UN climate summit #COP28UAE agenda, driven by major Gulf oil producer, reveals serious deficiencies in conventional thinking about how to deal with #climatechange - so deficient that it exposes investors to trillions of dollars of losses🧵/1 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
I wrote to COP28 President Dr Sultan Al Jaber @uaeclimateenvoy to explain that his strategy of working with Big Oil using carbon capture, hydrogen and nuclear is not just environmentally questionable, but a total economic disaster /2 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
There's a prevailing delusion that we must work "hand in hand" with incumbent energy companies (in Al Jaber's words). This is not just him - senior finance execs and investors really believe this in my experience. But they are wrong. Because they don't understand disruption. /3
One tweet crash course thanks to @tonyseba @rethink_x: Pic 1 from 1900 in NYC: spot the car. Pic 2 from 1913: spot the horse! There was no 'partnership' between the car and the horse. The former was technologically and economically superior, and displaced horses in 13 years /4 
Disruption wasn't slow and difficult. It was rapid, exponential, unstoppable, driven by fundamental economics that we see time and again - smartphones vs landlines; streaming vs video rental; digital vs analogue. Today, Big Oil is the horse. Solar, wind, batteries are the car /5
A series of studies in Nature Climate Change and Nature Energy show that over next decade, fossil fuel investors will face losses up to $11 trillion due to disruptions from solar power and electric vehicles /6 bylinetimes.com/2022/07/11/the…
Solar power on track to become "lowest cost energy-generation technology" in two years, say the scientists behind this research. This has tremendous "economic implications" - which we ignore at our peril /7 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
Fossil fuels will become 'stranded assets' (lose expected value+become liabilities) this decade: “the transformation of energy systems is well under way”, and will create a whole new “emerging energy geography… *irrespective of new climate policies*” /8 nature.com/articles/s4156…
This needs to be understood, because most don't get it. The energy system *is. going. to. change. this. decade.* due to the economic dynamics of disruption *whether. we. like. it. or. not.* So fasten your seatbelts /10 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
In other words, Big Oil is heading for financial extinction, and it will begin within the next decade. Main challenge despite this speed, energy transformation still not happening fast enough to avoid dangerous climate change. So we need to *accelerate*, and eliminate delays. /11
Fossil fuels are also about to implode due to internal economic and geological dynamics. By 2024, global oil industry will consume 1/4 of its own energy just to keep pumping. By 2050, that will grow to 1/2: a catastrophic self-cannibalistic decline /12 bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20/oil…
What about the UAE? They are investing in expanding fossil fuel production. It's a fool's errand. UAE oil production peaked in 2016 and has declined since then by 1.6 mbpd with minor fluctuations. Capital costs high, returns diminishing. /13
Carbon capture storage seen as big solution. But UAE's own Masdar Institute found that CCS with fossil fuels has lower EROI and higher carbon emissions than renewables with storage. CCS doesn't work with fossil fuels - only works w/clean electricity /14 eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/1331…
What about hydrogen produced from fossil fuels? Again, economics is poor and self-defeating. EROI is around 1.6:1 - far far lower than EROI of solar, wind and batteries for instance which is already an order of magnitude higher *at least* /15 cetjournal.it/cet/22/96/019.…
The Big Oil fantasy of continued pumping with CCS to drawdown carbon and hydrogen to generate 'clean fuels' is a giant blueprint for self-imposed economic Armageddon (with added climate catastrophe as a nice bonus). Please. Don't be stupid. /16 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
Nuclear is also a red-herring due to its economic obsolescence, with EROI of around 5:1 according to this meta-analysis, which is already lower than fossil fuels. And other research shows its EROI is declining in near-term /17 dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enco…
We need to stop ignoring the dozens of studies showing that 100% global energy can be supplied by renewables with existing technologies and at lower prices than the incumbency /18 ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/98379…
Let's start listening to the body of evidence showing that if we supersize solar and wind by 3-5 times, we produce more energy than today needing only days battery storage - reducing system costs and material/mineral inputs dramatically /19 rethinkdisruption.com/unimaginable-c…
The most detailed report claiming that the clean energy transformation is impossible due to insufficient metals, rare earths, and beyond by Simon Michaux is riddled with egregious errors. It's pseudoscience /20
https://twitter.com/visaskn/status/1593944033218502657
Clean energy transformation will in itself reduce demand. e.g. 40% of global shipping is dedicated to transporting fossil fuels, which would therefore evaporate. /21 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
Some 60-67% of energy is wasted as heat from burning fossil fuels for energy. Shifting to clean electricity would eliminate this, reducing global primary energy consumption by 60-67%. You want to reduce demand? Accelerate the transformation /22 ageoftransformation.org/the-cop28-agen…
COP28 looks set to promote pseudoscientific inaccuracies through the lens of dying incumbent industries. Armed with good science and robust economics, we can counter this with much more sound thinking. Let's spread the word to get COP28 policymakers on the right track /END
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