Source; SNGLR
The inflation reduction act (IRA), in 2022, contained billions of dollars in spending on green energy initiatives intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to fight climate change. A new analysis of the literature by The Heartland Institute suggests the bill’s cost is much higher than the biden/harris regime claimed it would be, while the impacts on climate change are unmeasurable or inconsequential.
The bill, which passed without a single Republican vote in support, was touted by left-wing/democrats and the biden/harris regime as good for job creation and carbon reduction, lying that the green subsidies would cost about $369 billion. As is typical of government programs, the estimated costs were radically undercalculated, with the actual costs being much higher, as determined by multiple independent organizations and agencies.
In November 2022, Credit Suisse estimated total federal spending on these provisions would be more than $800 billion, double biden-harris’ lie. An estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation from April 2023 put the spending figure at $515 billion between 2023 and 2033. Also in April 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated the IRA’s spending incentives at $1.2 trillion through 2032. In a March 2023 report, the Brookings Institution produced a range between $900 billion and $1.2 trillion through 2031. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s February 2024 cost estimate was $870 billion through 2031. An estimate from the Cato Institute in March 2024 found the cost of the IRA’s green subsidies could be north of $1.8 trillion over a decade.
These figures are just government spending. It does not account for the opportunity costs hampering economic development and entrepreneurial activity, resulting in malinvestment in subpar or unnecessary technologies driven by political considerations rather than consumer demand. Nor does it take into account the hundreds of billions in green spending under the earlier-enacted Infrastructure Law. Looking at just one program funded in that law, the nearly $7.5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, provides a case study in the high and rising costs and limited benefits.
In the early stages of industrialization and development, emissions rise, but as economies mature, energy efficiency increases. Most developed countries began adopting lower-emitting and more fuel-efficient technologies and programs decades ago, so the low-hanging fruit has already been taken. The costs for each gain in emissions reduction are significantly higher for them than for their developing-country counterparts, and their citizens are increasingly bucking or rejecting the higher costs that bring barely measurable results.
Meanwhile, Roger Pielke Jr., Ph.D., a professor at the U. of Colorado, undertook an analysis of the decarbonization targets in the paris climate agreement, and the success so far of various countries and the world as a whole in hitting various interim targets. He found almost every country, and certainly every country that significantly contributes to the overall anthropogenic share of CO2 emissions, has missed its emissions reduction targets so far, with overall emissions rising, although at a slower rate than before Paris. At this rate, the Paris 2050 commitments will not be met.
Looking at the top 20 CO2 emitting countries, which were responsible for 81% global human emissions in 2023, Pielke found the decarbonization rates were virtually unchanged 8 years after Paris, with overall global CO2 emissions rising slightly (despite trillions of dollars spent on various decarbonization policies). With nearly a quarter of the 2015 to 2050 target period having passed, the world’s rate of decarbonization amounts to 2% annually, far below the 8.1% needed to hit the 2050 targets. Note that the 8.1% grows larger every year that the world does not meet the required decarbonization rate. The US showed a meager increase in decarbonization of 0.03% despite spending far more than any other country (by hundreds of billions of dollars) on programs and schemes to reduce CO2 emissions in its agriculture, energy, housing, and transportation sectors.
Indonesia, Russia, and China had the largest reversals in decarbonization over the period, with each country increasing its CO2 output per unit of GDP by more than 2% annually. At the global level, data on decarbonization from 2006 to 2023 shows no global effect of the paris agreement.
Supplemental Info:
https://www.newsweek.com/scientific-establishment-turning-science-dogmatic-tool-oppression-opinion-1949865
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/msm_tells_only_part_of_the_story_highlights_record_number_of_deaths_from_climate_change.html
https://patriotpost.us/articles/109978?mailing_id=8638&subscription_uuid=dea5df88-f97c-4c29-b8fc-55566a859679
https://thefederalist.com/2024/09/04/96-percent-of-spendy-green-policies-do-jack-squat-to-reduce-emissions/
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/china-harnesses-a-technology-that-vexed-the-west-unlocking-a-treasure-chest-5d984585
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/09/09/californians-lose-power-again-in-heat-wave-amid-green-energy-push/
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