Yes yes yes, keep going up, force us to switch to green energy.
And Germany’s gas storage is at 50%, the lowest it has been in nearly a decade. But you won’t find conservative rags like the BILD complaining about it, because the conservatives are in charge. Also, our energy minister Katharina “Gaskathi” Reiche is building way more natural gas power plants, like the good little gas lobby insert that she is.
Ms. Reiche is clearly on the wrong track if she gets what she aims at. What I don’t understand is that while many are criticizing Germany for these plans, while a country like China - which is using much more and an increasing volume of such fossil fuels - is literally hailed for its energy policy, even though what happens in the country is much worse than in Europe.
China gets praised in certain circles, because they do install record numbers of renewable energy. Renewables make up a bigger and bigger share of their overall energy production. But they do also build fossil fuel power plants, as their demand for energy outpaces their ability or willingness to build more renewables.
Yeah, let’s build more gas generators!
Nah, as the article says:
Europe has cut gas consumption by roughly 15%–20% compared with 2021. Industry has [also] reduced gas use …
Contrary to that, gas production in the U.S. has increased, despite domestic demand for gas has declined in 2026.
In China, however, the government plans to increase both oil and gas supply according to the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan for Oil and Natural Gas Development, setting new 2030 targets:
- China’s domestic oil and gas supply is expected to reach 440 Mtoe by 2030, up from 420 Mtoe in 2025 (+5%).
- China plans to add 20,000 km of long-distance oil and gas pipelines, increasing the national trunk pipeline network to 220,000 km by the end of the decade.
- Onshore natural gas import capacity is set to increase to 114 bcm/year, alongside the construction of strategic projects, including the Hainan-Guangdong gas pipeline and the Lianyungang-Yizheng crude oil pipeline.
- LNG import capacity is targeted to reach 200 Mt/year by 2030, while natural gas storage capacity should exceed 13% of annual domestic gas consumption.
it is noteworthy that China - already the largest producer and consumer of coal - is planning to further increase its coal burning, expecting to reach the peak in 2030.
So, Europe seems on a relatively good path among the larger economies, although we are not set to reach the Paris goal that way.
Let me introduce you to the current German minister for economy and energy:
Katharina Reiche, nickname “Gas-Kathy”.She is set on building more gas power plants and generally increasing the use of fossile fuels again, while at the same time making life harder for the renewable producers.
Current German government sometimes feels a bit like the cheap copy of the US…
Current German government sometimes feels a bit like the cheap copy of the US…
Maybe, but it’s more a cheap copy of China, as fossil fuel (and particularly coal) plays a much larger role than in Germany or the rest of the EU. China is the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world, and the country plans to increase its coal energy in the next 5 years.
Doesn’t Germany still use coal though, and gas is actually better than coal. We made that change over a decade ago in the UK and are now reducing gas usage with wind and solar.
We could skip gas and go right to renewables just fine.
Current government is more on the track “reducing wind and solar usage with gas.”
It’s driven by
a) Lobbyism
b) Trying to make clear that they are not the “GREEEEENS” (Green Party who was part of previous government and started a lot of sensible stuff they are now busy reverting…
tardigrade/sepia/hotznplotzn not making everything about China challenge - impossible
over a century USA and Europe+Japan had emitted 15 and 10 tonnes respectively, of CO2 per capita more than China. The cumulative sum the west has emitted more is staggering. And now that China produces 80% of everything for the world you highlight that China still produces less than the USA per capita.
tardigrade/sepia/hotznplotzn not making everything about China challenge - impossible
The proceeds to make up nearly every single number:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?country=OWID_EU27~CHN~JPN
And:
Yeah i am not going to integrate random graphs on my phone for a lemmy post, but depending on the time frame in the century it was even more than 10 (60s-70s Europe and Japan had 8t each while China had 2t) and towards the end a little less doesnt really matter for the point does it?
Your own graph shows that western nations and their people are historically the major contributors towards CO2.
The 80% was hyperbole yes, but your second graph shows China making 6x more than Japan while your first graph shows China only recently overtaking Japan in per capita CO2.
Now we have squirreled around the elephant in the room, by criticizing the inaccuracy of my statistical evaluation in a comment made through my breakfast. So riddle me this: What is the country that has cumulatively produced most CO2 and like double the second? (sorry for approximating and not giving you 20 significant figures)
What is the country that elected a “drill baby drill” president - twice? What is the country known for excessive CO2 heavy lifestyles, think yachts, private jets, rolling coal, heavy AC use, weakly isolated buildings, constantly blowing shit up from jets that other countrys then need to rebuild? And in contrast what is the country known for building solar and battery cells? Someone here is looking at the stats, misrepresenting the key points and that one is not me.
You can’t offload all manufacturing to China, buy their shit, then point the finger of increasing emissions.
My father replaced his gas heater in his house last year with a new one because he does not trust the greens with their heat pump propaganda
Of course he shouldn’t trust any propaganda but might it be wise to find out for yourself what a heat pump or any other technology can and cannot provide instead of basing your decisions on lack of trust in someone else’s information?
Just out of interest, does anyone have any examples of things that haven’t doubled in price in the last few years?
Salaries
Yeah, idk about that.
You did say price. CEO salaries are the price we all pay so we can watch Bezos go to space or something.
In the UK I have seen the media talk about energy prices going up. But its only gas that is going up, electricity barely chanced and if you factor in inflation it is getting cheaper.
Stop burning gas.
