“Carbon neutrality by 2050 will not happen”. Interview with Steven Koonin, physicist and former adviser to Obama

by time news

2023-05-31 19:45:00

DEBRIEFING – Steven E. Koonin was Barack Obama’s climate adviser for three years. He published the book “Climate, the part of uncertainty”published by l’Artilleur in 2022. In addition to returning to the reasons that led him to write this book, he gives us his analysis of the “Net zero emissions” strategy.

“The zero carbon goal is a rallying cry for the troops”

For our guest, the “Net Zero Emissions” strategy that the Western world is putting in place is doomed to failure. “Too many things are going to have to change too quickly”he explains.

Technology, the economy, regulations and people’s behavior will not be able to adapt by 2050, not to mention that this strategy will cost “a colossal sum of money”. Still according to him, the administration is pushing Net Zero “too fast and too hard”, without a concerted plan.

In addition, it must be taken into account that the rest of the world is not decarbonizing, “but is rather worried about how to get fossil energy to live a better life”.

There is indeed a consensus on the increase in CO² in the atmosphere, however it has not been demonstrated that the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions is the key factor in global warming. For Steven Koonin, policy makers make climate projections say things that the models themselves do not predict.

To justify this behavior, he likes to quote the American writer Henry Louis Mencken who said the following thing: “The whole purpose of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and therefore eager to be led to safety) by an endless series of tales, most of them imaginary”.

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