vulnerabilities.

There are, however, 5 zones that were blessed with multiple wind currents and their importance will become very apparent as the climate continues to change.


Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY

Where in the World: Tenaya and Climate Change

Waking up to ash from the Red Fire scattered across my tent wasn’t exactly how I pictured my morning going, but it does bring to mind an interesting topic – Climate Change.

No one has a great idea of how climate change will actually play out, it’s more of a broad spectrum guess situation. Making meaningful policy and planning for the future a complex task to face. However, there are some tactical factors that decision makers should be looking at; these are sources of wind and stability of the climate zone.

Think back to Oregon’s record temps in the summer of ’21 or where most countries are sourcing their food from. Understanding these realities is the only way to create policy that will actually help mitigate the impact of climate change.

The scary reality is that just because we (I’m talking people in general) might not be feeling the impacts of climate change, the food we consume (likely) is.

NB: The following video is one I recorded while on my annual backpacking trip in August; please excuse any potential anachronisms.


Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:
 
First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.
 
Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.
 
And then there’s you.
 
Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S UKRAINE FUND

CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT MEDSHARE’S EFFORTS GLOBALLY