🔋Time To Agree

Surprising developments have been coming out of recent COP conventions with implications for climate and economics.

Nov 27, 2024

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With the election of Trump as the next US president, there are a lot of differences in policy relative to the current administration. Climate policy is one of those, with Trump skeptical or careless about the nations impact on carbon emissions. The Biden White House was supportive of nearly all climate initiatives, but the most recent COP 29 convention had some worry about the transition of power.

The COP (Conference of the Parties) is a convention of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In short, all countries come and talk about climate change, mostly centered around transitioning away from fossil fuels and adopting climate change. This is where the famous Paris Agreement on climate change came out of COP21 in 2015. This is a legally binding agreement to follow these objectives.

This time the goal was to raise money for climate efforts. Of course, the wealthier countries are expected to bear the brunt of the costs. In 2017 Trump removed the US from the Paris Agreement only for Biden to reinstate the US in 2021. With Trump winning again, it could easily swing back once again. While I’m admittingly skeptical of these large multi-national organizations like COP, WEF, and others, it can sometimes be interesting what goes on.

This year the goal was to raise money for climate change causes. The consensus was that this year was especially important to raise as much money as possible because the US would likely not be contributing much over the next 4 years. While the goal was $500 billion, the organization raised a record $300 billion. Good luck tracking how this money is spent, but generally it transfers money to developing countries for climate-related purposes.

My research leads me to be skeptical of the mainstream climate change view being anti-fossil fuel/pro-renewables. These COP meetings mostly focus on these mainstream views, but sometimes other interesting news comes out of it. Last year at COP20 in the UAE, there was a declaration to triple nuclear energy by 2050 signed by more than 20 nations. While these COP meetings may not be the most consequential, nuclear is a technology that would have much more impact on climate than renewables.

This year at COP29 in Azerbaijan, six more countries joined the declaration to triple nuclear energy by 2050.

The 31 nations endorsing the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy include Armenia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, *El Salvador, Finland, France, Ghana, Hungary, Jamaica, Japan, *Kazakhstan, *Kenya, Republic of Korea, *Kosovo, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, *Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, *Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

*New endorsers, as of Wednesday 13 November 2024, at COP29 in Baku.

As readers know, I have been following nuclear energy’s inevitable comeback into popularity. Like holding a balloon underwater, the physics of nuclear with the highest energy density doesn’t lie. Major changes are happening already or on the horizon like Japan restarting nuclear plants after Fukushima, potentially the first nuclear plant restart in the US, and companies signing exclusive agreements to have rights to nuclear power. On top, sentiment among people has only grown more positive about nuclear energy.

Some of the nations signing on to this declaration to triple nuclear power are new entrants in the space, such as Kenya. These smaller nations with small carbon footprints that are expected to grow rapidly over time are one focus of these COP meetings. Assuming they don’t run into regulatory or funding issues, this should bode well for them instead of relying on renewables which don’t have the same lifetime and reliability characteristics.

Other countries like Canada, have significant portions of their energy that already comes from nuclear. In most cases, disasters like Fukushima have thwarted historic progress in this area which is only now returning. Canada has plans for several new nuclear facilities.

India is a different case similar to China, which are still labeled as developing but are large energy users. It would be difficult and unlikely for either of these countries to switch off of coal the way most already fully developed countries like the US or Europe can get away with as it would stunt their economic development which is so popular and beneficial for its citizens. These nations may be able to get around these hurdles with nuclear power. China is leading the world in nuclear installations, but India has only a few nuclear power plants. Recently, the nation has supported building new nuclear power plants to support their heavy industry.

Even with the path set by the COP conventions, it is inevitable that nuclear power is on its comeback into the limelight. With 31 nations now declaring to triple nuclear capacity and others like China and India moving in the same direction, there may not be an economic penalty for reducing carbon emissions. Happy Thanksgiving and until next week,

-Grayson

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