Greta: Now Surplus to Greenie Requirements

The entire Greta childrens-crusade thing is a fascinating story: one day the whole thing will perhaps be truthfully told.  (Or not.  There appears to be some evidence - some would call it conspiracy theory - that she is 100% a carefully-contrived PR exercise, right from her first solo sit-in.  In this account her mother basically handed her over to shadowy "green" forces to do with as they pleased:  there's a word for that ... and a lengthy prison sentence.)

Anyhow, as you know, I reckon "she" contributed just a little to the great Story of 2019, the Year When Zero Carbon Went Mainstream.  It wasn't her doing; nor was it XR's: but they are all definitely part of the overall canvas (along with the panic-stricken Theresa May and whomever it was told her to rush that Net Zero Carbon 2050 Act through, who may yet get a lot of "credit" when the history books are written).

But now?  Greta's contribution to recent climate debate has been characteristically petulant, if not paid as much heed as last year; and it's interesting.

She is now drawing attention to the rather obvious fact that, notwithstanding 2050-style legislation around the whole western world, climate change is not being treated as an *Emergency* (as all those silly motions passed in debating chambers around the world would have it) - and we know this because we've just seen how people respond to a real emergency, Covid-19 being the case in point.  She was hoping that everyone by now would have voted for the complete lockdown and trashing of the world economy - for Climate reasons.   Much stamping of little foot and blinking-back of tears: but there it is.  She's nailed it.  We know it.  And nobody's really listening anymore.

So what is happening?  Back to my "2019" thesis.  The 2050 legislation across the western world is exactly the icing on the cake that confirms to the whole world's industrialists and bankers (and con artists, political parties, kleptocrats, organised criminals etc) what they'd already decided 12 months ago - that this is the only game in town, now given a sturdy touch on the accelerator by all the multi-trillion Keynsian "Green Deal / Covid recovery" schemes now being drawn up.  Helpfully, these include lots of basic infrastructure renewal for "adaptation" / "mitigation" / "resilience" - so even the big, traditional steel-n-concrete boys are invited to the party, much to their amazement & delight.

Coupled with this "mainstream capitalism" development - not quite what many greens had in mind, hahah! - the Left is developing a response of its own, which also isn't exactly what the greens hoped for.  To take the UK left as an example: as noted here before, the Labour Party's apparently rather comprehensive version of the Green New Deal is quite strong on the *Just Transition*, which in classic workerist fashion turns out to mean that (a) everything must be implemented by a unionised workforce, and (b) anyone currently in a dirty job must either be granted a shiny new clean job / apprenticeship / etc, OR left doing that job for as long as it takes to come up with a transition plan.  Lefties in other countries  take similar stances: and hard lefties take a very tough & uncompromising line on priorities.

Green New Deal advocates and the wider Left should factor into their plans the need for a just transition to a post-extractivist society ... This must be an absolute red line, even if it threatens decarbonisation targets [their emphasis]

Like I said, not quite the red-green alliance thing.  Indeed, XR itself is deeply out of favour on the hard left (all those middle-class white XR types being racists, dontchaknow?); and lefties now tend to identify + despise what many a rightist has long railed against - Ecofascism.  Doesn't have the correct marxist interpretation of exploitation, see?

And Greta?  Well, if you believe the conspiracy theory, she is fronting for a cabal of NGOs who plan to use the Climate impetus to institute a World Government thing that - wait for it - will take it upon itself to issue extraction licences on All The World's Natural Resources, for licence / royalty fees that they will (a) lay claim to for their nasty world-government plans; and (b) take a % on, for themselves (of course! - Gulbenkian on a scale hard to imagine; they are nothing if not ambitious). 

They may, of course, get trampled in the rush - because every industrialist, bank, con artist, political party, kleptocrat, organised criminal etc on the planet has similar designs ...

ND

Energy in the Future

Regular readers will know I identify 2019 as the year everything changed.  Up until then (in my estimation), most people's attitude to climate change was, yeah, s'pose, maybe; so what?  During 2019 most people switched to yeah, of course - flooding, forest fires:  presumably someone will be doing something about it.   And indeed Theresa May (Theresa May!) did.   On the XR-Greta bounce, she passed the Net Zero 2050 legislation, hastily followed by, errr, pretty much every other western government you can name.

What this jolly damascene narrative misses is two gigantic Real World developments offstage.  The first, and biggest, is that all of a sudden, spending on Adaptation & Mitigation - getting ahead of those floods and fires! - was admitted to the ranks of what counts as Green.  This means that every clunking old heavy-industry company feels it stands a chance of joining in the upcoming feeding frenzy (steel-and-concrete, yay! - not just those poncey, ex-hippy solar farm wallahs); and of course every bank.  That's huge.

The second is that Big Private Energy (if not the NOCs and their like) decided in 2019 that they'd better join the party, too - properly, not just a nibble around the edges of the lettuce-leaf for greewashing purposes as theretofore.  Shell is only the latest.  And why not?  It all plays to their strengths, innit?  -  R&D; Big Engineering; massive capex; expert project management; dealing with governments etc etc etc.  (They are wrong about their strengths in some detailed regards, but let that pass - they'll find out in due course.  And the better ones will quickly learn.)

_   _   _   _   _   _

Let's give one really big, and really important example: the natural gas industry.  It's Big.  And the capital it has sunk (your pension fund has sunk) in steel-&-concrete, & real-estate, & highly-trained people etc etc) is very, very large.  Much of it is rather static, too: gas production facilities, mammoth intercontinental pipelines, processing facilities, liquefaction plant, LNG fleets, re-gas facilities, myriad small distribution pipelines ...  and nobody fancies writing that lot off.
 
Up until 2019, they kinda felt they didn't need to contemplate this awful prospect because they felt they'd been given a multi-decade pass.  Hey - the greatest reductions ever made in CO2 emissions come when gas replaces coal!  We're the good guys!  Watch us repeat the UK trick and the USA trick in, errr, China and India ...

Then they notice that in the west, coal has already given up the ghost (except in Germany) and all eyes are on them as the next big fossil fuel villains:  AND not just the know-nothing swampy-greens, but the steely-eyed, utterly ruthless ex-hippies taking all the government money for wind and solar, who've got the gas sector lined up to be supplanted by ELECTRIFICATION.  And all that gas capital tied up in steel-&-concrete!

Suddenly (and truly, it was abrupt) the entire industry has lighted upon conversion from natgas to hydrogen.  Why?  Because -

(a)  actually the threat of wholesale electrification isn't imminent: in most countries you just can't switch that amout of space heating from gas to electricity without colossal expenditure (like, in the UK for example, trebling the capacity of the Grid  - which is what you'd need) - so, they get a breather if not a free pass, provided they are seen to be With the Program, and knuckling down (which they are):
(b) they get to utilise a lot of those existing assets that represent so much of their balance sheets (phew!):
(c) it's squarely in their sweet spot:  fairly conventional and established technology, pretty basic chemical- and civil-engineering, lots of scope for improvements and efficiencies on existing processes - the kinds of things they can easily find / redeploy staffing and raise money for:
(d) it solves a massive problem for governments (relying on electrification of space heating, trucking and large-scale gas-burning industry wasn't going to get them far towards Net Zero, as they know):
(e) it potentially also solves a problem for the green electricity wallahs, too.  Solar and wind (and in fact nuclear, too) generates when electricity isn't wanted, which is easily managed when they only represent a small amount of the total, but is getting to be a serious issue.  They can see themselves turning their excess production into hydrogen, via electrolysis:
(f) even the Russians might be able to play: they can turn their methane into hydrogen (via steam reforming) and sell that to us instead of natgas (even if they need to, errr, think about all the left-over CO2 ...)
(g)  SUNK COSTS(!) - as we keep saying on C@W.

Here's not the place to sketch out the many significant practical (and political) issues a hydrogen-based energy system will face along the way.  All I'd say is:  there's a combination here of massive incentive and feasible technology.  In my experience, that's a recipe for things getting done.  Many's the time I've seen first hand, just how far people will go to avoid writing an asset off completely.

And I'd contrast hydrogen strongly with two other supposed "energy-technologies of the future":  (i) small nukes of various types; and  (ii) carbon capture & storage (CCS, or these days CCUS), both of which have been identified as 100% necessary for decarbonisation, and only just-around-the-corner as regards technology and commercial feasibility**.  As they have been for, errr, decades ...  in which case, W(here)TF are they?   Nope, small nukes and CCS don't pass my personal reality-check;  writing not as an engineer but as a commercial type and longtime observer of what's actually happening, and what's BS.

Whereas hydrogen looks the part, in every dimension so far as I can see.  Anone who's skeptical about any of this just needs to check out what's going on.  In the Real World.  Real companies, spending real cash (money of their own, at the moment) and real effort.  Solving real problems along the way.  Don't bet against it.

ND 

______________
**Addendum:  not to say there aren't stirrings in both these camps.  And in principle, Big Oil & Gas ought to love the idea of CCS, on some of the same a priori grounds that make hydrogen attractive for them.  But, among several other contrary indicators, Germany shows no interest whatever in CCS, an significant disadvantage when compared with their enthusiasm for H. 

Weekend: Capitalising on BLM Catastrophe

The BLM situation, clearly febrile, is ripe for 'entrepreneurship':  watch out for -

•  a leadership vacuum if riots ensue
•  the 'XR solution' from Starmer - OR Boris 
•  frustration for Khan
•  the EU's Big Play ...

For every Zuckerberg and Gates and their homegrown empires, there's a Green, an Ecclestone and a Deripaska.  They spotted the distressed or undervalued asset, they capitalised on it, invested it, looted it.

The world of power-politics is full of entrepreneurs on the lookout, too.  And we've all been mulling over a distress scenario - BLM copycat riots, for want of a better term - which might be coming to the boil right now, and which must look like the plummest of plum opportunities for several people, particularly on the Left, if they can stop it degenerating into another 2011.  If they can get ahead of it at all, that is ...  


Now let's immediately acknowledge that sometimes these violent prospects evaporate.  A good example is Grenfell.  That seemed pretty febrile at the time: but to my surprise, it settled fairly quickly into a deep and luxuriant patch of traditional English long grass, its insurgency potential slipping away.   Nor did Les Gilets Jaunes ever really gained hardcore Political traction (we'll come to XR later, because it's important).  Yes, Britain's armchair revolutionaries - white, Oxbridge, dilettante - are indeed wedded to their equally luxuriant armchairs.  They still hanker after being the officer-class, though, directing the street-masses via social media from their châteaux HQs.  And there's no obvious sign of organic leadership within the demonstrators just yet. 

The anti-racism demonstrators, overwhelmingly aged under 30, have largely been part of a movement using the LDNBLM hashtag that has no identifiable leaders and whose events are publicised via word of mouth and social media

We'll start with the more lurid possibilities.  Let's consider at least the possibility that UK summer riots, if they occur, might allow for political initiative; and that several ambitious fellows have spotted a leadership vacancy.  If things develop into no more than 2011-style looting & arson, well, not many established politicians want their names to be blackened by association with inchoate anarchy.   But the Left is keenly looking for opportunities to Politicise (as Kev commented BTL here, "it's the Left's way of gaining back what they couldn't get through the ballot box"), eagerly abetted by the Beeb, as many have noted. 

The question, then, is: IF rioting starts here ... who's likely to attempt what?

The Players

In many such circumstances someone on the government side might try to make a name for themselves as the hard man.  It could be argued Cameron had a crack at this back in 2011, along with his DPP, one Kier Starmer ...  But - Priti Patel?  Doesn't look terribly plausible.  Boris?  Errr, no.

No, we're looking for Grabber to emerge from the other side.  If Corbyn's regime was still in place, I'd have expected it to be McDonnell, a genuine revolutionary on paper: but again, none of them really ran with Grenfell. 

Is there anyone who can front for the putative rioters, in the sense of declaring themselves to be the leader, particularly for "negotiating" purposes?  This would be quite difficult for any established politician when (innocent) people, including coppers and fire-fighters, start getting hurt.  It's possible one of the new intake of firebrand Labour MPs might give it a crack, (nothing to lose, see what happens).  Clearly enough there are some unpleasant people in those ranks, but personally I don't know enough about them to nominate any.  Of the established urban MPs: David 'Broadwater' Lammy?  No revolutionary, he: rather, in recent times a man of measured statements and nuanced views.  Diane Abbbottt?  Hmm.

I think we may also rule out Starmer.  For several reasons he doesn't look like fronting up for violence: it's categorically not in his makeup (respectable lawyer, not revolutionary; and a prosecutor to boot).  He'll want to capitalise alright - by staying exactly where he is, risking nothing, in order to have the plum fall in his lap all the more certainly in 2025.  He might be wrong about that, of course, but it'll be his strategy - statesmanlike mediator; distant and lofty proscriber of vague & worthy medicaments.  He just needs to watch his back for the serious impatience within the People's Party that has already been angrily directed his way on several occasions already. 

Outside Parliament (which is of course where the really fidgety Momentum types feel the action should be) ...  Stormzy?  Owen Jones?  Someone from rather more, errr, mainstream pop-culture - Gary Lineker?  Who can tell; the hour doth sometimes bringeth forward the man: but can anyone seriously spot a Martin Luther King or a Nelson Mandela out there in Park Lane?

Someone who can be absolutely guaranteed to be seen prominently flitting about with both the hare and the hounds is of course Sadiq Khan.  His ambition to be seen to be in command of the "BAME vote" is never far below the surface; but his desire for world-stage metro respectability is pretty enormous, too - him with his world-class police force and armoured Range Rover.  Plus, of course, he's ultra-transactional (and very pragmatic, as every mayor ends up being): everything's up for negotiation - and he's busting to get back at HMG for the recent TfL settlement he was forced to swallow.  Like Starmer though, what he really wants is a Good-War rep for future purposes, not a high-risk position in the streets.  (And if there's half a chance of a "responsible", Parliamentary outcome - see XR below - Khan, as so often, will be deeply frustrated at his own current lack of a Parliamentary platform, and will try hard to inveigle himself onto the platform.)

All in all, for want of obvious outright, authoritative leadership willing to get down and dirty, Gerry Adams style, the Left may encounter some challenges in re-purposing riots into something more tangibly Political.  It's tantalising for them, because (a) they don't get many opportunities and are currently smarting from GE2019; (b) in strictly Marxist terms a section of the urban BAME community might actually be in a technically revolutionary frame of mind:  nothing to lose, any change whatsoever must be beneficial to them.  But the same theory would also suggest that an ethnic minority doth not a revolution make - nor indeed anything short of the entire Working Class. 
 
What will be the demands?

All this is by way of ruminating on an age-old issue: in large-scale conflict, it suits both sides to know who speaks for - and can deliver - the other side.  Even calling for unconditional capitulation generally pre-supposes some effective leadership on the losing side that can present themselves for signing the instrument of surrender, and reliably thereafter give the dismal command to stand down.  If it's more balanced, then actual negotiations need to be conducted, for which an authoritative counterparty is required (e.g. Good Friday Agreement).

There's something else that in due course needs to be tied down.  What, concretely, will the Left be demanding?  If they don't know, it all descends into mere anarchy and they lose their moment.

Sometimes there is tactical merit in making ridiculous ("impossibilist") demands to ensure failure and dissatisfaction, a strategem often associated with Trotsky.  But in June 2020, as we've said, there is likely to be a strong desire on the Left to leverage the rare moment to obtain something immediately tangible on the political front (as well as, errr, electrical goods and fashionable clothing).   "A better deal for BAME people" or similar doesn't really advance their cause in quite the immediate ways they'd like.  Black History Month to be extended to a full year?  Compulsory diversity training for the entire population?  A special BAME minimum wage?  Immediate rehousing for everyone living in a tower block?

The problem is clear.  For a political demand to be successful, the gain it seeks must be tangibly, irreversably deliverable.  This is a real challenge for sudden uprisings, when the said gain must be promptly deliverable, too - before the rain starts and everyone packs up and goes home.  As British history amply illustrates, it ain't as easy it it might seem (Chartists, Pilgrimage of Grace, Peasants' Revolt etc etc).

This puts us in the realm of what I call politics with short lines of logistics.  Stuff that can effectively be done with the stroke of a pen.  (That's why "release of prisoners" or "returning troops to barracks" feature so often, for example.)  Foreign policy can more often be in this category - treaties, troop movements and the like.   But big domestic items - "general improvement in welfare" or "Green New Deal" can't be delivered on the spot.  Even legislation can't be promised in a useful timeframe for a riot situation

The XR Precedent

XR is interesting - and not, in truth, really a riot.  In many respects it's surprising XR was so easily fobbed off with can-kicking legislation, albeit notionally epic in scale.  If things get really bad, Boris will keenly wish to repeat this trick.  And I could well imagine some on the Left reckoning the XR type of outcome - virtue-signalling legislation for long term change, mutatis mutandis - is actually quite a good one, if less immediately dramatic than a coup.  If Starmer is as smart as some reckon, that's what he'll angle for:  it's Parliamentary (which he'll happily front for any day of the week); it can be packaged to look highly responsible; he can even attempt to get (some) all-party support - very PM-like.  In fact, if Cummings is really on the ball, he'll be planning how to get ahead of this one right now, as May more-or-less did last year. The upcoming "Great Recovery Bill" is the obvious vehicle; and if Boris doesn't propose the relevant clauses himself we may be sure Starmer will be quick with his own amendments.

But back to demands emerging from the more lurid extra-Parliamentary riot-scenario: what's it to be?  I mentioned release of prisoners with a purpose, because amnesty for looters might very well be on the list by the time we're finished.  Beyond that, I'm not keen to give anyone ideas.  Except ...

The EU Angle

As has been widely surmised, part of this imminent potential crisis is surely tied in with the looming deadline for Barnier to come off the pot.  A classic stroke-of-the-pen job would be to demand, say, that Frost be sent to grovel for an extension of the transition period.  Let's see how this is first floated in public - a C@W Extension Bingo prize for the first authentic sighting of this in the specific context of the putative riots.  (Note, however: a lot of the activist Left is for Lexit.)  With the Beeb's active connivance, ways can be found to insinuate this, then try to sell it as part of a package to appease the looters.  Far-fetched?  That's before you factor in the deviousness of a Mandelson or the brazen determination of a Gina Miller. 

Here's a prediction.  If the putative arson etc is on a scale that's material for the economy, the EU will swing in with an offer, along the lines of:  UK to get a pro rata share of an EU post-Covid economic stimulus package, plus immediate solidarity & cohesion fund payments targeted at inner city areas (to be distributed by city mayors) - in return for a 2-year transition-period extension, plus x, y and z ... 

Even Starmer might find it hard not to front for that.

ND

Greenies of the world unite!

It is so hard to care at all about the climate change protests and the well meaning Tarquins/Greta's behind them.


Dancing around on Yoga mats is one thing, but today has also see John McDonnell decide to helpfully incite the anti-capitalist movement too. We can look forward to him as Chancellor ordering our highest tax-paying companies to be 'occupied' and 'hounded.' A real through the looking glass moment.


Equally, I find the usual Press denunciations of the Greenies to be as feeble, or even worse than the strange claims they make.


"You came by plane, hypocrite!"
or
"Your from a wealthy background so you can afford morals"


These ad hominem attacks just add more heat, so to speak to the situation. They prove nothing other that the accuser has no real counter arguments.


What is better is to consider what the Greenies say, for example, a better argument is to tell them what really matters is China which is hugely increasing its emissions. To which the answer comes back 'well we sent them all our factories, so that is our fault too.'


Well, for me, here is the crown of thorns. Of course the West did not 'send' their manufacturing to the East. No, the East merrily came and grabbed it. They were able to do so, because labour was much cheaper and there were fewer regulations for companies to abide by - so their costs were 10x less originally than the West which had invented the Industrial revolution. Moreover, from an energy perspective, the East could happily burn all the coal and oil it liked. They don't care about using highly polluting fuel oil  in powerstations for example and Russia was happy to export - and still is to this day. So as well low regs, cheap labour they also have cheap energy costs.


With this, the economies of the East rapidly industrialised and started taking Western market share, whilst still growing the overall market. So, morally, the West did not export anything. The West in some ways is a victim of the growth of China - our sclerotic economies are signs of this.


It also means that as much as we hate the talking shops of Paris etc, really the only way to fight climate change is globally and internationally - but the focus needs to be on recalcitrant nations who refuse to play by the new rules required, whereas the Greenies as ever are focused on the evil's of Western Empire and Capitalism. Which is a shame, as in the long-term there is no mileage in this and if their worst fears come true they will have spent their energies in exactly the wrong place!