Poll: Electric utilities going to net-zero by 20

Six major US utilities have announced that they will achieve net-zero by 2050 in order to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate climate change. Do you agree that this will happen?

  • All six utilities will not achieve net-zero by 2050
  • Only three of the utilities achieve net-zero by 2050
  • All six utilities will achieve net-zero by 2050

0 voters

So the results show that 78% of the voters on this poll think U.S. utilities are liars!

Jaak

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The poll results show that oil, coal and gas investors have helped create a sense of futility about tackling climate change.

Jaak

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-21/high-f…

The poll results show that oil, coal and gas investors have helped create a sense of futility about tackling climate change.

Whatever the prevalence of futility (remember that zero countries have submitted updated climate plans to the UN this year) there is a difference between tackling climate change and assessing the odds of a utility company reaching net-zero by a certain date.

DB2

Whatever the prevalence of futility (remember that zero countries have submitted updated climate plans to the UN this year) there is a difference between tackling climate change and assessing the odds of a utility company reaching net-zero by a certain date.

DB2

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When governments do not impose regulations on utilities for CO2 emissions, then utilities do not need to tackle CO2 emissions. For example, CA government is very serious about CO2 emissions and is tackling the Climate Change problem, but TX government does not think that CO2 emissions are a Climate Change problem so they are not tackling the problem.

Who is fueling the TX mentality:

Fossil fuels companies have already bought the TX government to turn a blind eye to Climate Change.

Fossil fuels companies are also desperately trying to convince the public that their heat dome problems are only weather - not Climate Change.

Therefore, USA is paralyzed by states like TX and their governments to deal with CO2 emissions and Climate Change. TX and other states fight the Administration in developing Climate Change regulations and plans by going to court. And SCOTUS also is bought by the fossil fuels companies and rejects Administration plans to deal with Climate Change.

It is really too bad for us and the world that our founding fathers did not think to add Climate Change into the Constitution. :frowning:

Jaak

And in the UK…

Britain in 2019 became the first member of the Group of Seven wealthy nations to set a target to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, requiring major changes in the way Britons travel, eat and use electricity. But strategies in place are unlikely to deliver the required emission cuts…

The CCC, set up as an independent adviser on climate action to the government, found Britain had fallen behind in areas including improving energy efficiency in buildings, rolling out heat pumps, curbing emissions from industry and increasing the rate of tree planting, which must double by 2025.

DB2

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Lack of climate change action in the last 10 years in USA and Canada has been shown to be a big contributor to the heat domes in the southern states from Texas to Florida and forest fires in Canada bringing deadly smoke to all of the northern states from Montana to Wisconsin to New England.

But the oil, gas and coal industry keeps on pumping and mining because they have control of over regulations in USA and Canada. They keep renewable energy boxed up and tied down so that fossil fuel continue to be effectively unregulated. Regulations with effective incentives and penalties are lacking in most states and territories.

You are probably aware that all of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions has come from third-world countries and China. I suspect they won’t make it to net-zero either.

DB2

USA and Canada still emit 15% of world carbon from energy, process emissions, methane, and flaring. Their decreases in emissions are minimal:
USA decreased emissions by only 1.0% from 2011-2021
Canada decreased emissions by only 0.1% from 2011-2021

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2022-full-report.pdf

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