Octuber 2019 – @alvaroriosroca – Our furious Greta Thunberg asks for actions in the shortest time and all simultaneously in order to try to protect our planet. We understand her demands, but we believe that in this eagerness she confuses millions of elite and well-endowed millennials (youtubbers, bloggers, etc., etc.) and environmentalists about the reality of the planet She basically asks us to stop deforesting and therefore producing more food and to refrain from consuming fossil fuels.
Our eager Greta must understand that the current world population is 7.7 billion people and that by 2050 there will be 9.7 billion people. You must also understand that 50% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty and barely has access to basic food. The planet’s population wants access like them and to have three meals a day.
Where can we produce food? There is nothing left but to continue taking advantage of all the options to produce them and for the millions who want to have better days to have access to them. Meat, soybeans, corn, sugar and so many other food products produced by several South American countries. The Brazilians in their path want investments in deforestation and therefore more food production to meet unsatisfied demand. More than half of China’s population wants access to meat, soy and other foods that do not yet have them.
You must also understand that all the countries, all the politicians and all the citizens of the planet who understand economics, live pending GDP growth year after year. If there is no GDP growth, there is no prosperity and well-being, is there not? In order to grow GDP, we must produce more and consume more.
Those who already have their needs covered want more luxuries and distractions like Disneylandias or Las Vegas (adult Disney) or the wonders, luxuries and eccentricities that Dubai presents us. Gretita probably went to Disney once and her parents probably to Las Vegas. Those who do not have access to these sumptuous goods and services also want them and would like to have them.
To grow GDP, moreover, a lot of energy is needed. Those who know the subject know that the growth of the “Energy GDP” is above the growth of the “Economic GDP”. Gretita must understand that no matter how much effort we make in technology for new alternative energies, it is impossible to do without fossil energies.
By 2050, 70 to 75% of the planet’s energy will come from fossil fuels with a demand growth of 47%… Let us remember that there are 2 billion people who do not have access to energy today. The energy of the sun and wind, which have had efficiency and cost improvements, are intermittent technologies and in many places still very expensive especially for those who can not afford it.
All right, let’s go to the electric vehicles. But where will we get electric power to power millions of current vehicles and worse for demand growth? Indians, Chinese and Latin Americans also want an automobile like the one that the wealthy and furious millennials probably have, and so do their parents and their children. And the millions of tons of minerals needed to make millions and millions of batteries and metals for the new vehicles from which they will come out? Will the furious millennials of Mars bring them in?
It is with great regret that we must tell you that, as with food, there is no possible alternative to fossils at the moment. What I do invite you to do is to protest so that countries can finally eliminate coal-fired electricity generation and displace it with abundant, competitive and less polluting natural gas, which also supports all intermittent energies such as water, solar and wind, while science discovers something new. Let’s make more resources available for hydrogen, for example.
If Greta and the millions of environmentalists return to the times of the caverns without energy and eating weeds I am willing to accompany them. While it is pure demagogy and populism.
*Former Minister of Hydrocarbons and current Managing Partner of Gas Energy Latin America.